The way we think

Commentary by Adam Tanous


An old quip goes something like this: There are two types of people in the world, those who divide everything in two and those who don't.

More often than not the great split people see is between science and the humanities. Mention eighth-grade algebra or even basic physics, something relevant to everyday life like the acceleration of gravity or F=ma, and the "liberal arts" person rolls his eyes.

They claim "not to think that way." Likewise, a scientist will say that postmodernist theory is what literary types do to waste time.

The fact is the world of science and the world of humanities are converging. It is ironic that as the quantum nature of physical reality becomes more evident, technology more digital, the problems we are forced to solve as a society require us to think in a more analog fashion, that is, to draw from a continuum of disciplines.

Claiming not to think one way or the other is no longer a tenable position.

Edward O. Wilson is a brilliant man, up there with Richard Feynman and William Faulkner on my 20th-century hero list. He has a new book out called Consilience. I haven't finished it nor pretend to understand all that I have read, but early on he states that every college graduate should be able to answer the question, "What is the relation between science and the humanities, and how is it important for human welfare?"

I kept thinking to myself, I could answer that; I just don't have the time to deal with it. Right. Well, the more I avoided it, the more I realized it really is a good question and important, at least, to ponder.

What is science, after all? It is, 1 think, an attempt to understand human nature.

Certainly, a lot of work in chemistry and physics focuses on the natural world. But that knowledge goes to building a foundation for understanding the biochemistry of humans and, ultimately, the chain of biochemical reactions that lead to behavior.

It is as if we were one big and extremely complex black box. The end product spit out of the black box, and that which we are really trying to understand is consciousness: exactly who are we, what do we want, where are we going?

It is a huge problem. And the unique way scientists deal with big problems is to break them into many smaller ones and solve them one by one. Isolate the variables. If a problem can be broken down small enough, then one can do controlled experiments and begin to understand cause and effect. Once the constituent parts are understood, scientists start putting the pieces back together to study the interactions of parts.

Another unique feature of science is that it is progressive. It builds upon previous discoveries or truths. Think back on geometry class. How each proof was predicated upon the previous one. There are a few digressions, but, in general, scientific truth progresses in time. It is understanding by accretion.

Even defining the humanities is difficult. Everyone seems to have their own idea of what to include. The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy specifies literature, history, fine arts and philosophy (Gr. "love of wisdom") as the building blocks of the humanities. It is a good enough definition for me, though I might put ethics in place of or in addition to philosophy. It seems to me that questions of what is right and wrong are fundamental.

The students of the humanities are really trying to get to the same place as scientists, that is, what is human nature and what determines human behavior? But they try to get there with a very different approach.

The four branches of the humanities use narratives to reveal human nature. And narratives, rather than isolate the variables, tend to integrate the forces at play. Fiction writers, for example, present a totality of experience which elicits behavior.

In Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov's downfall cannot simply be pinned to his murdering an old woman. There are sociological, psychological and emotional factors all simultaneously interacting on one man. Likewise, the cause of WWI cannot be blamed only on the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. In telling this narrative, historians bring into play the entire context of the times. Many factors came together to cause the pre-war leaders to take the actions they did.

Our understanding of human nature through the humanities, unlike scientific knowledge, is not time dependent. The latest discovery of truth is not necessarily the state of the art as it is, say, in physics.

We might learn something from the Bible the same day we are enlightened by a poem in the New Yorker. Still another quality of the humanities that distinguishes it from science is the give and take between its creators and observers. Someone viewing Rodin's "Burghers of Calais" brings something to the equation. The truth gleaned depends both upon the one presenting the narrative and, in effect, the one who finishes it. This is not true of the scientific method.

So to answer Professor Wilson's question, the goals are the same, the approaches different, but ultimately the two world views must inform one another if we are to solve the problems we are beginning to face.

Everyday there are more instances where scientific knowledge affects our "humanitarian" decisions, some might call it social policy.

A genetic test can tell you if you have a defective p53 gene, which means you have a certain likelihood of developing ovarian or colon cancer. Should insurance companies be privy to this knowledge? Should they be able to treat you differently knowing this?

The medical definition of insanity has a profound effect on what is deemed a crime and, therefore, punishable and what is an illness and, therefore, society's obligation to treat. What about studies that have shown a genetic basis for homosexuality, alcoholism and drug addiction? Does that alter our calculus of judgment? Then there is the viability of a fetus, as determined by scientists. it is at the crux of our legal definitions of abortion and infanticide.

It works the other way, too.

Our sense of humanity and ethics can and should determine the course of science. It is theoretically possible to cross humans and animals to generate donor organs. Should we do it? In which situations? We can clone sheep. Should people in certain circumstances be allowed to clone children? Should we develop more devious weapons given that they are meant to protect democracy and individual human rights?

People in the humanities revel in ambiguities and shades of truth. Their future challenge will be to recognize objective, scientific truths and to decide what to do with that knowledge.

Most scientists love the exactness of science. Something is true or it is not. The great task of scientists will be to accept the fact that the objective sanctuaries of their laboratories exist in a bigger, social context.

It is a balancing act that, in a shrinking world and in a democracy, we are all obligated to perform. We might actually make decisions we can live with.

 

 

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