Why I am Not a Scientist: Anthropology and Modern Knowledge [Paperback]

There's a lot of misdirection and slippery declarations in this nonetheless interesting book by a member of the American establishment in cultural anthropology. Prof. Marks's title is disingenuous since he clearly is a scientist and admits as much. And his problem with science isn't so much science per se as it is with Big Science, the kind of science that gets funded by Big Government. Additionally part of his displeasure with the scientific state of affairs is really with sciences that are not, as his science is, social sciences. In a sense Marks sounds like a guy feeling slighted because of the long standing perception that the social sciences are not "real" sciences, that instead only the so-called "hard" sciences like physics and chemistry are real sciences.

This widespread perception which came about because of the great success that physics and chemistry has had beginning as far back as Newton has resulted in a backlash known imprecisely as postmodernism. Marks is in part a spokesperson for postmodernism and in particular for the view that science is a social construction, that scientists are so thoroughly immersed in their milieu that they are incapable (like everyone else) of being objective in their world view or even in their science.

A key idea that underlies much of the text is the notion of progress. In biology progress is considered an anthropomorphic illusion that would divert us from a true understanding of evolution. Humans are not more advanced evolutionarily speaking than ants. There is no "progress" in evolution. But in science generally speaking the idea of progress is closely tied to gaining knowledge and the ability to better manipulate the environment to our advantage.

The unstated assumption behind Prof. Marks's attack on the scientific establishment is that progress should be defined in terms of human happiness and scientific "progress" is not necessarily increasing human happiness. This is an agreeable idea except that human happiness is hard to measure. It is impossible to say how happy another person is. If the person reports that he or she is very happy, how does that compare to another person's report that he or she is just happy? We have no way of knowing. We can watch people and report on how often they whistle while they work or show other behavioral evidence of how happy they are, but again this would be impossible to quantify.

Furthermore there is evidence that human happiness when subsistence needs are satisfied depends less on what is happening in wider world, from next door to other side of the globe, than it does on internal chemistry. So to define progress in terms of human happiness is to make progress hopelessly vague. But I think that is really Marks's intent. If one takes such a position then of course cars and airplanes, cell phones and computers and the like are not the artifacts of progress but are rather irrelevancies along a long, winding road to who knows where.

Here's an example that reveals not only Marks's agenda but his bias as well. In the chapter on "Science as Practice" he reports that he is deeply troubled by the fact that as more and more scientific knowledge is gained, more and more questions arise. Worse yet, he writes, "If science were progressing, in the sense that more and more questions are being settled, would we not be seeing fewer scientists and smaller market for them to enter?" Marks calls this "a paradox" and asks, "How can the domain of the unknown expand faster than the domain of the known?" (p. 86)

Well, there is no paradox when one understands what science is and what science does. Science is not finding out any absolute truths. What science is doing is expanding the range of our knowledge of the past and the near future, of the very big and the very small in the sense of a widening sphere into the great unknown. What this means is that the more science learns (the more the sphere expands) the greater is the surface where the known and unknown meet. The observation that there are more scientists today than there were a hundred years ago looking for answers to more questions is exactly what one would expect.

Marks's complaint (and this is a familiar one) that science has always been wrong in the past again reveals a misunderstanding of the nature of science and scientific knowledge. If scientific knowledge were absolute in the same sense that religious knowledge claims to be, then it would be quite an embarrassment to find that past discoveries were imprecise, wrong or somehow needed refining. But since scientific knowledge is always tentative, subject to a correcting fact, understanding or experiment, it is not and cannot be certain knowledge. However, to quote Bertrand Russell, "When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also add that some things are more nearly certain than others."

For example, the discovery that the planets revolve around the sun in circular orbits (although technically not entirely correct) is much more nearly correct (and more valuable) than the notion that the earth is the center of the universe with all the heavens revolving around it.

In a revealing statement, Marks refers despairingly to Richard Dawkins as a "zealous advocate of the view that science represents cultural progress" and quotes him as saying, "When you actually fly to your international conference of cultural anthropologists, do you go on a magic carpet or do you go on a Boeing 747?" Marks rejoins in part: "Dawkins is confusing science (ideas and behaviors) with technology (artifacts)." (p. 87) However I think the confusion rests with Marks. Technology is the application of scientific discoveries to our work-a-day world. Without the science of aerodynamics, of hydraulics, of chemistry, and other disciplines, there would be no 747s. Marks, amazingly enough even avers that "The flying carpet fails in only one respect: it doesn't actually get you where you want to go." (!)(p. 88)

Notice that Marks is "getting back" at Dawkins for his snide remark about cultural anthropologists. This might suggest that Marks is more involved with internecine warfare among scientists than he is with any kind of truth seeking.

What I think Marks is deliberately missing is that science is not a philosophy, not a religion, not a way of life; it is not something only people with grants from the National Science Foundation can do. Science is a tool. Anybody can use it. It is neither good nor bad. The technological applications from science may be medicines that save lives or they may be nuclear weapons, but that is not the fault of science. That is the fault of human beings. And besides there is no putting the genie of science back into the bottle. Science is a genie of great power and utility. The society that shuns science will risk disaster.

These criticisms aside I want to note that this book is not only interesting but very well written and documented, displaying a wide range of knowledge about humans and human history and very much worth reading regardless of your point of view.