Some juicy quotes from The March of Unreason by Dick Taverne

(chapter headings are shown in bold)

Preface

"My main argument … is about the importance of the evidence-based approach. That is a matter for all citizens, not just scientists."

Prologue

“What I find especially disturbing is that some people not only do not know about science, but do not want to know and seem proud of not knowing”.

“Optimism about scientific progress faded some time during the last century. Today science and reason are under siege from many quarters”.

“The great virtue of science is that its truths must be reproducible and are independent of time, place, and personality.”

“My theme is that reliance on dogma and ideology instead of evidence is unhealthy for democracy. Reason is one of the foundations of democracy.”

1.   From Optimism to Pessimism

“The Enlightenment in Britain, according to Roy Porter, made the world we have inherited, ‘that secular value system to which most of us subscribe today which upholds the unity of mankind and basic personal freedoms, and the worth of tolerance, knowledge, education and opportunity’”

2.   Medicine and Magic

“An even more sceptical view is taken by Professor Richard Dawkins, who has defined alternative medicine as ‘that set of practices which cannot be tested, refuse to be tested, or consistently fail tests’.”

3.   The Myth of Organic Farming

“All food is organic. It has to be, because all animals, including human beings, are themselves organic and have evolved to digest organic matter. Non-organic, or inorganic, farming is therefore an oxymoron and the phrase ‘organic farming’ is a meaningless phrase, essentially tautologous.”

“Nowadays ‘organic farming’ commands such wide public support that to question its merits is to question the virtues of motherhood.”

“If organic farming were to be much more widely practised, as its supporters advocate, it would have damaging consequences for farming as a whole, for the world food supply, and for the environment.”

“… the organic farming lobby, like supporters of alternative medicine, do not believe in the scientific method. Both practices have virtues, it seems, that can only be detected by intuition; they are both revealed as based on a belief in magic or mysticism, not reason.”

“Healthier and safer food, together with better health provision, has improved our physical well-being and increased longevity, and modern agriculture deserves much of the credit.”

“Truth matters, and if an important industrial activity is based on nonsense we should say so.”

“Organic farming is based on pseudo-science and it is important that this should be publicly recognized.”

“Woolly thinking about food and farming is as much a manifestation of unreason as belief in homeopathy.”

4.   The Case for GM Crops

“I have reached the firm conclusion that the evidence overwhelmingly supports the case for promoting the genetic modification of plants.”

“The best guess on the evidence before us is that in the next forty to fifty years we will need to produce three times as much food as we do today. This huge increase must be achieved, unlike fifty years ago, without the use of extra land.”

5.   The Case against GM Crops

“It makes no sense to argue that the technology that makes plants resistant to harmful insects, fungi, or viruses should be rejected, but when it is used to make better drugs to protect us from life-threatening diseases it is to be welcomed.”

“Nevertheless it is, in my view, unfortunate that GM technology depends so extensively on development by corporations and that in recent years in most Western countries public finance for research into the plant sciences has steadily declined, and is still declining.

The new plants that made the Green Revolution possible and saved millions of lives were developed specially for the Third World by public institutions and by research financed from public funds, and most new crops that will bring the greatest benefits to developing countries today are still financed and being developed by public institutions.”

6.   The Rise of Eco-fundamentalism

“We have a moral responsibility to our children, our grandchildren, and future generations to hand over a world they too can enjoy.”

Regarding the term ‘sustainability’, he writes that “The term is scattered so liberally that it has virtually been deprived of meaning, except as a form of religious salvation.

A definition of sustainability that is frequently cited as a good working definition appears in the Brundtland Report: ‘sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’.”

7.   The Perils of Precaution

“If scientific evidence is no longer the test, caprice, not reason, reigns supreme.”

“Rachel Carson may have been an inspiration to all who cared about nature, but she overstated her case against DDT …”

“On the other side of the balance sheet as mentioned is the fact that DDT is one of the most effective means of preventing disease ever conceived, the most effective method of killing mosquitoes and preventing the transmission of malaria.”

8.   The Attack on Science

“Postmodernism is not a theory or school of thought that is easy to define.”

“… dependence on objectivity and truth is the inner citadel of science.”

“… the belief that public misunderstandings about science are the fault of scientists, who are arrogant and fail to communicate effectively with the public.”

“… but the public depends for its understanding of science primarily on the media and if there is a lack of public understanding, it is the way in which the media report science that is largely to blame.”

“… to seek knowledge for its own sake is one of the noblest endeavours of mankind.”

“But why should science be singled out as needing more democratic control when other activities, which could be regarded as equally ‘elitist’ and dependent on special expertise, are left alone? Why not more democratic control of sport or the arts? Is there also to be a ban on ‘Art for Art’s sake’?”

“What matters is not how many people declare their support for a theory, but whether a hypothesis stands up to critical analysis and whether experiments are reproducible.”

“Popular, that is political, control over science, over the research that scientists want to pursue or the publication of its results, has always proved fatal to good science, just as state control is the death of art. The scientific revolution of the Enlightenment became possible because the domination of the church was broken.”

“Committees and genius do not mix well.”

9.   Multinational Companies and Globalization

“The increasing dependence of universities on financial support from industry can lead to abuse and has sometimes done so.”

10.   Reason and Democracy

“… the rejection of reason has historically been closely linked with autocracy.”

“In the United States, money has become so important that the system of government sometimes resembles a plutocracy rather than democracy.”

“It is therefore not inappropriate to describe reason as one of the cornerstones of democracy and irrationality as its enemy. And even if the role of reason in politics is limited, democracy is the only means through which the process of deciding by evidence can find political expression, unlike dictatorships where fiat and authority rule and choice is banned.”

“Karl Popper wrote ‘… democracy is essential to the creation of higher living standards’.”

“A rational and scientific approach requires societies to be open and pluralistic.”

“Science needs to breathe the air of free discussion and free criticism and is stifled by autocracy.”

“In the United States, some of the more extreme pronouncements of neo-conservatives may evoke echoes from the McCarthy era of the 1950s, but it seems unlikely that freedom of speech will come under serious threat. On the other hand, religious extremism threatens peace and undermines democracy wherever it appears, whether in Asia, Europe, or America.”

“However, the relevance of fundamentalism to my theme is not its danger to peace, or to democracy alone, but its relevance to democracy and science.”

“… most Christians … accept the separate jurisdictions of church and state. In the United States the constitution specifically guarantees it.”

“… will American democracy continue to be based in the longer-term on the principles of reason and tolerance that inspired the founders of the US constitution, and will science continue to prosper?”

“If creationists took over the national curriculum, it would be a disaster comparable to the take-over of Soviet biology by Lysenko.”

“In its golden age, between the eighth and thirteenth centuries, Arab thinkers invented trigonometry and algebra, laid the foundations of chemistry and modern medicine, and led the way in astronomy.”

“Sometime in the fourteenth century, Islam changed and the Muslim world abandoned scientific inquiry.”

“One reason freedom of thought became established in the West was that the role of the church and of religion became less pervasive. In Christian states, church and state became separated, a recognition that you render unto God what is God’s and unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. This separation was a vital factor in the development of democracy, as was the separation of religion and the law: democracy requires that the lay people’s representatives make laws.”

“… the freedom to question and inquire and of the freedom from indoctrination, that are all essential to the development of science and of democracy.”

“The reason is that there is no room for scepticism in the Islamic religion itself. Apostasy is traditionally the most serious crime, punishable by death.”

“… it assumes that children should not make up their own minds about religious beliefs, but will automatically adopt those of their parents, or should be indoctrinated at school to ensure that they do.”

“… most journalists are almost as ignorant of science as the public. They also have a natural sympathy for mavericks.”

“Furthermore, the media and NGOs have a common interest in scare stories which increase circulation for newspapers and the membership of campaigning groups.”

“Democracy depends on the supply of information that makes it possible for us to form independent judgements.”

“… every step away from reason is a step on a perilous road.”

“… our most powerful weapon, a rational vision of society.”

“… the merits of liberal democracy are independent of time and place and of the different countries that helped to shape it. Democracy crucially depends on the freedom to criticize, on rejection of dogma, and respect for evidence rather than authority.”

“The scientific method, which advances our ability to improve our lot as it steadily expands our knowledge of the world, is also an expression of optimism. The scientific method and democracy are natural allies and unreason is their common enemy.”

Epilogue

“What matters most, however, is not who is anti-science or why, but what science has to offer, why being against it is to undermine the quality of the good society and why being indifferent to science is to be blind to one of the glories of mankind. It is the current mood of pessimism about science that I most deplore. There were good reasons why the birth of modern science inspired optimism and there are good reasons why it should still do so today.”

“The beauty of science is that it extends our knowledge, about ourselves, about the stars, about our whole environment, and that each scientist builds on the knowledge of his or her predecessors. Science breeds optimism because its province is knowledge, knowledge that improves and expands from generation to generation. The nature of science identifies it with the belief that progress is possible.”

“There is no virtue in poverty, hunger, and disease, and science and technology have done more to diminish them than any other human discipline.”

“Progress is not inevitable.”

“Modern liberal democracy gives more people the chance of a good life than ever before. This would not be possible without the contribution of science.”