Worship of Science

Since the onset of the Plague, Tablet magazine has been running a series of articles by Norman Doidge, a Canadian brain researcher and psychoanalyst. That series constitutes an extended meditation on the contemporary worship of Science and the failure to properly understand its limits. Doidge writes with vast erudition, intelligence, and that rarest of all qualities — wisdom.

In “Mad Science, Sane Science,” Doidge contrasts the ancients’ view of science, which centered on the contemplation of the order of the cosmos and man’s place within, to that of Francis Bacon (1561-1626), the first great modern philosopher of science. For Bacon, nature was no longer to be contemplated, but rather conquered or harnessed. Military metaphors abound in his writing.

Without denying the marvels of modern science, Doidge points to some of the baleful consequences of the language of conquest. In medicine, for instance, the military metaphor leads to a preference for high-tech treatments as somehow more serious than less invasive ones. Modern science, writes Doidge, has a preference for bold action without considering the complex systems in which they take place.

Thus, for instance, we have overused powerful antibiotics, to the point that many diseases that we could treat 50 years ago cannot now be treated because of bacteria resistance. In an ever-escalating war with fast-mutating bacteria, we will always find ourselves one step behind.