Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Concluding Remarks
The Greek philosopher Socrates famously wrote that the unconsidered life is hardly
worth living. What he meant by this remark is that the well-lived life is one that has
goals and principles that are chosen by the one who lives it, rather than imposed by
others. We are all born into a particular set of historical circumstances that may limit
the possibilities open to us, but a considered life is always enhanced by thinking
about things that matter, such as our aims, our values, and how best to cope with
the problems we will encounter. Integral to the considered life is to come to some
rational view about the nature of the world and our place in it.
In this topic I have tried to introduce some clarity into two areas that are often
misunderstood and misinterpreted: the nature of science and the science of nature. It
is important to understand the nature of science because its application has created
and sustains the modern developed world. Yet far too many people fail to grasp how
science works as a discipline with its own philosophy and rules, and value it only as
a source of useful gadgets. This is not their fault; it is the fault of the way science
is taught. It is vital that we improve the way that science is taught because science
offers the only means we have of tackling the looming world problems of climate
change and the consequences of ever-rising numbers of people to house and feed.
I have emphasised in this topic that science is not the coldly rational route to cer-
tain knowledge it is commonly thought to be, but an open-ended method of enquiry
based on the assumption that the physical world is the only world there is. The
science of biology teaches us that we are the evolutionary products of this natural
world, and are thus subject to its unvarying regularities. We lose sight of this fact
at our peril, because the roots of our thinking and behaviour lie in our evolutionary
origins. We need to study those roots in order to rise above the limitations set by
the undirected process of evolutionary change. There is very real danger that irra-
tional thinking will threaten civilization and even human existence. We must resist
what the late astronomer Carl Sagan called “the abject surrender to mysticism”. Our
future depends on how well we understand what we are, where we come from and
the nature of the world we live in.
