Believing is a natural human trait. Science is not. We are taught to believe from the very beginning of communication with our parents, siblings, and peers. While we may rebel against our parents during the hormonal surge of puberty, we retain much of the beliefs that were learned early almost before we start to perceive things from our natural curiosity as we began to crawl around and explore our immediate environment. While doing that we were constantly reminded by those around us to, "Don't do that," or "Do it like this." Thus began our moral education and beliefs.
I like to imagine what it was like to live every day when the first intelligent humans came out of Africa some 100,000 to 30,000 years ago. Watching the TV series, "Naked and Afraid," gives some idea what the original Garden of Eden must've been like for our ancestors. Underwater, on average, we can only go without air for about two minutes. Without clean water to drink (our ancestors could drink much fouler water than we can) about three days. And, without food, about three weeks (the time allotted for the show's experiment to last) before we would die of starvation. While the show's participants can opt out, are nearly constantly monitored, have medical support, and can be rescued in an emergency, our ancestors could not. Even with much conditioning and training in survival skills, most of the participants fail miserably when it comes to finding viable food and protecting themselves from heat and cold. By the end of the three-week experience, most are suffering from starvation and would certainly die if left out there for another three weeks. There is one individual survivalist who has taken on 60 days with no resources and survived quite well, but he had picked the environment he was in quite carefully with plenty of food and water that he was eventually able to employ with his considerable skills. He is an exception… A true survivor. The rest are educated in survival, but not really experienced in it. That takes a lifetime.
The point of the last discussion is that early man required a family, probably an extended family or tribe, to survive the rigors of just facing all of the unknowns that appeared continually to confront life for another day, including deadly serpents, relentless insects, carnivorous wild animals, and constant malnourishment and starvation if food wasn't gathered or hunted every day with no let up. Fear was a constant companion and the only antidote for fear was the assurance of the elders who had faced the same circumstances before and their stories and ideas of how they had survived even worse situations to still be alive. Their good fortune or blind luck became belief and was passed down through generations so that descendents could avoid certain dangers and find all kinds of solutions and antidotes to fears that might crop up from the knowledge passed down. Dreams and spirits, gods and omens became a part of every tribe's culture. Once ingrained, they became institutions that were so inculturated in certain individuals that they became mythical leaders, shamans, and allies to the alpha leaders, adding strength to help the alpha leader's control over the rest of the tribe. When these verbally passed down stories were written down many generations later, they became the source of the scriptures of all religions, everywhere. Their interpretations have become myriad. Edited in every rewriting.
So, through thousands of generations, we are the survivors and we have developed very strong beliefs as a result of our surviving many natural disasters, famines, plagues, wars, and other ills that killed countless ancestors from either ignorance or strong belief. As we multiplied and prospered, traveled on and conquered new territory that we claimed for our tribe, our state, or our country, our beliefs became even more ingrained and so a part of us that we seem lost without them.
Science took a different path. While the elders passed down beliefs, they also passed down knowledge about the tools and environmental elements used for survival. This experimentation and adaption was the rudimentary beginnings of science. There were those whose curiosity was not stifled by belief and experimented with and categorized the environment around them, becoming the first scientists in passing on useful information to the next generation. But it wasn't until the Greeks developed the scientific method that this kind of science was anything more than astrology or alchemy, both despised by religious believers for being from the dark side.
True science is based on proof. While a theory is also a belief, proof makes science true . Without proof, theory or belief is not science. From the Greeks onward, the body of science has grown ever onward, but always held back by belief. Strangely, the powers that be, often financial, have allied with believers to hold back science. The worst case was the Inquisitions that forced people like Copernicus and Galileo to withhold their discoveries over the fear of death. More recent cases include the Cultural Revolution of Chairman Mao in China, the genocide of Pol Pot in Cambodia and the recent rise of ultraconservative sharia law in Muslim countries. Despotic leaders have often used belief to their advantage in controlling people while advocating specific science to their benefit, funding it heavily. Science to bolster belief has always been a tool of those in power. Political pressure is applied to discredit any science that goes against current belief in favor.
Believing is easy and calms our fear of unknown threats. Science is hard because it requires suspending belief and systematic study, something that is usually hard for young minds to concentrate on long enough to understand. Beliefs are often reinforced by repetition, and therefore more easily accepted. Besides, simple beliefs like "He will protect me," reinforced by fine teachings like the 21st Psalm, takes care of a multitude of fears with a single phrase while not addressing each and every fear individually like science might have to do. In other words, belief provides simple solutions to very complex problems. Science tries to make sense of the complex and often comes up with simple, but quite contrary, solutions against common beliefs.
In spite of the opposition to science by belief, time and again, science has proven one belief or another to be false and they have fallen by the wayside. Still, there are always naysayers, after the fact, that hold onto long disproved beliefs based on mythology that what they believe is "more true " than science. Fortunately, over time, those dissenters eventually will be proven wrong because science has no opposition when it comes to truth. The power of science is its ability to make minute corrections as new information comes in, improving former theory and making it more correct. Science can also predict the future through trends. There's a certain amount of risk to this, but probabilistic theory reduces the risk considerably. Once a scientific theory is proven wrong, it is generally discarded, although there are those in the scientific community who have differing results from the same or similar data. Those discussions continue until the correct theory finally emerges after many studies. On the other hand, belief rarely changes or improves without some powerful authority making the change. Individuals who believe, stay with the belief in the face of overwhelming information invalidating that belief.
Technology has been the engine that moves humanity forward. Technology invariably is built on the theories of science. Without science, we would have only magic and mysticism to accomplish grand schemes like flying. With technology, we have gone to the moon and seen what the Earth is really like from an entirely different viewpoint: ours is a very small, insignificant planet in the scheme of the universe, with a very fragile ecosystem supporting all life, including human. The human population's survival under belief and powered by technologies has brought us to this point. It is now, more than ever, that we have to turn to science for answers to solve severe problems that have been created by the overuse of obsolete technologies with side affects that were unknown at the time they were initially used. The new science of search engines and the Internet coupled with the power of computing and data-gathering and sharing, both visual and data point, is revolutionizing data-gathering to a point where science is now adequately predicting many parameters once thought unpredictable and pointing to solutions, regardless of the beliefs of those involved.
It is time for everyone to suspend their beliefs in favor of what science is telling us and act accordingly in the best interest of everyone on the earth and all of its life, both complex and wondrous and deserving to live long and prosper.
Copyright 2014 © Ronald W. Hull
8/28/14
Well written, but I hope you don't mind if I point out a couple of foundational errors (not editorial errors) in the case you put forward? Just for some things you might wish to contemplate further. After all writing is not only about how well we say something but also about the value of what we say.
I note for instance you say "I like to imagine what it was like to live every day when the first intelligent humans came out of Africa some 100,000 to 30,000 years ago." And yet your article is about how imagining and belief are of no value and only that which is proven to be true is of value. By your own article you make anything you imagine and believe as of no consequence which allows people to ignore most of what you say as not scientifically proven, merely personal imagination, belief and opinion. Even the claim that science is better than belief is not scientifically proven it is merely a belief held by certain sections of the community. From a logic point of view the article is, at best, self-defeating. It is basically saying that it is your belief that science is better than belief - which cannot logically exclude your own belief that science is better than belief.
To make the article logically consistent you actually have to scientifically PROVE that science is better than belief.
But I will leave you with a final thought I do hope you will think about. Have YOU personally scientifically PROVEN EVERYTHING scientists are telling you is true, or have you merely BELIEVED everything scientists are telling you to believe is true.
What about all those scientists who do not hold evolution to be true but who favour Intelligent design? Or all those scientists who do not hold to the Big Bang Theory, etc. Scientists all over the world disagree with EACH OTHER. You cannot agree with them all. You can only BELIEVE some and DISBELIEVE others.
WHATEVER we do not personally experience and observe for ourselves we can only believe or disbelieve - and that is about 99% of what we THINK we know .... dare I say ... believe me! :-)
As I said merely offering some chewy food for thought, not editorial assessment.
Sincere Regards, Don
Sage
Love ya!
Jane