This is one of the “In-house” lectures by George Salzman, prepared initially in Fall 1996 for Science for Humane Survival, radical science courses developed at the University of Massachusetts at Boston (UMB) and at Oglala Lakota College (OLC), Kyle, South Dakota.

      Rather than start with a definition, I'll begin with two illustrative anecdotes, both first-hand experiences. In early 1993 George Wald gave a guest lecture at a Science for Humane Survival course. He chose for the title of his talk, “A Better World for Children.” An announcement in the student newspaper invited members of the university community to attend.

      Some time later the Dean of Sciences and Mathematics, a biologist, while telling the Physics Department Chair of some adverse faculty criticism of the course, remarked that even George Wald, in his talk, had not lectured on science. Although Wald was an Emeritus Professor of biology at Harvard, and a Nobel Laureate in physiology or medicine, neither the Dean nor any member of the biology faculty (nor any science faculty except me) attended his guest lecture. The Dean's statement, based on the title of the talk, reflected her belief that a talk on “a better world for children” was simply not a science lecture.

      The implication is that the Dean also believes, or more accurately should be constrained by the rules of logic to believe, the logically equivalent statement, “science has nothing to say about making a better world for children.” Many, perhaps most, practicing scientists (in the natural sciences) probably would be in essential agreement with that view. The task of making a better world for children involves a host of value judgments in fields outside of their specialties, and, in their view, is properly left to people who work in those fields. Scientists ought, they think, stick to their fields of expertise. [I use the terms sciences and scientists to refer to natural sciences; for social sciences and social scientists, I will append the prefix social.]

      The second anecdote involves a foreign graduate engineering student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is committed to gaining as much technical expertise as he can and then returning home and using his skills to help improve the conditions of his compatriots. It troubles him that with all the increased use of technology he has seen there, yet conditions in his country have deteriorated.

      In our conversation it became clear he did not realize the implication of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, namely that in the creation of order in one part of the universe, a greater amount of disorder must be caused in another part. The total change of entropy, which measures disorder, must be positive. There is no way around this. The evolution of Earth's biosphere, a process of great ordering, was carried out fundamentally by the bio-chemical-physical phenomenon of photosynthesis, powered by solar radiation, at the cost of increasing disorder in the rest of the universe.

      Every construction, every manufacture, although the resulting product is ordered ― e.g. the parts of a bicycle fit together and function as a highly ordered machine (compare the bicycle to the raw materials of which its parts were fabricated) ― nevertheless requires that a greater amount of disorder be created somewhere else in the universe. All too often, much of the disorder is produced in parts of the world where people live, near a mine, in a poor neighborhood, or in a third-world country.

      MIT and other technical institutes train engineers to believe that technology is the road to Nirvana, that technical solutions will enable society to continue on the path of “modernization and progress” without the attendant problems now experienced. For example, the stupendous problems generated by internal combustion engines in automotive vehicles will, we are to hope, be solved by electric vehicles. The belief in technical solutions is also widely held throughout the general population. Scientific and technical education, and popular propaganda go hand in hand in luring us ― the world's people ― towards disaster.

      Sophisticated scientists and engineers become, by their training, imbued with the idea that it is desirable to gain ever greater control over the natural world, that that is the path of progress and greater civilization. Both the dean and the graduate student would likely scoff at the idea of “protecting Mother Earth”, as advocated by many indigenous peoples, as being simplistic.

      Traditional science focuses on problems that may be clearly defined within a limited framework. This approach, called reductionism, has been a very powerful way to gain understanding. In each discipline ― biology, chemistry, etc. ― a certain class of problems is studied, and within a discipline there are sub-disciplines that correspond to subclasses of problems. By narrowing the scope it has often been possible to gain profound insights and corresponding technical capabilities. Study of the electric properties of semiconductor materials led to development of transistors and the entire electronic “revolution” of the second half of the 20th century. Study of DNA molecules led to a deep understanding of cellular replication and the technology of genetic manipulation during the same half century.

      Radical science of course acknowledges the tremendous intellectual achievements that reductionism makes possible. But it does not ignore, as traditional science so often does, the need to incorporate within science not only the narrowing of focus characteristic of reductionism, but also the broader focus that requires synthesis of results from various disciplines.

      To some extent such synthesis occurs. For example, the photosynthetic process requires for its understanding all three of the disciplines, biology, chemistry and physics. Natural scientists regularly accept the need for interdisciplinary considerations to solve technical problems. However, they are often unwilling to engage in considerations that go beyond technical questions, considerations that involve not only the so-called “hard” sciences but those cultural matters whose domains are in the so-called social sciences ― politics, economics, psychology, and so on.

      Conventional scientific training of course puts great emphasis on the importance of critical thinking, but critical thinking focused on a particular class of problems which comprise a scientific discipline, or more usually a subdiscipline. Radical science regards the boundaries between disciplines as useful constructs for helping to focus on particular classes of problems, but also as possible impediments to the solution of other problems which can only be comprehended by broadly interdisciplinary efforts.

      Many of the pressing problems facing humanity, for example, How can energy be used in a way that is equitable and ecologically sustainable?, can only be adequately considered from broadly interdisciplinary perspectives. Food, agriculture, transportation, medical science and practice ― each of these is of the utmost importance, and each involves both science and cultural factors.

      It is vitally important that people who are studying to become scientists gain the perspective needed to address such problems. If instead they are inculcated with the conventional idea that stepping across disciplinary boundaries is nonscientific, then they may prevent themselves from ever asking the very questions that must be asked in trying to solve the highly complex problems of the real world.

      In spite of the conventional scientific training most practicing scientists have received, there are some who are exemplary in their interdisciplinary efforts to address vexing problems. For example, in Breakfast of Biodiversity: The Truth About Rain Forest Destruction,* University of Michigan scientists open their discussion on “Stabilizing Agriculture on Rain Forest Soils” as follows: Before beginning this section, we wish to remind the reader that the reasons most small farmers move their farms into rain forests have much more to do with politics than with nature, a point to which we return in the next chapter.

      This book, whose senior author holds an endowed chair in biology, contains solid scientific information, but is not limited to considering only traditional scientific questions. It is a good example of the kinds of insightful analyses that can result when traditional restrictions are abandoned. By teaching radical science, in addition to the content of traditional science, such work will be encouraged, and become the norm. Of course we should not fool ourselves that this will occur without mammoth opposition, because it would pose challenges to the maintenance of the status quo. No threat to the dominant power structure is allowed to flourish without encountering the fiercest opposition.
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* by John Vandermeer and Ivette Perfecto, published by Food First, The Institute for Food and Development Policy, 1995.