The trouble with science

The biggest problem I have with science is that it is sourced in an arrogant assumption that it’s ‘way’ is the best way and the only way and if science can explain something to itself then it deems that explanation to be final, regardless of the common sense, wisdom and experience which may reside or exist in other systems.

It is this arrogance which has laid the foundation for the worst disasters in the past, present and future. As Newton’s great law so clearly states: ‘to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, the account balances perfectly.’ In other words, to every cause there is an effect!

Because science rejects the innate wisdom of Nature, even while accepting this law, the scientific system is cavalier in the way that it presents and pushes its ‘discoveries’ onto the greater world. If science were wise and had any respect for the greater and more powerful Laws of Nature, it would be more cautious in encouraging the world to move in certain directions.

A classic example of the cost of this cavalier action is pharmaceuticals. No-one denies that they have done and can do, great good, but only in moderation. When science offers no warnings about their use, they become a marketing system which now sees our world, and our bodies, polluted, if not poisoned by the billions of drugs which go into bodies and which are then released as waste into the food chain. 

An understanding of and respect for the wisdom and laws of nature would have had the scientific system caution limited and moderate use of such medications until enough time had passed – at least two generations – to assess their impact on human beings and the environment. But of course the scientific system is in the pocket of vested interests and most if not all scientific research is funded by one or another of those vested interests. So much for the objectivity of science when the system in which it operates is clearly partisan.

Another area guaranteed to produce unforeseen compensatory costs as Nature's Law of balance sourced in cause, comes into effect,  is in the field of genetic modification. There is some brilliant scientific work which has gone on here but with little or no respect for Nature, such experimentation has been imposed on an unsuspecting world to far, far greater degrees than is wise, both for humans and for their environment.

As the saying goes: 'There is no such thing as a free lunch' and never more so than when it comes to tinkering with, if not flaunting the laws of nature. 

Yet another potential mine-field for the future is IVF where we now have some 5million  created in this way. Admittedly, when you look at a world population around seven billion that does not seem much but we do not yet know what the balancing impact will be, or what effect will result from a cause which is so removed from nature and which in the main runs counter to her basic law that conception occurs only when a sperm and egg are strong enough to ensure that it does. 

Logic suggests that given the understanding science and medicine have of the impact of chemicals and overdosing, in this case hormones fed to women to make them over-produce eggs, it seems somewhat bizarre that both science and medicine should take the position that there will be little or no impact on either the women producing the eggs for creating life in the laboratory, or the resulting human being. But that is what they do.

Science and medicine also both know that the impact of drugs, chemicals, radiation etc., - Chernobyl and the Atomic Bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki being clear and demonstrable examples - can take generations to appear, and yet they discount this possibility in the case of IVF.  How can life begin in a chemical pool in a petri dish not be on the receiving end of a 'cause' which simply does not exist in the natural world? And how can the ultimate 'effect' of that cause be guessed by science when it has never existed  before and according to the Laws of Nature, would never exist? They cannot guess but that is no reason to deny.

So a relatively healthy baby appears at the end of all of this? Well, physically anyway for the moment. Who knows what physiological, emotional, psychological effects will later be seen? In truth science and medicine both know that IVF babies and children do have higher percentages of certain problems than children conceived naturally so even at this early stage of the game they are in absolutely no doubt that IVF does not equate with natural conception by any stretch of the imagination. Surely, one would think, that integrity and common sense would have doctors and scientists cautioning minimal use of the procedure at least for two generations? But of course not.

If those children as adults have problems, or their children or grand-children have problems, whether minor or major, it is seen as 'too far into the future' for science to worry about. Science like so much today puts the focus on immediate results and instant gain. Of course every human being born has a Soul and is here for a reason and I believe, chose the life they are living, and the birth, as part of a greater plan. But science as a system does not believe that and in fact would deny there is any spiritual factor in life or any sort of plan. So, one presumes, if in a few decades we have millions of people who live shorter, less healthy or more suffering lives, the scientists can congratulate themselves that at least they 'made people happy' in the short-term. I would only argue if the 'effect' of their 'cause' is terribly painful they should have made a minimum of people 'happy' not a maximum.

But the point of it all is that even if the ultimate effects are small and they may even be a generation or two down the track, but they will be there waiting. It is impossible not to have an effect as the result of a cause for that is the way of this world. And scientists believe the same thing.

Wise and respectful science would have cautioned for minimum use of the procedure only in cases of great need. Instead, what do we see with little or no words of caution from science and medicine, but a massive industry pushing out babies created in chemical solutions in laboratories when the world cannot look after the people it has and there are hundreds of millions of orphan babies languishing around the world. 

Even while understanding the desire people might have to produce a child of their own the reality is that many of these babies, perhaps most, are not the result of sperm and egg from those whom they will call parents but are the creation of a pool of ingredients gathered, sometimes, from across the world. If they are lucky they will  have a biological connection to one parent.If they are not lucky they might have an Australian egg and Indian sperm and Indian womb. Or Australian sperm and American womb and Canadian egg.

One thing which science does not yet completely believe but holds as possibility is cellular memory. There is interesting research coming out of organ transplants which supports the view that every cell in our bodies is conscious and feeling and one can take this further and theorise that just as we receive a DNA inheritance so too we receive cellular memories. What impact will it have on a human being who has been created with three different cultural influences - for the foetus in the womb also draws information and knowledge from the 'mother' - and yet who will never be able to access or contact the original sources of that information?

Given the clear evidence of the suffering caused to adoptees in the past where they were denied contact with biological parents one can only believe that not only does science/medicine not care, they do not want to know! That would spoil the fun of all this experimentation and limit their ability to succeed academically, professionally and often, financially. One could also argue that the parents do not want to know either - all of them, whether providing ingredients or taking the end product off to raise, but at the end of the day they can only do what they are doing because science/medicine both allows and encourages them to do it.

And when you look at the potentially disasterous dance of donated sperm, egg and womb and the psychological impact, let alone biological, that will have on these babies when grown to adulthood, you can only think that science is not just cavalier, but arrogant and irresponsible. For the majority of parents, whether male and female or same sex, there would be absolutely no difference in adoption for they have no biological connection to the laboratory created child – except perhaps the ‘fun’ of pretending they are part of the process of conception and pregnancy. As a sign of how much hubris underpins the IVF industry one only has to remember the Octuplets born to the young, single mother, who already had seven children through IVF and who gave birth to eight more! What a triumph for science and medicine. What a tragedy for 15 children!

Any system which is not held to account or which cannot hold itself to account becomes rogue. The trouble with science is that we have become the labrats and so is this precious Earth of ours. This is not to say there are not scientists, many of them, who do have integrity and awareness but they are trapped by a system which has become increasingly rigid, arrogant and fearful of losing its status and power, over the centuries. Systems drive behaviour! That is a maxim and within any system there is just as much cause and effect as there is anywhere else.

Science became destructive and rogue when it morphed into an entrenched system puffed up with arrogance and a belief in its own absolute rightness. Science, otherwise known as scientism, is just a modern form of religion as it now manifests. That does science no good service, for just as religion at core is an admirable system so too is science – the problem comes when one develops an innate belief in one’s ‘way’ and the rightness of one’s way. That is when mistakes begin to be made and when distortions abound. It is only in humility and acceptance that the way is simply one of a number and it has its own strengths and weaknesses and there is no one way which will ever provide all of the answers all of the time to human beings.

Science, as religion did, has begun to fly too close to the ‘sun’ of ego and the effect which follows that cause is death. And that may not be a bad thing for it will be death of the egoic form of science which is prone to causing problems far beyond any solution the cause is meant to resolve. We just have to hope that destructive effects are not too destructive for, unlike religion, science does have the ability to destroy us and threaten the survival of life as we know it on this planet.

Once upon a time.... a never-ending story which we tell ourselves....

Dark Sky/Bright Earth, Oil on Canvas, Roslyn Ross, 2012.


Our experience of life involves a succession of stories. Often they are 'stories' programmed into our brain from childhood or past experiences and often they are 'stories' accepted as given from family, society, religion or peers. But there will be a story!

Stories, or what we tell ourselves about an experience are how we make sense of life. We are hard-wired to make sense of life and to find 'meaning' in all that we see, feel, hear and sense around us.

Just as astrological influences can be for us, against us or neutral, so too can the stories we tell ourselves. And just as astrology teaches that we have free will to choose how we work with the energies, so too do we have free will to choose the story we will tell ourselves. Those stories make our lives. Those stories in fact create our lives. Words, thoughts, stories are powerful things and we will 'tell stories' unconsciously or subconsciously if we do not choose to tell them consciously. 

And if we do not take conscious charge of our stories we are more likely to default into 'once upon a time' stories which our parents 'told us' consciously or unconsciously; verbally or emotionally; physically or psychologically - and which their parents had told them and so on back through time, the never-ending stories of your family, your tribe, your religion, your race, your nation or your gender.

Just as a story written as book, play, poem, film or image 'sets the scene' for what is to come, so too do the stories we select to 'play' set the scene for who we are, who we might become, and what our life will be. The ancients believed in the power of the Word - in fact one can find this belief even in religious teaching - in the beginning was the Word - and it is the Word and the Words which create our experience of Now which in turn seeds the creation of our Future. Not only that, Words are so powerful, magical even, that they can create our experience of the Past and enable us, not only to change our Present and our Future, but our Past as well.

Choose a story! Any story from the past and then re-tell it in a different way. It has just as much chance of being true as the one you told yourself before and what matters, more than the experience of the past, is how the story you tell yourself about it now makes you feel.

Just as an example: you grew up with abusive, dysfunctional parents. You can tell yourself you are a victim and have been so wounded by this experience, perhaps even damaged, that it continues to sabotage you and your life even now. Or you can tell yourself that you are a warrior and you have been strengthened by this experience and that has made you more resilient, wiser and more adaptable. Either story can be true. In fact both stories can be true but the one you tell yourself most often will be the one with greatest power.

It's really about taking the 'glass half full or glass half empty' scenario seriously. In ever cloud there is a silver lining and in every story lie the seeds of another story, a different story. You can tell yourself you are unworthy because your parents did not love you enough. Or you can tell yourself that your worth was demonstrated by the fact that you survived parents who did not (or more accurately, could not) love you enough.

Someone will tell the story of your life - make sure it is you!

I tell myself

I tell myself
when I have reached
a place I call
complete,
or good, or safe,
or better,
then all will be
resolved.
And yet there is
no place like this,
no perfect goal
to reach,
just moments
on the path,
as life evolves
as me.