Science and Humility

Even though Isaac Newton's pebbles and shells formed the basis for the scientific and industrial revolutions which created our civilization and Newton was undoubtedly able to foresee at least some of their implications and potential, he never lost the humility with which he placed himself and his discoveries in universal perspective.

During the subsequent 300 years, many remarkable things have been accomplished in science and technology. Still, when one looks outward at those parts of the incredible vastness of the universe or inward at those parts of extraordinary microscopic, submicroscopic and subatomic universe that we can now see, it is self-evident that the minds of men have still just barely started to understand or comprehend the physical world.

This is a perspective that is shared by most real scientists and was once ingrained in the general ethics governing their publications. Until recently, for example, it was not acceptable to include assertions in elementary science text books that had not been rigorously proved. Professional research publications made a clear distinction between hypotheses, theories, and facts. Equation-embodied laws, such as those of thermodynamics, were applied only within the frameworks of the boundary conditions inherent in their derivations.

During the past 50 years, tax-financed science has steadily diminished these standards. The number of people calling themselves "scientists'' has markedly increased in order to spend the enormous tax-financed bonanza, and the ethics of science have concomitantly decreased to that level desired by those who control this money.

Objective review of, for example, current scientific work on the origins of life and of the universe leads to the conclusion that there are various hypotheses and numerous experimental observations, but these studies are barely in their infancy and will probably require centuries if not millennia of work before they are reliably understood - if they are indeed understandable at all by the mind of man.

Yet, science textbooks and popular publications are filled with assertions that leave their readers with the impression that these problems have been largely solved. (The work, however, is not quite finished, so be sure to keep the money flowing.) The advertised solutions are, of course, those that enhance the standing of the secular government institutions that collect tax money and forward a part to the scientists. Hypotheses that favor institutions that the government perceives as competitors are much less popular.