PERIMETERS OF IGNORANCE
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John Pazmino
NYSkies Astronomy Inc
www.nyskies.org
nyskies@nyskies.org
2006 July 9
Introduction
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I went to the special lecture 'Perimeters of ignorance' at the
Hayden Planetarium on Tuesday 9 May 2006. Dr Neil Tyson presented the
talk based on his article in Natural History magazine of November
2005. I summarize Neil's talk here, plus several side discussions it
span off after the presentation in the hall and street. I also
perceived an undercurrent of ideas, not specificly stated, that have a
broader application in our society.
Religion and science
------------------
The essence of Tyson's talk was that there are two main levels of
involvement of religion with science. The first is a harmless one,
employed by many scientists over the ages, even today. This invokes a
divine or spiritual intervention with nature when science reaches its
limit of knowledge. However, the way is clear for others, now or in
the future, to inquire further into nature and advance our
understanding of it. This pushes the perimeter of our ignorance of
nature farther away.
He gave examples from Ptolemaeus, Bruno, Galileo, Huygens, Newton,
Laplace. In their writings, except for Laplace, they note that beyond
a certain current state of knowledge, there may be the domain of a
superior spiritual being. Ptolemaeus appealed to Zeus, the god of
religion in his time, altho we generally consider him part of
mythology. The others called on a Christian flavor of god.
Some scientists simply had no need for such a concept, because, in
their estimation, humans are fully capable of sussing out nature. Neil
used Laplace and his monumental tome 'Mechanique Celeste', which
Napoleon [supposedly] studied. When Napoleon praised Laplace, he had a
little question: No where in the book does Laplace mention god.
Laplace replied that he had no need for that hypothesis.
Suppression of inquiry
--------------------
The other level of involvement is the dangerous one, perceived by
Tyson as encroaching into American society today. This is where
religion not only is called on at the limit of knowledge, but also
blocks science from repelling that limit. Or, religion tries to
replace science with mere belief and dogma without attempting to
advance human culture and civilization.
The religion establishment sets up a 'perimeter of ignorance',
beyond which people are not permitted to cross. For intelligence about
the world over the perimeter, the declaration of the establishment
serves as a complete and ultimate answer. Investigation or examination
across this perimeter is treated as a threat, insult, disrespect
against the establishment. Such behavior must be punished.
The archetypical example, cited by Neil, was Bruno. Bruno
postulated that the planets are other whole worlds with their own
people. The ruling state did not take kindly to this idea, taking it
as a heinous insult. These other people would then be outside of its
domain, litterally, out of reach! Despite warnings and threats, Bruno
continued his writings on this and other 'offensive' topics. In the
end he was incinerated alive in a public square in Italy (I forget the
town).
Christian fundamentalism
----------------------
The contemporary example to hand is the effort by some Christian
sects to promote in public education a Biblical explanation of nature.
In the sectarian schools, this was the curriculum for ages. The new
push is to have taxpayer funded schools include the Christian
teachings.
The claim is that evolution, gradualist geology, bigbang cosmology
are only 'theories' and, therefore!, the alternative of Biblical
answers should be taught. The latter is called, for all varieties,
'intelligent design' or 'ID'.
There is no science in this scheme, only the reversion to some
immutable scriptures. ID, for short, makes no effort to inquire about
nature or to experiment, observe, test, challenge hypotheses about
nature. The explanation of nature is already complete: God did it.
Moslem fundamentalism
-------------------
Tyson discussed an other threat to science from the radical
Islamic world, a la World Trade Center. He noted that there are about
15-20 million Jews in the world, yet they earned some 3/4 of all the
Nobel Prizes in the sciences. This achievement he attributed to the
Jewish principle of leaving science outside of the religious domain. A
person can be a devout Jew and also a perimeter-pushing scientist.
Among the billion or so Moslems, Neil stated there is only ONE
Nobel Prize in science! That was in 1979 and the winner came from
Pakistan, a bit outside the hardcore Middle East.
He recalled that in the 800-1200 AD period, Islam favored science
and culture, allowing free and open exchange of ideas, theories,
experiments. This period of history is probably what saved the West,
which at the time was struggling under the Dark Ages. When the Dark
Ages ebbed in the 1400s, the West nourished on the Islamic world for
the preserved sciences, plus native new science. largely thru this
intellectual commerce, the West raised itself into the present era.
Two enduring thanks to the Islamic assistance is the prevalence of
Arabic starnames and lunar craters honoring Arabs.
About 1200 AD, there arose the ideology to force-fit nature into
the words of the Koran, resulting in a stagnation of progress that
still today envelopes the Middle East. And, now, as Tyson warns, this
stricture on science is seeping into the United States.
Religious science in America
--------------------------
The Christian and Islamic forces are separate. As best as we can
tell, there is no collaboration between the two. In fact, the Islamic
sector have no tolerance at all for Christians! And the Christian camp
treats Moslems as, erm, infidels. Never the less, both forces seek to
eviscerate the ability to progress humanity by supplanting science
with blind ideology.
Neither the Christian nor the Islamic factions pretend to practice
anything like science. that is, to allow and promote the processes of
question, inquiry, testing, probing, exploring for the goal of
furthering humankind. They strive to control and suppress human
thought.
Earth is privileged?
------------------
The name 'intelligent design' is laughable when one examines the
way the world, just Earth, is built, supposedly by an omnipotent
omniscient spirit. Moat of Earth plain hates humans by being too cold,
hot, wet, dry, full of wild animals, insects, poison plants. Most of
Earth is ocean, in which humans can not live without heavy protection.
(at least not more than 177 hours!) Tornados, floods, dust and sand
storms, earthquakes, massive rain, lightning-triggered forest fires,
volcanos continuously act against human existence. Can anyone with
sense and brains actually design a world like this for people? Green
pastures by still waters? Land of milk and honey? In far too few and
far places.
What intelligent design?
----------------------
Neil explored the human body. It has a common orifice for eating,
drinking, breathing. Result: myriads of deaths annually from
accidental choking. Sex and waste are handled by the same organs.
It's like having a recreation park and sewer mill together on the same
property!
Many humans are built defectively! Assorted birth defects, severe
deficiency in some critical human function, occur randomly.
The body is attacked with disease from natural bacteria and
viruses.
Faculties wane in old age, like hearing and eyesight, while the
rest of the human is still in good operation.
Diseases like diabetes, heart failure, cancer afflict people
seemingly at random at all ages.
Altho we do not understand many of these breakdowns in human
function, they are part of the natural world around us. But that world
is supposedly built by a higher intelligent design?
If not Earth, where?
------------------
He examined the suitability of outer space for human habitation.
It's too frigid, torrid, arid, full of ionizing radiation, barren of
air. In fact, there is no place at all in the solar system where
humans can carry on a livelihood similar to that on Earth. Humans must
stay within protective capsules, suits, habitats and never expose
themselfs directly to the space environment.
He didn't say so, but there was the strong allusion to a
futility of wholesale human settlement and colonization of other
worlds. To allow humans, just a couple per flight, to penetrate into
space involves humongous costs and support. It would be one hell of a
long time, plus intervention of evolution perhaps, before a human in
space can duplicate the feats of the Galileo, Huygens, New Horizons,
and Mars rover missions.
Neil did allow that under a dogmatic regime, like Italy of the
1500s-early 1600s, there is leeway for science. Only up to the
threshold of the established script. Bruno and others could dabble in
calculating eclipses and planet positions, keeping time and calendar,
developing navigation, and similar 'tame' pursuits of science. It was
when Bruno leaped over the perimeter of ignorance with his promotion
of inhabited worlds that the rulers stomped on him.
Separation of church and state
---------------------------
America by Tyson's estimation is the epitome of a free and open
society where religion and science are peaceful cohabitants, leaving
each other alone. This is specificly provided in the US Constitution
by forbidding the establishment or restriction of religious practice,
tHIS 'separation of church and state' derives directly from the
amalgam of church and state in England, then running America as
colonies. The founding fathers, mindful of the religious domination of
many countries in Europe, not only England, where they came from did
not want a repeat situation in the New World.
In consequence, America became a harve de grace for overseas
peoples suffering from religion-based oppression. Here they could
enjoy their religious culture without fear or persecution.
Social applications
-----------------
Tyson held to the religious campaign against science. His remarks
are applicable to political and social regimes. The obvious one,
recently thrown on the trash heap of history, is the Soviet Union.
Fresh in my, and other, minds, is the flow of refugees from the Soviet
state, including top-ranking scientists who were bullied to stay
within the defined perimeter of ignorance.
'Science' doesn't mean only the laboratories, observatories,
libraries and people in white coats. It is a system of acquiring
knowledge and understanding. It's a scheme of learning that eliminates
arbitrary human dictate and decree. Science can, and does, shift its
concepts as new information and observations are obtained; it is not a
set and fixed body of facts and figures. This latter is the scheme of
a totalitarian state, that of some religions.
Hence, Dr Tyson's talk is valuable for dealing with small scale
regimes, largely out of public sight and sound. These include
corporations, government agencies, cooperative housing, and, yes,
astronomy clubs. In these cases, the contention is with the entity's
own 'nature', its operation and function. In such cases, the 'superior
intelligence' is the ruling class of the entity rather than a
spiritual being in heaven.
Two signature examples in the news during the Tyson talk are the
attempt by NASA to stifle studies in global warming at the Goddard
Institute for Space Studies and the Stalinist mindset at Amateur
Astronomers Association. Both institutions are short bus rides from
the Planetarium.
Conclusion
---------
Tyson wrapped up his talk with questions from the audience. Most
were clarifications of his statements; others related to ways to
improve science education or political awareness of science.
Continuing the extrapolation. when a society, in the general
sense, shuts out internal mechanisms for examining, testing, probing,
discussing, debating, this faculty will be set up outside of that
society, to which its people can take refuge. And this faculty will be
in a form most disagreeable to the society! Such is America in the
eyes of some societies around the world. They, seeing that there is an
alternative way of life beyond its perimeter, strive to close up that
perimeter -- the Berlin Wall -- or remove the refuge -- the World
Trade Center.
Tyson worries deeply about any success in squeezing out science
from American education, in that it dumps at least a whole generation
of people into a stagnant dead realm of perimetrized ignorance.