What is science?

Sapiens, by Yuval Harari, is subtitled A brief history of humankind, and that's exactly what it is. It's mostly stuff I already knew in broad strokes, although obviously it has a lot of specific detail and illustrative examples I wasn't familiar with. I don't agree with everything he says -- for one thing, he seems not to have read the Tanakh, which is a bit surprising, and I do not accept his characterization of liberal humanism -- but it pulls together the major strands and important events of history compellingly and it's quite illuminating.

Obviously, if you want to get compellingly illuminated, read the book. But what I want to note here is the fundamental importance of ideology in driving overt events that most history writing is about. Underlying the European conquest of much of the world that started in the 16th Century, in Harari's telling, was, in a nutshell, the acceptance of ignorance and the quest to fill it in with knowledge. Obviously, as people spread out from Africa and occupied new territory they had to gain immense amounts of new information and develop innovative ways of life. But once they got settled down, at least since the neolithic revolution, they mostly decided they knew everything they needed to. 

 

Technological innovation was very slow, and resulted from small discoveries by individual artisans or farmers -- a slightly better way of doing things, transfer of an application from one realm to another. While there were bursts of intellectual creativity here and there, knowledge and beliefs were mostly static for centuries or millennia. Once the Greeks came up with their versions of cosmology, medicine, and physics, the way to learn about those subjects was to read their books -- for about 2,000 years. The order of Society, ancient history and the causes of events were to be found in the Bible (or whatever your holy book) as interpreted by the priesthood. People had very little interest in exploration beyond their familiar neighborhoods, except for purposes of conquest, but the conquerors didn't usually bother learn much from the conquered. 

Something  caused that to change in western Europe in the 16th Century, when people rather suddenly decided that they didn't know everything after all and they very much wanted to learn. The ancient books were overthrown, exploration was still driven in part by the desire for conquest but it was accompanied equally by the pursuit of knowledge -- and of course learning about exotic lands and people made conquest more successful. Scientific discovery and technological innovation went hand in hand. The idea that we have a lot  to learn about the nature of reality also implied that we could find better ways of doing things. The rest of the world didn't know what hit it until it was too late.

So, fundamentally, science is that attitude of ignorance. It's about believing that there is a  whole lot you don't know, and what you think you know might be wrong.* And so, yes, in that sense, ignorance is strength. But in a sense opposite to The Party wanted to tell people in 1984. What I mean to say is that the admission, the recognition, of ignorance is strength. Unfortunately, for many people, that is much too difficult.

*Just to be clear, just because you know you don't know everything doesn't mean there aren't some things you do know, to as near a certainty as you can get. Being able to tell the difference is equally important.