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Is Science Cancer?
I got into a really interesting discussion on the Technocracy forums in which one of the forum members proudly proclaimed, “The best thing that exists is the will to discover and develop the world…” I challenged him on this statement and asked him if maybe love, compassion and simple human kindness might actually be a little bit more important. However, he stayed true to his guns, explaining: “Yes, and I do not value most things that other humans value.”
Technocracy, in case you haven’t been paying attention, is a political movement that says scientists and technical experts should manage human society, and that technology should be enthroned as virtuous since it can improve the human condition. While this may be an extremist view, I happen to think that the underlying attitudes conveyed both by the movement and by the individual I was debating with above are very common to scientific thinking - if not actually the norm.
This idea that discovery and development are the best things in the world stems from science, which itself is completely amoral and only concerned with progress. Pure science has no concern for human concerns whatsoever. Unfortunately (and by that I mean fortunately), none of us are pure science. We are actually human beings. And try as we might to resist it, we have very human drives and concerns. If science is the guiding philosophy of our lives, then I feel comfortable saying that we suffer from a disconnect. This disconnect has to do with the denial of human nature and the desire for unregulated growth.
In short, it leads to cancer. It is cancer. Science is cancer. What I mean by that is that cancer seems to be the biological equivalent of this perhaps naive view that discovery and development are the highest virtues. Cancer is unregulated and undifferentiated growth - yang energy unrestrained by yin. It is cellular progress and reproduction that has stepped on the gas and damned the torpedos and has given no throught to the consequences of its actions. It is, at least thematically, identical to science itself which is only concerned with progress and not with morality.
So is it any surprise that so many scientific practices cause cancer? When ideology runs rampant over human concerns, it only makes sense that biology would follow close behind. Maybe this explains evidence that suggests cancer is a modern disease, linked not only to the inhuman practices of science, but perhaps even to the ideological core of the methodology itself.
August 19th, 2006 at 11:48 am
Progress for whom?
Speaking of the progress imparted by science, Ran linked to this interesting piece:
August 19th, 2006 at 11:59 am
I work with a molecular biologist who, during a conversation discussing a project we were working on, said “… and the cells in your body are all competing with each other to become cancer …”. I found his way of stating things incredibly insightful and revealing (whether or not it was intentional) and pointed that out to him. “But it’s true!” he replied.
I very much like this guy, but it says something that we project our own dysfunctional and unsustainable social competition down to the cellular level. I guess, “as above, so below”.
August 19th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
Tim: Don’t assume that just because you don’t like a certain worldview, that taking the exact opposite is a good idea. That’s really just committing the ad hominem fallacy on a grand scale.
You claim that scientific progress has no intrinsic value, but “love, compassion and simple human kindness” do. Why? I think it’s very probable that those things are just emotions that evolved to get people to breed more and kill each other less. What’s so spiritual about that?
About “science causing cancer”: If you actually read the linked article it says that cancer is common now because our lifespan is so much longer. Before sanitation and health care, hardly anybody ever lived long enough to get cancer.
slomo: That’s only true if there are only a few people here and there. Any such population will grow until it reaches the “equilibrium” point where food becomes so hard to find that starvation brings the death rate up to equal the birth rate. We are already far above that equilibrium, so if, hypothetically, all farms disappeared from the face of the earth and everybody forgot all knowledge of agriculture, around 99% of all people would either starve or be killed in the wars that would inevitably follow.
August 19th, 2006 at 1:39 pm
There is much in your post which I agree with totally. As for science being the cause of cancer, I think there is much in that, but - paradoxically - I would like to be more scientific in our formulation and avoid the sweeping statement. I’m a therapist of sorts though I don’t claim to treat cancer. It seems to me there are two components: the physical trigger or irritant (tar, nicotine, radioactivity etc) and the susceptibility in the patient. There are emotional triggers and irritants too. Susceptibilty seems to be a matter of not being grounded properly in one’s body and one’s emotions, so that one is in denial of aspects of oneself, living inauthentically etc.
Well, this is a definition rather than a description. Perhaps substitute “Western” for “pure”. Every healing practice from any society or every system of philosophy from more holistic cultures than the current Western model could be called a science or as we used to call it “natural philosophy”. But now I am broadening the definition of science, or perhaps challenging a monopoly.
Whilst being absolutely on the side of kindness, I don’t find this incompatible with discovering explanations for things, coupled with treatments and solutions for ills of all kinds.
Perhaps I can see what enemy is being vilified, but I want to be more careful what I condemn. Just as I don’t condemn power, but the uses to which it is put, so I do not condemn science per se but its sponsors and its politics and the excessive power it may wield in a fragmented and lost society, where the prevalence of cancers is a symptom.
August 19th, 2006 at 3:17 pm
Apologies in advance for speaking so reductively on a blog which usually veers toward the abstract–
–but isn’t the rise in cancer due largely to–you know–PETROCHEMICALS?
What’s more “scientific” than that?
August 19th, 2006 at 4:16 pm
there is no ‘best’ thing in the world. I mean, don’t you think candy hearts or cool ranch doritos are just a little bit better than love, which is a tad better than scientific discovery. Ugh, it’s a pointless argument. ‘which is better, love or science’ they both have their merits and they both exist so let them. Arguing over which is better doesn’t get at any sort of truth. Arguing about it just betrays the prejudices of those involved in the argument.
August 19th, 2006 at 5:25 pm
I have to agree with Goplat on that well stated quote. Science, in my opinion has always represented the best endeavored notions of our striving human potential. Things like love, compassion, empathy, human kindness – I would think are intrinsic (shouldn’t have to be taught); while Science is that high standard that can break us mere mortals from the genetic bonds of our more primitive origins.
August 19th, 2006 at 5:56 pm
Interesting opinion.
I’d point out that many forms of social activity can be considered a cancer.
Are the derivative markets a cancer on the face of capitalism?
Is Captialism itself a cancer on the face of society?
Is politics a cancer on the face of a nation?
Maybe science is more like a finger nail.
You can seave it to grow and grow, in which case it will become twisted and ugly… and
useless.
or cut it, polish it, paint it, and use it for useful fingernal things.
August 19th, 2006 at 6:08 pm
“This idea that discovery and development are the best things in the world stems from science, which itself is completely amoral and only concerned with progress. Pure science has no concern for human concerns whatsoever.”
*buzzer sounds*
Good answer, but not the right one.
Science is concerned with LIFE. And call me delusional but the last time I checked, this life stuff was pretty damned important to human beings.
Science isn’t concerned with progress. The human desire for power is concerned with progress. The pure study of science is a VERY good thing for the human race.
Please, do NOT blame science for our shortcomings.
And by the way, as far as your “amoral” statement is concerned, it’s still not a problem with science. It’s a problem with the basis of our morality. Our morality comes from the church whose only interest is control and money.
If we based our morals on science, they would be rooted in the processes and situations and practices that encourage life. Even love encourages life so that negates your other argument as well. (There’s a great show on Discovery Channel about how affection developed in hominids as a method to encourage them to protect one another. Check it out sometime.)
I have to write something really long and thought out on this, I believe.
August 20th, 2006 at 4:57 am
I found this a while ago, and it’s one of my favourite essays on cancer - Out of Control Yang: The Root of Cancer, Chaos and “Dis Ease”
I think you’ll like it.
August 20th, 2006 at 10:05 am
Dan: So people who subscribe to whatever religion “yin” and “yang” are from (Taoism?) never get cancer, right?
August 20th, 2006 at 10:20 am
I don’t think that is what Dan is saying. One can be a Taoist and still have radically fucked up chi. (How many Christians do you know are living examples of Jesus?)
I think there is a larger metaphoric truth here that need not play out literally and deterministically in the physical world. “Yang” energy, representing unrestricted growth, is destructive at all levels, from the microcosm to the macrocosm.
Yes, we have high cancer rates in part because we live longer. That’s obviously true. But rates of cancer are increasing in younger populations also. From a causal, deterministic viewpoint, this is due to petrochemical exposure, exposure to viruses via sexual contacts, etc.: all consequences of industrial empire. But looking from a higher level, these are all related to yang imbalance.
August 20th, 2006 at 11:50 am
Dear Slomo,
I am delighted you understood my article multi-dimensionally. Yes, there are multiple levels of loading toxins contributing to the formations of cancer in both our young and our older human beings. You have understood the heart of my article, “Out of Control Yang” The original toxic imbalance of out of control yang lead to all the physical, emotional, mental stress loadings that are mirrored in the increase in cancer as in all increases in autoimmune “dis ease.” The disconnection from spirit (in no way related to organized religion (telling people what to believe which itself is out of control yang dominance in spiritual paths) leads to multiple disconnections in mind and body so their confluence (harmonious stream) is also disrupted. I wrote “Choosing Happiness Instead of Stress for Your Body” (posted at the website) to add the heart of mutli-dimensional understandings that are necessary for us to participate in the Ever-Changing Paradigm.(individual manifestations of the One unified within the Whole)
August 20th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
slomo: If people are being exposed to carcinogenic chemicals, that’s simply because the government is in the pocket of big business and never wants to regulate anything until there’s a huge public outcry. This is really caused by the “free-market” ideology rather than by science.
Sexually transmitted diseases have existed for about as long as sex has; claiming that they’re caused by “industrial empire” is absurd. In fact, STD rates are higher in non-industrialized countries due to the lack of sex education.
August 20th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Goplat: you’re missing the point. It’s empire that causes the current cultural instability in non-industrialized countries (if you can’t see that, then we really don’t have any common ground on which we can discuss this issue). It’s empire that causes the transience and population mobility necessary for the spread of an STD pandemic. And it’s empire that creates the resource surplus that makes it possible for large numbers of a population to pursue their sexual bliss.
In addition, empire and free-market ideology are linked, as are free-market ideology ans science. These may be a legitimate grounds for debate, but I argue this viewpoint in a few articles on my blog (which, alas, I have not kept up-to-date).
In addition, see Ran Prieur and Steve Lagavulin (”Decomumption”), and probably Cryptogon as well.
I’m not arguing a fundamentalist return to “biblical” principles. However, I would argue that the current framework of scientific culture, linked as it is to unrestricted free market capitalism (which is related to the metaphor Tim is using in case you didn’t notice), is in part what binds us to the current unsustainable situation. I don’t know what the answer is, but I know it is in part coming to an awareness of how our fantasies of scientific progress are self-destructive.
You seem to be arguing that the causal details don’t have a larger pattern. I (and I think Tim) would argue that there is indeed a larger pattern, and it is metaphorically similar to cancer.
Finally, before you dismiss me as ignorant of science, I should tell you that I earn my living as an epidemiologist.
August 20th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
Well thats a very scientific way of looking at things, isn’t it?
August 20th, 2006 at 2:02 pm
So then why are you engaging in it? You seem to be betraying your own prejudice of proving to us that you do know that its better not to argue…
August 20th, 2006 at 2:05 pm
That’s a pretty interesting argument and I have been thinking about that a lot myself. However, I think that love, etc certainly have “natural” components but that in order to subscribe to them fully, you really do have to learn and transcend a great deal of human nature.
PS. I’m not anti-science. Don’t know how many times I need to explain that. I’m simply exploring a viewpoint and a narrative and seeing where it takes me. I certainly have misgivings about scientific philosophy but i have misgivings about a lot of things.
August 20th, 2006 at 2:12 pm
Blayne:
What are you basing this statement on? My current thoughts on this come more from the following background:
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2006/08/06/ascensionism-get-it-up/
I’m not. What I’m doing is looking for the basis of our shortcomings. I also fear that people will try to use science to eliminate our shortcomings and that maybe this will eliminate our humanity.
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2006/08/18/engineering-out-human-error/
I’m really not so sure about this and have a post about this coming later today… If we base our morals in science, then we turn to the scientific management of society. Morality becomes a software program to help the society run smoothly. It can be modified or updated at any time to make things run more smoothly. A set of rules that can be changed at any time can’t really form the basis of a coherent morality, I don’t think.
And it’s simply preposterous to suggest that church-based morality is only about control and money when science would not be. You accused me of blaming science for our shortcomings when you’re doing the same for religion.
August 20th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
Goplat:
We can agree that big business produces chemicals, correct? Who does big business employ to produce chemicals? Chemists - people who adhere to the scientific philosophy outlined above. Government will simply do whatever it takes to survive: it is inherently pragmatic. Is capitalism a problem? Yeah, probably. It fits neatly into the goals which science and government seem to have. We could easily make this its own topic and perhaps we should…
August 20th, 2006 at 2:18 pm
Yes, thank you! I am dealing with the *metaphor* of cancer here folks!
August 20th, 2006 at 2:32 pm
Dear Tim et al,
The duality in human thinking over many Millenium has conditioned and socialized us all to be trapped in ways we are barely aware of. The trappings within all of our institutions and chaos we witness both extrinsically and intrinsically, mirror this process. You and others on your blog discussing it amidst conflict and misunderstandings, is the process that is embraced for evolution in our consciousness and desolving the seeming imprisonments of our genetic bonds spoken of. A Lamarkian evolutionary view introduced may assist here in understanding what is the “matter,” in our thinking (belief systems) contaminating who we really are. “Choosing Happiness Instead of Stress for Your Body” and Meditation: Going Beyond Ego Bariers” at my website www.drpokea.com introduces avenues towards greater freedom from the duality and unintended self-imprisonments. “How Psychology Lost Its Mind” also assist in understanding why sciences (ologies) have all are peaking in their polarizations as the duality burns itself out so we can at least embrace the potential to progress and evolve again as a species. In following the thoughts on this part of your blog, it is in compassion for the intensity of which everyone is wrestling with mirrors of each other grasping portions of their own affectedness by the condition/socialized duality that is itself hopeful. It give witness to the love compassion empathy and human kindness that you spoke of Tim as being intrinsic. It exist simultaneous the depth of ugliness we all witness when the illusion of the ego raises its ugly head. Something we are all intensely beginning to understand as a species by reflectivity (yin) (the moon reflects the suns light) because we couldn’t tolerate the intensity of our own reflections right now directly. Indeed it is driving those who strive to be more conscious near to the brink of insanity witnessed all around us. Your history teacher, Tim, understood the insanity and conditioning arising from all the dualities, when he shredded the history book. The adminsration finding out might have insisted that he drink hemlock. I am delighted that you all keep talking, discussing, embracing each other’s conflicts as you embrace the dualities we all carry within.
August 20th, 2006 at 7:10 pm
What about atom bombs, molecules, quasars, physics, chemistry? Science isn’t concerned with life; science is concerned with the nature, behavior and predictability of observable phenomena. Life falls under that category sometimes but on certain elements of life.
Furthermore, even if we did accept your argument that science is concerned with life. What is *life* concerned with? Survival and reproduction. In other words, progress - which was my original point.
But the survival and reproduction with which it concerns itself is only fractionally devoted to living creatures and their processes, and in a greater sense is devoted to as I said, the nature, behavior and predictability of observable phenomena.
July 26th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
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