Customer Reviews

Understanding the Present: Science and the Soul of Modern Man

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Science has been good to me.

Not only has it provided the tools to have a life that would have been unimaginable when I was born, but also the fruits of science helped save me when I had a surprising medical challenge. And it became a building block of a successful career.

But I have also been beset by nagging worries about the direction of the scientific enterprise and by the disinterest of most scientists in the implications of what we are doing.

In discussions with many prominent scientists, most go blank or shrug when asked about the philosophical underpinnings of science, or the practical implications of unfettered and unaccountable scientific experimentation.

Enter Bryan Appleyard's excellent book. Bryan is a journalist who writes mainly for the Sunday Times in London, though he has some other outlets: if you are interested, I subscribe to his wonderfully iconoclastic weblog - Thought Experiments - through mine: RichardGPettyMD.blogs. You will have to work out the final part of the address: this review will not allow me to post the whole link!

This is a book about the "appalling spiritual damage that science and how much more it can still do." Not the physical damage of rampant technology, but from an inner desolation.

Attacks on science are two-a-penny, but rarely do they come from someone birthed into a family of engineers, who taught him to respect science and its handmaiden: technology. He does not want some return to nature of like Rousseau or the Luddites: he wants to restore balance into human affairs.

As he says, despite the admirable intentions of most scientists, "science, quietly and inexplicitly is talking us into abandoning ourselves."

He goes on to say that,
"Science is not a neutral or innocent commodity which can be employed as a convenience by people wishing to partake only of the West's material power. It is spiritually corrosive, burning away ancient authorities and traditions. It cannot really co-exist with anything... As it burns away all competition, the question becomes: what kind of life is it that science offers to its people?.... What does it tell us about ourselves and how we must live?"

Though most scientists tend to disclaim responsibility for social and spiritual matters, they cannot continue to do so.

The trouble he says, is not with science, which is simply a method and a tool, but scientism: the belief that science is, or can be the complete and only explanation for life, the universe and everything. But explaining everything means understanding everything that exists, and that is a tall order.

So "scientists inevitably take on the mantle of the wizards, sorcerers and with doctors," and they have become the preferred authority on matters of morality and spirituality. Bryan cites a troubling quotation form the former Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru: "
"It is science alone that can solve the problems of hunger and poverty, of insanitation and illiteracy, of superstition and deadening of custom and tradition, of vast resources running to waste, or a rich country inhabited by starving poor... Who indeed could afford to ignore science today? At every turn we have to seek its aid... The future belongs to science and those who make friends with science."

The trouble is that science by its very nature is designed to be objective, and when scientism rules supreme, Nature and the universe are no longer seen as a living whole with purpose and meaning, but is instead dead material for study. Science provides us with descriptions of the universe that contain everything except us.

Subjectivity is not an illusion, even though we constantly see people who claim that all of our thoughts and emotions are simply reflexes.

So what are the solutions?

Bryan believes that understanding the limitations of science and of what it can explain is all to the good. After pointing out the limitations of a purely objective science, he believes that our thoughts and feelings, our relationships with others and the meanings that they create are the bedrock of existence. He also alludes to the idea of a new science that will se beyond the objective and may contribute to the development of a new spirituality.

In this he presages the fascinating work by Alan Wallace who is creating a "contemplative science" that incorporates contemplative practices and contemporary neuroscience to arrive at an extraordinary synthesis.

The myth of an all-seeing all-knowing science that insists that we are simply bio-molecular machines is dangerous in that, if taken too far, it strips us of some of the key components of our humanity.

Although this book was originally written several years ago, its arguments are even more important today, and I recommend it to anyone with any interest in the philosophical foundations of the modern world.


Richard G. Petty, MD, author of Healing, Meaning and Purpose: The Magical Power of the Emerging Laws of Life

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is the modernist or skeptic's assault on modernity in general and the regime of science specifically. As limited as this view must be relative to a traditional or symbolist perspective (i.e., from someone not using the methods criticized to criticize them), I have not read a more accessible book on the subject. If you want to know how much and in what ways our present time (as all times) are an 'Age' with peculiar blind spots, graces, and misconceptions, this is the place to start. Ignore the two reviews below that offer apologies for the regime and accuse Applyard of pessimism; the man who sees the train about to roll over him - rolling over him? - is not a pessimist. Guenon's The Reign of Quantity and Upton's System of AntiChrist are this book's betters but they assume much more on the reader's part; please find this book and delight in his illumination of the ideas that frame our shallow and narrow worldview in the present time. Then read Swift's Battle of the Books and see that this fight is an old one each person must come to terms with.

I picked this up in a bargain bin thinking it was a pop science book. A few pages in, it became apparent that the book was a criticism of science's failure to provide a sense of comfort about the big issues ("what is our purpose in life" etc). The author compares science to olde time religion and comes to the conclusion that religion is a lie that makes people happy, whilst science is a truth that saddens.

While this may be an accurate description of the general metaphysical discomfort caused as religion loses ground, it seems a bit presumptuous to suggest we devalue truth and return to the dark ages. As some ancient Roman guy once said, "the desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise". Instead of seeking wonder, purpose and freedom in a godless universe, Appleyard invites us to throw in the towel. And that is what makes this book so morbidly interesting...

Bryan Appleyard's indictment of science as the "Frankenstiens Monster" of our day is well written and very inciteful. He explains very succinctly how various luminaries of the Enlightenment have tried to deal with science and its unwillingness to co-exist with other types of knowing about our world, and ourselves. The author places the major part of the blame on science's effectiveness at solving problems through its "handmaiden", technological development, and the awareness that modern man has of these solutions as universal in nature, rather than cultural. His argument relies heavily upon the evidence that the structure of our modern, liberal-democratic societies is due mainly to our underlying philosophical beliefs about reality as they have been formed by science in the modern era. He provides a well thought out argument for why we should put science back in the cultural box, so that it will be forced to co-exist with other forms of knowing, such as religious faith. He believes that most of us already do this to some extent, and that what needs to happen is we must simply become aware of why we do this, to counter the "appauling spiritual damage" that we have allowed science to wreak upon us. For those people out there who have always wanted an intellectual basis for their belief that there is meaning to our existence that science has no right to judge, I highly recommend this book. But beware! It is not light reading. You will probably have to read it at least three times over (as I did) in order to see the poignancy of his arguments clearly. (I would have given this book a five-star rating if the arguments could have been fully grasped by a single reading, but this is not the author's fault, it's the subject's.)

I found this book to give a spirited overview of the paradigms of modern science and the place of man's sense of self within these paradigms which is no place at all. However, I am not as pessimistic as Appleyard in that I believe science and spirit can be integrated. After readers get aroused by Appleyard they should read Ken Wilber's "The Marriage of Sense and Soul"and E.O. Wilson's "Consilience" for ideas on how these two apparently conflicting worldviews can be integrated. For example, Wilber suggests the method of science can be applied to both the subjective and objective domains of knowledge.

This book, and others like it, are like the cry of an infant when its parent doesn't come. Applegate basically complains that the universe doesn't agree with his philosophical point of view, and therefore we should ignore the great strides and improvements science has brought about and retreat to our mothers' skirts, tinfoil on our heads. And maybe when we grow up, to assuage the awful feeling of insignificance, we should tell our children reassuring lies that keep their egos on solid ground, instead of letting their intellects soar.