Stop Being Religious About Science
As a former nuclear scientist, I never really understood why the world was looking at us with so much admiration, divinely pride & a mystic fascination. The world wrongly thought scientists had answers to absolutely everything. In fact, the world made the tragic error of confusing technological advances with a deep scientific knowledge of the World itself.
COVID had to come along and set the record straight.
Now in 2020, scientists look no different than a modern-day wizard or an ointments and potions maker, the druid of the medieval times. Here’s the latest scientific advice: if you want a chance to survive: wear a 1-dollar mask.
My former scientific colleagues never pretended to know everything. We’re innovative beings, we’re problem-solvers. We understood progress, we were meticulous, rigorous, and we had high hopes. Scientists also rely on luck. There are indeed a lot of discoveries influenced by chance, to list a few:
- Pasteur’s discovery of the chicken cholera vaccine;
- Sir Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered penicillin (the most widely used antibiotic in the world) while experimenting with the influenza virus;
- Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovered the X-ray by accident;
- Sir Isaac Newton’s discovery of gravity was by chance;
- Archimedes’ principle on hydrostatics when he overflew the water upon entering in a bath. He shouted his famous “Eureka!” which became more famous and widely known than the principle on hydrostatics!
- Michelson–Morley experiment’s unexpected results ultimately led to the special theory of relativity by Albert Einstein;
- Radio-astronomy: Karl Jansky of Bell Telephone Laboratories accidentally discovered in the 1930s that radio waves were emanating from the universe;
- The British metallurgist Harry Brearley discovered stainless steel by accident in 1913;
- Wilson Greatbatch accidentally discovered the implantable cardiac pacemaker;
- The heating effect of a high-power microwave beam was accidentally discovered by Percy Spencer, this lead to the creation of the microwave oven;
- And many, many more random discoveries…
These random discoveries are part of the scientific process. You can’t actually get “random results” without actively conducting research and making an attempt at understanding the world. What people need to understand is that scientists have zero control over research outcomes (especially when it comes to research on ‘open questions’). Imagine my surprise when everyone ‘agreed’ that there will be a COVID 19 vaccine after the summer (yes in September 2020), right when we’re conveniently back from our vacations and while the kids are getting ready to resume school…How naïve and hopeless!
People wrongly place too much faith in science. Do they know that the likelihood of a scientist to succeed is close to zero? It’s the nature of the job. That’s why we’re so badly paid and we’re always begging for donations. Plus, not only a scientist needs to deal with the complexity of the job but scientists also need to deal with the reality of the world: fighting to maintain allocated budgets, fighting to secure new funding, build new processes, mitigate risks, navigate administrative latencies & regulations, get in line with political influences, economic choices, societal pressure…You could say this is a version of Hell on Earth, a Sisyphean task. That’s one of the reasons why I left science as a job and turned it into a hobby.
How did ‘Science’ gain this ‘Religious’ status?
In the early 1900s, politicians wanted more power and understood that to give power to men, they have to take power from God. A coup happened, and they killed God. God didn’t really die, but was deposited as a political leader. That created a vacuum. Politicians had to find a replacement and they came up with a sysem to mirror the Abrahamic religions. Politicians then asked people to put their faith in:
- The Constitution and the Rule of Law (replacing the Bible, Torah and the Quran);
- Communism or Capitalism (to bring the notion of ‘Paradise’ on Earth);
- Science (as the only medium to find the ‘Truth’);
Politicians also explored the option of killing the concept of ‘Faith’ itself, but realized it was impossible.
Faith is a phoenix.
As scientists became the new proxy to God, scientists gained a new status, they became our modern-day priests. And quite frankly, they did a great job! They created standards, reviews, journals, books, magazines, TV-shows, documentaries, national campaigns, conferences, awards, hierarchy, schools, marketing materials, routes for donations, public support, they became apolitical in order to maintain funding, created concepts such as ‘Intellectual Property’ and commercialized it. But above everything, they manage to grow as a community and spread across continents, language isn’t a barrier as science was codified. If you read Yuval Noah Harari, specifically when the author covers religions, political ideals and money, you realize that science also managed to 1- be institutionalized and 2- be accepted across geopolitical borders. The perfect recipe for a long-lasting religion.
The world also turned exceptional scientists such as Albert Einstein into prophets. We now have rituals, celebrations of discoveries, and we look at scientific principles as immutable, as if they were gospel.
The underlying message is simple: don’t believe in God, believe in Men.
The World’s Faith in Science strengthened
When Pythia, the Oracle of Delphi, stated “Socrates is the wisest”; Socrates answered:
“I know that I know nothing”
Scientists never really tried to educate the world about that their (non) knowledge of ‘the Truth’. Scientists didn’t actively inform people that any of their knowledge was super extra limited. Scientists always had an answer. A complicated answer so hard to understand that it came across as the ‘right’ answer. How would Scientists be wrong? Gods can’t be wrong. Plus, scientists didn’t want to deceive…they love their social status, how important they are in the world order. They adopted the ‘fake it until you make it’ attitude. Scientists have been using social media to attract funding and market that they found a promising vaccine.
In legal terms, COVID might be an Act of God and what happened next is quite interesting.
What happened is that COVID has killed Science as a Religion.
And I’m glad it did! I hope people will now realize that:
- Yes, we have been able to sequence the DNA of the virus;
- Yes, we are able to tap into billions of dollars for therapeutic research;
- Yes, we have mobilized all the best brains in the world;
- Yes, we have a full alignment and political will;
- Yes, finding a vaccine is the world’s top priority;
- Yet, the best solution we could come up with is a 1-dollar piece of cloth to wear as a mask.
If you were born in a society that had zero scientist, you would have come up with the same solution: wear a mask.
Science Then Became Powerless
In 2020, people came to realize that science is powerless. People now realize that humanity is powerless. I hope this realization will help us make the right choices and take the right decisions. We shouldn’t blindly put their faith in Science. Diversification of Sources of Faith might become a thing, again. Idolatry is around the corner.
Science is extremely important; I love science because it seeks to understand the (physical) world in order to build a better (social) world. I strongly believe that we need to support science, we need to fund science, we need to seek knowledge, but we need to stop being religious about it.
Innovation isn’t only based on science; it is mainly based on human decisions.
Trade-offs and economic incentives have guided and directed what paths science had to take. This is a human problem, not a science problem. This is a problem with men, not with religions. This is a problem with our choices, not with our political systems. This is about human behavior. We fail to understand that we’re just an organism on this planet, men can’t control what happens on it, what emerges from it. We need to accept our condition and ‘strategize’ accordingly. Strategy is also a human affair.
Science immensely contributes to Humanity’s Development BUT remember: Science is not a Religion. This is not a post against Science, this is a post against the elevation of science as a religion. My heart will always be the heart of a scientist, but I want people to look at science in the same way as they look at their cars: it can break down when you need it the most.
And paraphrasing Socrates:
Science knows that Science knows nothing.
