Afraid of the truth?

This year's BBC Reith Lectures are here again, with Astronomer Royal Prof Martin Rees speaking on the theme 'The Scientific Citizen'. How nice to be able to sit in the kitchen after breakfast and listen without distraction, and then read the text transcription later in the day. As ever the Beeb provides a great service, with a podcast and a discussion forum on the Reith 2010 web page. Rees speaks in a simple, measured way which conceals the depth and complexity of the issues, and yet makes them accessible to the average listener. In my mind that makes him a considerable philosopher of science (one of my youthful academic interests), as well as a leading astronomer. As well a being a practitioner of science, he is also an experienced University teacher dialoguing with the finest young minds of our time, thus in a position where you can't get away with bluffing your audience.

Looking at the lecture's web discussion forum is a sobering reminder that many people are suspicious and distrustful of science, simply because it is a key activity in society always in need of funding, the slave of its paymasters, appearing for long periods to be unproductive, unable to deliver what backers and audience want. Obscure scientific breakthrough, however, has seized the creative imagination of those able to take the fruit of new discoveries, and use them to develop new products for new purposes, transforming life hugely over the past century; polymer and DNA discoveries, nuclear fission, transistors and lazers for example.

I get the impression that the rigorous scientific quest for truth isn't that well or widely understood by those whose work doesn't rely on it some way. In the media, interrogating journalists pester scientists with questions devised by their editors that demand simplistic answers where none are possible or meaningful. School teachers complain about the dumbing down of science curricula in recent decades, and express concern about the reduction in varieties of science taught in schools, not to mention the disappearance of university science departments through shifts in funding distribution. Ultimately these are political issues, and possibly attributable to the dearth of trained scientists as elected parliamentarians.

What no longer seems to be well understood is that any new era of wealth creation with real substance, is preceded by scientific discovery and technological breakthrough. Some are hardly noticed until they become big business, unless they become the latest target on which to project common anxiety and insecurity, as happens with genetic engineering and nanotechnology. I wonder about the real origin of this fear and distrust. Is it that each new batch of scientific discovery invites us to consider the world in a new way, and we become anxious because it means we can no longer perceive the world, or feel about it, with the certainties we used to enjoy?

Two of my favourite scripture texts are : 'The truth will set you free.'  'Behold I am making all things new.'  I was taken with this passage from today's lecture.

"... science is generally 'self-correcting'. Scientists are their own severest critics. They have more incentive than anyone else to uncover errors. That’s because the greatest esteem goes to those who contribute something unexpected and original - like refuting a consensus. That's how in science initially-tentative ideas firm up - not only on climate change, but - to take earlier examples - regarding the link between smoking and lung cancer, and between HIV and AIDS. But that's also how seductive theories get destroyed by harsh facts. Science is 'organised scepticism'."


I'd like to think there was an element of organised scepticism in the practice of faith. Possibly some schools of spiritual direction that value discernment highly go in that direction, but it's uncommon.


'When the Son of the man comes, will he find faith on earth?'