What Science Can Tell Us – And What It Can’t
I’ve always enjoyed helping my kids with their homework, and, as they’ve gotten older, I’ve been learning a great deal myself from what I’m helping them study. Last night, I spent a few happy hours helping my son Jake study for a botany test, during which I came across something rather surprising: many of the uses that plants have for their essential micronutrients – elements like chlorine, iron, manganese, copper, cobalt, zinc, molybdenum and boron are “not well understood.” I.e., we know they’re important, albeit in concentrations of a few parts per million, but we’re not sure exactly why, and neither do we understand the transport mechanisms for these nutrients that are active within the organism.
Until I read this, I would have expected that very little would remain unknown to the top minds in plant biochemistry as we make our way into the 21st Century, but apparently that’s not the case. I would have thought that the only real mysteries remaining in science are the freaky, counter-intuitive aspects of the world at the cosmological level, e.g., dark energy, or in the infinitesimally small world, e.g., quantum entanglement. I also acknowledge that we’re a very long way from having our wits wrapped around the nature of consciousness.
So let us ask ourselves: Will science eventually bring us the answers we desire so intensely, or will certain aspects of the world around us forever remain elusive? I’m reminded of a debate on science and religion in which Neil deGrasse Tyson’s opponent challenged the popular astrophysicist, “So, you’re saying that dark energy and dark matter are far more pervasive in the universe than the content that science claims to understand. Couldn’t that unknown stuff be God?” Tyson responded, “Sure. But if your belief in God is hinged on what science doesn’t understand at this moment in time, you need to realize that you’re standing on an island that’s getting smaller every year. A few centuries ago, we thought that thunder, earthquakes, famines, and disease were God’s way of expressing His displeasure with our sinful ways. With the advent of modern science, all of that ignorance is gone, and it’s gone forever.”
If we accept Tyson’s reasoning, we might conclude that science will eventually leave no aspect of our existence unanswered. I’m not so sure. While I refrain from taking a public stand on religion, I will say this about science: My bet is that humanity’s quest to understand the essential nature of the universe will not succeed. There is no reason to believe that a species that evolved over the last 200,000 years, stuck, as we are, with senses that are limited to three spatial dimensions, can grasp realities that obviously are not bound by this restraint. We were evolved to hunt mastodons and grow corn, not to unravel string theory or whatever lies beyond that — theories that require us to intuit the world in 11 dimensions.
Having said that, let’s ask ourselves how important, in the scheme of things, the quest for this ultimate understanding of the universe actually is, and evaluate two threats:
1) Our civilization will suffer from an ongoing ignorance of the ultimate building blocks of matter and of the origins of the universe, or
2) Our civilization will suffer a horrific breakdown due to our unrestrained over-consumption of resources
Shouldn’t we be far more worried about the latter?
Hi Craig,
Our species faces a generation-long turning point: despite energy is everywhere, everytime, and expanding, so is entropy, that our decisions shall lead us toward how much longer to exist, be it centuries more or milleniums, either on Earth or elsewhere.
As to the god concept, it just reflects our ignorance level: the bigger it is, the easier to grasp god. Eventually, the grand god may be an emergent conscience of an universe. Lesser gods may be far advanced civilizations in relation to our own.
I am far more concerned about the ability of nature to absorb the effluent of our growing human population and its infrastructure without becoming less nurturing to humans and other creatures who share our finite planet, than of the availability of resources, such as fossil-fuels.
These effluents include global climate change gases (e.g., carbon-dioxide), and more “conventional” pollutants, such as oxides of sulfur and nitrogen, heavy metals, and particulates. The former are a long-term problem that is beginning to be felt through strange weather. The latter cause or worsen lung disease, such as asthma. The solution problems to both is to stop burning fossil fuels.
OK, easier stated than done, but no all that difficult when the stakes are so high. With the right combination of conservation, energy efficiency, wind energy, solar energy, and energy storage, it can be done within a decade or two.
To really achieve maximum energy efficiency, we need to reconsider how we do travel and eat among other aspects of our lives. Instead of traveling in single occupancy vehicles, we should rely more on walking, bicycling, and transit. (More efficient cars or electric cars will not solve the immense time waster of traffic congestion.) Walkers, bicyclists, and even transit users get more healthy exercise than car drivers, without special trips to the gym. Eating a vegetarian diet consumes far less resources than the usual meat-centered diet because any animal raised for meat must consume several calories of food for each calorie of meat produced. (This says nothing of the usual and cruel process of raising animals under inhumane conditions and then sending them to slaughter.)
Somehow, the large fossil-fuel companies find more and more destructive ways and going to literally the ends of the earth (including the Arctic) to mine and drill for as much energy as the market demands. These destructive ways include mountain-top coal mining, deep sea oil drilling, horizontal drilling, and fracking. The private interests that bring us this relatively cheap energy don’t pay the true cost of these practices and neither do we as consumers. (Pogo said “We have met the enemy and he is us.” – so true.)
We can begin to address this inequity, by imposing a true cost of carbon and toxic emissions now; I hope we have the political will to do so. The Citizens’ Climate Lobby, the Sierra Club, and other great organizations believe in it and are working to that end. We need to join with them.
I agree all the way around; I view the consumption and the “effluent,” i.e. the waste related to the consumption, as essentially the same problem. I also agree that we can solve this very quickly if we really try. What you propose, i.e., a carbon tax that internalizes what are currently externalities, is a terrific idea.
Great to know you are a good dad, Craig. I would have written a comment very similar to Rich’s. He saved me the time:) One huge problem is the lack of popular understanding, and therefore of concern that translates into action/change, of problems like global warming and resource depletion and pollution. Of course, we are worrying unnecessarily: James Inhofe et alia assure us with 100% certainty that the Bible says all will be well!
Unfortunately, these good organizations will not consider options other than vast amounts of diffuse and intermittent sources. However, I support their political efforts concerning the very serious problems of de-forestation (don’t buy products with Indonesian palm oil!).
Craig, please do not conflate the idea that science may never give us answers to every question with the idea propounded by some that there are questions science cannot ask, mush less answer. It’s clear that science cannot answer every question today. What is not clear is the ultimate limit of science – the question(s) science cannot ask. Those there may be, but I have not heard a credible argument from someone who claims to know what that limiting question is. If interested in exploring this area, let me recommend “Science and Its Limits” by Prof. Del Ratzsch of Calvin College.
Thanks, Charles. I’m extremely interested in this question, and I’ll put that one on my reading list.
Did Tyson really say that? Oh boy, how wrong some scientists are even in this age of global warming, more frequently raging hyper-storms and melting arctic ice cap! Is that not God’s (alright call it Nature’s if the 3 letter word gets one’s goatee) way of retribution for upsetting the environment?
Will humanity benefit if modern science models the earth as a complex living biological entity rather than a blob of solid-liquid mixture of minerals enveloped in a blanket of gases? If inter-disciplinary scientists can deeply contemplate on such a model, may be, they will come up with holistic answers to many of the riddles.
Re: what Tyson actually said verbatim, I can’t precisely recall; I’m paraphrasing. I do remember that metaphor: “standing on an island that’s getting smaller every year.” I thought that was clever.
The answers you seek, should we choose to accept them can be found on this website. I have been searching sense 1987 for the ultimate source of truth and found it here. When properly understood the laws of physics and the spirituals laws are one and the same.
http://www.abraham-hicks.com/lawofattractionsource/workshops.php
Even better than the idea of a carbon tax is the scientific processes that lead to CO2 free energy almost as cheap as NG and coal. This does not entail an all out “necessity” of learning the theory of everything, just the absolute necessity of re-developing the “best” way to maximize production of said energy. This entails efficiency at the highest levels humanly possible (without the understanding of dark matter/energy) concerning the “generator” mass manufacture and its fuel input, its waste stream, and the proper isolation of that waste stream from the biosphere.
Eventually, humanity’s knowledge of this universe shall allow some even better form of energy source but we risk the consequences of what happens if developed hastily, such as with the chemical reactions (the outer electron); we get burned (perhaps even causing the next Ocean Anoxic Event); with the nuclear reactions (atomic fission), meltdowns and excess radio-toxicity (by not developing meltdown proof designs or proper isolation of fission products); and with the next level (reaction dealing with quarks or the plank level, perhaps of dark energy?) the possibility of an even much greater threat!
We already have the technology, just not the political will to prevent global warming. This is also a proof in point, which states that we have not reached the scientific maturity to afford the luxury of material abundance.
99.9% clean energy and recycling IS maturity. God gave us all the raw materials necessary to develop a large planetary civilization without need for rations (or the transition from Holocene to holocaust)! CO2 reduction tactics FAIL because money causes corruption (and many people won’t “allow” closed cycle nuclear).
Well, let us see what we can do (to make God) to help us have better usage of our brains first…