SCIENCE REQUIRES A HUMAN FACE
ABSAR AHMAD*
Few amongst us who know and have a feel of the
contemporary state of affairs would deny that the entire
humanity is in a pile-up on the highway of scientific and
technological development. The undeniable fact is that we
are involved in a global environmental Gotterdammerung, a
massive ecological crisis and alienation on account of a
runaway, production-oriented technology which has led to the
depletion of resources (such as energy, food and water)
pressure on land and environment, ever-increasing output of
wastes, nuclear chemical and biological weapons. Our times
have seen far more critical transactions, sharp changes and
abrupt discontinuities in human affairs than ever before.
As a result we, the inhabitants of the “Spaceship Earth”,
are fragmented into warring groups and thoroughly lost in
the cobweb woven by the so-called scientific progress and
development. Even there is no hope for the times to come:
predictably we are in the grip of Toffler’s “Future Shock”,1
of a mounting tragedy, a very dismal and bleak picture
indeed.
The confusion in this pile-up is confounded by a
thick fog of intellectual arrogance and philosophical
blindness that has set in over the past few hundred years.
The obvious choices in this situation are: (a) Keep driving
straight into the pile-up, still following the rules that
caused the pile-up; and (b) stop, take stock of the
conditions, and try to disperse the fog before driving on or
attempting a major rescue operation. The first alternative
leads naturally to making the tragedy still worse. The
second alternative is the only sensible choice. The present
article is a modest attempt in this direction. By its very
nature it is tentative and exploratory — little more than
pre-research loud thinking.
Optimism in Science Vanishes
That the Western science, its civilization, and
the intellectual framework which is its necessary
concomitant, has failed mankind is now openly admitted even
by the intellectuals of the West itself. There is an ever
growing sense of the limits of modernity and scientific
progress, found in many a nation around the globe including
even the United States. A review of dominant currents of
thinking and acting regarding the technological development
over the last three decades reveals that something
profoundly new is happening today. Development — indeed,
the very concept of scientific development and progress — is
under attack. Two shibboleths of development unquestioned
in the past have come to be challenged. Firstly, it is
being asserted that material goods are not worth
accumulating: that they are shabby, that they have no
ultimate worth. Secondly, it has been forcefully argued
that society is not defined by the development process, but
that the developmental process tends to wash away the unique
characteristics of each society or each civilization. A
conflict between traditionalism and modernity is emerging
that threatens the very basis of modern scientific ethos.
The zero-growth movement, the limits-to-growth movement, the
idea of zero growth as a positive good — all assert that
there are spiritual values, abstract goods and services
quite beyond those resulting from material scientific
development. Indeed, the entire direction of the twentieth
century science and technological development is in
question. The measurement of society or civilization by a
gross national product, by levels of industrial output, or
by levels of consumptive activity has come under tremendous
criticism.
In the 19th century, in the Western world a prevailing faith
had developed in the “endless frontier” of modern science;
in the scientific method as the best path to dependable
truth; in the scientific mind as the ultimate agent for the
solution of almost any problem that could be formulated; and
in the notion that science and technology promise limitless
progress. Technological optimism had become a prevailing
frame of mind. Total victory for science and the scientific
method was proclaimed by authors and philosophers of
science. But now all these claims have been seriously
challenged and discredited by thinkers in many quarters.
Science … technology … progress … growth … development
modernization: this pattern of interlinked ideas, once a
central part of the operative value structure of the Western
modernized world, is now being widely opposed and deplored.
In short, some fundamental ideas about science and
technology are being revised presently both by academics,
social critics and planners. The idea of progress is being
redefined to embrace something more than quantitative growth
of goods and services. There is an increased awareness of
limits to the capacity of science to resolve social and
civilizational problems. And there is growing insistence
that conscious guidance should replace indiscriminate
proliferation of technology. The rejection of scientific
modernism is extending to a re-evaluation of the notion of
what constitutes a good world.
I shall substantiate my claim by citing a few
eminent writers on the subject. After a lifetime of
studying the interactions of technology and civilization,
American social critic Lewis Mumford reached a glum
conclusion when he wrote: “Nothing less than a profound
reorientation of our vaunted technological ‘way of life’
will save the planet from becoming a lifeless desert.” The
renowned microbiologist and essayist, Rene Dubos put aside
his customary optimism to discount the prospect of
technological solutions to contemporary social problems.
“Technological fixes”, he wrote, “usually turn out to be a
jumble of procedures that have unpredictable consequences
and are often in conflict with natural forces.” From France,
sociologist Jacques Ellul asserts: “Technique (scientific
technique) has become autonomous, it has fashioned an
omnivorous world which obeys its own laws and has renounced
all traditions.”
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