Recent debates about evolution have revealed the august and nearly sacred position of modern science in our world. In many respects, science and technology define the world we live in: the length of our lives, our expectations of convenience, our sense of tragedy, our ability to impose our will on others, our concept of knowledge and truth. But science has triumphed in part by displacing other sources of knowledge, in many cases dismissing them as being of merely antiquarian interest.

I recently re-read C.S. Lewis’ Abolition of Man (the new movie release had me going through my entire Lewis collection) and was struck by his treatment of the scientific project’s shady origins.

In his view, "wisdom" has always been in the backseat as far as scientific studies are concerned. Indeed, the whole concept of wisdom is dismissed; there are simply more accurate and more predictive theories. The real motive always was to conquer nature and make our lives easier. This is far from all bad--who can dispute the achievements of modern medicine, for example. But by denigrating philosophy, theology, and the other studies, this triumph of science over all other species of knowledge risks empowering us at the very moment we're the least morally capable of putting technology to good use.

As then Cardinal (now Pope Benedict XVI) Ratzinger said in an interview in Le Figaro, "I have always been skeptical of the concept of progress. There is, of course, a progress in the amount of knowledge, in science and technology. But this progress does not necessarily bring about a progress in moral values, nor in our ability to put to good use the power granted by knowledge. On the contrary, power can be a factor of destruction. I have always been contrary to the Utopian spirit, to faith in a perfect society–conceiving of a perfect society once and for all means excluding the freedom of every day. It is certainly true that reason and morality are fragile, that a society can always autodestruct. We must hope in the presence of sufficient moral strength that is capable of contrasting evil."

Lewis notes that the origins of science reveal something of its character:
I have described as a `magician's bargain' that process whereby man surrenders object after object, and finally himself, to Nature in return for power. And I meant what I said. The fact that the scientist has succeeded where the magician failed has put such a wide contrast between them in popular thought that the real story of the birth of Science is misunderstood. You will even find people who write about the sixteenth century as if Magic were a medieval survival and Science the new thing that came in to sweep it away. Those who have studied the period know better. There was very little magic in the Middle Ages: the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are the high noon of magic. The serious magical endeavour and the serious scientific endeavour are twins: one was sickly and died, the other strong and throve. But they were twins. They were born of the same impulse. I allow that some (certainly not all) of the early scientists were actuated by a pure love of knowledge. But if we consider the temper of that age as a whole we can discern the impulse of which I speak.

There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the wisdom of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique; and both, in the practice of this technique, are ready to do things hitherto regarded as disgusting and impious—such as digging up and mutilating the dead.

If we compare the chief trumpeter of the new era (Bacon) with Marlowe's Faustus, the similarity is striking. You will read in some critics that Faustus has a thirst for knowledge. In reality, he hardly mentions it. It is not truth he wants from the devils, but gold and guns and girls. `All things that move between the quiet poles shall be at his command' and `a sound magician is a mighty god'.3 In the same spirit Bacon condemns those who value knowledge as an end in itself: this, for him, is to use as a mistress for pleasure what ought to be a spouse for fruit.4 The true object is to extend Man's power to the performance of all things possible. He rejects magic because it does not work;5 but his goal is that of the magician. In Paracelsus the characters of magician and scientist are combined. No doubt those who really founded modern science were usually those whose love of truth exceeded their love of power; in every mixed movement the efficacy comes from the good elements not from the bad. But the presence of the bad elements is not irrelevant to the direction the efficacy takes. It might be going too far to say that the modern scientific movement was tainted from its birth: but I think it would be true to say that it, was born in an unhealthy neighbourhood and at an inauspicious hour. Its triumphs may have-been too rapid and purchased at too high a price: reconsideration, and something like repentance, may be required.

Lewis feared that the apparent scientific triumph over nature may very well return us to an even more complete domination of man by nature. Nature can dominate in more ways then one, including the domination of one's self by his own morally deformed inner nature or the domination of others by scientific elites and their own untaught natures. In both case, the domination would be magnified by the capabilities technology provides. I've always found in telling in this regard that so many "educated" people associated with great acts of evil--Mohammad Atta, Mengele, bin Laden--received a scientific education of some sort.

Any true conservatism should begin by recognizing and reducing the current supremacy of the natural sciences in our world and promoting a restoration of a complete education in the humanities, including the concomitant of a moral and religious education. Young people spend most of their waking hours in school, six to seven hours per day. The cost of teaching them that moral matters are simply debatable "matters of opinion" with no certainty compared to Boyle's Law does inestimable harm to the type of society we live in. This is not a question of politics so much of culture. What we read, what we teach, and what we assume about knowledge directly affects the decisions we make, policies under which we live, and the texture of our lives. Moral renewal of any kind depends on rejecting the widely held premise that scientific knowledge is the only real knowledge.

Funny where a little thinking can lead.