Soul of the Future: Culture of Hope (Part 1): Science as Salvation

“In the act of searching out the future, Home sapiens crosses the frontiers of the unknown and is transformed from the man of action, who responds in the moment, to the man of thought, who takes account of the consequences of his actions.”

 Fred Polak

The Image of the Future

  In stories about fatal threats to the future—especially movies, at least before the superhero epics—the future is most often saved not by military force or dithering politicians but by science. (Though prominent scientists often laugh at the lone scientist who predicts the danger or offers the solution.)

 So can science save the real future, particularly against the ruinous threats to civilization and planetary life as we know it, namely the climate emergency and mass extinction? 

Some recent books—including fictions—suggest that it might.  In at least three novels, Kim Stanley Robinson suggests various technologies that can be applied to specific elements of the climate crisis, most recently including a formerly feared favorite of “geo-engineering” technological fixes, the artificial cooling of the atmosphere by injecting particles to mimic the effects of the dust layer created by a giant volcano.  (It’s a technique that one of those earlier novels seemed to dismiss as causing devastating unintended consequences.)

 But KSR and others do not claim that technological fixes alone can possibly prevent global heating or its consequences far into the future. Such efforts could possibly help, temporarily, and may be necessary, but there must also be fundamental economic, political and cultural change, because otherwise the job won’t get done.  It’s just too big, and complicated.

 Many people automatically turn toward science and technology for last-minute solutions.  Many of the measures to address the climate emergency proposed so far involve technologies, especially clean energy systems, but also carbon capture and various other schemes.  Other proposals include or assume the participation of science, such as robust public health systems and medical treatment for heat-related conditions.

 But at least in the United States there does not appear to be a consensus, or even the extent of agreement that existed within western societies a generation or two ago, that science is the answer, or even that science has proved there is a question.

  Globally but especially in America, attitudes towards science are dangerously stratified.  One side rejects the scientific consensus that identifies the climate emergency, accusing the scientific establishment of systematic lying for institutional and personal gain, for a political agenda, and for even more sinister motives.  On climate as well as the Covid-19 global pandemic, alternative explanations and conspiracies are vociferously asserted.  But it all is clearly part of a larger, deeply adversarial group position that is most often expressed as political.

 This position is identified as anti-science, and so the other side digs in to defend “science” against all criticism.  “Trust the science” has become an adversarial mantra and motto.

 But not all science—or the products of science-- can be trusted, as history shows. Yet those not wishing to find themselves allied with creationists and anti-vaxxers cannot criticize “the science” even when conclusions, procedures or even institutions warrant such criticism, or at least scrutiny.

 Does “science” even exist as much more than a polite fiction?  There is a scientific method, there are ideals of how science should be conducted, and there are scientists and institutions that sponsor, conduct and regulate the work of scientists.  But as shorthand, “science” can be deceptive and unproductive.

 Indeed there are images of “science” in the public mind, with a complex of emotions attached, from awe and admiration to suspicion and fear.  Often these two contrary reactions are held simultaneously in some proportion or other, as expressed in science fiction movies of the 1950s discussed earlier in this series.  Science unlocked the unearthly power of the atom, and science was often called upon to protect humanity from its monstrous consequences.  In this way, science takes on the ambiguous and mysterious power of gods.

 The nature of science is even obscured by the heroic stories that illustrate its ideals. We have this image of the scientific thinker dreaming up theories or following their curiosity in lab experiments, and coming up with an immense general discovery. Then after it is finally if tentatively accepted, others busy themselves applying this discovery to practical ends—to processes and products that have an important and usually lucrative function in the society of the day.

 Sometimes this is more or less true.  But the story obscures a larger point: much if not most science, even the most theoretical, is supported and undertaken with some practical end in mind.  Science is not about discovering how the universe works; it is about discovering how the universe works in order to achieve human ends.  Science is about learning things primarily in order to do things.

 These ends historically have mostly been military advantage or economic gain, though ultimately, it’s been both together.  The laws of physics were investigated on the payroll of rulers interested in the effectiveness of weapons: in how to make their archers more efficient, or where to place their guns or deploy their forces, or build better defenses. Other discoveries were paid for so that one seafaring nation could gain an advantage in global trade by navigating better, or building faster and bigger ships.  And so on.

 The industrial revolution saw an immense increase in the number of people employed in science and engineering, because industry needed them—to mine ores better, refine them better, to build better machines and manufacturing processes.  English industry encouraged the government to expand educational opportunities (including the new university that H.G. Wells attended) and extend them to the lower classes to find the scientific diamonds in the rough, and to provide a scientifically literate layer of technicians.  It wasn’t until then that the word “scientist” even existed, and it was coined to describe these technicians.  Since then, the connection between science and consumer products has not only been obvious--it's proudly shouted in their advertising.

 The point is that science was always oriented towards what it could enable people to do, and that was usually to expand economic activity through machinery and processes, while fixing people up (always the rich at first) when they broke.  This was the triumph of science, and one of its weaknesses, for knowledge that didn’t fit into the science of making things go just got ignored.

 Despite the imagery, science was practical. Chemistry was clearly practical. There was some patience for science that wasn’t obviously going to pay off right away, but might eventually pay off big.  Geology was a bit that way, though its relationship to mining was there from the beginning of it as a science.  Biology was more that way perhaps. The scientific knowledge that could improve weather forecasting had obvious benefits, especially to seafaring nations, for instance.  But there was leeway, because highly useful knowledge sometimes came from unlikely inquiries.

 So some scientists—not many, not particularly well funded, and not generally listened to-- managed to study the Earth’s atmosphere and how chemicals released into the air could affect it.  Eventually they would be among the first to give science a new practical function: to save civilization from destroying itself and the stability of the living Earth. 

 Unfortunately, this crossed purposes with most science: the expansion of human manipulation of the environment, and the unfettered exploitation of the Earth’s resources.  That's primarily what they were paid to do, and by extension, paid to think about.  It was the way they were institutionally biased to look at the world. 

 Not surprisingly, scientific findings that don’t support the interests of those who pay the scientists did often get suppressed, ignored or changed.  Some scientists skewed findings to support their employers’ interests.

 This does not negate all scientific findings. The main scientific findings on climate are so thoroughly proven in so many ways by so many scientists over so many years that they are as solid as science gets.  But it’s all more complicated than “believe the science.” 

 Knowledge or observations got ignored also because, in order to make things go, even in very complex machines and processes, the science had to be pretty simple.  Of course, starting from scratch, the progress was prodigious.  Still, for most of human history scientists learned how to do very basic stuff, including how to treat the ailments of the body that responded to gross mechanical interventions.  

 This kind of science is pretty straightforward on how to address the climate emergency.  Attack the causes of global warming by stopping greenhouse gases from polluting the atmosphere.  Build non-greenhouse gases polluting systems to meet energy requirements. Address the ongoing effects of global heating and the climate emergency. 

 There are known technologies and systems to do all of this, though new technologies can make these efforts more widespread and efficient.  Some of these technologies may employ biological and chemical as well as grossly mechanical means.  Some may be ingenuous and subtle.  They may be large projects on massive scales, or very many small projects.

 But there are now other components to science just beginning to become useful.  The 20^th century brought us relativity, quantum physics and chaos theory. Part of what makes them different is that they are all more or less incomprehensible, even to experts, but scientists have figured out some uses based on them, because the math works. Nobody really understands quantum physics, but quantum mechanics is usefully worked out, and today’s computers would be impossible without it.  There is the hope of new science as well as new technologies.

 Involved in practically all efforts to address the climate emergency is the relatively new and rapidly evolving science of ecology, and related insights into systems behavior and complexity.  While not itself a science, the concern for the future that is wedded with evolutionary and ecological insights is an essential underpinning, as well as ancient wisdom that was a mixture of insight and observation, such as the Great Law of the Haudenosaunee: “In every deliberation we must consider the impact on the seventh generation to come.”

 Arguably, ecological insights have already changed science, from concentrating on doing things to include examining the possible consequences of doing those things.

  But it is society that must engage these efforts to address the climate emergency, which involve politics and economics, and ultimately culture.  So far, movement towards action has not been fast enough or large enough to prevent the first devastation of the climate emergency, which will likely grow and cascade for some decades to come. 

Some of those who don’t believe humanity will meet this challenge—and there are many—suggest only a fundamental change in humanity itself will make the difference.  Such a possibility has been the theme of science fiction.  For example, a sudden evolutionary change, a genetic mutation either created by aliens or naturally, appears in the work of Arthur C. Clarke, Greg Bear and Doris Lessing, among others.

 Still other stories involve deliberate genetic manipulation, from major enhancements or changes to more subtle effects on thinking and behavior, as in everfree, the concluding novel of Nick Sagan’s apocalyptic/utopian trilogy. Most recently, such changes are the result of neurofeedback therapy in Richard Powers’ near-future novel Bewilderment.

 Among others who believe humanity is not yet capable of dealing with environmental crises and their cascading global effects, there are those who turn to science and technology for salvation according to their particular hopes and fears.  Some see humans transplanting to other planets as the only hope for the future.  Some see a humanity weakened by crisis becoming subsumed by the artificial intelligence beings it has created. And some hold both views.

 Science fiction stories and other forms of imagining alternative futures have presented intriguing possibilities and fostered many insights into the present and the past as well as the future, but care must be taken that they are not seized upon as literal predictions or even possibilities.  

There’s a rich tradition of stories about robots and artificial intelligence, as well as humans living on other planets.  But although they represent fruitful story premises, science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson argues that neither is a real possibility for our future. In his view, science doesn’t support the likelihood of artificial intelligence beings surpassing humans in the foreseeable future, though science does suggest that humans cannot survive for long on other planets without at least periodic contact with the biology of the Earth.  “There is no Planet B.”

 The climate crisis has been shaping up for some time to be the ultimate challenge of humanity’s ability to take the next evolutionary step in consciousness by marshaling forces to ascertain and confront a crisis of an unprecedented kind not yet obviously occurring in front of our eyes.  The evidence now in front of our eyes is that it hasn’t met this challenge, and if our civilization hasn’t run out of time already, it probably will soon.

 We may yet turn more urgently to science for our salvation, and it may help, but it alone won’t save the future.  It is a tool, and still a fairly blunt one.  It allows us to do some things well.  But even when it works as well and as ethically as it ideally can, it is still too simple-minded to match reality.  We need other resources, even to know how to use science well.  We need to be better people, perhaps starting with greater humility. 

I had some correspondence with Nick Sagan after he’d published everfree.  I questioned whether genetic intervention was necessary for people to change.  He said he’d had the same discussion with his father, Carl Sagan.  Nick’s view of human nature was that humans  couldn’t (or wouldn't) change on their own, but his father argued they could. 

 Many social visionaries have called for or predicted a relatively sudden change of consciousness, or what Star Trek’s Captain Picard called an “evolved sensibility,” without sudden biological change or the intervention of genetic or other technologies.  It’s been called the Great Turn or the Great Turning and so on. 

 Is it possible?  Those of us who remember the omnipresent ashtrays of the 1950s know that deeply entrenched cultural phenomena can change relatively quickly.  The scale of necessary change is indeed daunting, but as Ursula K. Le Guin suggested, “ We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable—but then, so did the divine right of kings.”  

There is change in the world now—in awareness, political will, as well as in science and technologies—though it all does not seem to be enough. Chaos theory however suggests that small changes can eventually induce large ones, beyond our ability to predict.  The principle is simple enough, when we consider that seed money in the present can turn out to have vast consequences for the world of the future.  But we must return to one of our basic definitions of the future: it is what hasn’t happened yet.

 Yet there are aspects of the future we can be pretty sure of.  And while many possibilities exist, hope in the future doesn’t depend on any of them.  It does not even depend on believing in any of them. More on that  in the next—and last—post in this series.