MODERN TIMES
by Art Hobson
ahobson@uark.edu
NWA Times 2 April 2005
SCIENCE AND SOCIETY: WE'RE NOT PAYING OUR DUES
Humankind is not
adjusting well to the scientific age.
The problem is that we are only too happy to accept the fruits of
science, but unwilling to accept the accompanying responsibilities.
The Terri Schiavo saga
illustrates the problem. We are
eager to accept life-extending technology, but reluctant to accept the accompanying
responsibility to limit that technology when it's doing more harm than good.
Most of us would probably prefer not to be kept alive in a zombie-like
state for years when there is essentially no hope of recovery, yet the political
charade surrounding Terri Schiavo illustrates that society has a difficult
time allowing people to die when it makes no sense to live.
Some argue that society should not have played God by allowing Schiavo's
feeding tube to be removed, but society decided long ago to play God by developing
the technology that extends human life. We cannot have it both ways: If we use medical technology to keep people alive, we must
make the hard decision to allow people to die when that technology becomes
counterproductive.
Examples of similar
science-and-society problems are legion.
Earth is overpopulated because we welcome the fruits of agricultural and
medical technology without accepting the responsibility to limit births. The automobile destroys our
environment, our cities, and our lives because we love its mobility so much
that we will not accept reasonable limits on its use. In one of the planet's greatest challenges, we guzzle fossil
fuels without attending to the global warming that comes with them.
Modern technology is
miraculous, but its side effects are deadly. I'm convinced that we can all live like kings and queens if
we can learn to use technology wisely.
Yet much of the planet remains poor, miserable, and uneducated.
The problem is
partly embedded in our genes.
Billions of years of biological evolution, capped by some 6 million
years of specifically human evolution since we parted ways with our closest
cousins, the chimpanzees, have not prepared us well for modern technology. Consider, for example, overpopulation. The universal biological urge,
instilled in our genes by eons of evolution, is to procreate. But with the rise of agriculture some
ten thousand years ago, and of modern medicine during the past few centuries,
human numbers skyrocketed and our urge to procreate became counterproductive. Scientists estimate that Earth can sustain
a human population of about four billion living at the consumption level of
Mediterranean nations such as Italy, or two billion living at the USA's
consumption level. Yet our
population is over six billion and still climbing, because we have not accepted
family planning as a moral responsibility.
Overly
individualistic ideologies often lead to harmful uses of technology. The automobile is a good example. It has given many of us unparalleled
freedom of movement, but that freedom is now destroying our cities and our
environment. It's a freedom that
didn't even exist until about a century ago. Yet people get incensed at suggestions that even a small
part of that freedom be sacrificed for the greater good by, say, raising the
driving age, or increasing the gasoline mileage standards. We accept the technology, but reject
the responsibility.
Cultural habits,
especially as expressed through many of the world's religions, often stand in
the way of rational decision-making about science and technology. Science is certainly compatible with
humane and liberal religious values, including a belief in God, but it is not
compatible with fundamentalist beliefs such as the so-called "literal
truth" of particular religious texts. Thus fundamentalists around the world tend to oppose the
changes needed to overcome, for example, overpopulation: family planning, sex education, and the
education and economic freedom of women.
We stand with one
foot in modernity and the other in medieval superstitions, a contradiction that
cannot endure. If allowed to
continue for many more decades, such consequences as resource shortages, failed
nations, terrorism, and environmental collapse will put both our feet back into
the middle ages.
But don't despair,
for our predicament is eminently solvable. The solution is to use the part of our anatomy that has
gotten us this far: our
brains.
Education
is the place to start. As Doctor
Frankenstein discovered, it's dangerous to use powerful technology without
understanding its possible consequences.
We are not paying our dues for the modern age. Paying our dues means, primarily, learning more than we are
learning today. Education must be
more rigorous and universal, must spend far more time on science, and must
emphasize critical rational thinking.
Unfortunately, superstition continues to inhibit science education as
fundamentalists seek to replace or "supplement" the fundamental
principle of biology, namely biological evolution, with creationism. This is exactly like supplementing the
notion that our planet is spherical with the notion that it's flat. There is no debate among scientists
about this issue, yet fundamentalists continue their noisy public spectacle. Until we can rid ourselves of such
distractions, we won't get the educational system we need.
Scientists
themselves have been leading shirkers of responsibility for the humane use of
science. It's up to scientists to
spend the time and energy required to help educate teachers, students,
politicians, reporters and others.
But we scientists have spent nearly all of our time doing
narrowly-focused research, earning prestige and profits but spending little
time with even the undergraduates on our own campuses, much less concerning
ourselves with the broader society.
The most important
part of the solution is not difficult, and in fact it's a lot of fun. It's called education. But we'd better get busy.