III.14                    The Merits of Science
. . . science has given us evidence by its numerous and important successes that it is no illusion. . . . No, our science is no illusion. But an illusion it would be to suppose that what science cannot give us we can get elsewhere.
                                                           S. Freud (1856-1939)
It stands to the everlasting credit of science that by acting on the human mind it has overcome man's insecurity before himself and before nature.
                                                   Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
 
Science unites the world and makes it possible for people of widely differing backgrounds to work together and to cooperate.
                                               Sir Hermann Bondi (1919-2005)
 
Natural science is one of man's weapons in his fight for freedom. . . . For the purpose of attaining freedom in the world of nature, man must use natural science to understand, conquer, and change nature and thus attain freedom from nature.
                                                     Mao Tse Tung (1893-1976)
 
As the citizens are increasingly confronted with scientific explanations and justifications, a basic understanding of science, its method and thinking, must become common place. For instance, members of a jury evaluating scientific evidence can be a matter of life or death or other dire consequences for the defendant.
                                                                     This writer
 
A. The Material Benefits of Science
B. The Cultural Benefits of Science
C. The Ends Do Not Justify the Means
 
A.  The Material Benefits of Science
  • The average person in the industrialized world has now a better quality of life and lives longer than the rich and powerful throughout history.
  • Cures for diseases that for centuries have ravaged entire populations.
  • The discovery of the disinfecting power of chlorine in water has virtually eliminated all water-born diseases.
  • The reading of the genetic code will lead to the identification and cure of more and more genetically caused diseases.
  • Various methods of birth control will eventually halt what seems to be an unstoppable increase of the world's population.
  • The agricultural revolution, the domestication of plants and animals, about 12,000 years ago changed humans from non-food producers to food producers. It freed people from the all-time consuming activity of hunting and gathering food, permitted larger settlements to form, allowed the productivity increasing division of labor, and led to the rapid development of culture as we know it today.
  • The second agricultural revolution, the "Green Revolution," starting in the 1940's has increased crop yields to a multiple of what it was just a century ago. There is consensus among some agronomists that this development allowed food production to keep pace with worldwide population growth.
  • Productivity in all areas, manufacturing, construction, agriculture, administration, data processing, etc., has quadrupled since the 1950's.
  • Alternative energy will eventually replace scarce, non-renewable sources.
  • We have instant and inexpensive communication around the world.
  • The social sciences--sociology, political science, economics, education, psychology, etc., have explained how societies and individuals function so that we may take corrective action and plan better for the future.
B.  The Cultural Benefits of Science
  • It is intrinsically worthwhile for its own sake because it has satisfied rational, curious minds with plausible explanations of the universe, the workings of nature, and the human condition.
  • It is a human progress that has a unifying effect. For instance, there is only one natural science.
  • It affects belief as an antidote to credulity, though this is not its primary purpose.

  • "In learning science we learn why we should believe this or that. Science doesn't cajole, it doesn't dictate, it lays out the factual and theoretical arguments as to why something is so—and invites us to assent to them, to see it for ourselves. Hence, by the time someone has understood a scientific explanation they have in an important sense already chosen it as theirs." (Nicholas K. Humphrey, b.1943)

  • Its approach for gaining knowledge, the scientific "method," is now widely applied to the social sciences.
  • Its "method" may be emulated for solving everyday personal problems.
  • It is already functioning as an international subculture.
  • Its overall objective and contributions to limit areas of human tragedy has been widely accepted but is lacking in children's education with tragic consequences. See Abuse of Children in Religions.
  • Its method, the scientific "method," for the pursuit of truth will be beneficial when used in the examination of traditional beliefs and political power structures.
  • The correctness of scientific claims, due to their empirical and logical nature, are independent of motivation.
  • Modern science makes myth in general and the mythical components of belief systems obsolete, for humanity has progressed from magical explanations via religion to science.
  • It facilitates the unity of knowledge, ethics, as well as rational ultimate belief for it studies one all-inclusive reality.
  • It can furnish scientifically and psychologically compelling arguments for a rights-based democratic way of life rather than a duty-based authoritarian or theocratic controlled existence.
C.  The Ends Do Not Justify the Means
Because the morality of science makes no distinction between ends and means. As the mathematician and philosopher W. K. Clifford (1845-1879) explains:
If I steal money from any person, there may be no harm done by the mere transfer of possession; he may not feel the loss, or it may even prevent him from using the money badly. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself dishonest. What hurts society is not that it should lose its property, but that it should become a den of thieves; for then it must cease to be a society. This is why we ought not to do evil that good may come; for at any rate this great evil has come, that we have done evil and are made wicked thereby.
     In like manner, if I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere believe; it may be true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself credulous. The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous (my emphases).