Science and Poetry

Science and Poetry is about more than science and consciousness, reaching as it does into the roots of both in imaginative visions and widening its concern to the relationship between human beings and the earth as understood by Gaia theory. The critique that runs through both themes is one of atomism: in one sense this means a belief that things can only be understood by breaking them into their ultimate or fundamental units; in the other sense it is an individualism that separates us not only from each other but from the earth itself. Mary then develops the argument that the anti-science feeling is really a form of anti-atomism or anti-imperialism, 'a revulsion against the way of thinking which deliberately extends the impersonal, reductive, atomistic methods that are appropriate to physical science into social and psychological enquiries where they work badly'. John Dupre develops a similar argument in his recent book Human Nature and the Limits of Science (OUP, 2001).

The book falls into three parts: Visions of Rationality, Mind and Body: the end of apartheid, and In What Kind of World. The subject-object dichotomy forms the starting point of the first part. After welcoming materialism as a way of getting rid of religion, traditional materialists now find themselves in difficulties because we are asked 'to believe in a world of objects without subjects, and – since we ourselves are subjects, being asked to do the believing – that proposal makes no sense' (p.12). Physics has addressed this problem but, by and large, biologists and social scientists 'do not seem to have yet heard news of this change in physics'. Mary develops this difficulty into a reductio ad absurdum of fatalism, both here and later in the book: 'if deterministic and mechanistic sages really believed that conscious effort had no effect, they would not take the trouble to write their books'. Moreover, the wholeness of the subject is 'that of an organism', implying a context of responsibility to and for those around us.

The first part takes us back to Lucretius, whose powerful philosophical poem De Rerum Natura provides the imaginative vision for atomism and is written with great eloquence, a testimony to the unity of science and poetry of the book's title. Mary traces back to Lucretius the important notion of science as a weedkiller to get rid of religion. This is an example of one of her central themes, namely 'the dependence of detailed thought on entirely non-detailed visions'. Theories are ways of looking at facts that involve an imaginative appeal as well as a structure of understanding. It is well known that the Western world-view underwent a fundamental shift in the 17th century, but less so that this concealed radical divisions beneath the surface. Bacon's language of conquest was taken up into a striving for predictability and control by Galileo and Descartes, while Ficino's neo-Platonic vision appears in Kepler and Newton (the dominant mechanistic consensus initially rejected his doctrine of gravitational attraction). These attitudes correspond to different emotional attitudes to nature: a harmonious relationship as opposed to the view that nature is an enemy to be subdued and even crushed by the omnicompetence of science. The Frankenstein image embodies an early formulation of science as an anti-human force. Mary is right to contend that the influence of inhumane ideas on science needs to be recognized before it can be extirpated, but the prevalence of mechanistic ideas – themselves dehumanizing – makes this hard to achieve.

Another difficulty with atomism is its embeddedness in an external, third-person view, which has led to metaphysical materialism – the view that only matter is real. From this it follows that only physical explanations are either scientific or rational, and that accounts of events involving consciousness are neither complete nor fundamental. This leads into the second part of the book and a consideration of the nature and status of consciousness, defined as 'the scene of all phenomena' rather than just one more phenomenon. Here the argument is for a dual-aspect understanding that avoids the difficulties associated with an exclusively third-person view that can land its proponents in a fatalistic trap. This is brilliantly, indeed caustically, analysed in a common-sense, down-to-earth fashion and traced to still thinking of consciousness as a substance in the old Cartesian sense. We not only need new maps here but also the recognition that no one map is fundamental.

The third part introduces a crucial part of the jigsaw, the conceptual emergency involved in our current perception of our relationship with the earth. We are not simply detached observers using up the earth's capital but rather 'we are ourselves an organic part of this world….which is a living system, a system on whose continued activity we are dependent'. This very relationship implies responsibility and is best expressed in the imaginative power of the Gaia hypothesis, 'a cure for distortions that spoil our current world-view'. Mary rightly regards adoption of a Gaian view as a necessity rather than a luxury, and goes on to explain its workings and significance (see also her Demos pamphlet reviewed under Members' News). An important Gaian principle is that wholes and parts are equally real.

On a practical note, Mary asks how we can deal with our current situation. Prudence and the precautionary principle do not seem to be enough: there are always other more immediate concerns. Moreover, as she points out, 'our imaginations are not necessarily ruled by our reason. We do not easily expect the unfamiliar, and major disasters are always unfamiliar' (p.188). However, the increasing probability of environmental disasters has been known for at least the last thirty years: 'During all that while, every time that the travellers in steerage pointed out that the ship was sinking the first-class passengers have continued to reply placidly, 'Not at our end'. However, there are signs of rising concern with the emergence of the idea that ecology might be more important than economics (see, for instance, Lester Brown's new book Eco-Economy). It also means shifting the balance away from an emphasis on competition (as in evolutionary psychology) towards the equal significance of co-operation, as argued by Brian Goodwin. This powerful, passionate and witty book is essential reading for the formulation of a new and constructive world-view.