Cosmic Apprentice: Dispatches from the Edges of Science by Sagan Dorion

Author:Sagan, Dorion [Sagan, Dorion]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Metaphysics
ISBN: 9780816684434
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Published: 2013-05-01T07:00:00+00:00

TOO IMPORTANT TO BE LEFT JUST TO SCIENTISTS

Openness to new ideas threatens to depose the authority of the masters of the old ones, even and perhaps especially, one might argue, the scientists who have staked their methodology on the welcoming of novelty if merited by the evidence; this is because views arrived at after open debate and testing, rather than faith and suppression, enjoy greater legitimacy and efficacy and thus seem, paradoxically, still more impervious to change. Scientists are the priests of the modern age: As science becomes more institutionalized, more powerful, Butler’s comment becomes more poignant, more profound. To be fair, it seems that scientists personally deserve our vigilance less than the institutional structures that fund science, and of which scientists are a part. For me, Butler’s salient comment has also lately taken on a personal aspect. Like Butler, I am not a scientist, but like him I believe that the scientific attitude comes out of deeper philosophical stance of curiosity and critical thinking, a stance that must face dogma even at the risk of social disapprobation. In a media age, in a public relations state where science can and has been corrupted by corporate bottom lines and government-sponsored agendas, the philosophical heart of science—thinking things through for yourself, and seeking the truth whether we like what we find or not—is increasingly in peril. I was recently exposed to an extreme example of scientific groupthink. The German intellectual Walter Benjamin (1892–1940), who died before his time fleeing the Nazis, wrote that extremes can sometimes be more illustrative of a phenomenon than typical examples. I think this is the case here.

Let me preface this by saying that non-Darwinians, or better, insufficiently virulent Darwinists, have often been unceremoniously attacked for, for lack of a better term, their lack of faith. Many examples could be adduced, including among Darwinists themselves. Alfred Wallace, whose early understanding of natural selection led Darwin to hurry to publish his similar findings, criticized the notion of sexual selection of bright colors, on the basis that the inside of bodies are brightly colored but not perceived by animals or therefore sexually selected. Gould criticized the tendency to assume all characters have been actively selected for as “panadaptationism.” But this hardly makes him anti-Darwinian. And the neo-Darwinian tendency to overextend the explanatory principle of natural selection is well taken. Male nipples (as Gould pointed out) were not directly selected for but result from the embryological similarity of males and females, which of course as mammals require breasts.

Clearly part of the vituperation of those insufficiently genuflectory of natural selection is that, in a polarized political climate where Darwinism is closer to experimental science and creationism closer to the tribal atavism of a prescientific superstition, there is no room for nuanced pastels beyond the Zoroastrian palette of black and white. But “Darwin’s dangerous idea” (as Daniel Dennett tagged it—although it was in fact advanced by others, including Darwin’s own grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, before him) does not provide a complete explanation for complexity, biological or otherwise.

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