The chauvinism of science

The separation between state and church must therefore be complemented by the separation between state and science.

This separation of science and state may be our only chance to overcome the hectic barbarism of our scientific-technical age and to achieve a humanity we are capable of, but have never fully realised.

But while a democracy makes some effort to explain the process so that everyone can understand it, scientists either conceal it, or bend it, to make it fit their sectarian interests.

It is time to cut them down in size, and to give them a more modest position in society.

Combining this observation with the insight that science has no special method, we arrive at the result that the separation of science and non-science is not only artificial but also detrimental to the advancement of knowledge. If we want to understand nature, if we want to master our physical surroundings, then we must use all ideas, all methods, and not 'just a small selection of them.

At all times man approached his surroundings w' h wide open senses and a fertile intelligence, at all times he made incredible discoveries, at all times we can learn from his ideas.

Modern science, on the other hand, is not at all as difficult and as perfect as scientific propaganda wants us to believe.

It is up to us, it is up to the citizens of a free society to either accept the chauvinism of science without contradiction or to overcome it by the counterforce of public action.

A science that insists on possessing the only correct method and the only acceptable results is ideology and must be separated from the state, and especially from the process of education.

Paul Feyerabend, in Against Method , (Humanities Press, 1975), p.

Anything goes.

Science is an essentially anarchistic enterprise: theoretical anarchism is more humanitarian and more likely to encourage progress than its law-and-order alternatives.

The only principle that does not inhibit progress is: anything goes.

Paul Feyerabend, in Against Method , (Humanities Press, 1975), p.

To be human.

António Damásio is a renowned neurologist that researches emotions and their influence in the cognitive process. Contrary to popular notions, he argues that emotions do not get in the way of rational thinking; emotions are essential to rationality.

"For instance, people with damage to the ventro-medial part of the pre-frontal cortex (VMPFC) may be able to perform to a high level on most language and intelligence tests, but they display gross defects of planning, judgement and social appropriateness. Damásio’s group have shown that these defects in patients with VMPFC damage are caused by their inability to respond emotionally to the content of their thoughts."

The root of consciousness is a inner-directed attention." Damásio argues that consciousness is based upon an awareness of the ‘somatic’ milieu, and that awareness of inner states evolved because this enables us to use somatic states (ie. emotions) to ‘mark’, and thereby ‘evaluate’, external perceptual information."

"It seems that Damásio’s work stands at the very heart of our attempts to understand what it is to be distinctively human, and to be a human among other humans."

Progress in art

"The great trouble with art in this country [America] at present, and apparently in France also, is that there is no spirit of revolt—no new ideas appearing among the younger artists. They are following along the paths beaten out by their predecessors, trying to do better what their predecessors have already done. In art there is no such thing as perfection."

"Art is produced by a succession of individuals expressing themselves; it is not a question of progress."

Marcel Duchamp, "The great trouble with art in this country," in The writings of Marcel Duchamp, ed. Michel Sanouillet and Elmer Peerson (Da Capo Press, 1989), p. 123.