Lord Verulam's Idols
Discussing Science and Scientism with Rachel Fulton Brown
Join us on a voyage of the Mosaic Ark where I discuss Francis Bacon, science, and scientism with University of Chicago Medievalist, Professor Rachel Fulton Brown, and Kilts Khalfan.
Bacon’s science fiction novella, New Atlantis, offered a new vision for science.
His goal was to “establish and extend the power and dominion of the human race itself over the universe.” Bacon’s vision of an autonomous scholarly institution reminiscent of a modern research university (but without all the annoying students) beguiled generations of scholars and technologists, aligning with their aspirations for independence, prestige, influence, and status.
Writing in his 1667 History of the Royal Society, Thomas Sprat declared, “I shall onely mention one great Man, who had the true Imagination of the whole extent of this Enterprize, as it is now set on foot ; and that is, the Lord Bacon…” The frontispiece of Pratt’s 1667 History features a bust of Charles II with Royal Society President Viscount William Brouncker (1620–1684) on the right side and Bacon on the left.
Bacon was not so much the Father of Science as he was the Father of Scientism.
The brilliant mathematician, Alexander Grothendieck, cautioned against the emerging cult of scientism in his 1971 essay “The New Universal Church.”
Utopian – or dystopian – literature all too often appears ambiguous about whether it serves as a warning or as a roadmap. Bacon’s New Atlantis takes its proper place beside more modern stories like Huxley’s Brave New World or Orwell’s 1984. When we consider where physics went wrong, we will do well to take a closer look at Bacon and his influence.
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The Prisoner TV series portrayed The New Atlantis in microcosm,
It seems to me that physics (and all science) has never really escaped the metaphysics of Plato and Aristotle. Western philosophy on the whole has not, but philosophy did perceive the problem long ago. It was David Hume who very early on, as soon as the grand Enlightenment began to roar, sneaked in and very improbably dynamited everybody's faith in the abilities of Reason. This show-stopper sent philosophy reeling in a dive from which she is only now just recovering, but meanwhile over in the Science Wing the boys kept chugging along never noticing.
Science remains committed to the old metaphysics, while even wondering if metaphysical questions themselves have any warrant at all. The age-old metaphysical posit is that Reality can only be perceived imperfectly through its Appearance, from which we must comprehend through Intuition and Reason. Therefore we must hypothesize, take a stab at it through experiment, rinse-and-repeat.
That's the Scientific Method, although to be honest nobody wants to talk about what it really looks like in practice. That's the prettified version of matters that they teach in the high schools. The trouble is that it doesn't work, and can't work, because the metaphysics are wrong. It really went wrong with Plato and Aristotle (or, better said, it failed to develop beyond then metaphysically). Science today is a scattering of heavily fortified fifedoms from which defenders pour hot oil upon the heads any challengers of their safe paradigms.