In the year 1660 a learned society was founded in London by a small group of men who believed that science and scientific method could reveal all the secrets of the universe. The motto of the society was “Nullius in Verba,” which those of us who failed Latin at school might hesitantly translate as “Take nobody’s word for it” or, in the words of Sergeant Friday in the ancient TV series “Dragnet,” “Just gimme the facts.”
It was an auspicious time for a scientific enterprise. The dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell had ended, and a relatively tolerant king, Charles II, was restored to the throne. In 1663. He gave his patronage to the learned society of scientists which became and has remained The Royal Society. Benjamin Franklin became one of its most distinguished members.
Not everybody loved the new society. There was a great deal of ridicule in the newspapers, and its meetings were sometimes broken up by rowdy mobs of know-nothings. And, indeed, some of early science seemed ridiculous. Jonathan Swift in “Gulliver’s Travels” satirized imaginary experiments like the extraction of sunbeams from cucumbers. But if you don’t know anything, scientifically speaking, anything is possible, and the only way to find out was and is by systematic observation and experiment.
The fear and rejection of science has a long history. Every age and culture has its own ways of explaining the world, and people get upset at the suggestion that what they think they know is all wrong. But that’s what science does, relentlessly. Galileo was the most famous example, with his improbable idea that our little planet was riding a kind of carousel around the sun, but there are tens of thousands of others, all the way from Semmelweis’s discovery of the causes of infection and Darwin’s theory of evolution to the present day campaigns against vaccination and climate science.
There are always those who would prefer not to know the facts when the facts may cause political problems or reduce profits. Politicians seem more fearful of science than others, perhaps because its method, demands definite answers to definite questions, which is the very definition of a political nightmare.
This is an old story, indeed an ancient one. Greek mythology offers us an image of human nature as divided between the Apollonian and Dionysian. Apollo is the god of rational thinking and order, who appeals to logic, prudence and honesty. Dionysus is the god of wine and dance, of irrationality and chaos, who appeals to emotions and instincts. The two natures co-exist in us, and the tension between them is either tragic or creative, according to which philosopher you choose.
Right now we seem to be tilting rather too far in the direction of the impetuous Dionysian character that hates and fears the cool hand of science. How refreshing it would be to have a leader, or a whole government of leaders, who took as their motto Nullius in Verba, or as Joe Friday might have put it: “Just gimme the facts.”
Copyright: David Bouchier
