ABSTRACT
Since man gained awareness of himself as a self-conscience being, and found himself in the natural environment as the one and only habitat that he can ever be in, as a human, he sought knowledge thereof to settle more properly, and fit into the natural environment, for himself and posterity, and the natural environment itself, sustainably, as the life of the life-bearing beings of the natural environment is critically dependent on the wellbeing of the natural environment. The goal was for the natural environment to be inhabitable sustainably.
Man through his own instrumentality
raised science as that knowledge to make the natural environment inhabitable
sustainably. Man acquired that knowledge gradually over time through evolution.
For over 6000 years now that knowledge is being acquired, processed and
accumulated. From when man gained awareness of himself in the natural
environment, through the Mesopotamian civilization, Egyptian civilization,
Greek civilization, to this day. What has the knowledge acquired so far done
for the inhabitability and wellbeing of the natural environment? From the
science of man when he first gained awareness of himself, through the
Mesopotamian science, Egyptian science, natural philosophy of the Greeks,
natural science, naturalism to environmentalism today, underpin by scientific
method, is the natural environment more
inhabitable now than ever?
The answer is an emphatic No! The evolution of the science of the natural environment lends itself to that failure. From the beginning of the evolution of the natural environment, the supernatural was very much a force to reckon with, along the line, gradually it was practically dropped. In any case, with or without the integration of the supernatural in the evolution of the science of the natural environment, the inhabitability of the natural environment stands endangered.
INTRODUCTION
I have been wondering over a while how
science of the natural environment got to where it is today. I have been
wondering how it all started. I have been looking for reasons for the
evolution. I have been wondering how the epochal phases of the evolution
occurred. I have been turning around in my mind what the triggers for the
epochal phases are. And to what ultimate end?
These inquisitions are going to serve
as the fundamental driving forces behind this post.
In this post the interpretation of
evolution is the gradual process of growth and development. In this sense this
post can be said to be about the gradual process of growth and development of the
science of the natural environment.
A Science Council definition of
science extracted through the link https://sciencecouncil.org/about-science/our-definition-of-science/
is:
Science is the pursuit and application
of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a
systematic methodology based on evidence.
It is further stated that:
Scientific methodology includes the
following:
v Objective
observation: Measurement and data (possibly although not necessarily using
mathematics as a tool)
- v Evidence
- v Experiment and/or observation as benchmarks for testing hypotheses
- v Induction: reasoning to establish general rules or conclusions drawn from facts or examples
- v Repetition
- v Critical analysis
- v Verification and testing: critical exposure to scrutiny, peer review and assessment
The foregoing Science Council
definition makes science a means to an end.
Yet the root word (from Latin) from
which the word science emerged, scientia, means knowledge. In this sense science
is an end in itself. Knowledge acquired from science as a means.
It can then be said that science is
both a means to an end, and an end in itself.
Science of the natural environment, within
this context, is therefore the pursuit and application of knowledge and
understanding of the natural environment following a systematic methodology
based on evidence.
But pursuit and application of
knowledge and understanding of the natural environment for what?
It must be for the management of the
natural environment for its wellbeing, both naturally and socially. It must be
for the sustaining of a clean and balanced natural environment as is intended, for
the benefit of both man and the natural environment. It must be for its
inhabitability.
In the next section this post talks about beginnings of science, science for that matter science of the natural environment. Come to think of it, science can only happen within the natural environment. Nowhere else! Science as defined here.
THE BEGINNINGS
Britannica through https://www.britannica.com/science/history-of-science
speaks of science of the natural environment thus:
On the simplest level, science is
knowledge of the world of nature. There are many regularities in nature that
humankind has had to recognize for survival since the emergence of Homo sapiens
as a species. The Sun and the Moon periodically repeat their movements. Some
motions, like the daily “motion” of the Sun, are simple to observe, while
others, like the annual “motion” of the Sun, are far more difficult. Both
motions correlate with important terrestrial events. Day and night provide the
basic rhythm of human existence. The seasons determine the migration of animals
upon which humans have depended for millennia for survival. With the invention
of agriculture, the seasons became even more crucial, for failure to recognize
the proper time for planting could lead to starvation. Science defined simply
as knowledge of natural processes is universal among humankind, and it has
existed since the dawn of human existence.
Here Britannica shows how man is naturally, inextricably linked with the natural environment through science. Knowledge of, and chemistry with, the natural environment as far as man is concerned, was bound to happen. As though the relationship had been predetermined.
MESOPOTAMIA AND ANCIENT EGYPT
The earnest pursuit and application of
knowledge through the methodology of science as foundation for current world
civilization is generally attributed to first and foremost Mesopotamia.
Through the link https://www.ancient.eu/Mesopotamian_Science/
Joshua J. Mark, a freelance writer and former part-time Professor of Philosophy
at Marist College, New York gives us researched and connective insight in what
follows.
Mesopotamian science and technology
developed during the Uruk Period (4100-2900 BCE) and Early Dynastic Period
(2900-1750 BCE) of the Sumerian culture of southern Mesopotamia. The foundation
of future Mesopotamian advances in scientific/technological progress was laid
by the Sumerians who first explored the practice of the scientific hypothesis,
engaged in technological innovation, and created the written word, developed
mathematics, astronomy and astrology, and even fashioned the concept of time
itself. Some of the most important inventions of the Sumerians were:
- The Wheel
- The Sail
- Writing
- The Corbeled Arch/True Arch
- Irrigation and Farming Implements
- Cities
- Maps
- Mathematics
- Time and Clocks
- Astronomy and Astrology
- Medicinal Drugs and Surgery
The Sumerians created these things in
an effort to improve their lives but must have arrived at the need for them
through observation of an existing problem and proposing a solution which was
then tested. Some scholars object to the use of the terms 'science' or
'scientific method' in referring to Sumerian/Mesopotamian inventions and
innovations because religion played such an important role in the people’s
lives and the will of the gods was considered the final and only factor in how
the universe and life on earth operated.
Even so, ‘scientific method' is the
most precise term for how the people proceeded because the Mesopotamians, while
keeping to a theistic concept of life, allowed themselves to imagine a world
which operated according to certain natural laws, and in attempting to find out
how, they laid the foundation for scientific inquiry which would later be
developed by Egyptian and then Greek thinkers and would carry on to the present
day.
An article by Julian Scott projected
through https://library.acropolis.org/philosophy-in-ancient-egypt/
confirms the connection between Egyptian and Greek philosophies. With top icons
of Greek philosophy tapping from Egyptian philosophy. Julian Scott’s article is
shared below:
It is a commonly held view that ‘the
Egyptians had no philosophy’ and that philosophy began with the ancient Greeks.
However, some of the major Greek philosophers, including Thales, Pythagoras and
Plato, recognised their huge debt to the sages of Egypt for their knowledge and
ideas. Plato, for example, spent 13 years studying with the Egyptian priests at
Heliopolis.
The difficulty scholars today have
with this is that we have no records of a discursive Egyptian philosophy, in
other words, philosophy in the form in which we are used to thinking of it
today. But according to Pierre Hadot, author of Philosophy as a Way of Life,
philosophy was seen in a very different way in the ancient world to the way it
is perceived today. It was characterised, he said, by two formulas: learning to
live and learning to die. In other words, it was eminently practical, on the
one hand and metaphysical on the other. We find both of these poles in Egyptian
philosophy: their ‘wisdom literature’, or moral philosophy, dealt with how to
live; and their ‘funerary texts’ concerned ‘learning how to die’.
The principle on which the moral
philosophy of the ancient Egyptians was based was called Maat. Maat was
personified as a goddess, whose symbol was the feather. She represents the
universal order of the Cosmos, the law of life. Human beings, too, are subject
to this law: we must learn to live in accordance with the dictates of our
higher intelligence, what the Greeks called Nous and the Egyptians Ba.
In Scott’s article you will realize
that the Egyptians like the Mesopotamians do not separate science
(knowledge/philosophy) from the supernatural. A time was coming when the
separation will be done!
A trend in the evolution of science is
being established. Science from the dawn of human existence, through the relatively
sophisticated Mesopotamian science, and upon which the Egyptians developed
their science.
In the next section we should find out the touch Greek philosophers gave to science of the natural environment in its evolution having spent so much time tapping from Egyptian philosophy.
NATURAL PHILOSOPHY
To open this section I should like to quote from https://www.britannica.com/topic/philosophy-of-science to add to and consolidate what Joshua Mark has indicated in the preceding section in what follows:
The history of philosophy is
intertwined with the history of the natural sciences. Long before the 19th
century, when the term science began to be used with its modern meaning, those
who are now counted among the major figures in the history of Western
philosophy were often equally famous for their contributions to “natural
philosophy,” the bundle of inquiries now designated as sciences.
Please note that natural philosophy is
the precursor to natural science.
Natural philosophy is generally
attributed to Greece, and as a foundation for Western civilization. If natural
philosophy is attributed to Greece, and the leading figures in natural
philosophy in Greece studied in Egypt, who themselves learnt from Mesopotamia, then
the foundation of natural philosophy must be Mesopotamian and Egyptian
philosophies or sciences. Julian Scott’s article quoted in the preceding
section says Greek leading philosophers like Thales, Pythagoras and Plato
“recognised their huge debt to the sages of Egypt for their knowledge and
ideas”
For the definition of natural
philosophy I turn to https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Natural_philosophy
as follows:
If we examine the mere signification
of the two words Natural Philosophy, we find that natural means something that
is produced by nature; and philosophy, from the Greek, is literally "love
of wisdom or knowledge." Thus, then, the words imply love of a knowledge
of the productions of nature or God. Knowledge, in its true sense, is an
accumulation of facts; these man carefully collects, and reasoning thereupon,
is capable of penetrating many of the secret workings of nature, and turning
such acquisition to his peculiar advantage. Natural Philosophy is also termed
Physics, that is, a study of nature by means of the strictest modes of
investigation the intellect of man has at command.
Jabez Hogg, Elements of Experimental
and Natural Philosophy (1853) p. 1.
From the quotation the word nature
recurs, which should be analyzed to expand and further clarify the
signification of the term natural philosophy within the context of its
examination thus:
Nature, in the broadest sense, is
equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world.
"Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to
life in general. It ranges in scale from the subatomic to the cosmic.
The term "nature" may refer
to living plants and animals, geological processes, weather, and physics, such as
matter and energy. The term is often refers to the "natural
environment" or wilderness—wild animals, rocks, forest, beaches, and in
general areas that have not been substantially altered by humans, or which persist
despite human intervention. For, example, manufactured objects and human
interaction are generally not considered part of nature, unless qualified as,
for example, "human nature" or "the whole of nature". This
more traditional concept of "nature" implies a distinction between
natural and artificial elements of the Earth, with the artificial as that which
has been brought into being by a human consciousness or a human mind. (http://environment-ecology.com/what-is-nature/108-what-is-nature.html)
If Greek philosophy or science is
accredited with the birth of natural philosophy, even though philosophy, for
that matter natural philosophy had been in Mesopotamia and Egypt for example,
before Greece became an empire of substance, why is Greece attributed with
birthing natural philosophy?
From https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Philosophy/Origins_of_Philosophy
let us get a shot at explanation:
The history of philosophy in the west
begins with the Greeks, and particularly with a group of philosophers commonly
called the pre-Socratics. This is not to deny the occurrence of other
pre-philosophical rumblings in Egyptian and Babylonian cultures. Certainly
great thinkers and writers existed in each of these cultures, and we have
evidence that some of the earliest Greek philosophers may have had contact with
at least some of the products of Egyptian and Babylonian thought. However, the
early Greek thinkers added at least one element which differentiates their
thoughts from all those who came before them. For the first time in history, we
discover in their writings something more than dogmatic assertions about the
ordering of the world - we find reasoned arguments for various beliefs about
the world.
It is also worth noting from the
quotation this: “. For the first time in history, we discover in their writings
something more than dogmatic assertions about the ordering of the world - we
find reasoned arguments for various beliefs about the world.” A reasoned
arguments for various beliefs about the world, rather than dogmatic assertions
about the ordering of the world became the in thing. The main epochal shift at
this stage of the evolution of science (for that matter science of the natural
environment), which is a shift in methodology, occurred as such. A shift that
was to become the foundation of Western civilization!
Too, from the quotation, in a sense,
philosophy has been made co-terminus, way back to Egyptian philosophy, with
science, as indicated earlier.
Again from https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Philosophy/Origins_of_Philosophy
to clarify and confirm the earlier quotation I add this:
Before Thales, the Greeks explained
the origin and nature of the world through myths of anthropomorphic gods and
heroes. Phenomena like lightning or earthquakes were attributed to the actions
of the gods.
By contrast, Thales attempted to find
naturalistic explanations of the world, without reference to the supernatural.
He explained earthquakes by imagining that the Earth floats on water and that
earthquakes occur when the Earth is rocked by waves. Herodotus cites him as
having predicted the solar eclipse of 585 BC that put an end to the fighting
between the Lydians and the Medes.
I gather, clearly, the shift from the
knowledge of the natural environment through the supernatural to the knowledge
of the natural environment through nature. Man took the supernatural out of the
equation and inserted himself in the equation! In that Thales “attempted to
find naturalistic explanations of the world, without reference to the
supernatural.” In taking pre-Thales thought
out of the equation, he took Mesopotamian and Egyptian philosophies too out of
the equation, in that they resort to the supernatural in their sciences.
Opening up an epochal trend in the evolution of science.
What is the next epochal shift in the
evolution of the science of the natural environment or natural philosophy
regarding the natural environment? As hinted, Thales, a pre-Socrates
philosopher by his philosophy initiated and paved the way for anthropogenic
thought and sizing up of the natural environment, devoid of supernatural
considerations. Deviating from the paths of preceding philosophies of
Mesopotamia, Egypt and even Greece which included and mainstreamed the
supernatural. This shift of Thales pioneering thought, in natural philosophy or
science is extremely important because this new trend has underpinned man’s
pursuit of knowledge of the natural environment through various epochs to
date! For better or for worse!
Natural philosophy, as a dominant
world knowledge search engine, spanned the 6th century BC to 19th
century AD.
Socrates, a Greek post-Thales
philosopher in the era of natural philosophy is worth noting here. He lived
from c.470 BC – c.399 BC. He is credited with a method of inquiry called the
Socratic Method. The method is explained by Wikipedia through https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method
as:
The Socratic method (also known as
method of Elenchus, elenctic method, or Socratic debate), is a form of
cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and
answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and
underlying presuppositions. It is named after the Classical Greek philosopher
Socrates and is introduced by him in Plato's Theaetetus as midwifery
(maieutics) because it is employed to bring out definitions implicit in the
interlocutors' beliefs, or to help them further their understanding.
The Socratic method is a method of
hypothesis elimination, in that better hypotheses are found by steadily
identifying and eliminating those that lead to contradictions.
The Socratic method searches for
general, commonly held truths that shape beliefs and scrutinizes them to
determine their consistency with other beliefs. The basic form is a series of
questions formulated as tests of logic and fact intended to help a person or
group discover their beliefs about some topic; exploring definitions, and
seeking to characterize general characteristics shared by various particular
instances.
Other outstanding ancient Greek
philosophers are Plato and Aristotle. Plato was a student of Socrates.
In the next section I am going to deal with Natural Science which evolved from natural philosophy.
NATURAL SCIENCE
What caused natural science to become the
new face in the face in the evolution of science of the natural environment?
What caused natural science to become an extract from natural philosophy? Does
this not imply that natural philosophy from day one was science as some assert,
or at least partly science? For that portion extracted from natural philosophy
to become natural science implies that natural philosophy had elements of
science. If that is entirely not the case, what is the differentiation between
natural philosophy and natural science, and therefore sets natural science
apart in the evolutionary process? Or is it a matter of nomenclature?
What then is natural science? Let us get an answer from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_science
as follows;
Natural science is a branch of science
concerned with the description, prediction, and understanding of natural
phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation.
Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatability of findings are used to try to
ensure the validity of scientific advances.
Natural science can be divided into
two main branches: life science and physical science. Life science is
alternatively known as biology, and physical science is subdivided into
branches: physics, chemistry, astronomy and Earth science. These branches of
natural science may be further divided into more specialized branches (also
known as fields). As empirical sciences, natural sciences use tools from the
formal sciences, such as mathematics and logic, converting information about
nature into measurements which can be explained as clear statements of the
"laws of nature".[1]
Modern natural science succeeded more
classical approaches to natural philosophy, usually traced to Taoists
traditions in Asia and in the Occident to ancient Greece. Galileo, Descartes,
Bacon, and Newton debated the benefits of using approaches which were more
mathematical and more experimental in a methodical way. Still, philosophical
perspectives, conjectures, and presuppositions, often overlooked, remain
necessary in natural science. [2]
The foregoing quote is critically
significant in several ways in the sense of natural science’s differentiation
and departure from natural philosophy:
From paragraph one of this quote: “Natural
science is a branch of science concerned with the description, prediction, and
understanding of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from
observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and
repeatability of findings are used to try to ensure the validity of scientific
advances.”
- “….succeeded more classical approaches to
natural philosophy” implies a cession from natural philosophy to natural
science in terms of approaches.
- The paragraph traces natural philosophy way
back beyond ancient Greece to Taoists traditions. It is even beyond Taoism as
indicated in the section of this post titled “The Beginnings”, and elsewhere.
- The new approaches that help set natural
science apart from natural philosophy were “more mathematical and more
experimental in a methodical way.”
-
The last sentence of the quote says: “Still,
philosophical perspectives, conjectures, and presuppositions, often overlooked,
remain necessary in natural science.” Here it appears that though natural
science parted from natural philosophy and became the new search engine for the
natural environment, it carried with it elements of philosophy.
The origins of natural science is
explained by https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Natural_science
in that which follows:
Prior to the 17th century, the
objective study of nature was known as natural philosophy. Over the next two
centuries, however, a philosophical interpretation of nature was gradually
replaced by a scientific approach using inductive methodology. The works of Sir
Francis Bacon popularized this approach, thereby helping to forge the
scientific revolution.
By the 19th century the study of
science had come into the purview of professionals and institutions, and in so
doing it gradually acquired the more modern name of natural science. The term
scientist was coined by William Whewell in an 1834 review of Mary Somerville's
On the Connexion of the Sciences. However the word did not enter general use
until nearly the end of the same century.
Naturalism which comes next firmly
placed science of the natural environment in the realm of the material and
physical only, making nature all there is to be.
NATURALISM
From https://www.ipl.org/essay/Education-And-Naturalism-In-Education-FKUVA7EAJF6
I share the following which shows how science disconnects further from the
supernatural, and serves as an anti-establishment philosophy:
Naturalism is a revolutionary movement
in the history of philosophy of education that revolted against traditional,
formal and the stereotyped education of the then 18th century. Naturalism is a
revolt against a society that was generated by religion, thought, action where
lifeless formalism was prevailed and the naturalists believed that oppressive
influence of monarchs, absolutism in politics and authority of the church
tortured the people. Naturalism is a philosophy of nature and explains all
phenomena on the basis of natural laws. According to the Naturalists view,
nature itself is the ultimate reality. It is concerned with ‘natural self’ or
‘real self’. Naturalism firmly believes that ultimate reality is matter;
considered matter to be supreme and mind is the functioning of the brain that
is made up of matter. It denies the existence of spiritual universe, rejects
all spiritual and supernatural explanations of the world and holds that science
is the sole basis of what can be known. They regard science or scientific
knowledge as true knowledge because it is based on observation and
experimentation.
Further to the foregoing, I give through
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/
the following:
The term “naturalism” has no very precise
meaning in contemporary philosophy. Its current usage derives from debates in
America in the first half of the last century. The self-proclaimed
“naturalists” from that period included John Dewey, Ernest Nagel, Sidney Hook
and Roy Wood Sellars. These philosophers aimed to ally philosophy more closely
with science. They urged that reality is exhausted by nature, containing
nothing “supernatural”, and that the scientific method should be used to
investigate all areas of reality, including the “human spirit” (Krikorian 1944,
Kim 2003).
Naturalism has two components. The two
components are ontological naturalism and methodological naturalism.
Again, from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/
we learn the differences in the two components: The ontological component is
concerned with the contents of reality, asserting that reality has no place for
“supernatural” or other “spooky” kinds of entity. By contrast, the
methodological component is concerned with ways of investigating reality, and
claims some kind of general authority for the scientific method.
That which follows is in regard to the
theory of evolution by natural selection. The theory explains nature through,
and by nature. It makes nature all in all. The theory explains natural
processes through nature. The theory presents nature as self-creative. The
theory excludes entirely any external supernatural hand in nature and natural
processes. The theory does not factor into its thinking, an intentional,
preconceived, engineered and orderly crafted perspective.
I integrate into this section, on the
theory of evolution which is akin to naturalism, an extract from National
Geographic through https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/theory-evolution/
:
Ideas aimed at explaining how
organisms change, or evolve, over time date back to Anaximander of Miletus, a
Greek philosopher who lived in the 500s B.C.E. Noting that human babies are
born helpless, Anaximander speculated that humans must have descended from some
other type of creature whose young could survive without any help. He concluded
that those ancestors must be fish, since fish hatch from eggs and immediately
begin living with no help from their parents. From this reasoning, he proposed
that all life began in the sea.
Anaximander was correct; humans can
indeed trace our ancestry back to fish. His idea, however, was not a theory in
the scientific meaning of the word, because it could not be subjected to
testing that might support it or prove it wrong. In science, the word “theory”
indicates a very high level of certainty. Scientists talk about evolution as a
theory, for instance, just as they talk about Einstein’s explanation of gravity
as a theory.
A theory is an idea about how
something in nature works that has gone through rigorous testing through
observations and experiments designed to prove the idea right or wrong. When it
comes to the evolution of life, various philosophers and scientists, including
an eighteenth-century English doctor named Erasmus Darwin, proposed different
aspects of what later would become evolutionary theory. But evolution did not
reach the status of being a scientific theory until Darwin’s grandson, the more
famous Charles Darwin, published his famous book On the Origin of Species.
Darwin and a scientific contemporary of his, Alfred Russel Wallace, proposed
that evolution occurs because of a phenomenon called natural selection.
In the theory of natural selection,
organisms produce more offspring that are able to survive in their environment.
Those that are better physically equipped to survive, grow to maturity, and
reproduce. Those that are lacking in such fitness, on the other hand, either do
not reach an age when they can reproduce or produce fewer offspring than their
counterparts. Natural selection is sometimes summed up as “survival of the
fittest” because the “fittest” organisms—those most suited to their environment—are
the ones that reproduce most successfully, and are most likely to pass on their
traits to the next generation.
Up until now I have tried to look at the gradual phasic development of the science of the natural environment, a development characterized by the separation of the supernatural from the natural, and looking at the natural as all there is to nature. In the next section I am going to deal with how science went assume a phenomenal spread to become the face of our current civilization. I am going to deal with the scientific revolution.
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
What is this scientific revolution? A
revolution that took the world by storm. A revolution that left in its trail
many a tottering cultural and religious value to become the pace setter in, and
spearhead of, the world’s civilization.
Through the link https://www.britannica.com/science/Scientific-Revolution
Britannica inputs this section thus:
Scientific Revolution, drastic change
in scientific thought that took place during the 16th and 17th centuries. A new
view of nature emerged during the Scientific Revolution, replacing the Greek
view that had dominated science for almost 2,000 years. Science became an
autonomous discipline, distinct from both philosophy and technology, and it
came to be regarded as having utilitarian goals. By the end of this period, it
may not be too much to say that science had replaced Christianity as the focal
point of European civilization. Out of the ferment of the Renaissance and
Reformation there arose a new view of science, bringing about the following
transformations:
· the reeducation of common sense in favour of
abstract reasoning;
· the substitution of a quantitative for a
qualitative view of nature;
· the view of nature as a machine rather than as
an organism;
· the development of an experimental, scientific
method that sought definite answers to certain limited questions couched in the
framework of specific theories;
·
and the acceptance of new criteria for
explanation, stressing the “how” rather than the “why” that had characterized
the Aristotelian search for final causes.
The growing flood of information that
resulted from the Scientific Revolution put heavy strains upon old institutions
and practices. It was no longer sufficient to publish scientific results in an
expensive book that few could buy; information had to be spread widely and
rapidly. Natural philosophers had to be sure of their data, and to that end
they required independent and critical confirmation of their discoveries. New
means were created to accomplish these ends. Scientific societies sprang up,
beginning in Italy in the early years of the 17th century and culminating in
the two great national scientific societies that mark the zenith of the
Scientific Revolution: the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural
Knowledge, created by royal charter in 1662, and the Académie des Sciences of
Paris, formed in 1666. In these societies and others like them all over the
world, natural philosophers could gather to examine, discuss, and criticize new
discoveries and old theories. To provide a firm basis for these discussions,
societies began to publish scientific papers. The old practice of hiding new
discoveries in private jargon, obscure language, or even anagrams gradually
gave way to the ideal of universal comprehensibility. New canons of reporting
were devised so that experiments and discoveries could be reproduced by others.
This required new precision in language and a willingness to share experimental
or observational methods. The failure of others to reproduce results cast
serious doubts upon the original reports. Thus were created the tools for a
massive assault on nature’s secrets.
Science must have grown and spread, as in the scientific revolution, guided by fundamental guidelines. There must be guidelines guiding, underpinning and ordering scientific thought and revolution. The next section talks on the scientific method.
SCIENTIFIC METHOD
If the scientific method underpins and
determines what science is, and science itself is evolvable and evolving, then
the scientific method too is evolvable and evolving. As man continues to
acquire material and physical knowledge, and wants to ultimately acquire all
such knowledge through science, but has not acquired all such knowledge yet,
science as the main engine for such knowledge search should continue to evolve.
To evolve into and through posterity, because of the brevity of life of man.
Suppose
Albert Einstein, for example, were alive today, could you image the amount of
knowledge and enlightenment man would have acquired? The scientific method used
in the Mesopotamian civilization to acquire knowledge of the natural
environment is not the same scientific method in use today. In the Mesopotamian
civilization, for example, the supernatural was very much an integral part of
the scientific process, while today the supernatural is of no consequence.
On the future of scientific method, I
give you a take from Royal Society Publishing through https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2018.0145
as follows:
Our current society is characterized
by an unprecedented ability to produce and store breathtaking amounts of data
and, much more importantly, by the ability to navigate across them in such a
way as to distil from them useful information, hence knowledge. This has now
reached the point of spawning a separate discipline, so-called big data (BD),
which has taken the scientific and business domains by storm. Like all
technological revolutions, the import of BD goes far beyond the scientific
realm, reaching down into deep philosophical and epistemological questions, not
to mention societal ones. One of the most relevant is: Are we facing a new
epoch in which the power of data renders obsolete the use of the scientific
method as we have known it since Galileo?
What then is scientific method, which
appears to becoming obsolete, yet still very much in use?
In answering that question I extract
from an article by the Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica through the link https://www.britannica.com/science/scientific-method
that which follows:
The scientific method is critical to
the development of scientific theories, which explain empirical (experiential)
laws in a scientifically rational manner. In a typical application of the
scientific method, a researcher develops a hypothesis, tests it through various
means, and then modifies the hypothesis on the basis of the outcome of the
tests and experiments. The modified hypothesis is then retested, further
modified, and tested again, until it becomes consistent with observed phenomena
and testing outcomes. In this way, hypotheses serve as tools by which scientists
gather data. From that data and the many different scientific investigations
undertaken to explore hypotheses, scientists are able to develop broad general
explanations, or scientific theories.
The scientific method explains itself
by a step by step format. There are different forms of the step by step format.
The format I present is sourced through the link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
:
1) Define a question
2) Gather information and resources
(observe)
3) Form an explanatory hypothesis
4) Test the hypothesis by performing
an experiment and collecting data in a reproducible manner
5) Analyze the data
6) Interpret the data and draw
conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
7) Publish results
8) Retest (frequently done by other
scientists)
To what end is the scientific method?
The scientific method is to eventually acquire scientific knowledge. Scientific
knowledge about the natural environment. When you relocate to a new
neighborhood you naturally want to know about the new neighborhood. Indeed you
need to know about the new neighborhood, so as to relate well with it, and fit
properly into it. I suppose that is how man felt when for the first time he found
himself in the natural environment.
Man needs scientific knowledge about the
biotic and the abiotic that are the constituents of the natural environment.
Man needs scientific knowledge about the intra activities within the biotic
community. Man needs scientific knowledge about the intra activities within the
abiotic community. Man needs scientific knowledge to manage and sustain the
very mindbogglingly delicate balance holding the vast natural environment
together. Man needs the scientific knowledge, which he is acquiring and
accumulating, to keep the natural environment intact.
That the natural environment sustains
life, including the life of man, cannot be gainsaid. The air you breathe comes
from the natural environment. The water you drink comes from the natural
environment. The food you eat comes from the natural environment. Those are
life-sustaining resources. Look around you. All the built environment or
man-made environment was made from resources from the natural environment. This
should tell you how vital the natural environment is to man himself. Are you
not amazed at the sustained interconnectivity and interaction, within and
without the biotic and abiotic communities inside the natural environment?
It is not only man that vitally needs
the natural environment, the entirety of the biotic and the abiotic do too. The
activities within the natural environment must be such that the intactness of
the natural environment is not compromised. A balance must be obtained, and
sustained, amidst the activities within the entirety of the natural
environment.
Ultimately, the goal of scientific
knowledge acquired through scientific method/scientific inquiry, should be the
management of the natural environment to effect such balance and intactness!
But is that the case?
The next section answers that question.
ENVIRONMENTALISM
Environmentalism projects both
critical issues of the natural environment, and strategies for the tackling of
such issues. Issues weighing on the carrying capacity of planet Earth. Capacity
of mother Earth to sustain life forms. More so human life form, as that life
form is the one most devastating, in threatening the carrying capacity of Gaia.
Threat to the carrying capacity of planet Earth is tantamount to threat to life
forms on planet Earth, including human life form! The other side of the
projection is solutions environmentalism is proffering to the issues raised. Solutions
in respect of reversal, restoration, maintenance and sustenance.
The issues raised by environmentalism
is anthropogenic. What it means is that the issues bothering the natural
environment is caused by man!
Since day one, when man found himself,
or rather themselves, in the natural environment, or became aware of the
natural environment in which they found themselves, through the Mesopotamian
civilization, the Egyptian civilization, natural philosophy and natural
science, ideas or philosophies generated in connection with the acquisition of
knowledge of the natural environment, and how to relate to and with the natural
environment have not resulted in the desired result for man and the natural
environment as a whole! The desired result being the acquisition of scientific
knowledge and its application for sustaining a clean and balanced natural
environment for both the biotic and the abiotic constituents of the natural
environment.
Threat to the natural environment
through the activities of man did not start today. From Greenpeace, through
https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/11658/a-brief-history-of-environmentalism/
let us get a peep into the past:
“The goal of life is living in
agreement with nature.”
— Zeno ~ 450 BC (from Diogenes
Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers)
Awareness of our delicate relationship
with our habitat likely arose among early hunter-gatherers when they saw how
fire and hunting tools impacted their environment. Anthropologists have found
evidence of human-induced animal and plant extinctions from 50,000 BCE, when
only about 200,000 Homo sapiens roamed the Earth. We can only speculate about
how these early humans reacted, but migrating to new habitats appears to be a
common response.
Ecological awareness first appears in
the human record at least 5,000 years ago. Vedic sages praised the wild forests
in their hymns, Taoists urged that human life should reflect nature’s patterns
and the Buddha taught compassion for all sentient beings.
In the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh,
we see apprehension about forest destruction and drying marshes. When Gilgamesh
cuts down sacred trees, the deities curse Sumer with drought, and Ishtar
(mother of the Earth goddess) sends the Bull of Heaven to punish Gilgamesh.
In ancient Greek mythology, when the
hunter Orion vows to kill all the animals, Gaia objects and creates a great
scorpion to kill Orion. When the scorpion fails, Artemis, goddess of the
forests and mistress of animals, shoots Orion with an arrow.
In North America, Pawnee Eagle Chief,
Letakots-Lesa, told anthropologist Natalie Curtis that “Tirawa, the one Above,
did not speak directly to humans… he showed himself through the beasts, and
from them and from the stars, the sun, and the moon should humans learn.”
Some of the earliest human stories
contain lessons about the sacredness of wilderness, the importance of
restraining our power, and our obligation to care for the natural world.
Let us continue with how man responded
in those times to such threats from the same Greenpeace source which is an article
by Rex Weyler, a co-founder of Greenpeace International:
Five thousand years ago, the Indus civilisation of Mohenjo Darro (an ancient city in modern-day Pakistan), were already recognising the effects of pollution on human health and practiced waste management and sanitation. In Greece, as deforestation led to soil erosion, the philosopher Plato lamented, “All the richer and softer parts have fallen away, and the mere skeleton of the land remains.” Communities in China, India, and Peru understood the impact of soil erosion and prevented it by creating terraces, crop rotation, and nutrient recycling.
The Greek physicians Hippocrates and
Galen began to observe environmental health problems such as acid contamination
in copper miners. Hippocrates’ book, De aëre, aquis et locis (Air, Waters, and
Places), is the earliest surviving European work on human ecology.
Rex Wesley’s article leads us into the
dawn of environmental activism: In the early 20th century, the chemist Alice
Hamilton led a campaign against lead poisoning from leaded gasoline, accusing
General Motors of willful murder. The corporation attacked Hamilton, and it
took governments 50 years to ban leaded gasoline. Meanwhile, industrial smog
choked major world cities. In 1952, 4,000 people died in London’s infamous
killer fog, and four years later the British Parliament passed the first Clean
Air Act.
Ecology grew into a full-fledged,
global movement with the development of nuclear weapons. Albert Einstein, who
felt morally troubled by his contribution to the nuclear bomb, drafted an
anti-nuclear manifesto in 1955 with British philosopher Bertrand Russell,
signed by ten Nobel Prize winners. The letter inspired the Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament, in the UK – a model for modern, non-violent civil disobedience. In
1958, the Quaker Committee for Non-Violent Action launched two boats – the
Golden Rule and Phoenix – into US nuclear test sites, a direct inspiration for
Greenpeace a decade later.
Wikipedia defines environmentalism
thus: Environmentalism denotes a social movement that seeks to influence
the political process by lobbying, activism, and education in order to protect
natural resources and ecosystems.
An environmentalist is a person who
may speak out about our natural environment and the sustainable management of
its resources through changes in public policy or individual behaviour. This
may include supporting practices such as informed consumption, conservation
initiatives, investment in renewable resources, improved efficiencies in the
materials economy, transitioning to new accounting paradigms such as Ecological
economics, renewing and revitalizing our connections with non-human life or
even opting to have one less child to reduce consumption and pressure on
resources.
By the 1960s and 1970s
environmentalism started gaining rapid spread globally. According to an article by Lorraine Elliott,
Fellow, Department of International Relations, Australian National University,
Canberra, sourced through https://www.britannica.com/topic/environmentalism:
By the 1960s and ’70s, as scientific knowledge of the causes and consequences
of environmental degradation was becoming more extensive and sophisticated,
there was increasing concern among some scientists, intellectuals, and
activists about Earth’s ability to absorb the detritus of human economic
activity and, indeed, to sustain human life. This concern contributed to the
growth of grassroots environmental activism in a number of countries, the
establishment of new environmental nongovernmental organizations, and the
formation of environmental (“green”) political parties in a number of Western democracies.
As political leaders gradually came to appreciate the seriousness of
environmental problems, governments entered into negotiations in the early
1970s that led to the adoption of a growing number of international
environmental agreements.
The article characterized
environmentalism during the 1960s and early 1970s thus: The vision of the
environmental movement of the 1960s and early ’70s was generally pessimistic,
reflecting a pervasive sense of “civilization malaise” and a conviction that
Earth’s long-term prospects were bleak. Works such as Rachel Carson’s Silent
Spring (1962), Garrett Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons” (1968), Paul
Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb (1968), Donella H. Meadows’ The Limits to Growth
(1972), and Edward Goldsmith’s Blueprint for Survival (1972) suggested that the
planetary ecosystem was reaching the limits of what it could sustain.
So what was the way out for man, by
man? The article points to that way: Beginning in the 1970s, many
environmentalists attempted to develop strategies for limiting environmental
degradation through recycling, the use of alternative energy technologies, the
decentralization and democratization of economic and social planning, and, for
some, a reorganization of major industrial sectors, including the agriculture
and energy industries. In contrast to apocalyptic environmentalism, so-called
“emancipatory” environmentalism took a more positive and practical approach,
one aspect of which was the effort to promote an ecological consciousness and
an ethic of “stewardship” of the environment.
The emancipatory approach was evoked
through the 1990s in the popular slogan, “Think globally, act locally.”
In the 21st century, the
now century, how has environmentalism continued to evolve? In that regard l resort
an article of Allie Lowy, who styles herself as “Aspiring human”, through https://medium.com/the-climate-series/environmentalism-as-21st-century-morality-ad0ef3474e89,
particularly from a moral perspective:
Environmentalism is more than just an
academic discipline, a public policy arena, or a career path. It’s an ethos, a
morality, a belief system, a value set, an ethical compass pervading every
fabric of life, guiding all sorts of behavior. It’s more than a means of making
a living — it drives how you go about living, what makes it meaningful, what
excites and frustrates you, and what values you consider paramount. It is near
impossible to come from a day of environmental work and put your subject matter
aside — to carry on with your recreational life business-as-usual — like a
doctor, lawyer, teacher or scientist might. Like a religion, environmentalism
comes to mind throughout the day for its adherents, arising organically as an
answer to ethical queries.
That is deep. Allie equates
environmentalism with religion. Allie makes environmentalism a way of life. The
article makes environmentalism a 24/7 matter. The article is telling us that
environmentalism is not the preserve of a few intellectuals; it is has reached
the domain of the rank and file, so to speak. Remember religion was very much a
part of the evolution of the science of the natural environment. It was very
much a part of natural environment matters in Mesopotamia and Egypt for
example. Along the line of evolution, in Greece, in natural philosophy, a
separation of the supernatural from the natural started. And now, in the twenty
first century, is a resurgence of the fusion of the supernatural and the
natural occurring in matters relating to the study of the natural
environment?
Still tapping from Allie’s article on
the moral significance of environmentalism from the angle of avarice it states:
Some of our values directly map onto
conventional ones — the nine circles of hell from Dante’s Inferno, for
instance, resurface in the neo-environmentalist tradition.
We, too, oppose avarice— as we know, the world’s overdevelopment and ever-growing consumer-capitalist culture fuels the overuse and over-extraction of resources that is decimating ecosystems and driving thousands of species off the planet.
Anyway, the nine circles of Dante’s
Inferno are:
- Limbo
- Lust
- Gluttony
- Avarice
- Anger
- Heresy
- Violence
- Fraud
- Betrayal
From this same article, on the
morality of environmentalism, I share with you Pope Francis’ (current head of
the Catholic Church) thought:
As environmental destruction
continues, the view that it is a moral infraction is becoming more popular. In
fact, Pope Francis — the head of the Catholic Church — has called ecological
destruction a sin. In his own words: “God gave us the earth ‘to till and to
keep’ in a balanced and respectful way. To till too much, to keep too little,
is to sin.” He has proposed that caring for the Earth be added to the seven
works of mercy Christians are asked to perform. To start, he posits, wealthy
countries must repay the ecological debt they owe the poor.
The now environmentalism is multidimensional, global, all-encompassing and penetrating of our life fabrics. It has dimensions of air pollution, water pollution, soil pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, ethics, emancipatory environmentalism, apocalyptic environmentalism, deep ecology, climate change etc. Regarding its global nature, take global warming for example, it affects the whole world one way or the other. Another example is climate change, which is manifested in the melting Artic ice, it increases sea level which will eventually be felt around the world. Environmentalism is all-encompassing, involving both young and old, institutions and individuals, governments and political parties. Citing as an example of teen age involvement; Greta Thunberg is a mere 17 year old Swedish environmental activist, with extraordinary passion, and international appeal and recognition. As to how environmentalism has penetrated the fabric of life, and is a lifestyle, I am using myself as an example. Where I live in Accra, Ghana time was when I had to move frequently to a mall (Shoprite) in the next town to get my supplies. I live in La and that next town is Osu. Along the line a shop called Melcom was opened in La. It was just across the main street from where I reside so I started doing my shopping there. Guess what! It reduced my carbon footprint. It reduced my carbon footprint because I have reduced the frequency with which I take taxis to go to Osu to get my supplies. The taxi burns fossil fuel when it takes me to Osu, and in the process releases carbon into the atmosphere, that is how I get my carbon footprint! Now that is reduced to a large extent, thereby.
CONCLUSION
All along, from the time man had
awareness of himself, and found himself in the natural environment, he had
sought knowledge. Knowledge of the self, that which surrounds him and how to
relate to that which surrounds him. Man has sought to know how the natural
environment as whole contains itself. Man has sought to know the checks and
balances in the natural environment, and how to maintain it sustainably. Along
the line man had known that the survival of his biochemical life depended on a
sustainably clean and balanced natural environment. So ultimately knowledge
acquired must be used to manage the natural environment for its survival,
biotic and abiotic constituents, macro and micro, individually, and as a whole.
This has been, and ought to be, the preoccupation of man from before the
Mesopotamian time (before 4100 BC) to date! The natural environment must be
kept intact! The natural environment must of necessity be inhabitable
sustainably- inhabitable for man and other constituents of the natural
environment, macro and micro alike. Man!, where else can you inhabit? Making
the natural environment inhabitable is a must!
The method of acquiring that critical knowledge
of the natural environment which man has devised is called science, the
knowledge so acquired is also called science. From the beginning, the process
of acquiring knowledge of the natural environment involved the supernatural. The
responsibility of keeping the natural environment intact is so enormous perhaps
it requires a supernatural involvement after all! During the time of the Greeks
when natural philosophy started the philosophers began to keep God/gods out of
matters of the natural environment. Man was on his own. Science of the natural
environment continued to evolve from natural philosophy to natural science.
Naturalism further cut the supernatural off the study of the natural
environment. A requote from the
Naturalism section says “Naturalism firmly believes that ultimate reality is
matter; considered matter to be supreme and mind is the functioning of the
brain that is made up of matter. It denies the existence of spiritual universe,
rejects all spiritual and supernatural explanations of the world and holds that
science is the sole basis of what can be known. They regard science or
scientific knowledge as true knowledge because it is based on observation and
experimentation.”
The question is where has the
evolution of science brought us today in the twenty first century? If you ask
me I should tell you that the answer lies in all-encompassing Environmentalism!
Environmentalism, as it were, questions the evolution of science of the natural
environment, since before 4100 BC of the Mesopotamian civilization to date!
Environmentalism in substance projects the threat to inhabitability of the
natural environment through scientific knowledge, and as a precipitation, issues
of survival, restoration and sustainability of the natural environment as a
whole.
Conclusion of the matter, the
evolution of the science of the natural environment, spanning over 6000 years
to date, with the supernatural or without the supernatural, has led man to a
natural environment that is endangered- its inhabitability on the line! Extinctions
and all that. The now environmentalism which in itself is a product of the
evolution of the science of the natural
environment as a whole, bears clear testimony to that fact of failure, in spite
of thoughts to the contrary! Is the
emancipatory path being proffered by environmentalism indeed the way out, if
environmentalism itself is a product of the failed evolution of the science of
the natural environment?
You may read my paper with the title “FAILURE OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE MANAGEMENT OF THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT- ROOT CAUSE” for a more profound understanding of this one.
Reference:
https://www.pexels.com/search/landscape/
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