The Sins Of Science

There are good and bad sides to scientific advancement, but the core of scientific thought, or, at least, the application of it, appears to be harmful to humanity. A bold statement, to be certain, and I will not here defend it as properly as it deserves to be. It is an opinion I often engage with due to the manner in which I see scientific "advancement" (itself a dubious suggestion) put to use. Science, in general, seems to adhere to the notion that the human body is inherently flawed, a faulty organism, that requires as much intervention as possible to prevent it from failing utterly. The truth of the matter is that the stellar, strong, and robust human machine is a marvel, a marvel that we break ourselves.





If you have ever spoken to me at length, then you know, as well as I, that cooked food is the destroyer not only of individuals, but of our very lineage, causing a string of increasingly unmanageable deficiencies, each built on the previous ones, stretching back into our most ancient ancestors. Francis Pottenger, Jr., a physician who operated in the mid 1900's, ran interesting experiments on cats that help to support this conclusion. His study, often termed "Pottenger's Cats," fed several different groups of cats diets that were similar, but ranged from entirely raw in production to entirely cooked, with "halfsie" cooked/raw diets in between. There were five groups in all, and only the first was given an entirely raw diet. This group maintained optimal health throughout the experiment, generation to generation, with no apparent degradation of physical form or figure in its offspring. Wikipedia's synopsis details the results for the four other groups:





* By the end of the first generation the cats started to develop degenerative diseases and became quite lazy.


* By the end of the second generation, the cats had developed degenerative diseases by mid-life and started losing their coordination.


* By the end of the third generation the cats had developed degenerative diseases very early in life and some were born blind and weak and had a much shorter life span. Many of the third generation cats couldn't even produce offspring. There was an abundance of parasites and vermin while skin diseases and allergies increased from an incidence of five percent in normal cats to over 90 percent in the third generation of deficient cats. Kittens of the third generation did not survive six months. Bones became soft and pliable and the cats suffered from adverse personality changes. Males became docile while females became more aggressive.


* The cats suffered from most of the degenerative diseases encountered in human medicine and died out totally by the fourth generation.





There is healthy skepticism over these results, mostly stemming from the poor substitute that cats are for the human body: they are essentially carnivores; humans are omnivorous. Is it not, however, startling that the symptoms each of the four, "cooked" generations endured seem to mirror those that have occurred in the progressively degenerative human generations that have lived since WWII and the popular advent of processed and packaged foods?





Cooking food is the original human sin, for which the race, as a whole, has yet to find forgiveness. In fact, we have sinned all the more intensely in recent years thanks to scientific developments. Where our ancestors, two hundred years ago, merely cooked what earth gave them, now we cook what we make ourselves, this poisonous blend of chemicals and preservatives that comprises our processed food diet, free of virtually any molecular resemblance to the foods grown on the planet. The end result of this wrong turn has been to turn us into biological cyborgs, dependent on false hearts, fertility drugs, wonder cures, and a malevolent pharmaceutical industry.











We no longer believe we can trust our nature, for, certainly, we cannot. It is twisted and perverted from what it once was, leaving us bereft of the knowledge of proper dietary and social customs that come so readily to the myriad other species that eat, untouched and unmodified, the bounty provided by their evolutionary niche. We look to science to replace "god," by which (and not "whom") I mean the infinitely complex, organic, gaia mechanism that we exist in. Science teaches us, however, that we live on it. Such is the root failure of science to understand its role. In order to preserve our species, and hopefully even reverse its maladjusted genetic course, science must find a way to relegate itself to mere investigation. Science must begin the process of unapplying itself. It should act as a chart by which we can better understand the minute interactions of the molecular world around us, but it must learn to fall short of trying to alter that world.





I already hear the counterargument: what about Johnny, born with a genetic defect that will kill him! Do we abandon him to his fate? We surely must use what we know to save him, right? You may call me callous, if you wish, but the answer is no. Johnny must be allowed to live out his genetic role, and if that is to die due to the deficiencies with which he was born, then that is all there is for him. Presume that Johnny's fate is thus because we have, like Pottinger's cats, ended up deforming our own lineage so powerfully that we can no longer produce viable offspring. Is it not evolution's voice crying out, begging us with its only veto, to stop this madness? On the other hand, if we had never cooked a single grain of wheat and still Johnny's fate appeared this way, wouldn't it equally be evolution making a statement, declaring that it had made a mistake with this, particular genetic mutation? And yet we fight nature and evolution for mastery, digging deeper our misery, for without health there can be no happiness, and if nothing else has been true of the past several hundred years of human history, it is that living longer does not necessarily mean living better.





"A month shy of his 4th birthday, [Zachary Townsley] was diagnosed with Hunter syndrome, a metabolic disorder that affects only 500 Americans. In October 2006 he began taking Elaprase, a newly approved orphan drug that was - and still is - the only treatment on the market. It is not a cure, but some of his symptoms have improved, and it is far better than the recommendation doctors originally gave Janine Townsley: 'Love him, take good care of him, pray and go home.'" ("The Genetic Detectives", Mary Carmichael, Newsweek, June 9, 2008)





In a nutshell, this passage displays the truth about the general, scientific mindset. Drugs and other scientific cures are "far better" than loving and taking care of one's child. Can love cure a genetic illness? No. I am no ignorant, entranced earth-lover, flashing a peace sign in lieu of analyzing and understanding the world about me. What I do understand, however, is that allowing genetic deficiencies, most especially those that kill the bearer, to survive and potentially reproduce themselves is abhorrent to the pure evolutionary process, thus it is abhorrent to god. Such acts are the equivalent of Lucifer sitting in God's throne, only to be cast out of heavenly paradise for his desire to rule in God's stead. Is it any surprise that Adam and Eve are cast out of Eden for acquiring knowledge? Have we not accomplished the same thing, learning how to grow and cook (see definitions 3 and 4) food rather than picking it from the trees of Gaia's gardens, where it grows freely and of its own accord? It is far better to love and care for each other with the primitive knowledge that has always been beneath the surface of our modern costumes, casting aside the application of all sciences that help only to pervert the evolutionary process that, as our creator, must be revered as our god. One need not attend church to know that gods, of any faith, punish those who flaunt their commandments.








Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?





-T. S. Eliot

I Knew You Were Going To Read This

The universe is predetermined. An explanation: all things contained in the universe are consequentially linked. That is to say that all things interact with all other things based on the sum total of their previous interactions. I kick a ball, thus it leaves its current position and attains a new one, from which another person kicks it, a second kick that could not have occurred had I not sent the ball there in the first place. So, my decision to kick the ball, my "free will," has influenced its future? Yes, and no. Yes, I have influenced its future, but not by anything but an illusion of free will.

I must ask, what interactions in my day, in the previous minutes, or even in the previous seconds, have influenced my decision to kick the ball? The truth is that I could not have done anything BUT have kicked the ball at that moment. Upon deeper investigation it should be realized that none of my actions are free. All of them operate based on the influences of previous interactions between myself and the universe I exist in. Compounded, one must realize that only the initial action of the universe, the seminal energy transfer (that signaled the creation of what we can comprehend), was even potentially free, though in all likelihood it too had an influence that was based on previous interactions from a pre-universe state that is beyond my limited comprehension. The truth of the matter is that all events, and thus all decisions, are consequential, and are, therefore, predictable. They are pre-determined.

To be able to actually predict the future, though, to analyze the seemingly infinite complexity of the universe's atomic, molecular interactions with itself, is a task beyond the computational ability of a computer, even one exponentially thousands of times more complex than anything we have developed. Our own computers, our brains, are equally incapable of making such hyper-complex calculations. Thus, to us, the universe appears to contain free will. Animals, creatures, and humans appear to make decisions based on a sentient relationship with the universe in which a possibly "random" choice can play out. This, however, is mere illusion. Whether or not we can comprehend the web of influence that plays out about us has no relevance on its existence. Our actions are determined by all that has happened before us, and since all of those things are, by their consequential nature, "out of our hands," so is any actual capacity for decision making and free will.

Here things get interesting, though. Given the opportunity to fully embrace this truth, where are we led? Nihilism and misery are the final, emotional products of this realization, for without power, our lives cease to have meaning. We become mere amoebae, floating aimlessly in the universal ether. This, of course, is the truth, but it does us no good to play out our lives in its shadow. Rather, we should look at the universe, and our position in it, as one that is susceptible to alteration based on sentient decisions we make. In fact, our brain is hardwired to believe this is the only way in which the universe functions. This is not without reason. It is what makes complex organisms successful. They have an understanding that their choices change their position in the world, thus they take the time to do things, making "choices" that appear to suit them, such as finding something to eat, or making a bed to sleep in. The belief that there is free will is both necessary and pleasurable, for doubtless we enjoy making decisions that appear to be free of the influence of forces around us, even when nothing could be further from the truth of the matter. Thus is it by our very nature that, in order to live fulfilled and happy lives, we must live an illusion. As Edgar Allan Poe would say, "All that we see or seem / Is but a dream within a dream." A fitting metaphor. So we choose to choose, or pretend to choose, turning what we seem into what we see, blissfully and necessarily, forgetting the great difference between the two.

There are those who think that life
Has nothing left to chance,
A host of holy horrors
To direct our aimless dance.

A planet of playthings,
We dance on the strings
Of powers we cannot perceive.

"The stars aren't aligned -
Or the gods are malign"
Blame is better to give than receive.

You can choose a ready guide
In some celestial voice.
If you choose not to decide
You still have made a choice.

You can choose from phantom fears
And kindness that can kill;
I will choose a path that's clear -
I will choose free will.

-Neil Peart, “Freewill” (listen)