In Defense of Science

The last part is a draft/work in progress. I already have a different understanding of the thesis. This post essentially has 3 sections which may be better as stand alone pieces, yet they all pertain to the themes of science and of integration of life. Feedback welcome.

I read just now the first phrase of a long thesis sentence which begins, "Science dictates materialism . . ."

Science does not dictate materialism, only an understanding of objectivity and the limits of objectivity. It refers to process of knowing . . . It is a continuous evolution of theory as we compare what we conceive of to what actually is . . . a collective process of perpetually breaking through the edges of the known, reaching into the unknown; of taking a step forward and at once resting firmly on the body of evidence and understanding that came before. Without mystery there cannot be science. Without imagination we cannot conceive of the unknown and weave it into the unknown. There can be no science without imagination. Without mystery and imagination, science is dead, for mystery is its soul and imagination its brain, purpose its heart, and facts--countless facts forever being created and destroyed--are as so many individual cells of its body that live just a short time before being shed, for they are too static to live long. The pursuit of Truth and Reality is dynamic and imaginative, Science itself an ever-evolving and multifaceted lens--so many faces, so many limbs, so many senses, so much data, so much interpretation, so many models . . . it is fractal, eternal, forever giving birth to itself.

So why isn't it taught this way? Is it not the art of asking questions? Is it not a wholly intuitive process? Is it not an exercise of excruciatingly detailed honesty which requires the scientist to acknowledge every variable of which she is aware, to acknowledge the limitations of her own knowledge which impel her to pursue this new mystery, to explain in detail the methodologies employed, to present the raw data for the interpretation of others, and only lastly to tie this back to the greater body of knowledge through interpretation, such that it may serve as a cantilever bridge leading the way further into the vacuous unknown?

A few months ago I heard marine biologist Dr. Earl speak at an American Association for Sustainability in Higher Education conference. She was able to (a) come from a perspective of embodied reason (b) connect with and engage the audience from embodied reason (c) demonstrate systems thinking; and through that (d) make clear to the audience the personal relevance of oceans and (d) the significance of the individual and of oceans for global sustainability. She demonstrated (a/b) the naturalness and aesthetic value of science--the curiosity and sense of awe that led her to be a scientist and explorer; (c) drew upon scientific knowledge to demonstrate the systemic nature of sustainability, thereby indicating the systems thinking is within the realm of science, (d) connected science to the social/moral and political/economic. Thus Dr. Earl has provided a complete integration of Ackoff's 4 area of life model, and at once disproven by counter example the possibility that systems thinking is foreign to or in conflict with scientific or analytic thought.

Dr. Earl began by asking the audience questions: Where were we five years ago? Where do we see ourselves in 10 years? She said people asked her, "How did you get to be an explorer? How did you get to be a scientist?" Her explanation was simple: "Well, you're just a little kid--you ask questions. Scientists just never stop asking questions, they never grow up." I paused in my note taking for a while, spellbound as her voice filled the room with images of sea life as she managed by some magic to stir within us that sense of wonder we had for Nature in some form at some time. I was in awe as much she was--and it didn't matter about what, for to have that sense of wonder alive within you is to be awake to how marvelous--how worth marveling at--everything is: the whole story of the universe, the very fact of existence, to be observed by a fish, or sit 30 feet up in the branches of a pine tree, or see birds hopping sideways and upside-down nonchalantly on tree branches.

"We are connected," Dr. Earl continued, "Even if you've never seen the ocean. The ocean keeps all of us alive. . . . We have the power to change the nature of nature--how the world works. The ocean governs the way the world works, provides oxygen. With every breath you are connected to the sea."

"This planet is a miracle--the fact it exists at all, the fact we exist at all."

"Every spoonful of [ocean] water is filled with life."

Dr. Tucker, looked petite behind the podium far away at the front of the room, dressed so tidily and elegantly in her dress-suit as though she were a first lady. She embodied dignity, an ambassador of the sea, and something more. She was introduced, along with prestigious honors, as being a grandmother. She introduced herself as a child. Her voice--a perfect storybook voice, one of my classmates described it--filled the room, her descriptions assisted by photographs of sea life displayed on huge screens in the dimly lit banquet hall. We were at once brought into ourselves--our emotions, our egos, our intellects--and to the world of the sea, that other world that gave us oxygen, food, climate; that world which we knew so little about; that world so rapidly being destroyed through the actions of human beings.

"We need to make peace with planet earth. Right now we are waging war. There are limits to what we can do. . . . We must realize we need to take care of nature because after all, nature takes care of us. The ocean still has some places--referred to as sea of Eden. Most of the ocean is paradise lost. We have consumed 90% of big fish in the sea. The good news is 10% are still there. 50% of coral reefs are gone; good news: still 50%. . . ."

"Biodiversity is not a common word in discussion, but it should be--because we need those starfish and [she listed many species] to live."

"Only 5% of oceans have been seen. So little is known or figured out about how the machine of earth works. Micros rule--they were there long before multicellular life, and still dominate. Microbes--1,000 variations on theme, 1,000 species in one spoonful of ocean water. Another mile away, 1,000 mostly different species in a spoonful. The ocean is not just rocks and water. The ocean is alive. . . ."

In addition to microbes, larva, and eggs, Dr. Tucker was familiar with fish in the same sort of way I, and perhaps you, are familiar with strangers in the dining hall. Perhaps more familiar. "I find myself regarding fish as individuals," she explained, showing a close-up of an fish who seemed to be interested in the camera, for it looked directly at us from the screen. "They look different, behave different--every individual fish."

She explained how the fish adapted over so long without technology, how they were unable to adapt as quickly as our fishing technology, with our increasing populations and increasing global seafood appetite. "Is there such a think as sustainable commercial fishing?" she asked. "We need sharks to have a healthy ocean," and those of us who had never eaten shark were glad, and I thought of the baskets of shark fins I had seen in San Francisco's China town market a few summers back. "Tuna need to be restored," she went on, citing decline of 90% from a date I failed to take note of to 1990. I was surprised--surely tuna fish sandwiches wouldn't be so popular if people knew. Tuna, the "chicken of the sea?"

Dr. Earl proceeded to speak of other species that might soon be gone if we could not leave them alone."In all of their fishy history, there was no contact with humans until new technology."

Yet interspersed--or rather containing this grim news was an appreciation for the the oceans and all life therein, for the mysterious 95% that remains unexplored and unknown. She described deep see diving as being "like diving into a galaxy with little pinpricks of light from bioluminescence." The fish there "have eyes that can see where there is so little light--there is no sun 10,000 feet below the surface."

She went on to describe how orange ruffi are caught during mating, how some of these fish are two centuries old, how 20 foot coral reefs have been knocked down in order to capture them.

Yet alongside these descriptions of destruction, Dr. Earl's conclusion was one of optimism grounded in realism. "We have the capacity to have a different attitude. Our ancestors were hunters and gatherers with fewer choices, and their were fewer of us. Now, we can't take song birds, not mammals, not fish--not 80 year old whales, not 200 year old orange ruffis. I come from the pre-plastic-zoic," she joked. "I know we can live without plastic. I love plastic--in my shoes, my computer, my plastic bags. It's not plastic that's the problem, it's what we do with it. . . .

"We must make peace with nature. . . . We now know what we didn't know when I was a child--the everything's interconnected. Sands from Africa blow to Colorado. . . ."

She continued to speak, returning to the problems, and said at last, "It doesn't have to be that way--we can change. It's over time. I tell kids who are depressed, 'It's the most important time to be alive.' We've leveled forests and contaminated water, but it's not too late. Some remains and can recover if given time. We can measure what we're doing."

"So why should you care? Do you like to breathe? Do you like water to fall from the sky?"

"There are still polar bears on the planet and I think its our job to keep them here. There's still ice.

"Nature is resilient: if you take us out of the equation and leave our trash, nature will recover. But the problem is if we keep trashing. The good news is that we have understanding. Other creatures--turtles--know that things have changed but they don't know why and they don't know how to change it. But we do. Nature will keep going. Microbes rule. I prefer a scenario where we can continue." Her 4 grandsons, she said are a "powerful motivation to me."

"Deadzones are increasing," she noted, and listed behavior, caring, ethic, and positive actions as key to combating that. "About 1% of the ocean is protected. We have to protect the air, land, water, forests, critters as though our lives depend on it--because they do."

I hope from these notes that you have a sense of Dr. Earl's efficacy in integrating the scientific (pursuit of truth); political-economic (pursuit of power and plenty); ethical-moral (pursuit of goodness and virtue); and the aesthetic (pursuit of beauty.) (Ackoff, p. 14, 1978) What are the emergent properties generated by thorough integration of these areas? Ackoff's five "essential properties" of "good management:" competence, communicativeness, concern, courage, and creativity.

Merging the lenses of truth, power/plenty, goodness/virtue, and beauty provides a basis for competent action--action that brings fulfillment to all areas of life, extending beyond the individual to the community. Competence arises from having a clear and complete vision, a vision that takes into account its own limitations, noting the unknowns as well as the known. It is useful to make a diagram which illustrates the boundaries of the system being considered. For example, one could use a model of two concentric circles. The inner circle could contain "key stakeholders and elements," the larger circle "other stakeholders and elements," the boundary of the outer circle representing the "system boundary," and lastly outside the circle representing "excluded stakeholders and elements." It is essential to note where the boundaries are and what is excluded, for systems are complex and often nested, such that any system may be considered as a subsystem or mega-system, and so boundaries are "fuzzy," conceptually useful if one has a clear purpose and otherwise misleading--fictitious. (Christine Kelly, 2011) Boundaries are in the mind of the beholder. Thus a clear purpose and clear perspective is the basis of competence.

Communicativeness, to be effective, must be in all streams--appealing to truth, beauty, individual and material well being, goodness and right relationships--collective well-being. To communicate in a way that acknowledges each of these is to at once inform, inspire, and motivate. In terms of Shadow work archetypes, it appeals to warrior (truth,) lover (beauty,) magician (goodness and right relationships) and sovereign (embodied or holistic joy, individual and material well-being.) Or I could draw other parallels, stating that the magician pursues truth, the lover pursues the aesthetic, the warrior power and plenty, and so on . . . though it seems more likely these correspond to archetypal combinations: Warrior-magician to pursuit of truth (science) lover-magician to the pursuit of beauty, warrior-sovereign to the pursuit of goodness and virtue, and warrior-sovereign to the pursuit of power and plenty. To list these is to generate alternate options. Perhaps truthfully it is most useful to keep the models separate, but to underline the importance of appealing, engaging, and empowering the individual as a whole. The new micro-thesis, then, is for communication to be effective it must appeal to, engage, and empower the four fundamental archetypal aspects of an individual's personality, and in doing so it will active the simultaneous pursuit of truth, beauty, power and plenty, and goodness and virtue. This inspired action will be of greatest fulfillment to the individual and evolution of holons within which the individual resides towards greater fulfillment. If one of these pursuits is lost, then quality of life will decline. To communicate effectively is to express the fruits of these pursuits--to be truthful and clear, to express beauty and to make the expression itself beautiful, to be virtuous in and nourishing or good in and of itself, to participate in the sharing plentitude of understanding and power of knowledge; and to be a means of influence (power) towards an ends of plenty, virtue, goodness, greater truth, and greater beauty. Hence communication must be a ends and a means simultaneously--must have intrinsic as well as instrumental value.