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
Comments
"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."
But this next excerpt. . . hmm.
"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."
So, should you not wear your contact lenses, Dana? I know it's a small point, but it was a TYPE of science that helped develop contact lenses from glasses. If you believe what you say about Johnny, contact lenses should be thrown out the window, unless you're arguing from a point of exception, a fallacious tactic.
But forgetting my contacts/fallacy points for a moment, my contention with not helping little Johnny is this: How will helping him hurt others? In other words, let's say we stopped unnecessary scientific "progress" [research] right now, and let's say everyone went permanently raw starting today (solving, in your opinion, most problems we "need" research for), how would it hurt to use the technology/science we already have right now to help others?
You come back to say that we should not help Johnny because we don't want his poor traits to pass on if he procreates. But I must bring up your eyes again. Would adolescent-icide have been better in your case, according to your sans-science philosophy, so that you couldn't pass on your very weak eyesight? Where is the line drawn?
You know I agree with the heart of what you're saying, but there are some finer points here I am not either realistic or idealist enough to adhere to yet.
What will your first book's title be?
What can I say? Based on that assumption, if I follow my "non-application" creed, my lifestyle is seriously diminished, as is Johnny's. I would (and should, if I stick to my ideals) rely much more on others to provide me with the essentials of life, just as Zachary, in the Newsweek example, currently does. My very life conspires to diminish the validity of my position, undermining it via action over words, and yet I am not inspired to truly "live up to" the idea and commit suicide in the name of improving the species' situation. I will be honest, though, when I say that this line of thinking has, over the past several years, made me seriously consider whether I should have kids of my own. The question of genetics/diet is very important here, because I seem, otherwise, to be "on the level." My deep-seated idealism makes this question especially relevant to me.
There is so much murky, ethical water here. How would helping Johnny with what we know hurt anyone? Well, it wouldn't, immediately, but if his condition is genetic and he lives long enough to pass it on, isn't he "hurting" his offspring? It would be one thing if he was allowed to live and then prevented from having offspring, but that walks into the realm of eugenics, which we dare not begin considering. Legal power over life and death is something that I simply cannot abide by. Also, if all these negative traits continue to be passed along, what will the "worst case" human look like in 5 or 6 generations? Just take a look at 5 generations in the past: nobody was as bad off as our worst cases are now. The problems have compounded.
Luckily, we need not worry about the mind-bending ramifications of this issue. Because the technology DOES exist, it will be used, plain and simple. The old "cat's out of the bag" story holds true: anything that IS possible WILL happen. No social injunction against aiding the genetically weaker (from an evolutionary point of view) will prevent people from finding ways to help themselves or their kin if such remedies exist. If glasses were illegal you bet your ass I would try and find a pair anyway.
I will, oh secretive "Anonymous," admit philosophical defeat in this area (though I loathe to). My only defense is that I seek happiness for myself, and in doing so do necessarily also seek it for my species. The more I examine it, the more it seems to me that our species' physical and psychological health appears to be worsening, rather than improving, as modern science and medicine would have us believe. Length of life has, in my mind, zero relation to quality of life. How do we get to being the "most" happy? Where IS that line drawn that you mention? Do we abscond even the technology of fire because it has allowed humans to live in cold climates that they are physically unsuited for? I don't have answers, but I have yet to see the logical connection between science and well-being that everyone seems to rally around. I guess I'll just be a teacher and hope that this makes the reader think a bit more about that supposed connection and, if nothing else, at least hunt for their own answers in lieu of simply accepting pre-packaged ones.
Man! I'd really like to say a lot of things about the universe right now, and man's place in it, but it'd be a damned book. That first title? How about "Killing Time: How To Smile While Floating Around On A Big Rock In Space". I think it sums up some of the final answers to the big questions I like to ask...
Aack. It all begins to get complicated. The blog discussion we're sharing is a result of technology. The continuation of our friendship is due to our ability to stay in touch via electronic technology in general . . .
I know. You believe it would be a better world without everything that inspired and results from this technology, namely the pursuit of things other than complete well-being in the most non-law-ridden, natural settings. I agree. Can we reference Eustace Conway here? Is he an example that fire and SOME technology can be okay as long as there are very few people spaced very far apart? Search his name and "Daniel Boone" on YouTube.
Let's transfer our thoughts to a different plane. Wouldn't it be wonderful if so many bad physical human genetics get passed on that we have a huge die-off? This might solve a lot of problems!
And if you're going to write that smiling on the rock book, check out Carl Sagan first. Search for his famous excerpt from A Pale Blue Dot.
How DO you insert links on this damned TECHNOLOGY! Argh. I don't have the time to bother. Nor do I care to sign up for an account. So I remain Moronica-Anonymous :)
HERE I know how to do the links! :) EUSTACE (seen already I think) SAGAN
I have seen that Eustace Conway clip, and it is a good one. I like Eustace and when it comes to incorporating "science" and survival, I think you are right. He has got a good balance going on. You are also right, however, when you claim that it would take a lot fewer people around to make it work.
Regarding the die-off you mention there are a couple of things to say. First of all, a compounding of bad physical human genetics would not necessarily instigate a die-off if those people could continue to develop technologies for keeping bodies alive when they otherwise would have failed. This is at the heart of my argument that this blog entry is centered around. The potential for a misery-wracked species of cyborgs, biological, mechanical, or otherwise, does exist, keeping in mind that humanity is so disconnected from its animal state that it can no longer determine the difference between what is good or bad for it, both psychologically and physically.
Luckily, of course, this dystopia scenario will not come to pass, at least not in this "go 'round" of humanity. Keeping things very brief (you and I have discussed this before, Moronica-Anonymous), the loss of oil and other hydrocarbons as a fuel source will redefine man's capacity to operate at current population levels on the planet. At least 1/2 of the human population will disappear in the next 10 years, though more likely that number will meet or exceed 2/3. The resulting post-industrial, global state will profoundly alter human scientific capacity, until people slowly reconfigure their diminished, city infrastructures to run on nuclear power or another form of fission, which will be the only way to match the energy output that oil has offered. This process of restructuring, due to the calamity that will precipitate its fall, should take a minimum of several hundred years, though it could take much longer. In any case, humanity's ability to keep staving off evolution will be severely diminished, at least in the short run, so when I discuss this problem, I do so purely philosophically. The application of such ideas will have to rest with future generations. Hopefully when they see what has befallen their near ancestors (us), they will make more educated choices. As a student of history, though, I would wager that the same thing will just happen again. Costumes change, but the players stay the same...
And the Sagan excerpt is entirely in agreement with my thoughts, the Gaia-universe philosophy (and religion) that I like to subscribe to. Its almost as if you got to know me somewhere along the line...
Returning to Eustace, in reference to eating something pulled directly out of the ground, the interviewer asks "Should I have washed it off first?" Eustace responds "Nah, the rain washed it off last night." Speaker 1 - man; Speaker 2 - human. There is a difference, and it is a significant one. Humans are what we are, an animal species. Men are what we project ourselves our to be: in control, smarter than our surroundings, different from our surroundings. Society is filled with the latter, and is the worse for it. I like to think of science as "replacement" technology. Think of all the things we invent and utilize. Everyone of them is a replacement for something natural that we thought we could do better with. Pharmaceuticals replaced holistic remedies. Modern, petroleum-based houses replaced log cabins, log cabins having replaced palm fronds. Petroleum burning stoves replaced fires. And then there are the big ones. Agriculture replaced gathering. Domestication of animals replaced hunting. In these two, the painful equation becomes most quickly apparent. Have we altered ourselves so that we no longer need what nature provides? No. Rather, we have altered what nature provides, but we never have actually "created" anything. We merely have substituted one thing for another. Evolution took untold billions of years of cosmic development to produce our species and its requisite surroundings on earth, but in mere thousands we can do better? Our intuition should serve us better. We should know that these things are simply stand-ins for something better. The inadequacies of the substitutes are, unfortunately, often hard for us to determine until we feel their adverse effects (and even then a lot of people ignore them). The near-infinite connections we have with our environment - all present even in our attempts to separate ourselves from it - ensure that any substitute process we develop will fall short of what it is replacing, if for no other reason than we cannot possibly calculate all the ways in which it will effect our surroundings. As already noted for Mr. Conway, when done on the very small scale, the problem of technological substitution is like a scratch on Gaia's skin: it will quickly heal. Taken wholesale, though, as humanity has done (and will do), that scratch becomes a lesion, and finally an infection, and infections have two outcomes: either the body kills the infection, or the infection kills the body. In either case, the infection dies. We must remember that we are the planet, not simply on it. We are not men. We are not different. The projection of this line of thinking serves only to destroy us.
"The most significant characteristic of modern civilization is the sacrifice of the future for the present, and all the power of science has been prostituted to this purpose."
-William James
It is the epigraph to one of the chapters of The Long Emergency, a book quite worth getting your hands on. A bit short on references and footnotes, but I've read and seen enough to know, for myself, that Kunstler (the author) is preaching the word.
2. The real issue that I have is simply that things are always changing. We can't expect them not to. The modern world, with first world medicine, has erased many of those selective pressures against say, childhood heart defects. We can treat them now. I think this is a good thing. It means less pain and anguish in the world for families and the individuals effected.
I do agree that the cat is out of the bag. It's silly to sit back and say, "well, we know how our bodies work, but jeez, it'd be too weird to tweak 'em ourselves!" while people are suffering needlessly.
The biological/evolutionary utopia is a myth. World wide health doesn't have to be. Our means may be "artificial," but as you've argued quite well, what the hell does "natural" mean anymore anyway?