Darwinism: the Most Revolutionary Movement in Science

Which scientific revolution incurred the most change?

While revolutions in thought were present in chemistry, cosmology, geology, and physics, the most altering discoveries were in biology via Charles Darwin’s considerations for evolution through natural selection and adaptation of species. The fundamentals of evolutionary thought seized society with an urgency to unite scientific theory with everything, applying direct causation via biological matter to reality. Darwin’s dangerous ideas disrupted the religious hold on society by preferring scientific method and empirical evidence to scholastic considerations of the Golden era. Bowler and Morus said, “The original Darwinian revolution turned out to be only a transition to an evolutionary interpretation of an already-existing worldview based on faith in the idea of progress as the product of divine providence or of nature’s laws.”[1] Darwinism, and later biology, oriented the human being as an organism victim to alteration by its environment to encourage continuation of species. However, it would not be until the twentieth-century that society adapted the notion of the effects of a nurturing environment as able to improve the nature of humans. Victorians believed: “Environmental effects are powerless to alter the characteristics inherited by the child from its parents,”[2] but genetic discoveries would reveal the human ability to adapt based on external factors incorporated through experience.

 

Yes, cosmology demonstrated a scientific revolution. Astronomers of the 1930s agreed about the shape of the universe, but instead of considering the system as static they saw it as dynamic or a universe that was producing energy; Bowler and Morus said, “No longer was the galaxy that human beings inhabit to be considered as the center of the universe.”[3] The Milky Way was one of a number of other galaxies; much like humans were not unique creations but evolved animal species, the universe resided in one galaxy of many of galaxies. Bowler and Morus said, “From that perspective, the transformation might certainly be regarded as truly revolutionary in the same sense that the Copernican revolution was.”[4] Early twentieth-century held a revolution in the understanding of space and time. Relativistic physics replaced Newtonian theory, Bowler and Morus said, “…replaced with the standpoint that time and space were relative to the position and velocity of the observer.”[5]

 

In “The Elegant Universe” PBS Nova discussed Quantum Theory, a possibility that multiple realities existed in different dimensions of time. Based on statistical data, Quantum theory dealt with extremely small matter, atomic elements of protons and the nucleus, that Einstein’s theory of gravity did not effect or relate.[6] Modern scientists, since the 1970s, developed String Theory to unite “heavy” science with small science. Working with the stuff of Einstein’s dreams, as inspired by his notebooks and personal record, Alan Lightman wrote Einstein’s Dreams to illustrate the creative spirit of the famous scientist. Einstein questioned everything, and while he did not agree with quantum theories, Lightman showed that Einstein thought more than one possibility could exist. 14 April 1905: “Suppose time is a circle, bending back on itself. The world repeats itself, precisely, endlessly.”[7] And later, on 14 May 1905: “There is a place where time stands still. Raindrops hang motionless in air. Pendulums of clocks float mid-swing. … Pedestrians are frozen on the dusty streets, their legs cocked as if held by strings.”[8] Einstein allowed room for the possibility of alternate time and space, but he rejected quantum theory. Is his rejection due to gravity not be unified? What would Einstein have thought of String theory?

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bowler, Peter J. and Iwan Rhys Morus. Making Modern Scienc: A Historical Survey. Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 2005.

“The Elegant Universe.” PBS Nova, 10 Aug 2014. YouTube.com. Online video. 25 Jan 2016.

Picture c/o:  http://c8.alamy.com/comp/AJA5JD/the-survival-of-the-fittest-application-of-darwinism-in-the-21st-century-AJA5JD.jpg

[1] Bowler and Morus, Making Modern Science, p. 161.

[2] Bowler and Morus, Making Modern Science, p. 158.

[3] Bowler and Morus, Making Modern Science, p. 286.

[4] Bowler and Morus, Making Modern Science, p. 286.

[5] Bowler and Morus, Making Modern Science, p. 287.

[6] PBS, “The Elegant Universe.”

[7] Alan Lightman, Einstein’s Dreams, p. 8.

[8] Alan Lightman, Einstein’s Dreams, p. 8.

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Scientific Military

Purposeful Science finds Funds/Usefulness in Military Effort

Military systems are ordered under the chain of command, and service members follow orders without asking questions. Soldiers who do not agree with their commands still have to follow them, that is the way the MRE crumbles. During wartime, if a soldier refuses to follow a direct command, he may be shot in the head immediately by his commanding officer. No trial, no argument – follow the orders the superiors dictate. When faced with a moral concern, the soldier is ultimately to follow orders. Science disagrees with this approach. For one thing, scientists who are able to create weapons of mass destruction are burdened with the moral issue: is it right and just to create these weapons? Once materialized, the scientists do not possess the authority to restrict the military – or rogue nations – from using the weapons to destroy life. The aim of science to understand natural life, not destroy it.

The military has a ruthless approach. The object of the service is to protect, defend, and sustain. The military accepts that certain loses must happen to better the whole, but they accept this on a literal level. If a group of 100 people can be saved by one man dying, then military reason says the one man should feel honored to die for the glory and safety of his country. There is an enlisted job/specialty that literally is an enlisted soldier who follows the Chaplin around (everywhere he goes). That soldier’s “real” job is to jump in front of the Chaplin if he is attacked to save his life because his job is to bring support to the masses. Military morality is different because it is flexible according to the demands of the nation.

Bowler and Morus noted that many scientists are pacifists. In 1939, Einstein wrote to President Roosevelt to begin constructing the bomb because he feared that the Axis forces would be able to make a bomb.[1] The Allies would need the Atomic bomb for defense purposes. The arms race (and later space race) created great anxiety for scientists because they wanted funding for research but did not like kneeling to the ways of the military.

The scientists wanted to test their theories about the atom, and due to the high cost of the research required, science found funding with the military. Science had assisted the service during WWI, and especially the Navy with technology produced to communicate via radar, sonar, and radio.[2] Using scientific method, the scientists approached the military problems with reason and theory. Scientists were advising the military – different branches including biology and physicists.[3]

Einstein was excluded from the Manhattan Project, and much to the scientists dismay, Brigadier General Leslie Groves took command. Robert Oppenheimer was a leading physicist, and his team of civilians and scientists: “…were not simply taking orders from the military and were free to think about the consequences of what they were doing”[4] in which allowed major debates about the moral concerns regarding the bombs construction. However, the members of the Manhattan Project believed they were trying to beat Germany, and therefore, they patriotically participated. Science cooperated with the military and industry so that they had practical means to back their experimentation process. Bowler and Morus said, “In a sense, the Manhattan Project was changing the way science was done, requiring leading scientists to engage in much closer cooperation with military and industrial interests.”[5]

As science continued to shift away from theoretical and abstract purposes towards practical uses, the military eagerly demonstrated the need and embraced for weapon advancement and wartime strategic technologies. Russia took over as villain once Germany was defeated, and the hydrogen bomb, along with the cold war scare, would dominate America from the 1950s on, only losing steam at the fall of communist Russia. C.M. Mody Cyrus said, “Evidence of mobilization was everywhere, from the Manhattan Project to the space race to the civil rights movement to the “wars” on poverty, drugs, and cancer.”[6] After WWII, the Cold War gripped the nations in an icy fear that: “each superpower was acutely aware that not pursuing even the most outrageous visions could result in a victory for the other side.”[7] Scientific advance was found in “big science,” which looked to funding from the military and industry.

Bowler and Morus noted that Oppenheimer had contact with left-wing organizations and fell victim to persecution by McCarthy and the Red Scare.[8] I remember during my childhood, the 1980s, the intense animosity for Russia and all things non-democratic. In elementary school, we had nuclear drills like the kids have fire drills. The alarm was even more annoying, and the students filed out into the hall, faced the wall and sat down with crossed legs. As a kid, I remember thinking, “How is sitting in the hall going to keep us safe from a bomb?” Now, I think they did it so that everyone would be together and try to stay calm as long as possible. Realistically, if the school were hit with a nuclear bomb, everyone is done – does not matter if you sat cross or straight legged. What is scary is, at that point, all humanity can do is calmly prepare to be decimated. {le sigh}

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bowler, Peter J. and Iwan Rhys Morus. Making Modern Science: A Historical Survey. Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 2005.

Cyrus, C.M. Mody. “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, 38.3 (2008): 451-461. Edge.apus.edu. Web. 20 Jan 2016.

Picture c/o:  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Telephony_Class_NGM-v31-p357.jpg

[1] Bowler and Morus, Making Modern Science, p. 473.

[2] Bowler and Morus, Making Modern Science, p. 470.

[3] Bowler and Morus, Making Modern Science, p. 471.

[4] Bowler and Morus, Making Modern Science, p. 474.

[5] Bowler and Morus, Making Modern Science, p. 475.

[6] Cyrus, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” p. 452.

[7] Cyrus, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” p. 452.

[8] Bowler and Morus, Making Modern Science, p. 480.