The resistance to revolutions in Science
beliefs challenged | scientists as disrupters | resistance breeds anxiety
This reading is part of a series: On Nuclear Fear
It is in the nature of science that nothing is accepted on belief alone. Natural philosophers, predecessors to modern scientists, had wondered about the hidden forces that dictate the outcome of natural phenomena around us. They wondered why a pebble always falls towards the ground, why a leaf floats but a rock sinks in water, what fire is, and why it ignites. These were fundamental questions about nature that the inquisitive among the people asked. For some, the answer was the same as it had always been, that god, a god, some god, someone powerful, the all-seeing, had designed it so. When this was not satisfactory for the few, they embarked on a journey of discovery. Along the way, they met other like-minded people with inquisitive minds and passed their ideas along, to be carried further than they themselves had. Knowledge evolved. New facts were taken on as they were discovered. Proven theories were carried along, while disproven ones were abandoned. The methods and experiences they gained passed from generation to generation. Along the way, new inventions allowed them to delve deeper into their search. They were searching for something fundamental, something logical, that answered the "why" and "how" of the world around them. They asked more philosophical questions, too, about our existence and the meaning of it. Their quest was, however, disrupting long-held beliefs.
An axiom of revolutions is that they don't come and go quietly. Their violent stirring often brings bubbles of unrest and conflict. At the center of the Scientific Revolution had been scientists who had challenged the conservative view, had challenged the belief in god. Orthodox Christian faith before the 17th century had put humankind at the center of why things were the way they were. The universe was made as a home for us. The sun had but one purpose, to provide us light and heat during the day. The moon and the stars would make beautiful, the darkness of the night. If beauty was there in the world, it was there for our pleasure alone. We were the thought, our existence was the guide, and our welfare was the aim when god picked up the brush to paint the masterpiece. This soothing philosophy would come under attack in the 17th century. The belief of "the universe as a home for humankind, an extension of Eden" would see contest from new theories emerging from science and philosophy (Wootton, 2016, 236). Reason was pushed to the pedestal, to reign without mercy.
The heliocentric model of Nicolaus Copernicus was published in 1543. He theorized that the Earth was not the center of the universe. Rather, it orbits the sun. Few actually took the idea seriously at the time. Giordano Bruno, an Italian philosopher in the 1580s, seized on Copernicus's ideas and went further. He claimed that the universe was infinite. That the Sun was just a star, one among countless others, and that the Earth was but a planet, one among many. He dared even further and claimed that life on Earth was not a unique phenomenon and that the countless other planets could possibly have extraterrestrial life forms (Grant, 1994, and Singer & Bruno, 1950 as cited in Wootton, 2016, 147). For his views, Bruno was arrested in 1592 and considered a criminal according to Catholic law. He would spend eight years in the darkness of solitary confinement. His books were banned throughout Catholic Europe. For continuing to hold his belief in other inhabited worlds, he was tortured and then burned alive in a popular square in Rome, the Campo de' Fiori, on 17th February 1600. The Copernicus theory of a heliocentric universe would be banned in 1616 and remained banned for 200 years. Such actions did much to deter many from holding beliefs that contradicted the conservative view of god. After Galileo was condemned for advancing heliocentrism, Descartes, who was about to publish his own views on natural philosophy, decided not to in fear. Only several years later, when he felt out of reach of the Church's influence, did Descartes publish his famous "Discourse on Method" (Wootton, 2016).
The progress of Science and Reason was causing the "erosion of traditional beliefs" (Wootton, 2016, 469). However, as scientific ideas were a product of an open society, it was hard to dismiss facts that were verifiable. The conservative view faced a harsh reality - adapt or lose credibility. The belief in god was important not only to many of the practitioners of the new science but also to institutions like the Royal Society, which didn't want the new science to be hostile to the established and hard-to-shake religious beliefs. But how could this be done when religious faith "depended on belief in a spiritual world beyond the material world?" Abandoning such beliefs would have required abandoning belief in miracles and angels, too. Short of such drastic fundamental change, the Church did retreat from the beliefs in "witchcraft, demonic possession, poltergeists, levitation, and second sight" to propose new arguments for religious faith that sat well with the new science. The sign came with Newton's universal law of gravitation. Gravity required god to "inform and actuate" the universe. Universal gravity was proof of divine law, and the Church adopted it as an "invincible argument for the Being of God" (Wootton, 2016, 460-66). Here was a proof of a grand design.
Out of reach of the Church's influence, scientists were still pursuing radical ideas about the reality of existence, which meant that there was a section of society that felt threatened. Though scientists were not influential members of society, their discoveries were transforming it. This was seen as a threat from the outside of the established order. Naturally, there was resistance by those who could wield words as weapons and had influence. And they resisted by spreading the idea of "blasphemous scientists" (Weart, 2012, 35-37). Thus was born the "mad scientist" - robotic and unemotional, working tirelessly, feeling oppressed by society or personal problems; and in the quest for rebirth, creates a monster - their inner demons set loose. Machines emerging from the scientific pursuit would be an ideal target for those wanting to write against science and the change that it wrought.
It is through Descartes that the word 'machine' enters the English language. When Descartes wrote about machines in the 17th century, he envisioned moving mechanisms that were propelled by flowing water or falling weights. He viewed the entire universe much like a machine that had mechanisms that governed the movements of stars and planets. He even claimed that animals were but self-moving machines, although humans were unique because they had souls. Apparently, he went so far as to make himself a woman, a primitive robot of sorts, and took it with him on a ship. When the ship was caught in a storm, the captain, worried that the machine was possessed by a devil, threw it overboard (Mayr, 1986 as cited in Wootton, 2016, 438). This was no Frankenstein's monster, but the idea was now there in the consciousness.
Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1818 to warn of a ghastly future the new science could conjure. William Blake's poem "And did those feet in ancient time" talks of "dark satanic mills", talking about the menacing industrial contraptions bellowing out plumes of dark smoke, ruining the land that once was perhaps as lovely as heaven. Here was also a cry that machines in factories were replacing traditional millers, destroying their livelihoods (Wootton, 2016, 490). The disruption wrought by the Industrial Revolution, which, for the most part, had resulted in great progress for society as a whole, also impacted society in negative ways. Change enforced from the outside is not always welcomed. Environmental concerns, poor working conditions of workers, and disruptions to traditional work were some of the issues that disenchanted a few of the changes that science and technology caused.
Warnings about science would continue into the 20th century with books such as H. G. Wells's The Island of Dr. Moreau and works of comics and movies that would come later. And they would conjure up a villain. What could science do in the wrong hands? As the scientific method developed through the 17th and 18th centuries, science consolated under one umbrella, what had been associated with engineering and innovation in the past. Although science was meant to be about discovering the workings of nature, such an altruistic goal was only possible if the innovation that resulted from it could be applied to profitable pursuits. Innovation in shipbuilding, navigation, and weaponry had allowed tyrants in the past to seize continents. Could innovation from the new science not do the same for a madman in the future? The anxiety about science and technology would slowly seep into the consciousness.
Anxiety was also brought upon by what science was fundamentally about. The quest of scientists was about revealing cosmic mysteries. Ernest Rutherford, the father of nuclear physics, himself described his interest as a "search into one of the deepest secrets of Nature" (Rutherford in 13th BBC National Lecture, 1933 as cited in Weart, 2012, 32). His contemporary, the Nobel prize-winning chemist Frederick Soddy, thought that with radioactivity, humans had "penetrated one of Nature's innermost secrets" (Soddy, 1920, 175). However, secrets can engender both curiosity and fear of the unknown (Weart, 2012). Robert Millikan notes that critics accused scientists of being "bad small boys" for trying to reveal what was hidden. It was hidden for a reason, as they say. It was forbidden knowledge, and consequences would follow if it was revealed. Thus, scientists were viewed as someone tampering with something humans weren't supposed to. The scientists were being reckless. If a scientist learned of the forbidden secrets, there was no telling how the new powers would be used.
References:
Soddy, F. (1920). The Interpretation of Radium and the Structure of the Atom (4th ed.).
Weart, S. R. (2012). The Rise of Nuclear Fear. Harvard University Press.
Wootton, D. (2016). The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution (First Harper Perennial edition). Harper Perennial.