For several centuries Western thought has largely focused on that which can be quantified, weighed, measured, verified, and replicated. We seek the certainty of mathematical formulas and double-blind studies. We don’t want superstition or mumbo-jumbo or deflection. All we want are the facts.
This worldview was born in the heat of a revolution or, more precisely, in the heat of several revolutions. Using its dark magic, we put men on the moon and split atoms to make bombs. But for all its accomplishments, the Age of Science seems to be entering its dotage.
In the postwar boom American SF writers dreamed of galaxy-spanning kingdoms and new technologies. Today most envision the future as a burnt-out wasteland. But as we lose hope in the old religion we find a Second Religiousness that tries to save the world with scientific fervor. By deboonking the fake news misinformers, the Trusters of Science hope to bring about the sort of brave if overly emoted new world we used to see on Star Trek.
So how did we get here? Let’s start at the beginning.
According to legend, Nikolas Copernicus saw the first printed copy of Dē revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543) on his deathbed. Drafts of his heliocentric theory had circulated around a small circle of European intellectuals for over 30 years. The posthumous publication turned an underground movement into a worldwide sensation. But the fame, and the controversy, came slowly.
The Copernican mathematical arguments are dense and complex. But those who worked through the calculations found they solved several longstanding issues with geocentric Ptolemaic navigational charts. Still, the arguments were of concern mainly to sailors and mathematicians. Heliocentrism was an esoteric question that had little impact on the lives of most. There were other, more heated theological arguments consuming public attention at the time.
But as the Protestant Reformation continued to gain ground, Church censors grew increasingly trigger-happy. By 1616 Copernicus was on the Vatican’s banned book list. In 1633 another heliocentrist was targeted as Galileo’s Dialogue on the Two World Systems was banned and Galileo placed under a lifetime sentence of house arrest. Meanwhile, though Revolutions had received much criticism from early Reformation leaders, Protestants came to see Copernicus and Galileo as brilliant freethinkers cruelly condemned by Papist tyranny.
Protestantism became the guardian of Reason against Superstition and of Freedom against Censorship. Much as they focused on a direct, personal relationship with God, Protestant scholars favored direct experience over rigid adherence to custom and tradition. And where Catholic Poland birthed the Scientific Revolution, Protestant England was where it reached its apex.
In 1687 Isaac Newton published his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Copernicus had mapped out the cycles of the heavens. Principia mapped out the force that held the planets in their orbiting arcs and drew falling objects to the ground. We no longer needed to rely on angels to spin the heavenly spheres. Newton had weighed and measured the forces that kept them rotating.
This radical new vision of the world sparked an Enlightenment. The medieval world saw the hand of God in every action. Respectable Enlightenment gentlemen envisioned a Divine Architect who set the world in motion and then left things to their own devices. Thomas Jefferson’s famous revision of the Bible removed the miraculous superstition and focused on the philosophy and wisdom of Jesus. And as the Deist God turned His back on His creations, His creations returned the favor.
The French Revolution dethroned God and set Man in his place. That Revolution sparked many others. Europe’s nobility faced increasing pressure from the peasants and, later, from the proletariat. And all that was fueled by the Scientific Revolution’s practical-minded child, the Industrial Revolution.
It’s not hard to understand how we got so full of ourselves during the centuries that followed. We measured the breadth of the heavens and the weight of the neutrino. We conquered diseases and made deserts bloom. We put astronauts on the moon and connected the poorest villages to cellular networks. Neither is it hard to understand how the Thirty Years’ War left Europeans uncharitably disposed to religion.
There were always naysayers noting the dark Satanic mills. The Scientist was always equal parts benevolent priest and sinister sorcerer. We loved the conveniences and fat paychecks that came with modern technology. We were less enthusiastic about pollution and Mutually Assured Destruction. But for washing machines, televisions, and 2-car garages, we were willing to overlook a lot.
Nearly 80 years after the postwar period began and a bit over 30 years since the Soviet Union fell and history ended, we find that our great technological ascent has plateaued. There are no moon bases and no colonies on Mars. Fusion remains just a decade away, as it has for the past several decades. Since 2007’s iPhone, we have yet to see another techno-sociological game changer. And while COVIDMania has waned, distrust in Big Science only continues to grow.
[The Second Religiousness] arrives "after history," when all internal development is over, and the only change possible is accident or syncretism.
To put it briefly, this refers to a time when the primordial religion comes back: holy people, holy law, holy places overshadow the theological systems that the civilization creates earlier in its history, as well as the skepticism that briefly replaces religion among the educated. With the coming of the Second Religiousness, there is no longer any great divide between popular and elite opinion on these matters.
John J. Reilly
As often happens in late-stage societies, we’re seeing a Spenglerian Second Religiousness around the dying cult. Acolytes double down on Science as the only hope against the superstitious barbarian hordes. (Have you ever wondered why today we hear so much yammering about “Christofascists” taking us back to the Dark Ages? Wonder no more).
In the face of bad times, the Science-Trusters hope that by reciting the words and genuflecting before the data they will stave off disaster. They repeat slogans like a Vanuatu tribesman builds bamboo air traffic control towers. By affirming their faith in the experts, they hope John Frum will return in a white lab coat to bring back prosperity. After all, what’s the difference between Trusting the Science you don’t understand and Faith in an invisible and ineffable God?
Science is no longer something you can do in your basement laboratory. It requires ever larger and costlier equipment and ever more supercomputer time. This means there are intimate ties between scientists, government agencies, and mega-wealthy philanthropists and foundations.
In the Cult of Science’s heyday, it welcomed discussion and debate. As it came under increasing scrutiny from critics and funders, the clergy grew more insular. In the matters of COVID, racial disparity, and gender politics the Science has hewed closely to the prevailing political opinion and punished dissenters with all the soft and hard power it could muster.
As has happened with state religions since before the Sadducees, Scientists have become a powerful, wealthy, and unaccountable caste that serve their own interests. There are many scientists who are good, decent people. But in their capacity as Scientists, they’ve found themselves forced to make a lot of moral compromises. And those who refused soon found themselves defrocked.
As the systems of Science continue crumbling, we see a new Science which replaces scientific dialogue with charismatic “experts” like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Peter Hoetz. These experts dispense holy Law, which they call “Science.” Those who disagree with the Science are demonized as threats to the established order.
Those who oppose the Second Religiousness are typically infected with the same social emptiness that sparked the original crisis. The “conspiracy theories” that have become so popular over the past decade or so often stem from a Scientific mindset. Conspiracy theorists use various points of data to find an underlying pattern that provides The Answer. But while they ape the role of the Scientist seeking discoveries, they never become the Engineer who channels new information to change the world.
Today’s science skeptics have thrown out the baby with bathwater. Some have even thrown out Copernicus along with big pharma, running back to the peace and security of a flat earth. Others have decided that the inherent difficulty of STEM studies make them a breeding ground for racism and inequality. As American academia faces an ongoing funding crisis, we’re likely to see even less STEM education and science literacy. And we have always feared what we don’t understand.
Today the Priests of Science are not only facing scorn. They’re hearing increasing cries for trials and guillotines. This opposition makes them grow more insular, which only further encourages the Distrusters. This may or may not lead to bloodshed. It will certainly further encourage America’s always strong anti-intellectual streak. Over a couple generations, we could wind up losing large chunks of knowledge to disinterest and decay. Science may die with a Thirty Years’ Bang, but it’s more likely to go out with a whimper.
According to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, acceptance is the final stage of grief. We’ve have several burning cities full of anger and a dozen Mississippi Rivers worth of denial. The WEF and UN are bargaining with the incoming collapse as we speak, offering carbon emission limits and green energy to the uncaring void. And many, perhaps most, have sunk into a dull despair.
We no longer have the luxury of pretending things will be different this time. We must accept our situation as it is. There will be no killer app that saves us, no Zero Point Energy breakthrough that frees us from the tyranny of fossil fuels. One thing the Scientific Revolution got right: you must treat the data before you as it is, not as what you would like it to be.
Things are bad, and they are going to get worse before they get better again. We’re looking at the collapse of a 75-year old empire, but we’re also seeing the collapse of a dying worldview. The glistening futures dreamed by D’Annunzio and Roddenberry and Asimov will never come to pass. Our lives will be poorer and harder and more constrained than they are now. But we can choose for ourselves whether they must be more unhappy.
Science was always a tool, not a Faith. We might just as well worship the wheel as kneel before Science. It is no God, but neither is it a Devil. Its advances and its side-effects are rooted in our exalted and tainted humanity. Science has been our Faustian faith for centuries. It has been corrupted, but it is left to us to sort out the dross and purify that which remains.
What do we carry out of the wreckage? What do we preserve for future generations, and what do we destroy in the hopes they will avoid our mistakes? What warnings will we leave behind for those who come after us? Those are the questions we will be asking for generations to come. They are the questions we need to focus on now.
In "Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future" Fr. Seraphim Rose connects the basic themes of science fiction with traditional tales of witchcraft and the occult, a connection that was more obvious in its earlier days (i.e. Frankenstein) than the Star Trek-era in which he wrote, but there all the same. It's the promise of transcending human limitations through an occult understanding of the universe. I think it's interesting that as science advances it moves beyond what normal, intelligent people can comprehend into a rarified space where only a select few can understand the mechanics of the theories, technology etc. involved, while at the same time the notions of what science can do have shifted in the popular mind from hopeful optimism to dread and ennui. Our greatest modern inventions make us sick, lazy, addicted, have stolen the dignity of labor and are now poised to do so for thought. Only a conscious return to a spiritually-informed idea of humanity can prevent that, a theme that better modern sci-fi, like Dune, engages, and what a better-informed public policy regarding science will hopefully promote. "Thou shall not make a machine in the likeness of the human mind."
I will hope for a techno restoration, while I re-embrace the analog world.