Science & Reason: What's Wrong With Science? Revisited

In a previous article, I discussed the concept of science and the problems that we have in using science to answer the important questions that a human being may ask about life and reality. There is a saying from the Kemetic culture that reality does not reveal itself willingly, but only by the questions that we ask of it. If we accept the idea that reality only reveals itself through the questions that we ask, then we must first make sure that we are asking the right questions. One might wonder then if science is asking the right questions when it comes to solving the problems that humanity faces. 

The fact that our knowledge of reality is limited to the questions that we ask places humanity in a very difficult situation. The human intellect is formed as a result of ancestral lineage and environmental influences, but the influences of the environment are so great that they often make ancestral influences irrelevant in determining the approach that a person may take to investigating existence. The education a person receives, both formal and informal, is what determines the questions that a person will ask. 

We are taught by Master Naba that humans are not creative animals. Human beings are only able to take the concepts that they have formed in their minds through exposure or inspiration and combine them to solve the problems that they are faced with. This is a very powerful aspect of the human mind that gives us many abilities, but it should not be confused with true creativity. 

Everything that a human being is exposed to affects the structure of the brain. The brain contains the concepts that are formed as a consequence of this exposure. These concepts must be reconciled and harmonized for the human being to be able to make decisions about the information that affects the senses. This is not an immediate process. It is reasonable to think that our recognition of any event that we experience is so far removed from actual reality that we are really only ever dealing with the memories of events and not the events themselves. The present that we think we perceive is the past by the time we recognize it. 

The questions that we humans ask must therefore be related to the concepts that we hold. It is these concepts that form the basis of the experience that we recognize as perception and that we call reality. How can we ask a question about something that we do not have a direct experience of? How can we recognize the answers that we receive to those questions? 

Science has come to recognize the problems of human perception and the scientific method was developed and refined over the past 1500 years to address this problem. Science correctly recognizes the importance of the development of hypothesis and theory. The hypothesis is literally the form of the scientific question. The problem is that a hypothesis is not presented as a question; it is presented as a prediction. The hypothesis is the ultimate educated guess. It presents itself as a claim of the truth of reality and dares the experimentalist to prove that it is wrong. 

In the classic colonial philosophy of knowledge, epistemology, it is accepted as truth that you cannot prove that some- thing is NOT true. You can only assert that something IS true and then prove that assertion wrong. Science presents a hypothesis and then dares reality to contradict the predictions of that hypothesis. As long as nature does not contradict the hypothesis, science assumes that it is true and elevates the hypothesis to the status of proven theory. The question asked in this process is "is this hypothesis correct?" 

This is an extremely dishonest way of investigating reality. It relies on filling the mind with a fantasy of what reality is instead of honestly recognizing the humiliating aspect of the ignorance that is the basis of a legitimate question. Science is an exercise in validation. It is the most effective means of "justified true belief". In that sense it can exist in a world that is only loosely related to reality. The ultimate basis of science is the belief system that is being justified, not the reality that is being investigated. 

There are many people in the colonial world who have adopted the attitude of a seeker. Many people are searching for solutions to problems and for answers to questions. Many people have chosen to reject science because of what they see as the terrible consequences of scientific progress that we are now experiencing. 

This column is an attempt to honestly approach this problem of becoming the seeker without taking a judgmental attitude about science or its consequences. If the seeker looks at science based on the consequences, but does not recognize the attitudes that science presents, that seeker will be doomed to fall into a trap that has been set for those who attempt to rely on logic and reason as the basis for action. 

We must recognize that it is not the motivation of the honest scientist that we must avoid. We must avoid the trap that has been built within our own minds by the education that we have been given by the society in which we have been raised. In colonial society, we do not question the concepts of reason and the methodologies of logic by which we approach reality. These concepts and approaches are deeply ingrained in our psyche. We are taught to seek out reality by validation of our beliefs and this does not even allow us to pass through the door of asking questions. We are not in a position to recognize answers because we do not yet know how to ask a question. 

This is not much of a difficulty in traditional culture. Traditional culture does not have a history of the diseases that we find every day in colonial culture. Children are not placed in a position of seeking validation of their beliefs in traditional culture. In colonial culture, the formation and validation of belief is the core of our education system. 

This is a great divide that must be crossed. Those who seek to cross this ocean of illusion are taking on a task that is unprecedented in human history. 

I once had a conversation with my master, Master Naba Lamoussa Morodenibig. I was asking him about the deprogramming that the human who has been raised in the colonial world must go through and the great challenge it seemed to be. In response to this, he said to me, "Will you refuse to swim out of a sea only because it has never been done?" 

I do not know what the future holds for me. There are some things that even the Dogon masters do not know, but if this is a task that has never been done, if it is an "undiscovered country" that we must cross to reclaim our humanity, is it not a most noble task? How many of the seekers of the world will join me in this? If I fail, will you follow the path as far as I have traveled and step beyond? 

There is so much death and destruction in the world today. Humanity may survive or it may not as dictated by the reality of the destiny that we have as a species, but the tasks that our destiny sets for us cannot be avoided. We must rise to the challenge that reality presents to us. Science is a dead end. We must do better and approach reality with the humility and honesty that our ancestors and all of humanity deserve. 

We represent our blood and our species within the context of reality. We must, as humans, present our quality as the finest exam- ple of the confidence that reality has placed in us to allow us to exist at all, or perhaps we will have lost the opportunity that reality has given us to become what our destiny implies that we are capable of.