At no time in its history, has Science created so much unease. The discomfiture is the result of a tension created by two completely different stances towards science. On the one hand, there is acknowledgment and appreciation of the tremendous impact of scientific technology on our lives, improving it in virtually every domain—business, trade, transport, health, education, entertainment. On the other hand, there is the anxiety that science could become too powerful for our good, overtaking our ability to control it, creating machines that could destroy us, eventually taking away all that makes us human. At no time in modern history has there been this attitude of a love-hate, admiration-revulsion, hope-despair ambivalence towards science.

There is indeed proof everywhere of the runaway power of science. The observation ‘Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely’ made in relation to political leaders could very well apply to science, especially to its branch of biology. The increasing importance today of the biological sciences such as genetics and neuroscience is not at all surprising, since everything in the end boils down to human behaviour which in turn is explainable in terms of biological processes.

The dominance of biology is seen in its colonization of other sciences and even the humanities, by attaching its name to theirs: bioengineering, biomechanics, bioeconomics, biomedicine, biogeography, biohistory, bioethics, even bioaesthetics and biotheology. Soon no study will be relevant unless it has that prefix. The fact that bioterrorism has emerged as the greatest threat to world safety means that the rat race in the development of biological weapons of offence and defence is already an ongoing thing.

The most spectacular—and fearful—advancement is therefore in the biological sciences, and it has to do with our sense of who and what we are. Will a human being be cloned eventually, and how will that affect our sense of our individuality? With the secrets of life’s building blocks now unlocked, will Science create new forms of life, for instance, a new version of homo sapiens? Will he have a soul? Will Science be able to extend human life indefinitely, that is give immortality to the human species, and how will that affect the economic life of our planet with its limited resources? How will immortality affect the very structure of society, the way humans relate to each other, their moral and religious beliefs?

The implications are staggering, for not only would life on earth be changed forever, but it would have to be re-defined.

At this stage, nothing can stop the juggernaut of science, whether in the very visible domain of biology or the still evolving domain of quantum physics (symbolized most dramatically by the spectacular Large Hadron Collider project). But as long as there are people, both in the world of science and outside it, who want to constantly remind us about what true science is, and sound warning bells when it departs from its principles, there is hope.

True science is committed to the pursuit of truth about our universe through processes that are systematic, verifiable, transparent and open to public scrutiny. True science is humble in its attitude, aware of its limitations at the same time that it is fired up with the passion to keep pushing back the boundaries of knowledge. Best of all, true science is dedicated to improving the well-being of mankind, not necessarily only of the material kind, and understands the responsibility, in this respect, to listen to the voices of ethics, morality and religion, for instance, in matters of vital human concern such as cloning. In short, true science should soften its power with the humanizing values of the sister studies.

The scienticisation of the humanities, and the humanization of the sciences—we should have this two-way flow.

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About Vignettes...

A continuing flow of little, readable pieces that will constitute what I feel is an important 'legacy of values' to leave behind. Read more about Vignettes...