Is Science Necessary?  Essays on science and scientists

Max F. Perutz

I did not read this book; I read and skimmed only pieces of it.  However, I shall proceed to talk about it’s total worth and value because I am, like the author, in some respects an idiot.

He states that the best science comes about when all is open, and that when communication is limited as in times of war bad science can result.  I agree, but he I didn’t notice him taking issue with our world of national security and trade secrets.  But the main thrust of the book is not what enables science, but the necessity of science and how it brings us so many good things.  (As for the question “Is science necessary?” I personally think it is like asking if knowledge is necessary.  The interesting questions – how is science used, what can be done to promote it, and what new knowledge should be pursued – are hardly touched on, from what I read.)

What has changed our attitude toward wrongdoers and the mentally sick is a combination of science and humane liberalism that asks, “Is hanging an effective deterrent?  Are madmen and demented old women possessed by the devil?  What causes madness and crime?” Few countries have reason to be proud of their prisons and mental hospitals, but science has changed our attitudes toward human behavior, gradually substituting reason for cruelty, prejudice, and superstition.  This approach has grown slowly and needs to be preached anew to evey generation.  Otherwise, it is only people’s bodies that are jet-propelled while their minds revert to the Middle Ages.

Page 4.

As Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union, and (to some extent) every modern government has shown, science can coexist with evil quite well.  “Science” in the U.S. has, for example, supported sterilization of the “feeble-minded” (invariably poor).  Perutz noted that jokes about lunatics are no longer common without noting that science gave us the terms idiot, moron, and maybe even lunatic.  Nor have I heard a chorus of scientists pointing out that people from the rich and the middle class by and large do not become common criminals of the kind we fear on the street and imprison regularly.  On the last point, about preaching reason anew to every generation, I’m afraid he may be somewhat right— but a book that purports to be a polemic for science implies a weakness in its own argument by trying to claim all of “reason” as the domain of “science.”  Some of us think it goes rather the other way, and that even so science can escape reason or hold onto only the narrowest slice of reason while being stubbornly blind to the larger reality.  Take this quotation:

When we come to the condition of the common man, there is a great difference between the approach of the priest, of the politician, and of the scientist.  The priest persuades the humble people to endure their hard lot; the politician urges them to rebel against it, and the scientist thinks of a method that does away with the hard lot altogether.

Page 5.

Throughout the book Perutz seems to define science rather strictly, certainly not including all that in economics, sociology, civics, etc. that proves valuable.  His science is that which deals with nature.  So I must respectfully point out that while most priests have been in the business of telling the poor to lump it, so have most politicians, and some priests, particularly in South America, advocate for radical social reforms.  Scientists, as a class, seem to have stayed out of the whole debate.  Not, however, Max Perutz:

In some parts of the world, notably Scandinavia, Austria, and New Zealand, there are now no longer any crass contrasts between rich and poor, and the Christian ideal of equality of man has at last been approached.

Page 6.

I passionately believe that we can all live in the styles to which we have become customers in an equal world.  But no country – as admirable as its social programs may be – is proof, certainly not Sweden, Austria, or New Zealand, all of which participate in this little something, that science makes possible, called corporate globalization.  Yes we can have a decent standard of living without exploiting anybody, but unless there is a country not buying things from the countries containing the poorest three-quarters of the population (not that that would solve anything) it has not happened yet.  (Cuba probably gets closest, or maybe Costa Rica, but they are part of the poorest three-quarters.  If non-democratic sort-of socialism in Cuba gives way to any sort of capitalism, many basic quality of life indicators such as life-span will get worse in Cuba, I predict.  I doubt I’d like the Cuban government, I tend to be rather critical.  But I just said that what the U.S. wants for Cuba is worse.  We so need global and local democracy, people owning collectively what they think they should, open markets with true competition, and systematic redistribution of wealth.)

Max Perutz’s premise seems to be that science made and makes modern civil society possible.  And of course in many ways it has.  But in the most important ways, that cut to the core of what makes up a civil society – a measure of freedom and opportunity and free time and power over their own lives for a significant section of society – it is the civil society that makes science possible.  When the Netherlands became the first modern nation around 1600, European science was nothing to boast about.  But the Dutch separated church from state in important ways, created a huge middle class, and in general gave a few lucky and exceptional individuals the means and the freedom to do little things like create entomology and invent whole branches of science.  This is where René Descartes hung out while he founded calculus (or something else really important in mathematics), among other things.  And without the support of society, practically none of the more recent advances of science that have improved (or made worse) people’s lives would have both occurred and been translated into practical innovations.

Anyhow, Max Perutz’s life story seems to be in the book, and that is probably well worth reading.  But I hope the dogma about some things such as the necessity of pesticides (his arguments for chemical fertilizers is more convincing) is out-of-date science.  If not, there are some scientist-type people who research something called integrated pest management who should be given a little input.  The fantastic graphs of increasing yields thanks to science begs the question why hasn’t quality of life world-wide also increased five-fold over the last 75 years.  I think “science” has to look at itself and try to figure out who benefits and who does not, scientifically, that is, numerically, and not based on the country or community in which the scientist lives.  And then science can help me figure out how to bring the benefits of science to everyone, and to let the people affected have a say in what is researched, because then, once this world is free and fair, I honestly and truly want to be a scientist, because science will be the real source of improvements in our lives.  But not now.

Perutz, Max F.  Is Science Necessary?  Essays on science and scientists.  New York: E. P. Dutton, 1989.

This book is in the Maurice Institute Library collection.

[I make myself sick.  I wrote more than I read.]

Review written from 2001 October 28 to 2001 October 29.