Reconceptualize science to reduce violence in our world The interface between democracy and science has always been a complex and problematic one, which, to be properly understood, must be situated in relation to a third concept, which is nonviolence. By RAMIN JAHANBEGLOO Published November 16, 2009

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TORONTO—Albert Einstein used to say that "science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." We can also add that: "Science without democracy is arbitrary, as democracy without science is ignorant." The interface between democracy and science has always been a complex and problematic one, which, to be properly understood, must be situated in relation to a third concept, which is nonviolence.

Viewed from this perspective, democratic theory continues to challenge scientists in particular and science in general to rethink and reconceptualize science as a way of reducing violence in our world. However, it goes without saying that democracy is also in great need of science promoting effective choices. Science provides the forms of reasoning that make democracy work. Such reasoning allows individuals to weigh options and make decisions as to the best option offered in political choice.

This form of scientific reasoning is one of the major assets to democracy in terms of achieving a peaceful global civil society. Scientific developments aimed directly at achieving nonviolence are the most valued by democratic experience. Science today offers much support for nonviolence as an inherited but largely undeveloped capacity of human nature. But scientific inventions alone would not be able to bring the desired change in the world if science does not include nonviolence as a goal.

Since its birth in the 17th century, modern science has propelled a predatory attitude towards Nature, which made room not only for ecological disasters but also for the destruction of human relationships with the natural world. To put it simply, the problem is not with modern science and its methods, but with the ideology of science, an ideology that asserts that scientific truth and a nonviolent approach to Man and Nature are incompatible.

Gandhi, among others, was deeply concerned about the impact this ideology had had, and was still having, on human civilization. It was promoting, he felt, a culture devoid of spirituality in the name of positivistic reason. Gandhi did not condemn the scientific temper of the West, but he objected to the use of scientific discoveries against humanity. According to Gandhi, the scientific enterprise, therefore, must be informed by a deep awareness of the potential impact of the values that it is out to create.

Gandhi did not oppose science blindly. Rather, he believed that science should be democratized, meaning that it should be in the control of ordinary people and not the corporate elite and the governments that serve them. As such, Gandhi challenged the major feature of modern science that Francis Bacon stressed, that of science being a true and hence uniquely valid representation of reality. It is not accidental that Thomas Hobbes (who was at one time secretary to Bacon), while expanding Baconian ideas into the political domain, comes to the conclusion in his Leviathan that no individual has the right to challenge the absolute authority and the absolute truthfulness of the existing powers.

In a way, the exercise continues today; the Baconian sciences and corresponding social norms continue to make deep incursions into all other knowledge systems and societies. Gandhi's perception of a democratized science echoes the truth that a techno-scientific attitude that ignores the doctrine of nonviolence will continue to damage the world.

Ramin Jahanbegloo is a philosopher, and professor and research fellow at the Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto. This column was originally published at The Mark News, Canada's online source for news analysis and debate, www.themarknews.com.

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