Stop Deifying Science

In the late 1800s Friedrich Nietzsche declared 'God Is dead'. He did so at the height of the  enlightenment when the scientific process reached maturity as a means of empirically finding out about the world. This is at a time when Mendeleev had just transformed chemistry with the periodic table and the work of Thompson, Rutherford, Bohr, Einstein and others was just around the corner and about to shatter our understanding of what made up the universe. 

Nietzsche made this deceleration because he realised that as human beings we could no longer, in this new scientific age, reasonably call upon a higher power, such as that which resided in the gods of religion, to give us hope and direction in life. He determined that in this new era, we as human beings would have to find our own meaning, that we would have to forge our own paths and that we could not perpetually shirk the responsibilities and consequences of life by saying it is all the hands of a higher power and there is a better life awaiting us after this one. With one life to live, Nietzsche was, in effect, imploring us to make the most of it. 

Yet I worry that many have just substituted the god/s of religion for another and this new God's name is Science. 

Now don't get me wrong. To me the scientific method is one of the most critically important milestones we as a species has ever made. I identify as a scientist, I teach Science and am of the opinion that if anything is going to get use out of the mess we as a species have created on this planet Science is it. But this does NOT make me a disciple of Science. 

This tends to be where things start to messy because many would say the I have a 'belief' in Science. A 'faith' that Science will get us out of the mess we are in as a society and as a species, that I am putting my 'hope' in the 'higher powers' of Science, just as a person of religious faith would in the higher powers of a god/s, but, that is were they would be fundamentally wrong. I don't 'believe' in or have 'Faith' and 'Hope' in Science I am just of the opinion that as a species Science is the best damn tool we have in our arsenal to get us out of this mess we have created for ourselves. 

Science cannot be classified as a religion  Graham Robb: Cathedral Flickr

That is just it, Science is a tool, or more correctly a process, that helps us measly human beings find out about the world and universe we live in. It is a set of procedures and practices that is best described by understanding the Nature of Science which can simply outlined by the following points. 

1. Nothing comes under the purview of Science unless it can be reliably and accurately measured and/or observed, but as observational technology improves more and more things come under the purview of Science.  
2. Scientist use the Scientific method to gather data (evidence) on patterns, trends, relationships, structures, and order in the phenomena they are studying.
3. The gathered data (evidence) is analysed and collated to propose models, theories and laws that help scientists make predictions and explain phenomena. 
4. Scientist share, discuss and debate proposed models theories and laws in order to determine their predictive and explanatory power and will adapt, modify or reject models, theories and laws that do not fit with empirical evidence (in other words if someone finds something new that doesn't fit, it's back to the drawing board).
5. Currently accepted models theories and laws are are the best conceptual tools we have as a society and a species to make decisions that improve the lives of humans and protect the planet. 

Yet too many in society seem to conveniently forget that Science is done by humans for humans and instead subscribe to the 'Science as religion' mantra. By pushing this mantra they effectively deify Science and make Science either the all knowing and all powerful 'god' forgetting that there is no Science without scientist and last I looked they were all human very capable of making mistakes or being influenced by bias. Or they deify Science as a flawed and shallow god much like the Roman or Greek golds of old that were all about their own selfish interest, forgetting again that there is no Science without scientist and in the vast vast majority of cases these scientist are doing the best they can with what they tools and resources they have available to them. Tools and resources may I remind you that governments and corporation often hold the purse strings to. (It's hard to do good science on a shoe string budget and in today's era it is often only those things corporations and governments are interested in that get the money and I haven't even discussed the publish or perish phenomena that occurs as a result).  

The advances in medical Science has improved the lives of billions of people, but its not perfect, because the science is done by humans  
Photo by Trust "Tru" Katsande on Unsplash

So what is then end result of the deification of Science. Well we end up with two polar extremes, those that think Science will redeem us and solve all the worlds problems if we only throw more money at it and those that distrust anything that 'Science' says because 'it was wrong on such and such phenomena ' (an error that has often long been corrected within the scientific community). The biggest irony of all of this however, is that actual scientist know how the study of Science works, they understand the nature of Science, its strengths and its weaknesses. That is why they talk in probabilities and theories and hypothesis. They know they don't know is all, that they can make mistakes and that such mistakes can have drastic consequences, but that you cannot just sit on your hands and hope for the best because to do nothing means never making any progress. 

So I am asking......Please stop deifying Science. Take the time to learn how it is scientist do their work and recognise them for the often flawed, but heroic human beings that are trying to make the world a better place one study at a time (something that would be a lot easier if vested interests got out of the way). 

Anger as a Cry for Help

To many people anger is a destructive emotion. When in the grips of this powerful emotion people expressing anger say and do things that under normal circumstances they would never dream of. Relationships are damaged and feelings can be irreparably hurt. This is particularly so when the anger of one person is met with anger in return, in such circumstances an all out war is often declared and both parties lose. 

Anger by lazlohollfeld

The consequence of this is that people who rarely let anger take them in its grip are admired and celebrated as the epitome of self control. This can lead many people to believe we must deny this powerful emotion and squash it down, never to see the light of day. The result is that anger becomes an almost social taboo, whereby the expression of anger is seen as wrong and the people that do release their anger are seen to be inferior and even childlike because they have lost control. 

There is a fundamental problem with this perception of anger and this is because we are loosing sight of the role of anger in a social setting. Anger is universal human emotion that serves a purpose, if it didn't evolution would not have allowed it to persist, people who expressed anger would have been quickly eliminated from the gene pool. Yet anger persists in every human so it must serve some kind of purpose according to evolutionary theory. To find that purpose you need to look at what it does to people. In the grip of anger we find that it raises heart and breathing rates, the face flushes, our voices rise in volume, our faces tighten, brows furrow, lips purse, fist clench and our movements become jerky with large movements lack control. As such it is very easy for other people to see when someone is angry. In other words anger is a very very public emotion, it is not hidden or private.

So what does making an emotion like anger public serve in a human community? It says very clearly to all around them that the person experiencing the anger has lost the ability to cope, that they do not have the strategies or power to achieve what they want in more effective and socially acceptable ways. The most obvious example of someone in the grips of anger is a two year old throwing a temper tantrum. As anyone would know who has anything to do with raising a two year old they are very very public about their anger. Usually in a shopping mall when you have told them they cannot have that toy that the store, oh so conveniently placed at the eye level of children. In these circumstances a carer rolls their eyes, before very patiently stating they have enough toys and let's go and feed the ducks in the park, even as they wait patiently for the child to calm down. We do this because we know that getting angry at the child for throwing a tantrum will serve no purpose (even though it may very well push us to the limit of 'I don't need this right now, I have to much too do'). This is because we understand that a two year old cannot understand the nuance of household finances, is frustrated that they do not have the capability to express just how much having that toy would mean to them and really wants to know just how firm that 'No' actually is. Thus when all their attempts to understand and use their words fail them a two year old loses it in a classic temper tantrum because all their very limited socially acceptable strategies have been exhausted. They have no other way to express just how frustrating it is. In these circumstances it becomes the role of the carer to teach the child both limits and more effective ways of expressing themselves in the future. 

Photo by Ryan Franco on Unsplash

Fast forward to working with teens and adults who are expressing anger and it seems that society generally forgets the lessons that our two year olds have taught us about what anger means. Instead we run under the assumption that adults and teens in the grip of anger choose not to exercise self-control and behave irrationally as a deliberate tactic to get what they want from you. Yet we need to remember that our experiences are not other peoples experiences. We need to recognise that not everyone will have effectively learned the strategies needed to communicate and work through their frustrations and that the expression of anger may be the result of a very limited repertoire of strategies for dealing with frustration and may even have become a habitual way of getting what they want from others. 

Consequently anger needs to be recognised for what it is, a cry for help. As someone very publicly announcing they have a limited capacity to work through their frustrations because they either don't have the strategies or power to help themselves. Thus the most appropriate response to seeing someone in the grip of anger is extending understanding and assistance, to teach rather than rail back at them.

For this reason we need to look closer at anger. Recognise anger for what it is and see that those that have effective 'control' over their anger do so because they have learned a vast repertoire of strategies to effectively deal with their frustrations (something that comes with time and experience). While also seeing that building social conventions that frown on people expressing anger is doing more harm than good as it denies people the opportunity to learn effective means of dealing with their frustrations and will eventually lead to explosive, manipulative or maladaptive expression. 

Let me know what you think, and tell me what strategies you use to help manage your frustration before they reach the anger stage.