“If all you have is a hammer everything starts to look like a nail”
"If all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail."
This quotation has been part of the American vernacular since at least the mid-20th century. It was originally uttered by Henry Ford in reference to his business model for industrializing America. But it begs the question: what happens when we really do just have a hammer? The answer is that our world may be much more complicated and nuanced than we ever imagined. As Nobel prize-winning physicist Niels Bohr said: "Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future".
There is a saying that goes, "The role of the scientist is to ask questions that can be answered and to ignore those that can't". This is, in fact, how we rose from the intellectual primordial ooze. We invented science, which allowed us to build computers, airplanes and space stations. Science is truly our most remarkable tool.
But there are some problems that science has not elucidated or even been able to address adequately. These are the problems of human emotions: why do we love, hate, feel pain and sorrow? Why do some people get cancer or commit suicide? Why do some people cheat on their spouses or abuse their children?
Despite the best efforts of science to explain these phenomena as physical events in a logical universe, they may not be solved by scientific methods. Science has been remarkably successful at describing the world, but it may not have all of the answers.
There is a field called "humanomics" that attempts to view people and their accomplishments in a statistical sense. It asks questions like "who is likely to become rich?" or "who is likely to live the longest?" or "who is most likely to commit murder?". These seem to be very complex questions, but by studying large populations of people over long periods of time, the answers can be derived. In fact, the answers are so accurate that they are often more accurate than those given by a single individual.
Humanomics has been applied to history and the stock market. It has shown that any one person is unlikely to beat the market because they will fall victim to their own emotions and biases. If you have ever wondered why your financial adviser was able to double your money in ten years while only doubling his own during that time, this is why.
On a personal level, psychology has made tremendous strides in understanding the nature of love. It is now clear that there is no such thing as "true love". There are many different kinds of love: couples who shared a passion, but then turned against each other; people who care for each other deeply but do not commit; people who care deeply and do commit. According to research, being in a relationship where you feel loved can be very damaging to your overall health and happiness.
While science may share some answers to these problems, it seems unlikely that these answers can be derived from the scientific method, which is essentially an inductive method--that looks for patterns, similarities and correlations between facts and events. These inductive methods are not well-equipped to detect ancient truths and truths that are difficult to see with the naked eye.
Science has been very successful in using the scientific method to verify the hypotheses that most of us present to it everyday. But sometimes, it is said that science simply will not accept alternative explanations for phenomena. It can be a real problem for scientists who have noticed something strange, or have seen a fluke occur several times in their experiments and nature. Because scientists are trained to "build in" alternative explanations for anomalous data, this can lead them to miss important things because they refuse to allow their minds to go there.
For example, an explanation for many of the strange things that have occurred on this planet can be explained using non-linear mathematics. We all know that if we cut something in half, we don't get half of what was there before. Similarly, we can't double the amount of something by cutting it in half. These are examples of linear relationships. But there are also exponential functions and logarithmic functions. Exponential functions grow very quickly. Maybe the universe is expanding exponentially?
This isn't as crazy as it sounds: if you travel in a straight line at constant speed for long enough, your velocity will be doubled every six months (this is an example of the rule that velocity equals distance over time). The same thing is true for logarithms: each successive number in the sequence is equal to a logarithmic function of the ones that came before.
So what if birthing patterns are not linear, but exponential? What if there are more people who do not have children than those who do? If most patients don't survive cancer, and most murders fail their victims, and many people continue to commit adulterous acts when they get married--could any of this be explained by a linear model? Doesn't it make much more sense that we just have some very special people or some very bad luck in our lives, rather than a general lack of understanding about how the world works.
This is a very unscientific view of the universe. It seems to suggest that there are some people who can succeed at anything and most people who will fail. It also seems to suggest that love and friendship are not linear phenomena and that they seem much more complicated. If we believe that we must all be special, then there is no way to even explain why someone who's been very special would suddenly leave this planet. This world doesn't make sense---except in the predictable, linear world described by science.
It is said that if you train a scientist to see the world in a linear fashion, you'll produce a scientist who sees the universe as predictable and controllable. This will enable our scientists to come up with gadgets that enable us to control nature. But it should be clear that the world is not so simple. Maybe we need some people whose minds can't be controlled by science---people who know when they are seeing something extraordinary. These are the people with whom we should collaborate and look for answers.
Bibliography:
Christy, Lynn. "Beyond the Brain: Visions of a Nonlinear Universe." New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993. Print.
Christy, Lynn. "I Don't Believe in Miracles: The Case for a Nonlinear Universe." New York: Broadway Books, 2003. Print.
Oschman, Eric T. "In the Minds of Men: A History of Ideas About Women and Sex." New York: Basic Books, 1995. Print.
Turkle, Sherry. "ZZ Top : A Study of a Manliness Complex." Boston : Little Brown and Company, 1974 . Print .
Conclusion:
This is an unusual article, I know. It is hard to read and takes a while to get through. But if it makes you think that all of the above ideas are true, please search for as much evidence as you can find to support this point of view. It is better for us all to be happy and healthy than for us all to be ignorant and blind. We do not need scientists or governments telling us what is right or wrong or even how the universe works.