THE MECHANISTIC PARADIGM AND DILEMMA

The Science of the Old Worldview Has Reached Its Natural Limits
The world today is beset by a whole host of crises: the Energy Crisis, Global Warming, 2 billion people living in abject poverty, Wars and civil wars over oil and religion, horrendous pollution, a lack of proper education and many, many others. As Einstein warned, in order to solve our problems we need a new thinking, we cannot solve these same crises "with the same thinking we used when we created them".

Unfortunately, that very same thinking is still in control of the world's institutions, governments and corporations. In other words, what the world needs to survive is a massive paradigm shift, one that has the power to transform the planet.

A tall order. Yet it has happened before. And it is happening again--today, in our own lifetimes.

The word "paradigm", meaning the underlying conceptual framework supporting a set of scientific theories, has been much used--and abused. In the case of the Global Curriculum, the term paradigm shall mean centuries-long scientific and cultural worldviews, not the mini-paradigm changes that advance particular sciences.

These smaller changes in theories, are themselves based on the larger underlying analogies, the underlying paradigm. If one of those smaller conceptual changes is actually based on a truly new analogy, that would be a new mega-paradigm. Only then you would have the start of another centuries-long paradigm shift.


Thomas Kuhn Coined the Term "Paradigm Shift"

The man who made the study of paradigm shifts popular was Professor Thomas Kuhn, who coined the term in his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, defining the paradigm as the framework supporting a whole scientific worldview. The paradigm is a related constellation of ideas, spanning many different disciplines by depending on the same underlying model of the universe. A paradigm shift erupts when the old model becomes obsolete and a more accurate theory of the universe emerges to replace it.

Kuhn revealed the true nature of these epoch-making periods. We have been taught that science is rational and objective, based on observation and data. Kuhn, however, said nothing could be further from the truth . He found that thinking alternated back and forth between times of stable, “normal science”, and turbulent scientific revolutions caused by “extraordinary science”. The history of science, Kuhn discovered, consisted of a "series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions", in which "one conceptual world view was replaced by another".

Rather than being an objective debate about data, these revolutions were actually ideological struggles between the old and the new thinking. The struggle was thus not about science and data, it was all about maintaining an ideology and maintaining power. The old worldview simply had too much invested in the old worldview to accept the truth of the new—even when they saw it with their own eyes. It’s basically a war of the worldviews.

The Heliocentric System of Copernicus Changed the
Center of the Universe, Starting the Copernican Revolution

Kuhn’s prime example of a paradigm shift being an ideological battle was the Copernican Revolution of the 16th and 17th Centuries. He told of a 17th Century theologian, who would not even look through Galileo's telescope. Galileo wanted to show the church scholar that the moons of Jupiter circled the larger planet, just as the small Earth must circle the larger Sun. The Medieval theologian knew it proved certain lines of the Scriptures as well as his revered geocentric thinking incorrect, and so he ridiculed it as an optical trick.

As Kuhn points out, this is not science—it’s ideology. Despite this resistance by the old worldview, the new thinking becomes an attractor point for change, the shift enters a rapid social "paradigm flip" and within two centuries, the new thinking wins the day.

History certainly tells us of other periods when whole societies did change relatively quickly. Clearly one such time was when Greek society—within a couple of centuries—went from believing in mythological gods and goddesses to orating about mathematics, philosophy and “Laws of Nature”. The conception point of that great shift was the learning of astronomy, mathematics and other sciences from the Egyptians and other Mideast civilizations.



Thales Prediction of an Eclipse in 585 BCE
Gave Science Pre-Eminence Over Mythology,
Starting A Paradigm Shift

In 585 BCE, Thales correctly predicted a solar eclipse, officially beginning the Greek turn to science. Pythagoras, rather like Newton over two millennia later, used mathematics to create a whole new physics when he determines the harmonic ratio in music by measuring the length of strings on a lyre. “All is Number”, declared Pythagoras around 525 BCE, and from that point onward the Greeks measured all of Time and Space using mathematics, much as the West did over two thousand years later.

The “Golden Age” of Greece, the 5th Century BCE, was the result of the paradigm shift in the 6th Century BCE, and corresponds to the Enlightenment in many, many ways . The supernatural power of Zeus was replaced by the science of the Laws of Nature, as philosophy offered a completely different and far more sophisticated picture of reality—very similar to what happened from the 16th to 18th Centuries CE.

We now view both the Greek and Copernican periods as major paradigm shifts, when the underlying model guiding thought was replaced by a entirely new analogy. This change in analogies is most important, for we think only by analogy, by comparing one thing to another, by realizing this is like that. The underlying model is the basis for the theorizing of the entire paradigm, it is the first assumed step in any thinking. Change that foundation and the props are knocked out from beneath society as a whole.

Furious that their model is being challenged, the scholars of the old worldview resist the new thinking, much as the ardent member of one religion resists conversion to another. In short, the old scientists almost always take their paradigm with them to the grave. A shift’s struggle phase thus ends only when the old thinkers die, said Kuhn, for only then can the new science become established. "Normal science" begins again, a centuries-long period of steady research and data collection under the new model. It's a natural pattern of development, alternating between stable and revolutionary periods. Here is a synopsis of Kuhn's main stages of scientific revolution, which took over 150 years to unfold in the Copernican Revolution:

Kuhn's Stages of a Scientific Revolution

1. Emergence of anomaly contradicts the old worldview, Nature violates the expectations of "normal science" and answers must be found outside the paradigm
2. Crisis and reconsideration of old paradigm by new thinker to explain anomalies
3. New analogy or model - the emergence of a new paradigm and system of thought. Revolutionary period upsets stability of normal science period.
4. Bitter struggle, paradigm resistance from old scientists—the paradigm wars: fought by the new worldview with facts and by the old worldview with ideology and bluster.
5. After the old scientists die and the new paradigm wins the struggle, a new “normal science” period begins——with the new underlying analogy/model, a new scientific method and a changed set of rules

In the stages summarized above, it should be noted that a single person can begin a whole paradigm shift. It can start with a thought in the back of someone’s mind, a question that cannot be answered using the old worldview. Thomas Kuhn wrote the "failure of existing rules is the prelude to a search for new ones". When a large enough contradiction cannot be answered without going beyond the usual borders of the old paradigm, then the stage is set for change.

The answer to this great anomaly is the conception point of the paradigm shift, the beginning of the unraveling of the old thinking.



The Mechanistic Shift (The Copernican Revolution)

Copernicus had wondered why summer was hot and winter cold, something geocentric astronomy could not explain. The Heliocentric Theory, however, made sense out of it all. In the Copernican Revolution, this one question in the mind of a Polish astronomer thus set in motion the complete re-invention of the world—eventually ending medieval thinking and replacing it with modern, scientific democracy.

The Medieval analogy of God causing all events on Earth was replaced by the "Mechanistic" analogy of Newton's Clockwork Universe, governed by Laws of Nature. Scientific theories were founded on the underlying analogy of The Machine, such as comparing the orbit of the planets to the workings of a clock, or the beating of the heart to a pump.

Mechanistic models, however, can only go so far. Machines don't create, they don't love or evolve or reproduce. And they don't possess consciousness. The analogy of the machine is therefore little help in trying to understand living phenomena, such as evolution, ecology, psychology, human history, economics, or the best way to run a society.

In short, the Mechanistic Paradigm has real limits, and those limits make it obsolete for the new globally inter-connected world. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, and Mechanism has led the world to a very dangerous place indeed--full of contradictions, anomalies and a false politicized "science". As before, these anomalies and limits to thinking have set the stage for the next change in worldviews, a great change that has been underway for over two hundred years. This process is about to reach a climax in the near-future, where the new directly challenges the old for political and institutional control.

A paradigm shift to a new worldview is thus about to overwhelm the old thinking. This is a struggle not about scientific data but--as with Galileo and the theologian--it is an ideological war, literally a war to the death. So debates between environmental scientists and old school engineers or technologists are really not about the validity of the data being presented, they are out-and-out ideological/political struggles, as seen in Kuhn's stages of a paradigm shift.

The realization that paradigm shifts are ideological battles rather than scientific arguments explains a lot, for example, about the controversy surrounding global warming. For it is not really controversy at all. When the issue is researched, it is obvious that the science proving global warming is man-made is there--but special interests tied to the old worldview and economics battle that science anyway with ideology and arguments based on fudged data.

The main question is--as we witness the advance of global warming, the increase of pollution, war and poverty, and the likely breakdown of the global economy in the face of all the above--can a new paradigm turn things around fast enough? For the Mechanistic Worldview has created a science, economy and technology that is literally killing the precious biosphere and the myriad of beings that live within it.



The Mechanistic Dilemma


The Annual Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico,
6,000 Square Miles With No Oxygen

Every spring, a 6,000 square-mile Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico forms, primarily caused by the runoff of agricultural fertilizers, agro-chemicals and other pollution. The Dead Zones are acceptable to the old anthropocentric worldview, although lip service may be given to the economic problems of fisherman to help offset the bad image conventional agriculture and industry may receive.

To the mechanists, the Earth is treated as though it were an inanimate rock, something to be mined, drilled and farmed ad infinitum by any means necessary. In their final analysis, the Dead Zones are a small price to pay for modern agriculture.

To the ecologically-aware person, however, the Dead Zone is a living nightmare, a real pain inflicted upon their own sense of being—and an indicator that things have to change. Pollution and high-impact technology are seen as degradations to one’s own being, the opposite of the pride the Medievals and the Mechanists feel when they devastate the environment with their anthropocentric ways. They feel they cannot allow such an environmental catastrophe to occur year after year.

The mechanists, in contrast, are hardly even conscious of the problem, enchanted by the “Illusion of Technique”, a cultish belief that machines and technology can overpower any problem the future may offer. It is this illusion of invincibility that lies at the heart of the modern dilemma—which should really be called the “Mechanistic Dilemma” for it is the result of a dysfunctional paradigm. Any deviation from the scientific ideology and the other members of the old paradigm will retaliate, as in a cult. So scientists generally never change, they take the old paradigm with them to the grave. This all helps maintain the grip of a paradigm long after it has outlived its usefulness. The struggle, as in all paradigm shifts is ideological--not scientific. Change thus takes generations rather than decades.


The Ozone Hole, Another Result
of Short-Sighted Mechanistic Thinking

Just as the Medieval Worldview faced a dilemma of its own making in the 1700s, so the Mechanistic Worldview has created the Mechanistic Dilemma. It is the fall of the Ancien Regime, of the old power structure all over again. Beyond the dilemma of nuclear weapons making the old netionalism and total war obsolete, the Mechanistic Worldview, after two centuries of success made possible by cheap fossil fuel, has now itself "run out of gas". The limits of the paradigm have been reached in many, many ways--and so now the planet and the people who live on it are suffering.

Today we find ourselves in a teetering world run by a new aristocracy of billionaires and corporations, based upon a wholly inadequate science, which has in turn built a technological infrastructure that is causing fatal environmental destruction on a planetary scale, all the while running scarce on the cheap non-renewable resources it operates on.

Obviously this is not sustainable, and will clearly collapse at some point in the near-future, especially if global warming is allowed to wreak havoc on the world economy in the form of droughts. intensified storms, hurricanes and typhoons. As population pressures, global warming and environmental collapse make food and other resources more expensive and then unaffordable, political pressure will undoubtedly grow to go to war and take those resources from other nations by force. History shows that resource shortages are the main cause of war.

The Mechanistic Dilemma is thus causing crises on multiple fronts, including energy, health, education, politics, over-militarization, ultra-nationalism, uncaring bureaucracies and the awarding of the rights of the individual to public corporations. Over the years, the Mechanistic Worldview must claim responsibility for the following:

• 1986 - Chernobyl contaminated a vast swath of Ukraine, killing several thousand and creating cancer in tens or even hundreds of thousands of people. The population was not evacuated for a week due to the Mechanistic arrogance and illusions of the Soviet system.
• Late 1950s - Billions spent to fly nuclear reactors in jet bombers in order to show feasibility of nuclear-powered aircraft--despite the obvious problem of radioactive disaster if there were ever a crash or shootdown.
• 2004--2006 - Pharmaceutical recalls of products that have too high a rate of lethal side-effects threaten future profits with lawsuits, as Big Pharma hid knowledge of side-effects.
• 2004--2006 - Increased hurricane strength due to global warming caused by fossil fuels. The total bill of the 2004 and 2005 hurricane season is staggering, $250 billion at least for Hurricane Katrina alone.
• 1990s Onward -Agribusiness and the Mechanistic Establishment is currently committed to not only chemical farming, but also to the hazardous use of genetically-modified crops. GM foods must be banned as soon as possible before the damage to the seed stock and gene pool is irreversible. Here again the Mechanists have gone beyond the boundaries of any sense of scientific caution, using the environment and the public as guinea pigs in a completely uncontrolled experiment.

All of these scientific theories and technologies have one thing in common: they are not realistically sustainable--they cannot be done successfully for any length of time without catastrophic failure. And all have the underlying analogy of The Machine as the model to think by.

The most unsustainable Mechanistic technology of all is the continued burning of fossil fuel to produce energy. Climatologists only recently realized that if the Earth's temperature rises __ degrees Celsius, methane-heavy peat bogs in Russia and Canada would melt, releasing massive amounts of a greenhouse gas far more potent than Carbon Dioxide. This increases the warming another __ degrees which in turn melts vast deposits of frozen methane on the sea bottom.

The the world would heat up another 30 degrees, as happened during the Permian Extinction, when 95% of all species were wiped out. In other words, global warming is not just climate change, it is climate destruction, and quite likely the end of the human race over the next couple of centuries. The top climate scientist in the US government, Dr. James Hansen, says that we only have 10 years to stabilize carbon emissions. If the global average temperature rises another degree, an irreversible chain reaction is set into motion.

Global warming has been ignored, belittled or even refuted by most of the Mechanistic Establishment for the last 50 years, disputing the environmentalist plea to heed the ecological science and take immediate action. Mechanistic limits to thinking, from the field of economics to energy production, have deliberately held back change, and not because the science was wrong. Global warming proves the Mechanistic Worldview dead wrong, and thus all debate is rejected on ideological grounds.

The Mechanistic paradigm, under the spell of the Illusion of Technique, is therefore the main reason global warming is now looming as not just the greatest challenge to humanity in all history, but literally the end of civilization as we know it. As the saying goes, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. The wrong paradigm can destroy our fragile environment and thus global society. It is clear that this has unfortunately occurred in all of our lifetimes.

Given this intellectual/technological house of cards waiting to fall, there is little wonder that a new way of thinking has evolved over the last 225 years. As in the shift from the Medieval to the Mechanistic Worldview, the new paradigm brings in a whole set of shocking ideas, a change in the very fundamentals of thought and values. The new paradigm is springing up all around us, but most of us have yet to recognize it for what it is, the many branches of a new tree of life, connected by a common root, the underlying new analogy of the organism, the scientific Organic model.

Discussion:Why did Kuhn say that the struggle between old and new pardigms was mostly ideological and had nothing to do with scientific data? Essay: Research and write a 3-paragraph essay on the astronomical and seasonal anomalies that made Copernicus rethink the geocentric paradigm. Discussion: How does the "Illusion of Technique" make possible the severity of the Mechanistic Dilemma and our current ecological crises?

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Top 10 Things You Can Do On Global Warming 1) Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - Do your part to reduce waste by choosing reusable products instead of disposables. Buying products with minimal packaging (including the economy size when that makes sense for you) will help to reduce waste. And whenever you can, recycle paper, plastic, newspaper, glass and aluminum cans. 2) Use Less Heat and Air Conditioning - Reduce your heating bill Use reflective insulation To reduce your heating costs 3) Change a Light Bulb - Wherever practical, replace regular light bulbs with compact florescent light (CFL) bulbs. 4) Drive Less and Drive Smart - Less driving means fewer emissions. Besides saving gasoline, walking and biking are great forms of exercise. 5) Buy Energy-Efficient Products - When it’s time to buy a new car, choose one that offers good gas mileage. Home appliances now come in a range of energy-efficient models. 6) Use Less Hot Water - Set your water heater at 120 degrees to save energy, and wrap it in an insulating blanket if it is more than 5 years old. Buy low-flow showerheads to save hot water. Wash your clothes in warm or cold water to reduce your use of hot water. 7) Use the "Off" Switch - Save electricity and reduce global warming by turning off lights when you leave a room, and using only as much light as you need. And remember to turn off your television, video player, stereo and computer when you're not using them. It’s also a good idea to turn off the water when you’re not using it. While brushing your teeth, shampooing the dog or washing your car, turn off the water until you actually need it. 8) Plant a Tree - If you have the means to plant a tree, start digging. Trees absorb carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. 9) Get a Report Card from Your Utility Company - Many utility companies provide free home energy audits to help consumers identify areas in their homes that may not be energy efficient. 10) Encourage Others to Conserve - Share information about recycling and energy conservation with your friends, neighbors and co-workers. E.F. SCHUMACHER QUOTES Infinite growth of material consumption in a finite world is an impossibility. It might be said that it is the ideal of the employer to have production without employees and the ideal of the employee is to have income without work. Many people love in themselves what they hate in others. Never let an inventor run a company. You can never get him to stop tinkering and bring something to market. Our ordinary mind always tries to persuade us that we are nothing but acorns and that our greatest happiness will be to become bigger, fatter, shinier acorns; but that is of interest only to pigs. Our faith gives us knowledge of something better: that we can become oak trees. The printing press is either the greatest blessing or the greatest curse of modern times, sometimes one forgets which it is. The system of nature, of which man is a part, tends to be self-balancing, self-adjusting, self-cleansing. Not so with technology. You can either read something many times in order to be assured that you got it all, or else you can define your purpose and use techniques which will assure that you have met it and gotten what you need.