To the scientists of the Babylonian civilization, it seemed reasonable to
believe that the Earth was flat and was held up by elephants standing on a
giant sea turtle – even though their astronomy was highly developed and
they had observed the curvature of the Earth’s shadow moving across the
Moon during eclipses. They held this view because they could not imagine a
plausible alternative today. The idea of a flat Earth held up by elephants was
the most reasonable explanation available. Flatness seemed to fit their
everyday experience, and, although highly improbable, elephants were far
less improbable than any conceivable alternative. Yet, because it was based
on faulty evidence, it was actually only a superstitious belief. What
appeared the most reasonable view was really completely unreasonable. The
flat Earth theory was rejected by Greek scientists who observed that the Sun
and Moon were spherical and reasoned that the Earth must be too. Once the
flat Earth viewpoint was deprived of the appearance of being reasonable, its
wildly improbable nature became obvious, and it seems amazing to us today
that anyone could have believed in such a theory, however limited their
scientific knowledge.
I believe that something very similar is true of parts of western science
today. It actually contains some wildly improbable theories – as improbable
as elephants holding up the Earth. Yet these theories appear to represent a
reasonable view because they offer a natural sounding mechanism
explanation that seems consonant with common sense and our essentially
limited experience and understanding of the world. Whole areas of the
western scientific model come in this category: theories that seem as solid as
rock and, indeed, are the foundations of much of western thinking, yet in
reality are at best unsubstantiated and at worst no more than superstitions:
there are many examples of Earth beliefs that have been exported the world
over. But why should any rational person – let alone a trained scientist –
accept such beliefs?
One especially strange aspect of belief in western
culture is that we habitually use the word belief to mean two entirely
different things depending on whether we are speaking of belief in an
everyday sense (I believe in parliamentary democracy) or in the scientific
sense (I believe in the atomic theory of matter). It is normal in our culture to
take the second statement as meaning that the empirical evidence and
theoretical background of atomic theory are such that any rational person
who analyzes the facts must be compelled to accept the theory. We also
think that this process of ‘scientific’ acceptance is different in kind from the
ordinary acceptance of everyday things: a person might be right or wrong to
believe in the value and the effectiveness of parliamentary democracy
because it is a matter of opinion, but he or she cannot be wrong to believe in
atomic theory because it is a matter of fact. Yet the psychological process of
acceptance is actually the same in each case: it rests simply on the fact that
the conclusion seems to be irresistible, even to the well-informed mind.
This
appearance of being irresistible can in itself be a self-evident justification for
belief – just as it is ‘obvious’ that two and two must make four, and just as it
was obvious to Babylonian scientists that the Earth is flat. The problem that
this psychological process can present, as we saw earlier, arises because our
perception – and hence what appears obvious – is to some extent determined
by our beliefs. It means that all observers, scientists as well as savages,
employ a kind of mental inertial guidance navigation system which takes
over our routine mental processing; an intellectual autopilot whose perpetual
heading is star of our convictions, and which filters our perceptions to ensure
that they conform to those convictions. It is as though our perceptions reach
our minds through a screen – a matrix that is dynamically adaptive to our
world view and that can selectively modify the contents of our field of vision
in the service of that world view.â€
In light of the fact that the orthodox scientific community has the power
to determine which new knowledge is worthy of investigation, and which is
not, it is extremely troublesome as those who have this kind of control are
often self-serving. This community has become a closed system, a private
club, where only the elite of academia are allowed entrance. This is not an
empty intellectual discourse but something much more sinister, for there is
the distinct possibility that a new discovery on the horizon may go
unnoticed. What if a so-called amateur happens to stumble upon the
solution to a certain form of cancer? Wouldn’t we want to know about it?
Are we supposed to ignore the results because scientists in this inner circle
claim that they did the research and came up empty? And even if the data
were analyzed, how would we know that the conclusions were not
misinterpreted due to the ‘psychological filtering system’ that is
unconsciously at work? Regardless of where this lack of objectivity comes
from, new knowledge may be overlooked or thrown into a slush pile never to
be seen again. Allowing a select few the privilege of offering their
conclusions on any given subject is discrimination of the worst kind because
it is disguised as genuine scholarship. This dangerous weeding-out process
will continue unless it is stopped by a public outcry since it is the people
themselves who will suffer the most damaging effects of this hidden agenda.
We must shed light on this serious problem or many more discoveries may
be lost to future generations.