03-12-2018, 12:09 PM
Science has lost its way in some respects. As the self-avowed replacement for religion, science has a moral obligation to assume the functions of religion, namely to expand human consciousness and give humanity a sense of hope for the future. Science and its precursors -- natural philosophy and alchemy -- used to do these things.
The theory that Man evolved from primates has prompted many people to draw the unfortunate conclusion that humans are mere animals having no divine spark. As animals, we have no control over our pre-programmed impulses, and therefore we're not ultimately responsible for our behavior. We're at the mercy of our hormones, and must indulge every base desire that crosses our minds.
Or take the idea of "survival of the fittest," which has been used to justify brutish, self-serving behavior in every sphere of modern life, wholly contrary to the social contract and civic-mindedness that had evolved with the rise of civilization. Charles Darwin actually never said anything about survival of the fittest, nor does it necessarily follow from natural selection, which deals with adaptive genetic mutations. The two ideas became intertwined in the popular imagination later. We're all monkeys, so... monkey see, monkey do.
The current wave of pessimistic popular scientism gripping humanity is the peculiar way in which people revel in chaos and randomness, likely precipitated by modern chaos theory in physics. As with the preceding theories, the masses have taken ideas from a specific domain and applied them broadly, in much the same way as they apply concepts of computer science like "input" and "multitasking" to human beings. This sense of cosmic anarchy, too, is demeaning and demoralizing.
What we see here are examples of how folklore, or urban legend, arises from a mish-mash of all sorts of unrelated observations. It almost seems as if science would be better left to a priesthood of trained scientists who are better at compartmentalizing all of these different ideas. Unfortunately, that would lead right back to an authoritarian hierarchy in which the priests are the law givers, and all others must take the pronouncements of science on simple faith, a la global warmingism.
The theory that Man evolved from primates has prompted many people to draw the unfortunate conclusion that humans are mere animals having no divine spark. As animals, we have no control over our pre-programmed impulses, and therefore we're not ultimately responsible for our behavior. We're at the mercy of our hormones, and must indulge every base desire that crosses our minds.
Or take the idea of "survival of the fittest," which has been used to justify brutish, self-serving behavior in every sphere of modern life, wholly contrary to the social contract and civic-mindedness that had evolved with the rise of civilization. Charles Darwin actually never said anything about survival of the fittest, nor does it necessarily follow from natural selection, which deals with adaptive genetic mutations. The two ideas became intertwined in the popular imagination later. We're all monkeys, so... monkey see, monkey do.
The current wave of pessimistic popular scientism gripping humanity is the peculiar way in which people revel in chaos and randomness, likely precipitated by modern chaos theory in physics. As with the preceding theories, the masses have taken ideas from a specific domain and applied them broadly, in much the same way as they apply concepts of computer science like "input" and "multitasking" to human beings. This sense of cosmic anarchy, too, is demeaning and demoralizing.
What we see here are examples of how folklore, or urban legend, arises from a mish-mash of all sorts of unrelated observations. It almost seems as if science would be better left to a priesthood of trained scientists who are better at compartmentalizing all of these different ideas. Unfortunately, that would lead right back to an authoritarian hierarchy in which the priests are the law givers, and all others must take the pronouncements of science on simple faith, a la global warmingism.
