Attitudes towards science

Scientific knowledge is so immense in extent, so extraordinarily detailed and precise, so general in its applications, that nobody can pretend that it is unimportant. One feels bound to take up a definite position towards science – even if only to be ‘for’ it, or ‘against’ it, in a simple-minded way.

This polarization of attitudes – exaggerated amongst the intelligentsia as the traditional ‘Two Cultures’ of humanistic and scientific education – is altogether too simple minded. On the one hand, the products of science are so very much parts of our lives that the notion of rejecting its way of thought is merely a romantic fantasy. On the other hand, those who try to let ‘science’ rule their lives soon find that ‘cheerfulness keeps breaking in’. In practice, most people nowadays understand this pretty well when their health and comforts, or their preferences and prejudices, are at stake.

Precisely because science is so pervasive, our attitudes towards it cannot be simple and single-valued. There never could be so large and complex a human activity, so diverse in all its significations and capabilities, that had not within it a great deal of both good and evil, wisdom and folly. We can scarcely suppose that this great system of thought and action has been so perfected – or could be so perfected – that it could supersede all other sources of understanding. On the other hand, it is scarcely credible that this whole apparatus, which has transformed the world and us in it, could be a snare of fate, a cruel delusion.