Alastair McIntosh
Published in Environmental Values, 5:1, 1996, pp. 3-30. See www.AlastairMcIntosh.com for more material like this.
The British government's White Paper on science together with government research council reports are used as a basis for critiquing current science policy and its intensifying orientation, British and worldwide, towards industrial and military development. The critique draws particulary on Plato and Bacon as yardsticks to address who science is for, what values it honours and where current policy departs from imperatives of socio-ecological justice. Metaphors of the "Emperor's new clothes" and incremental spectral shift in attitude help illuminate both the problems and ways forward. The paper calls for a re-integration of classical perspectives with added insights, often ecofeminist, from philosophy, poetics and a theology of reverence. Predication on the values of love, interconnectedness and orientation towards childrens' all-round development should be central to curricular reform. Consistent with the views of Plato, the original founder of the Academy, the utilitarian role of science ought to be balanced with a contemplative role of science as the art of knowing ourselves in relation to nature. Only with such a holistic academic approach can it adequately rise to providing a pedagogy of authentic human development, service to the poor and remedies, rather than contribution, to the ongoing destruction of nature.
Philosophy of science, ecophilosophy, ecofeminism, ecotheology,
human ecology, geopoetics, reverence, deep ecology, environmental
education, Plato, Bacon.
This paper asks, has the "Emperor" of British science policy as
dressed by the recent White Paper and the research councils got
any clothes? If not, do alternative perspectives predicated upon
social and ecological justice represent as much as a loincloth?
From the outset I wish to make explicit two values perspectives
implicit to my critique. One will be the presumption that government
policy, post-publication of the 1990 White Paper on the environment,
should be consistent with the statement that, "The foundation
stone of (policy for sustainability) is our responsibility to
future generations to preserve and enhance the environment of
our country and our planet" (Secretaries of State ... This Common
Inheritance, p. 10). Secondly, the assumption is made that an
ethical science must be conducive of and consistent with "right
livelihood" (Schumacher 1974), meaning dignified, just and compassionate
relationship with nature and between peoples. I hold such qualities,
which are predicated upon love, to be self-evident percepts of
the human soul. As with all such empirical ethical percepts which
provide the metaphysical metanarrative from which non-vacuous
logical argumentation always proceeds, this is neither requiring
of nor amenable to strictly logical definition (cf. Maslow 1962,
1973).
In May 1993 the British government published Realising Our Potential:
A Strategy for Science, Engineering and Technology. This White
Paper is now being implemented in a pedagogical environment where
science is struggling to attract quality recruits. Whilst this
is partly due to unenticing career prospects, it also reflects
a cultural shift in the perceived social utility of science. As
Sir David Weatherall, president of the British Association for
the Advancement of Science has surmised, there is "a widespread
feeling that science had lost its way ... scientists were tampering
with life or unleashing environmental disasters" (The Guardian,
25-8-93).
In a recent presidential address to the Royal Geographical Society,
Sir Crispin Tickell lays the blame at the door of commercialisation.
Warning that the human species is in danger of becoming "a suicidal
success" due to the product of population, technology and consumption
exceeding nature's carrying capacity, he concludes that: "We need
to change the culture. Many have lamented the division between
the cultures of science and the arts. They are right to do so.
But neither is now in charge. Our real bosses are the business
managers, and they are not known for their ability to think long"
(Tickell, 1993).
The publication of the White Paper and what we have seen of its
working through in the first two years, offers an invaluable handle
by which to grasp and examine British science policy and its context
in global academia and economy. For the first time in twenty years
we were given a yardstick of the highest political authority.
With it we should be able to ascertain who our science is for,
how policy shapes the epistemological constructs of science and
who the "bosses" of such processes are.
In evaluating this new yardstick, I shall draw upon two major
lines of scientific teleology in Western thought which, for simplicity,
shall be referred to as the Baconian and the Classical or Platonic.
Such drawing upon philosophical roots is today unfashionable in
many scientific circles. However, it should not be forgotten why
the highest degree offered by a university is not a DSc, a doctor
(or teacher) of science, but a PhD - a doctorate in philo-Sophia,
the love of the Goddess of wisdom. Science as a way of knowing
is a branch of Western empirical philosophy. Philosophy precedes
science. To ignore the metanarrative within which the epistemology
of science has been constructed would be to fall short of any
aspiration of objectivity and thereby risk advancing pseudo-science.
The principles of the inductive science were laid down in the
early seventeenth century primarily by Francis Bacon, "the father
of modern science". Bacon, who was made Lord Chancellor in 1618,
saw the role of science as being to master and control nature
for economic benefit.
Merchant (1980, p. 169) remarks that for Bacon, "The new man of
science must not think that the 'inquisition of nature is in any
part interdicted or forbidden.' Nature must be ... put 'in constraint'
and 'moulded' by the mechanical arts. The 'searchers and spies
of nature' are to discover 'her' plots and secrets".
Credited with the statement, "knowledge is power" (Russell 1946),
Bacon likened nature to a woman in whose womb can be anticipated
"many secrets of excellent use". In "The Masculine Birth of Time"
he proclaimed, "I am come in very truth leading to you nature
with all her children to bind her to your service and make her
your slave" (Merchant 1980, p. 170). Frequently describing matter
as a "common harlot", he draws on metaphors of repressed sexuality
and of torture (as used in the inquisition of "witches" of his
time) in showing how inductive scientific method is the means
by which the repeatable experimental situation can be achieved
and exploited. "For you have but to follow and as it were hound
nature in her wanderings, and you will be able when you like to
lead and drive her afterward to the same place again.... Neither
ought a man to make a scruple of entering and penetrating into
these holes and corners, when the inquisition of truth is his
whole object - as your majesty has shown in your own example (ie.
witchcraft inquisition)" (ibid. p. 168.).
Berman 1981, Pepper 1984, Jones 1987, Griffin 1989 and the Jungs
(1993) constitute a chorus of other environmentalist voices exposing
these aspects of Bacon's science. The issues were generally not
perceived by more orthodox commentators such as Eiseley 1961 or
Weinberger 1985. Weinberger opens his preface saying he intends
to "restore the now-forgotten eighteenth-century view that Francis
Bacon was the greatest of all the 'moderns' - the thinkers from
Machiavelli to Hobbes who recommended turning the human intellect
from the contemplation of God and nature to the scientific project
for mastering nature and fortune" (p.9). Eiseley ends with a more
cautious note. "The rise of technology (in the nineteenth century)
gave hope for a Baconian Utopia of the New Atlantis model. Problem
solving became the rage of science. Today problem solving with
mechanical models, even of living societies, continues to be popular.
The emphasis, however, has shifted to power. From a theoretical
desire to understand the universe, we have come to a point where
it is felt we must understand it to survive.... If the physicist
learns the nature of the universe in his cyclotron well and good,
but the search is for power" (pp. 81 - 82).
Charlene Spretnak points out that various other philosophers of
Bacon's period spurned "the authority of the ancients ... in a
quest to find an authoritative and infallible method by which
to determine truth ... Descartes declar(ing) ... a practical philosophy
by which we would 'render ourselves the masters and possessors
of nature'" (1991, pp. 253 - 254). Like Caroline Merchant (op
cit.), she emphasises that the closing years of the "burning times"
of "witches", which affected mainly women living close to nature,
coincides with the start of the industrial revolution, colonialism,
"improvement", "progress", and "development". Such ecofeminist
philosophers see direct linkage between the repression of women,
the rise of science-predicated technology and what the new U.S.
Vice-President Al Gore has described as, "a new kind of addiction
... the consumption of the earth itself (which) distracts us from
the pain of what we have lost" (Gore 1992, p. 220).
A draft copy of this paper was sent for criticism to Peter Dawkins
of the Francis Bacon Research Trust. He returned the view (personal
correspondence, 11 November 1993) that I had "greatly misjudged
Bacon," adding that, "You are certainly not alone in this, as
there seems to be a growing number of persons awakening to the
fact that mankind is hurting and destroying his environment, who
blame science for this, who look for a scapegoat and who then
consider Bacon will do."
He cites the Novum Organum where Bacon refers to, "Man, the servant
and interpreter of Nature ... for Nature is not conquered save
by obedience..." Refering to Bacon's hermeneutical exegesis of
the Biblical "Genesis", Dawkins concludes for his advocatee that,
"A gardener masters or conquers nature entirely by his loving
service to the nature of his garden ... nature is only commanded
by love..."
So are the ecofeminists framing Bacon? One of his best know works
is about a utopian state, the "New Atlantis" (1605). Weinberger
(op cit.) shows that this was revisionary attempt at completing
Plato’s Atlantean vision in The Critias. Here Bacon speaks admiringly
and with astonishing prescient vision of flying machines, submarines,
climate control and what we would now know as genetic engineering.
All are described as contributing to a high standard of living.
But there is also a chilling aspect to this reality. It carries
no moral apology apart from the presumption of the superiority
of humankind. We might be forgiven for referring to the utilitarian
view of science as being a "Baconian" perspective in the context
of such passages as where Bacon looks forward to, "... parks and
inclosures of all sorts of beasts and birds, which we use not
only for view or rareness, but likewise for dissections and trials;
that thereby we may take light what may be wrought upon the body
of man.... We try also all poisons and other medicines upon them,
as well of chirurgery as physic. By art (science) likewise, we
make them greater or taller than their kind is; and contrariwise
dwarf them, and stay their growth: we make them more fruitful
and bearing than their kind is; and contrariwise barren and not
generative.... We make them also by art greater much than their
nature...." (Bacon 1974, p. 241).
Whilst recognising the importance of figures like Thales, Heraclitus,
Empedocles, Democritus and Aristotle, I shall predicate my exposition
of a classical alternative to Bacon on Plato (c. 427 - 347 BC),
whose views on cosmology, mathematics, evolution and human ecology
have been so influentially expressed in western thought through
the Timaeus and Critias.
Plato opens these twinned dialogues by portraying his mentor,
Socrates, as hoping that the outcome of the scientific discourse
in which the assembled thinkers are about to engage will be "splendid
entertainment" (Timaeus 27).
He then gives the main part in this dialogue to Timaeus. It is
reasonable for us to class Timaeus as a scientist in the modern
sense because Critias tells Socrates that Timaeus, "knows more
about astronomy than the rest of us and has devoted himself particularly
to studying the nature of the universe" (27 - 28).
Socrates reminds Timaeus to invoke the gods before speaking. Timaeus
enthusiastically obliges. He replies, "... surely, if we are not
quite crazy, as we embark on our account of how the universe began,
or perhaps had no beginning, we must pray to all the gods and
goddesses that what we say will be pleasing to them first, and
then to ourselves" (27). Having so reinforced Socrates' anticipation
of intellectual pleasure, Timaeus proceeds with his famous and
powerful dualistic metaphysical statement of first principle:
"We must in my opinion begin by distinguishing between that which
always is and never becomes (and) that which is always becoming
but never is" (27). I consider Plato's making of this distinction,
rather than recognising the underlying Zen-koanic unity of these
two processes, is the pivotal difference between dualistic post-Socratic
western thought and holistic eastern thought as exemplified by
Taoism.
From this point on Plato, through Timaeus, lets the cosmos and
its human ecology unfold. The world was created "... a living
being with soul and intelligence" (30) which "in its imitation
of the eternal nature resemble(s) as closely as possible the perfect
intelligible Living Creature" (39). Time is defined as "... an
eternal moving image of the eternity which remains for ever at
one" (37). Historical human ecology is traced right down to Critias
later telling of the felling of the "thick woods" on the mountains
of prehistoric Greece at the time of Atlantis, so that, "You are
left (as with little islands) with something rather like the skeleton
of a body wasted by disease; the rich, soft soil has all run away
leaving the land nothing but skin and bone" (Critias 111).
The soul is "endowed with (both) reason and harmony" (Timaeus
37) and "(cosmological) harmony ... has motions akin to the orbits
in our soul" (47). The faculty of sight and the observation of
the heavens made possible by it, "... has caused the invention
of number, given us the notion of time, and made us inquire into
the nature of the universe; thence we have derived philosophy,
the greatest gift the gods have ever given or will give to mortals"
(47). The gift is both metaphysical and pragmatically ontological:
it helps us know what is, what we are, and it shows us how to
live as happily as we can. Such scientific inquiry enables us
to, "... see the revolutions of intelligence in the heavens and
use their untroubled course to guide the troubled revolutions
in our own understanding, which are akin to them, and so ... correct
the disorder of our own revolutions by the standard of the invariability
of those of god" (47). Timaeus goes on to say that the same applies
to sound, hearing, rhythm and music. In so doing, Plato justifies
the contemplative hedonism of his holistic natural philosophy.
He claims that, "... as anyone who makes intelligent use of the
arts knows, (such percepts are) not to be used, as is commonly
thought, to give irrational pleasure, but as a heaven-sent ally
in reducing to order and harmony any disharmony in the revolutions
within us" (47).
Science, as most universities now call natural philosophy, is
therefore central to right livelihood. In composing the soul it
must be especially pleasing, Plato implies, to "... Pan and the
Muses" (Critias 108; cf. Phaedrus 279). Plato is certainly not
opposed to utilitarian uses of science. Indeed he affirms, "two
types of cause, the necessary and the divine. The divine we should
look for in all things for the sake of the measure of happiness
in life that our nature permits, and the necessary for the sake
of the divine, reflecting that without them we can not perceive,
apprehend, or in any way attain our objective" (Timaeus 68 - 69).
But it is clear that the utilitarian uses must be in service of
the divine if the preconditions for human happiness are to be
met. The main emphasis is on the transcendental knowing of reality.
Bacon, on the other hand, draws us more towards that uncomfortable
edge of technology; that portrayed by e.e. cummings (1969), where,
"Progress is a comfortable disease ... A world of made is not
a world of born - pity poor flesh and trees, poor stars and stones,
but never this fine specimen of hypermagical ultraomnipotence".
In this, Bacon was distinctly modern. His livelihood aspirations
went beyond the demands of frugal sufficiency. Unlike that of
Plato, his science contained implications which inevitably harnessed
science to an economy, one increasingly to dominate as the economy
(Duffy, 1994) colonising both the commons and knowledge.
Although I shall argue shortly for a recovery of Platonic scientific
teleology, its predication of the rational over feeling falls
short of ecofeminist ideals. Some of Plato's thought is astonishingly
feminist to the extent that he himself remarks upon it through
Socrates in the opening dialogue of the Timaeus. Gender equality
was a distinctive though contradicted characteristic of parts
of the Republic. And in the Symposium (201), Plato attributes
his whole philosophy of love to the wisdom of a woman, Diotima
of Manitinea. But Plato sharply loses "new man" points in the
Timaeus. The text starts by articulating a Goddess predicated
cosmology (24 - 28). But then, as the character, Timaeus, takes
over from Critias' preamble, Plato effects a theocratic gender
paradigm jump. Matrifocality in the form of the Goddess is displaced
by a transcendent patrifocal deity, "the maker and father of this
universe" (28). Plato's creation myth is beautiful and Gaia-like.
Nevertheless, with the outstanding exception of the nature-inspired
passion-driven divine madness of the Phaedrus (244-245), the broader
context of his thought is a transcendent spirituality at the expense
of the immanent. The created world is but an inferior representation
of the eternal. The eternal, and not the world, is thus the proper
focus of a philosopher's life, this being articulated not through
the feelings, but through reason.
Later in history, Church philosophers could only delight at the
rediscovery of writings which could be interpreted to so corroborate
a theology of creation fallen through the imputed sin of Adam.
World-transcending spiritualities, on their own, have not provided
adequate defence of women, nature, or the gentle souls of men
over time (Watts 1976). The influence of ancient Sparta on Plato's
thought (Russell op cit.) may have effected this philosophical
"poisonous pedagogy" (cf. Millar 1987) which is reflected in his
denigration of the body, scorn of passion and censorship of feeling
in literature. His ecology, though sound, is ambivalent. The same
Plato who later in life established his Academy in a grove just
outside Athens and ends The Phaedrus with Socrates venerating
"beloved Pan" of the "holy place of the nymphs" (Phaedrus 278),
earlier echoes the ivory tower aloofness of many subsequent academics;
Socrates telling the country-loving Phaedrus that, "I'm a lover
of learning, and trees and open country won't teach me anything,
whereas men in the town do" (231).
Merchant (op. cit.) concludes that scientific rationalism, which
has been the final outcome over time, has caused "the death of
nature". Nature requires our embodied concern, our empathy if
we are to live sustainably, at-one with it. This is not to discard
reason or the transcendent. They are a vital parts of the whole.
But to divorce reason from feeling and sensuality in a hierarchy
of epistemolgical validity can only split the psychosomatic totality
of life and eventually, injure both psyche and soma.
Ecofeminism is a movement that attempts a re-weaving of world
and spirit (cf. Diamond & Orenstein 1990, Plant 1989). Later in
this paper, we shall draw upon it as an understanding which can
recover much of value from the Classical world view - what Empedocles
might have predicted as a return of the Golden Age of Aphrodite
after a long period of love being overwhelmed by strife (Russell,
op. cit., p. 73).
(Emphasis in the following extracts is added.)
In Platonic classicism and Baconian utilitarianism two major poles
in scientific teleological thought can be identified. The need
for a tripole has been hinted at - an ecofeminist perspective
grounded, as is ecofeminism, in deep ecology (Seed, Naess et al.
1988). We shall return to this later. For now, holding these cognitive
tools as yardsticks in the mind, let us analyse and evaluate British
science policy.
The White Paper opens with the statement that, "The understanding
and application of science are fundamental to the fortunes of
modern nations ... (being) intimately linked with progress across
the whole range of human endeavour.... They provide ... a vital
part of humankind's armoury for solving long-standing, world-wide
problems, such as poverty and disease, and for addressing new
global challenges such as those facing the environment" (1.1).
Science is here presented not as a way of knowing, but as a means
of problem solving. Problem solving is, of course, part of the
role of science, but heavy use of such language as "challenge"
and "fighting back" augments a combative rather than a co-operative
or symbiotic approach to nature. The causes admitted to, however,
are laudable. Poverty and ecology are rallied to bolster the continuing
need for scientific advance.
Scientists are not necessarily combative when they first enter
the field. Gaillard (1991) has shown that social utility, as in
concern for humankind, is the dominant motive influencing practitioners
to choose or alter a scientific career. One wonders about the
psychology of those many school leavers who choose veterinary
science because they love animals, or forestry because they like
trees, then find themselves employed in factory farming or clearfelling.
Does scientific training, as distinct from education, somehow
square the dissonance often apparent between the ideal and the
job? Could there be a form of intellectual dishonesty at work;
what Tart (1988), based on his work with consciousness and hypnosis,
calls a "consensus trance induction process", whereby a consensually
validated world view is shaped by pedagogy, advertising, media,
etc. to the detriment of alternative world views?
Howard Levine (1991), a former director of the US's Public Understanding
of Science Programme, has argued the importance of making explicit
"the implied social contract, or bargain, between science and
the larger society". But for the White Paper, it becomes apparent
after the first paragraph that the contract is to be a three-way
closed shop in a market place subsidised by the taxpayer: "Technology
foresight, jointly conducted by industry and the science and engineering
communities, will be used to inform Government's decisions and
priorities. The process will be carefully designed to tap into
the expertise of people closest to emerging scientific, technological
and market developments. The aim is to achieve a key cultural
change ... between the scientific community, industry and Government
Departments" (1.18.2).
Science is to be the first line of defence in the armoury which
Britain's historic role in free trade demands. We must apply science
to remain on top in what financier Sir James Goldsmith (speaking
elsewhere) has called "a Hell's merry-go-round" of development.
Without alluding to any critique of techno-economic history and
its environmental consequences, the Paper says: "The history of
the United Kingdom has shown the intimate connection between free
trade, the application of science to tradeable products, and national
prosperity. The industrial revolution which played so large a
part in creating the modern world was made possible by our great
engineers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In a world
where ever fiercer competition prevails, history's lessons are
highly pertinent" (1.2).
Thus motivated not by the sense of wonderment (which Aristotle
said is the root of philosophy), but by fear of being trampled
from behind on the racetrack of competitive progress, science
must "generate relevant and industrially applicable results" (1.8).
The paradigmatic mindset is one in which, "The major challenge
facing the United Kingdom today is an economic one. The nation's
first priority must be to improve the performance of the economy
to meet the competitive challenge..." (2.1). It is therefore necessary
that "opportunities should be generated, on a much larger scale,
for interaction between scientists and businessmen involved in
the day-to-day business of selling in competitive markets" (2.29).
This is not to deny that some research may have "intrinsic scientific
merit" (1.8), or that "there are educational and cultural reasons
for funding research", but the White Paper leaves us in the dark
as to what these might be, except where Big Science is concerned,
now re-named "Mega Science" (6.19) by the OECD. In Mega Science
it is conceded that, "the prospects of commercial exploitation
and 'spin-off' are severely limited" (6.15) and a competitive
approach would be too costly because, "like the science itself,
the cost (of competition) nowadays can be astronomical". Thus,
"science needs Government and public funds" (1.7) and co-operative
global collaboration is appropriate in pursuing (undefined) "worthwhile
opportunities" (6.19) in areas like particle physics and astronomy.
The "pooling of effort in the pursuit of common research objectives"
is also appropriate "where shared human problems are addressed".
The two examples given are the World Climate Research Programme,
which, of course, addresses probable links between climate change
and technology-fuelled development, and the Human Genome Project.
While acknowledging that "science and technology do not respect
political or national boundaries (6.1), the Paper avoids serious
mention of economic boundaries other than to remark that international
co-operation will involve "facilitating foreign access to the
patented findings of research undertaken in the United Kingdom....".
This might be worrying for the Third World, given the findings
of Gaillard (op. cit) that far from helping to develop indigenous
science, the increasing commercialisation of science accelerates
the brain drain from South to North. However, through the Technology
Partnership Initiative the UK is willing to build on its "track
record in transferring environmentally-sound technologies" to
developing countries and "the Overseas Development Administration
has a key role to play in promoting sustainable development in
countries supported by the British Aid Programme" (6.4). Notwithstanding
the weighty consideration given to the topic in the Government's
White Paper on the Environment (This Common Inheritance, 1990),
this is the only mention made of sustainability in the Science
and Technology White Paper. It is curious that the appliance of
science in this respect appears to be confined to developing countries.
Curious too that "key issues" globally include "environment, human
population and AIDS" (6.1), but there is no suggestion that population
is only a problem inasmuch as it combined with levels of consumption,
such as economic growth promotes and for which the Third World
is not primarily responsible.
The Paper states that "when (Government) funds science, as it
must ... (with) large sums of public money" it is to achieve "wider
benefits, above all the generation of national prosperity and
the improvement of the quality of life" (1.7). Prosperity and
quality of life are repeatedly linked in this way. While prosperity
has clearly been argued as being a function of competition in
free global markets and therefore concerns material wealth, no
definition of quality of life is offered. Neither is any mention
made of the distribution of prosperity and quality of life, either
within British society or between nations. Mission statements
are reproduced for all six reorganised research councils, including
the Economic and Social Research Council. Four are paragraph-long
statements, 20% of the space being taken up by the same mantra-like
ending, "... thereby enhancing the United Kingdom's industrial
competitiveness and quality of life" (pp. 29 - 31). There are
two variations. The Medical Research Council, turns priorities
round, claiming it is, "... thereby enhancing health, the quality
of life and the United Kingdom's industrial competitiveness" (p.
30). The Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council's equivalent
is given below. Each research council will have, "Chairmen ...
selected ... to bring in relevant experience from the industrial
and commercial sectors most closely related to the Council's missions"
(3.31).
It is difficult to see how such proposals can be referred to as
anything other than a businessman's science charter. None of the
mission statements refer to anything other than a utilitarian
function for science. With the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences
Research Council the neo-Baconian intent is particularly manifest
with the statement that it aims at, "... enhancing the management
of biological resources and their utilisation and interactions
with the environment, placing special emphasis on meeting the
needs of users of its research and training output, thereby enhancing
the United Kingdom's industrial competitiveness and quality of
life." (p. 29). No mention is made of such issues as environmental
sustainability, biodiversity or meeting the needs of the poorest
in society. No concession is made to the Platonic perspective.
The implicit values structure speaks to a scientistic (not a scientific)
paradigm of control and domination over nature, reinforced by
gender-exclusive patrifocal language.
Additional support that the White Paper is rooted in the thought
of the general era of Bacon is provided by a speech delivered
to the British Association by the Paper's instigator, William
Waldegrave, now associated with the "Arms for Iraq" scandal. In
addressing the audience about the "ignorance of and even hostility
to science, which is too widespread in Britain," he reminded them
of the "spectacular English (sic) explosions of intellectual energy"
under Elizabeth I and Queen Anne (The Guardian, 3-9-93, p. 6).
In a chapter on defence science and technology, the Paper notes
that, "As the Gulf conflict illustrated, technology can provide
the decisive edge in military operations" (4.1). It is in this
chapter that the only mention is made of a specific environmental
technology: "water pollution control" (4.7) is cited as one of
the 'spin-offs' from military research. New conceptual ground
is broken with the frank statement that military purchases of
commercial technology "produces opportunities for 'spin-in' from
the civil to the defence sector" (4.6).
Measures such as the Defence Research Agency's Pathfinder programme
will ease opportunities for industry and "allow industry to influence
the nature of the Agency's work to facilitate wider future applications"
(4.12). In these respects the White Paper is commendable for its
openness in rendering so lucid the relationship between state
and the military-industrial complex which has placed Britain second
in the league of global arms exporters, with 20% of world market
share (Guardian Weekly, 12-9-93).
The failure to define the non-economic "worthwhile" aspects of
fundamental or basic research might raise questions regarding
its possible military applications. The mission statement for
the new Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council states
that it has, "To promote and support high-quality basic research
and related post-graduate training in astronomy, planetary science,
and particle physics, which takes account of the potential for
contributing to the United Kingdom's industrial competitiveness
and quality of life, but whose main objective is the improved
understanding of the concepts and principles underlying physical
phenomena and their consequences" (p. 31).
It is quite possible, and hopefully the case, that here we do
have a genuine aspiration towards the Platonic ideal. If so, it
is an expensive one, and should be made more explicit so that
its social contract in relation to the poor, the old, the sick,
the degraded in nature, the ordinary taxpayer, and so on can be
subjected to scrutiny. If fundamental research is not significantly
for contemplative purposes, then the long term contribution to
industrial competitiveness and quality of life should be monitored,
perhaps with due application of normal discounting procedures
to the stream of distant benefits duly weighted for the probability
of their occurring (Van Horne 1980, Bromwich 1976). Should basic
research not be justified on grounds of either contemplative or
social utility,it ought to be clearly stated as an elitist activity
(parallel to the dominant group in Bacon's New Atlantis), or its
military rationales ought to be subjected to democratic scrutiny.
Such scrutiny must include ethical appraisal.
It is disturbing to see ethical sensitivity seemingly lacking
in certain applications of science. For instance, the Economic
and Social Research Council report 1991 - 1992 tells that: "When
Ronald Reagan announced his 'Star Wars' Strategic Defense Initiative
there was widespread astonishment at the audacity of the scheme.
Some found it difficult to comprehend the scale of the project,
others railed against the astronomical costs involved. However
when the public came back to earth, their amazement was eclipsed
by growing concern within the scientific community about one vital
question: how can you know that a system as complex and as important
to the world's security will work on the day?" (p. 24).
The impact of such technology on human lives is too great for
questions as to its probity to be left unaddressed. Recognising
this, an OECD report on American science policy in the sixties
warned, "What is at stake, ultimately, is not the growth rate
of basic research but the view that the scientist has of himself
and his role in society.... Somehow the R & D explosion spearheaded
by the military has permitted the scientific community to live
with something near to a personality split: to be a principal
agent of change in our society during the work hours in the laboratory
and yet not feel committed to the consequences of such change
as it enters our daily life. The state of 'pureness' of intentions
and 'non-involvement' in consequences will no longer be possible
in a society fully permeated by science ... (representing) a betrayal
of the very principles that made science possible and made it
great" (OECD 1968).
The contemplative contribution of Big Science should not be underestimated,
particularly now that it provides new perspectives on philosophies
of interconnectedness and consciousness (Bohm 1983, Penrose 1989,
Tarnas 1993, Zohar 1990). But society has a right to call to account
scientists who display such dangerous arrogance as did Enrico
Fermi who, after working on building the atom bomb, is reputed
to have said, "Don't bore me with your moral scruples. After all,
it's superb physics" (Hallen 1989). Lack of public accountability
and respect for the implicit social contract can lead to sudden
disruption of Big Science programmes. Alter and Logan (1991),
for instance, show how NASA's budget was slashed by 75% between
1967 and 1974 as political support waned following the moon landing.
The loss of the space shuttle Challenger was arguably a symptom
of the organisational strains induced by subsequent organisational
degeneration. This in turn further fuels public distrust of Big
Science programmes.
For science to be valued in society it must be practiced with
humility. It must take its place alongside other epistemologies
and not presume to establish technocracy. As Jacques Delors' said
in his address to European church leaders when President of the
European Community, "Believe me, we won't succeed with Europe
solely on the basis of legal expertise or economic know-how....
If within the next ten years we haven't managed to give a soul
to Europe, to give it spirituality and meaning, the game will
be up. This is why I want to revive the intellectual and spiritual
debate on Europe. I would like to create a meeting place, a space
for free discussion open to men and women of spirituality, to
believers and non-believers, scientists and artists" (Hulbert
1993).
Failure to address such implicit critiques as that of Delors are
felt by some scientific educators to account for difficulties
in attracting bright young people into their faculties. The White
Paper attempts to address this, expressing such pedagogical intentions
as: "The government wishes to harness the intellectual resources
of the science and engineering base (ie. graduates from tertiary
educational institutes) to improve economic performance and the
quality of life". Reference to this happening, "in future" (3.9),
indicates policy change. It is suggested that PhD training in
universities should become "more closely related to the needs
of industry" (7.17).
As graduates undertaking a PhD are in mature control of their
own lives, there is little cause for concern here and many would
welcome a move towards more applied PhD research. But such is
not the case for children within an age category or a social class
where schooling to a government curriculum is compulsory. Of these,
the Paper disturbingly states that, "the Government ... has embarked
on a radical agenda of changes in the education and training system,
including changes in the school curriculum ... for the whole of
compulsory schooling". This will "ensure for the first time that
all pupils, girls as well as boys, will study a broad and balanced
programme of science and technology right through to the age of
16" (7.2). It continues, "more young people must perceive science
and engineering in industry as an attractive and worthwhile career.
They must also see the value of developing the entrepreneurial
skills which will help businesses exploit more effectively the
results of research, science and technological development" (7.7).
Such mechanisms as science festivals should be used to persuade
the public of the importance of these changes, encouraging "diffusion
among the public at large of an appreciation of what science is"
(7.32). Significantly, "what science is" goes undefined. However,
we are reassured that in our schools, steps towards the "radical
agenda of changes" mean that "Pupils can now expect impartial
and accurate careers guidance and access to work experience" (7.2).
One might ask whether this will be "impartial" within the wider
playing field of life, or only on the field drawn up within the
paradigms of the White Paper's "key cultural change". With such
an inadequate philosophical base, what safeguards are there to
prevent a limiting of children's horizons on life, a shutting
down of their world views, so they are induced to understand the
economy's relationship to life as being perforce a Baconian application
of science, engineering and technology to competitive industry?
The White Paper after all makes no concession to the possibility
that the excitement, wonder and joy of pursuits like science and
the other arts might be worthy ends in themselves. Instead, it
hijacks what we might call the "wow factor" of a child's enthusiasm
and packages it into feeding greed beyond sufficiency's need.
There is no hint that the Platonic "splendid entertainment" of
such pursuits might actually substitute for material consumption,
thereby reducing the need for wealth creation as a contributor
to quality of life and correspondingly, reducing human impact
on nature. Instead, we might be forgiven for feeling not a little
empathy with Pink Floyd's controversial chart-topping 1980's lyric
from The Wall, "We don't want no education; we don't want no thought
control; no dark sarcasm in the classroom - Hey! Teacher! Leave
them kids alone!"
It is important for policy makers to realise that such countercultural
views run surprisingly close to the mainstream surface and will
breed cynicism of manipulative policy. As a few academics and
civil servants were scrutinising the government's intentions in
the White Paper, hundreds of thousands of British children were
being exposed to a contrary perspective put forward in Michael
Crichton's best-selling book, Jurassic Park, made into a Spielberg
blockbusting movie. Reflecting on a Baconian New Atlantis-type
dinosaur theme park gone mad, Crichton's character, Malcolm, says
of a scientist:
"He's an engineer, they're technicians. They don't have intelligence.
They have what I call 'thintelligence.' They see the immediate
situation. They think narrowly and they call it 'being focused.'
They don't see the surround. They don't see the consequences.
That's how you get an island like this.... Scientists have an
elaborate line of bullshit about how they are seeking to know
the truth about nature. Which is true, but that's not what drives
them. Nobody is driven by abstractions like 'seeking truth.' Scientists
are actually preoccupied with accomplishment. So they are focused
on whether they can do something. They never stop to ask if they
should do something. They conveniently define such considerations
as pointless. If they don't do it, someone else will. Discovery,
they believe, is inevitable. So they just try to do it first.
That's the game in science. Even pure scientific discovery is
an aggressive, penetrative act. It takes big equipment, and it
literally changes the world afterward. Particle accelerators scar
the land and leave radioactive byproducts. Astronauts leave trash
on the moon. There is always some proof that scientists were there,
making their discoveries. Discovery is always a rape of the natural
world. Always. The scientists want it that way. They have to stick
their instruments in. They have to leave their mark. They can't
just watch. They can't just appreciate" (Crichton 1991, p. 284).
The White Paper also addresses ways of drawing more women into
science: "Women are the country's biggest single most under-valued
and therefore under-used human resource" (7.13). Whilst valuing
the gender-inclusive intentions, one might ask whether a woman
would have expressed it in such consumptive language. Women have
other ways of seeing such instrumentalism (Kirkup et al., 1992).
Scots poet, Mary McCann (1992 pp. 64 - 65), addresses profound
concern in her poem, "Working for Moloch". Consistent with theologian
Walter Wink's view that in a modern context we must again name,
unmask and engage the age-old "principalities and powers" (Wink
1992), she re-invokes Moloch, the Old Testament fire-filled stone
idol into whose red hot arms the children were sacrificed to ensure
material prosperity.
the cleaners are scrubbing the Institute lavatories
because women are supposed to do that...
the young men are doing their PhD's
because young men are obedient and ambitious
and someone wants warheads...
multichannel night seeking radar...
and science is neutral...
at the top of the tower the old men and the middle aged men
and sometimes one woman professor
meet to form plans, cadge funds and run the place
because obedient young men turn into obedient old men
and it's all for the good of the country...
and science is neutral
and no one notices Moloch...
and it's hard to see Moloch because he is both far away
and everywhere...
and no one asks to whom whey are all obedient
and they say, "Who's Moloch? Never heard of him"
as out in the dark Moloch belches
and grows redder and redder
and fatter and fatter
as he eats the children
Another line of approach in ascertaining the drift of British
Science policy can be gleaned from the reports of the research
councils. The three most relevant to environmental issues are
the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Economic
and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Agriculture and Food
Research Council (AFRC). Here I shall refer to the two most recent
reports to each, those for the years ending 1992 and 1993.
The 1992 reports precede the science White Paper, but reflect
policy which had time to absorb the 1990 environment White Paper.
We shall address 1992 and 1993 separately.
In 1992 the NERC, which had one woman other than the Secretary
on its Council of twenty, described its purpose as being to develop
"understanding of Man's impact on his surroundings and ... sensible
policies for the exploitation of natural resources" (p. ii). It
recognises that space science has "brought to public consciousness
for the first time (sic) the essential unity, and fragility, of
the Earth's environmental systems ... (and that) Man's activities
are having profound global effects on the natural environment"
(p. 6). It is not until the section on "Highlights from the Universities"
on page 17 that sustainability is mentioned for the first and
only time, though fittingly with the statement that: "(For taxonomy)
to be a really useful science, an understanding is needed of what
species do for the structure of ecosystems, and which species
perform vital keystone tasks; then judgments can be made of the
sustainability of human activities and future policies". The neo-Baconian
utilitarian presumptions underlying this research are apparent
from the statement that, "it is not known how many kinds of plants
and animals live on this planet...; it is not known what they
all do, or how many of them are vital to the functioning of the
Earth's ecosystems; and it has not been decided on moral, aesthetic
or economic grounds how many species should be conserved". Scientific
reserve permits no hint of outrage that, "it is known that, largely
as a result of human activities, species are disappearing at a
rate unprecedented over the past 600 million years of evolution".
As for the ESRC, its growing emphasis on high quality data collection
is consistent, says its research director, with wanting "high
quality research that has a sense of leadership and intellectual
excitement - research that will push the frontiers of our knowledge
and understanding forward. We are not here to make subjective
judgements on whether a proposal is 'socially' important. Academic
excellence is our principal yardstick" (p. 7). Just how academia
has managed to resolve Moore's naturalistic fallacy (Frankena
1939) in so doing is not explained.
The presumption of value neutrality notwithstanding, the ESRC
is sponsoring several research programmes which are welcome for
their direct or indirect relevance to sustainability. Their Global
Environmental Change programme in particular includes components
which address several of the concerns of this paper, particularly
Lancaster University's programme on "Science, Culture and the
Environment" (GEC 1994).
One ESRC funded programme has developed a taxation structure to
use market mechanisms to reduce waste in packaging. Another explores
food and nutrient flows between London and the agricultural periphery
since the 14th century. It concludes, "There are no indications
that there was ever a sustained food crisis in the city. This
shows that comparatively simple agricultural systems have the
capacity to meet sophisticated demands. Perhaps the future will
have more respect for traditional systems" (p. 22). A third, entitled
"High-Tech Myths" looks at the relationship between small firms
and technology, concluding that most of the benefit of technical
innovation spirals up to large companies (pp. 26 - 27). The implications
of this might be pondered in the light of the White Paper's emphasis
on industry.
The AFRC, having made no mention of sustainability in its 1990
- 91 report, makes a wholehearted commitment in 1991 - 92 by entitling
its report, "A Basis for Sustainability". It is clear that most
of the work still being sponsored has no relation to sustainability,
indeed, sustaining soil quality (which is perhaps the most significant
quantifiable physical sustainability indicator) gets no mention
until page 33 in a 65 page document. But the Council is clearly
making a start with new ways of thinking: "On the one hand molecular
biology and genetics describe individual molecules or organisms;
they are reductionist in emphasis. On the other hand, nutrient
management, ecology, pest control and environmental studies require
more holistic approaches involving the study of integrated systems.
These are usefully brought together in the concept of sustainability..."
(p. 5).
One might hope in future to see reference to the human ecology/community
of sustainable agriculture which is not mentioned at present.
This could militate against such statements as, "Farming can be
viewed as an engineering process..." (p. 33), or the agriculture-as-molecular
biology thrust of the Government’s "Forward Look" and "Foresight"
reports (Whittemore, 1995), which came out too late for discussion
to be included in this paper.
One might also hope to see some addressing of questions as to
whether sustainable land and sea use is possible in a framework
of global agricultural economics. In what is acknowledged to be
"an increasingly competitive and international market place" (p.
3), it would be valuable to see research commissioned to explore
whether a process like GATT can uphold agricultural communities,
biodiversity and soil structure, or whether pressures of free
trade will undercut everything to the lowest common denominator
of greatest exploitation (Lancaster and McIntosh, 1995). If research
councils are to serve quality of life as the White Paper suggests,
such questions should become paramount. But if they are to do
so mainly via the wealth creating filter of industry and with
councils overwhelmingly biased towards the cultural perspectives
of white upper middle class men, the nature of their social contract
with broader British society may be called increasingly into question.
The NERC's 1993 report places considerable stress on science which
bears on environmental problems such as trace gas exchange between
atmosphere and ocean, the adaptability of plants to climate change
and species diversity in farm woodland ecology. In what is his
last annual report as chairman, John Knill comments that, "NERC's
submission to Government on the White Paper argued, as it had
at the time of the Morris Report in 1989, for the holistic nature
of environmental research but clearly identified areas where change
was desirable. Evolution was preferred to revolution...." (p.
3).
The ESRC is less ambivalent in demonstrating that its science
contributes to industry. Thus we are told of its semantics research
that, "A leading computer manufacturer has used some of the findings
to develop a new word processing package" (p. 5). We are advised
that an outcome of research into road psychology is that, "A major
driving school is seriously considering using the technique" (p.
6). And the chief economist of ICI considers that, "In many ways,
the results of social science research are more important than
those coming from the natural sciences. They are more relevant
to wealth creation and policy making" (p. 10).
There is little of environmental significance in the ESRC report,
but in a section headed "Science Fiction", there is a telling
account of Brian Wynne's research into differences in risk perception
between scientists and the public. Wynne finds that "The scientists
may calculate the risks, but this involves social assumptions,
which often inadvertently suppose an ideal world. The public is
interested in how these scientific advances are going to be controlled
and managed in the real world.... Scientists, however, rarely
recognise that their own knowledge is shaped by social assumptions
too.... The experts impose their own social assumptions about
what is useful and consequently undermine their own credibility.
Scientific bodies do not appear to understand these conflicts"
(p. 31).
It is in the 1993 AFRC report that we see some of the most interesting
adaptations to the White Paper. The report is speckled through
with quotations from the Paper as the Council demonstrates its
readiness to transmutate into the new Biotechnology and Biological
Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). Almost disappeared is last
year's keynote emphasis on sustainability. The 1993 report is
entitled, "Meeting UK Needs in the Biosciences". A picture of
a Council meeting at the Royal Society in 1993 reveals that, behind
the androgynous initials in the listing of Council members, all
but one of the twenty-one present are men, and all are white.
We are told by the end of the next century to anticipate a 2 -
4 Centigrade degree rise in temperature. In anticipation, research
into crop management under environmental change is being sponsored.
Animal welfare in production farming also receives support, as
does organic dairying and the modelling of silvopastoral systems.
£11.2 million out of the Council's £48.8 million expenditure on
Coordinated Programmes could be said to be environment related,
the largest tranche of which (£8 million) is allocated to the
Biological Adaptation to Global Environmental Change programme.
By comparison, similar sums are spent on Stem Cell Molecular Biology
(£7.5 million), Plant Molecular Biology (£8 million) and Bovine
Spongiform Encephalopathy (£9 million) (p. 61).
Of particular interest is the AFRC's public relations research
into attitudes to biotechnology and its "schools liaison" work.
The Council seeks "to understand better the basis of public perception
of biotechnology. This will help the Council to present its research
in ways that both provide the public with objective information
on issues of legitimate concern and provide a basis for rational
decision-making" (p. 52). To achieve this a conference is planned
to seek consensus on biotechnology. This will allow for dialogue
between experts and citizens, with the National Museum of Science
and Industry having agreed to take responsibility "for ensuring
impartiality and publishing the findings" (p. 52). The Council
is considering both sponsoring and providing expert evidence to
this, recognising that "Public attitudes will influence the extent
to which the potential of biotechnology is realised in new products
and processes for industry" (p. 52).
The AFRC’s research into consumer and school pupil attitudes shows
that the extent to which different sources of information are
trusted when there is no information attribution include tabloid
newspapers (33%), government minister statements (38%), government
information leaflets (48%), food industry leaflets (52%), environmental
group publications (60%), TV news and quality newspapers (62%),
research publications and supermarket information leaflets (63%)
and TV current affairs programmes (67%). An ESRC sponsored Institute
of Food Research study finds that people "feel they have little
control over the technology which they see as controlled at the
level of society .... however, detailed examination of the issues
underlying these ethical concerns reveals many of them to be addressable
concerns such as animal welfare or human health" (p. 52). Given
that the Council sees its programmes as aiming to "increase public
awareness and widen debate on issues of biotechnology that will
influence its acceptability" (p.52), it would appear to be a legitimate
concern that symmetrical resources should be placed into addressing
areas which might conclude that certain aspects of biotechnology
or the socioeconomic construct within which it operates may be
not acceptable.
From the values basis stated at the outset of this paper, it must
be evident that British science policy represents an Emperor with
a substantial vestment deficit. The White Paper in particular
perverts science primarily to utilitarian ends, splitting it off
from any wider context of seeking to know the harmonies of the
soul in relation to nature - that is to say, it denies the holistic
framework of a human ecology.
The deficiencies in the White Paper are all the more remarkable
given cultural changes in attitude of a growing number of scientists
and educators, such as that evidenced by the University of Edinburgh's
Environmental Initiative. This requires that "all undergraduates
... should be exposed to teaching about wider and more fundamental
issues of society's relationship to the environment, including
complex social, ecological and ethical questions...." (Loening
et al., 1991, p. 5). Such indications show that in some quarters
of Court, the Emperor's nakedness has been recognised and efforts
are being made to halt the procession and tailor at least a loincloth.
To call it more than a loincloth would be presumptuous at this
experimental stage when, as Loening comments, "Universities can
and do try (alternative) approaches, but nevertheless tend to
maintain and transfer the traditional abstracted and reductionist
culture" (ibid. p. 38).
Where might we find a loincloth given that the classical one is
better, but still hardly tailored to modern needs?
New thinking on science is currently emerging from sources which
are often feminist or feminist informed. I say "new", but as the
controversial archaeological revisionary work of Marija Gimbutas
(1991) et al. arguably demonstrates, they may be rooted in ways
of relating to nature which served humankind for the greater part
of its evolution. Patsy Hallen is one example of the new wave.
She calls her feminist critique of science "Careful of Science",
the title being, "... a dialectical play on the word 'careful',
embracing three meanings: (1) be careful of science or 'beware'
of science because its capabilities are so life-threatening; (2)
take care of or 'cherish' science because it is so precious, one
of our most important ways of understanding; and (3) be full of
care or do science with care and hence 'transform' science into
a life-affirming pursuit by caring labour" (Hallen 1989, p. 3).
One is reminded of how Rachael Carson was said to have returned
her marine specimens to the shore after observing them in the
laboratory, taking care to do so at the same tidal stage as when
they were removed. Such love is perhaps not unconnected with bringing
about the clarity of vision which resulted in Silent Spring. Perhaps
by denying feeling, empathy and compassion as ways of knowing
alongside rationality, our knowing itself becomes deficient. Perhaps
thus our science policy becomes unbalanced. True objectivity calls
for inclusion of the subjective. This makes manifest the relationship
between attitude, values and observation. As educationalist David
Orr shows: "Science without love can give us no good reason to
appreciate the sunset, nor can it give us any purely objective
reason to value life" (p. 18).
Alan Watts (1976, pp. 68 - 69) further develops this vital point,
citing a Chinese poem by Chia Tao:
I asked the boy beneath the pines.
He said, "The Master's gone alone
Herb-picking somewhere on the mount,
Cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown.
Critiquing Western thought, Watts writes, "But there is a kind
of brash mental healthiness ever ready to rush in and clean up
the mystery, to find out just precisely where the wild geese have
gone, what herbs the master is picking where, and that sees the
true face of a landscape only in the harsh light of the noonday
sun. It is just this attitude which every traditional culture
finds utterly insufferable in Western man, not just because it
is tactless and unrefined, but because it is blind. It cannot
tell the difference between the surface and the depth. It seeks
depth by cutting into the surface. But the depth is known only
when it reveals itself, and ever withdraws from the probing mind."
Thus to cross-cultural scholar, Gifford lecturer and chemist,
Raimundo Panikkar, the heart is central to epistemology: "Love",
he suggests, "is at the root of knowing.... Knowing without love
is not true knowledge. It is only grasping, apprehending, appropriating,
ultimately a robbery, a plunder" (1993, p. 66).
Science therefore can and must have a loincloth to clad its Baconian
nakedness. It is based on the capacity of the soul to know harmony
as well as rationality; a combined drawing upon the faculties
of thinking, intuition, feeling and sensing (Jung in Jacobi 1942);
head, heart and hand. It demands a sensitivity to if, when and
how it might be appropriate to probe, and what if not. It calls
for a science of the utmost responsibility, in which knowledge
is not divorced from wisdom ... the science of a well-centred
philo-Sophia. This may be not easy to contemplate because it requires
epistemologies developed most fully in modern theology. Whilst
theology might arguably not demand restoration to its traditional
place as the "Queen of Sciences" for the reasons Newman (1852)
gives, it must at least be heeded for the metaphysical role it
can play in shedding light upon the inner structures of reality
(Wink 1992, Panikkar 1990b). Many great scientists, not least
Einstein, have always recognised this.
In the curriculum, such science might involve studying, for example,
how the biochemistry of an approach like organic farming equates
with local biodiversity; how biodiversity equates with the optimal
balance of arable and stock ... with animal welfare ... with micro
and possible macro climatic effects of land use ... with ecological
restoration, including the computer modelling thereof for differing
eco-niches ... with linkages and multipliers in the local economy
... with the inspiration of artistic creativity through the landscape
created ... with using all the senses and treasuring their pleasures
... with the spiritual ability to see anew why food and its production
is blessed ... and with the strengthening of human community through
people moving more into "right relationship" with one another
and nature (Darwin 1994).
Part of the humility essential to science should be for scientists
themselves to address seriously such questions as whether billion
dollar space probes to Mars can be justified when homelessness
and poverty abound on planet Earth. Teaching children about socio-economic
justice, substituting consumerism with creative activity and reducing
the likelihood of war through conflict resolution training could
be more pressing priorities than preparing them for careers in
the arms industry, "Mega Science", or even research such as how
to cope with problems of climate change. Whilst not denying the
importance of such research as NERC undertakes, it partakes of
displacement activity when pursued whilst not, at the same time,
seriously addressing how to live as a society without continuing
to damage the ecosystem. As Loening (1994) puts it, for biologists
not to express active concern is for them shamefully to "preside
over the progressive diminution of their subject of study".
What kind of science are we left with? Perhaps one in which radical
honesty becomes the single most distinctive empirical epistemological
characteristic. One in which the definition of science might be,
the uncompromising application of truthfulness to knowing reality.
Such is no more that what "good and accountable science" has always
been, and it is something to celebrate. We may have only a loincloth;
our science may be humble; but let us paint it rainbow.
Our rainbow loincloth can be symbolic in a number of ways. It
represents the reassertion of humility in science. It reflects
the importance of being a joyous, celebratory, co-operative, compassionate
community in concord through the covenant of social contract,
not competition. It recognises that in socio-environmental issues
we are all working on a long and difficult front, each like differing
hues in the spectrum. Some may seem more colourful than others;
others, less so, particularly if we suffer partial colour-blindness;
but all are probably vital to shedding wholesome light.
In our metaphor, the visible spectral range should not be thought
of as rigid. Change means spectral shift. The transformative as
distinct from the revolutionary way of achieving change is to
encourage and help one another move to the next hue, shade by
shade. In so doing, in community, the entire spectral range gradates.
This may seem a slow prescription, but it is the only way which
recognises where people are at; working with them rather than
violating the presumption of deep motivational integrity owed
to them. Such an approach also creates enough space to entertain
the doubt that in some of the changes we are seeking to encourage,
we may be wrong.
In a CSIRO paper, the eminent Australian rainforest ecologist,
L. J. Webb acknowledges that, "We have enough scientific evidence
... to appreciate the singularity of the Australian rainforests..."
(1990 p. 117). Whilst acknowledging the scope for much more science
to be carried out, he goes on to say that it is time to come clean
and establish that our reasons for wanting to save the rainforests
are not just scientific, or utilitarian for cancer cures etc.,
but because, "the tropical rainforest is indeed a sacred forest....
It is hard to explain scientifically that this teeming forest
is a special reality, sculpted and detached from water, carbon
and dust, that somehow reassures us about our origins and destiny
as human species" (ibid. p. 122).
Here we see fulfilment in the second half of life of that "wow
factor" perhaps first experienced as a child when seeing newly
into nature, maybe looking down a microscope or up a telescope.
Webb articulates for us a recovery of Plato's ideal of science's
role in "reducing to order and harmony any disharmony in the revolutions
within us". In practical terms, Webb's concept of the "sacred"
might be expressed as reverence towards one another and nature.
Invoking this concept recently with Professor Donald MacLeod of
the Free Church College and Warrior Chief Stone Eagle of the Mi'Kmaq
First Nation, Nova Scotia, in the Lingerabay (Harris) Superquarry
Public Inquiry, I suggested that such an attitude of reverence
means being, "concerned with the integrity of a thing or person;
to value it for itself; to work with it symbiotically, in celebration
of its being, with that grace which is consistent with the "saying"
of grace, and not with a graceless spirit of mere utility" (McIntosh
et al., 1994, p. 9).
In 1971, a year before the publication of "Limits to Growth",
it was quite in keeping for the President and Fellows of Harvard
Business School at a conference on science policy chaired by Lord
Zuckerman to have said of themselves, "Who are these men ... working
as they do at the centers of power in industry and government
(feeling) the pulse of a new economic system (and hearing) the
drum beat of a new technological march?" (Ewing 1973). Such militaristic
language hankers back to a patriarchal Dr Strangelovean era of
the cold war. It belongs to that same militarily driven school
of physicists who gave us "Big Bang" conceptualisation, with its
implication that violent birth is at the heart of cosmogenisis.
Gravitational physicist, Brian Swimme (1990), refutes such a construct.
He shows how different a feminist account can be; an account predicated
on reverence towards the sacred birthing and ongoing becoming
of the universe. Swimme's view is characteristic of how science
might alternatively construe reality. Is it necessarily less scientific
given that we necessarily move into the realm of the rhetorical,
the poetic, once we depart the world of equations?
He illustrates his point using Starhawk's (1990) poem, "A Story
of Beginnings". She uses not the language of the weapons physicist,
but that of gentle birthing, reminiscent of the biblical womb
of God of Job 38:8,29, or Romans 8:22 in which "up to the present
time all of creation groans with pain like the pain of childbirth".
Such imagery is subjective in its objectivity; personal in the
calling of its political message:
Out of the point, the swelling
Out of the swelling, the egg
Out of the egg, the fire
Out of the fire, the stars
Out of the rain of stars
the congealing, molten world...
The air you breathe passed through the lungs of dinosaurs...
Feel yourself rocking
cradled in the night sky womb arching around you
alive with a billion billion dancing points of life
Breathe...
Hear the story woman
She says
The labor is hard, the night is long
We are midwives, and men who tend the birth
and bond with the child...
To pull a living child out of ... the mother
we are simultaneously poisoning,
who is ourselves
Starhawk moves on to roll out the history of the "First Mother":
the condensation of the waters, the softening of "every sharp
edge into soil", and the evolution of life, so that:
She is alive in us: we are alive in her as in each other
as all that is alive is alive in us
and all is alive
She concludes with an understanding of power very different from
that of the gentlemen from Harvard, or the writers of the White
Paper. She points not to power over, but to empowerment from within:
When we are afraid, when it hurts too much
We like to tell ourselves
stories of power
how we lost it
how we can reclaim it
We tell ourselves
the cries we hear may be those of labor
the pain we feel may yet be that of birth
Starhawk, a practitioner of goddess predicated spirituality -
an unburned "witch", an un-hemlocked philosopher - might be considered
by many not to be an appropriate "authority" with whom to end
this paper. Perhaps so. And yet, note how similar it is to the
following poem, On the Pulse of the Morning, by another feminist
writer, Maya Angelou (1993):
A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon,
The dinosaur, who left dried tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully....
You ... have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.
Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter ... do not hide your face...
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
Yet today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,
Clad in peace, and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the rock were one...
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African, the Native American....
They all hear
The Speaking of the Tree...
I, the Rock, I, the River, I, the Tree
I am yours - your passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces ... for this bright morning dawning for you...
Here, on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good Morning.
The occasion of this work's first reading was globally televised;
the poem universally syndicated. It set in train a new surge of
interest in poetics, having been commissioned as it was for the
Clinton and Gore presidential inauguration at the White House.
Perhaps, for our science to be complete, we need poetics to complement
mathematical and literal truth with metaphoric truth (White 1992).
Science is generally a way of knowing reality from the outside
probing in, whilst poetics knows, spiritually, from the inside
out (Wink, op. cit.). We need both for a holistic epistemology.
Both unite if we treat our object, nature, with reverence as subject;
even as extended self.
And who knows ... perhaps as claimed in the title of the school
textbook on which many of us were reared, "Physics is Fun". Or
as Plato put it, "splendid entertainment", old chap.
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