Echoes of Science Opening its Head
[Explanation: Scientific and religious dogmatism are two sides of the same human psyche that has traditionally used prestige to force meek acceptance of its theories, dogmas and decisions.¹ The reasons why people cannot, will not or are afraid to question are based on deeply rooted habits of thought, which are challenged throughout The Quest. In this poem, I use a traditional symbol, the echo, to highlight the opposition between the role and the conscience of science. The ideal achievement of the objective method (which is one aspect of "the pattern-seeing potential of man") is undermined by the human tendency to be driven to intellectual extremes in public defence of one’s position. Here paranoia rears its ugly head, and the ‘objective’ scientist appears less so. In addition, the more we seek to identify science with absolute truth, replacing religion (a more strident echo and direr aspect of the pattern-recognising potential to persecute misfits), the more it will lead paradoxically to a disregard for humanity – since curiosity, not philanthropy, is what drives scientific endeavour, and the objective method is essentially impersonal ("numb"). The commercial motive also works against morality. Hence the phrase (towards the close), "Numbness and paranoia I scan/In the pattern-seeing potential of man". Science neglects the knower, who becomes self-aware only in a dialogue with a pattern-recognising alter-ego, the religious fanatic. (In Login OPERAtionally Undefined, it is the computer, Mime, who is the scientist’s alter-ego.) Science confronts its echo in a seeming descent into madness – which, paradoxically, is our best hope for sanity.]
Dedicated to Augusto and Michaela Odone and the makers of the film ‘Lorenzo’s Oil’.
Science:
Don’t come into my laboratory, Maude
Or let Junior tug at my coat!
Who knows if he will be awed
By this bird I hold by the throat
In this test, with a scientific ring,
To see how he spreads his wing?
Echo:
To see how he spreads his wing,
¹ Science and the Church deal with heretics differently. The former ridicules and/or drums them out of the profession (Ames is my pseudo-nym), but still respects reason. The Church respects dogma, holding truth to be experiential, not verifiable. But truth’s subjective nature should breed tolerance (Mark 9:39). Yet the Nicene Council, called to resolve the Arian Controversy, was theology by fiat, not by the Bible (nor by Matthew 7:15, for the Church was bullied into accepting orthodoxy - Arians were beaten up, Arius died suspiciously).