Science and Beyond

Rolf Sattler is Emeritus Professor of Biology at McGill University, where he taught courses on plant biology, history and philosophy of biology, science and spirituality, and biology and the human condition. He is a Fellow of the Linnean Society as well as the Royal Society of Canada. Significantly, the book is dedicated to Alfred Korzybski, the plant morphologist Agnes Arber, Ravi Ravindra, Elisabet Sahtouris and the Dalai Lama – which gives an insight into its orientation. The title is carefully chosen to emphasise the place of science within a larger cultural context.

The book is wide-ranging and incisive in its analysis of the limitations of science, uncertainty, replicability, the relationship between objectivity and subjectivity, logic and the indescribable, language and the unnameable, empiricism, mechanistic and holistic science, the relationship between science, society and culture as well as with the arts and spirituality. The main focus is on widespread misconceptions about the nature and limitations of science that can have disastrous consequences when individuals and society are correspondingly misled. This can give us a saner outlook where we are in tune with life and reality - enjoying good health, happiness and peace. Each chapter contains explanatory text, a contemplation and conclusions, occasionally interspersed with rather good jokes and stories.

Drawing on his extensive knowledge of philosophy of science, Rolf discusses the nature of proof where 'facts are theory-laden because they are observed in terms of a theoretical framework' dominated by mechanistic materialism. He reminds us that the observer or experimenter is part of the context of an experiment and that uniqueness transcends replication. He points out that objectivity is limited by the expectancy effect, the experimenter and observer effect, selection bias, confirmation bias consensus bias, reiteration bias and publication bias – all of which is easy to forget. Western thought has been dominated by Aristotelian logic, which now needs to be enhanced by other forms including yin-yan thinking, Buddhist, Jain and Fuzzy logic, and complementarity. A similar situation arises with respect to language and concepts, as brilliantly highlighted by the work of Korzybski, who famously stated that the map is not the territory – as also illustrated in many paintings by Magritte. Korzybski's Structural Differential indicates how we abstract and select features from reality and commit what Whitehead calls the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. Whitehead and Bohm both emphasised the fact that 'reality appears profoundly dynamic, but this dynamic is obscured by the noun-verb structure of most languages.' (p. 35) Nature is a continuum of 'undivided wholeness', where process is primary. In an appendix, Rolf also applies this approach to plant morphology.

He proposes a wider basis of empiricism drawing on William James, Wilber and Goethe while also emphasising the original Greek conceptions of theoria as direct non-dual experience of gnosis. A very important theme in our current context is Foucault's concept of power-knowledge where 'what is presented as objective truth appears contingent on historically conditioned forces that involve power' both in terms of prominent scientists and institutions as well as the dominance of a materialist worldview. Rolf points out that the powerful pharmaceutically dominated medical political establishment espouses the same materialism at the expense of natural health and integrative medicine. This is particularly evident in the current Covid crisis where non-mainstream views are censored and removed as 'misinformation, disinformation or conspiracy theory'. Rolf points out that susceptibility to viral disease depends on many factors including lifestyle, nutrition and, overall exposure to toxicity and the status of the immune system. 'Science' presented in this context has been 'the one-sided power-knowledge of WHO, chief medical officers in powerful positions, and the powerful pharmaceutical industry and governments.'

The chapter on science and spirituality is complemented by appendices on cultivating health and on the human condition and its transcendence in recognising mystery beyond the distinction of matter and spirit where spiritual practice is central. Here we can experience silence beyond the language through deep personal insight leading to inner freedom. There are many imbalances to be rectified (pp. 107-8) and we need to find ways of moving beyond our cultural and genetic conditioning, part of which entails ways of handling power and conflict. A basic misconception is our sense of separation, reinforced by tribalism, language, ideas and belief systems embedded in our identity through logic and language. The influence of Plato and Aristotle is still felt today, and we now need to free ourselves from modern myths such as materialism, scientism, economic growth and, imminently, techno-humanism and 'dataism'. Rolf suggests that 'if we remain anchored in infinity in which thoughts, emotions and feelings arise and vanish, we gain freedom.' (p. 130) Key to our future is the overall direction taken by science and technology and the relative emphasis on transcendence or on transhumanism potentially leading to digital dictatorship. We have a narrow navigational window, and the distilled wisdom of this book can provide much reliable guidance in this respect.