I grew up as a scientist - both my parents were Quantum Physicists (although they disagreed over the Copenhagen interpretation) - and I learnt my Periodic Table by heart. In high-school I got heavily into Newtonian Physics (my science teachers really encouraged this) and I even belonged to the Science Olympiad team. I was really avid about it. I used to read text books all the time. It was so exciting how it seemed to explain the world.
When I got to university I discovered just what a sheltered life I had been living. There were all manner of different scientific theories on offer, and many people claimed that Newtonian Physics was outmoded and full of errors. I soon joined up with a group of Einsteinian Relativitists. It was very exciting learning such new ideas as Special and General Relativity. All kinds of doubts I had previously hidden about near-lightspeed travel were suddenly being openly addressed and intelligently answered. It was a very exciting time for me. I began studying science full time and even got myself a B.Sc.
I was so keen about it I decided to pursue a PhD. I was looking into the conflict between the Quantum Dynamical and General Relativistic worldviews. I was hoping to show that General Relativistic principles could be extended to quantum levels. It was at this point that I started reading other scientific theories such as Super-String Theory and Quantum Gravitational Dynamics.
Reading all these different theories, I realised how fundamentally similar they were. The all dealt with the same basic concepts - mass, velocity, momentum, charge - and yet their practitioners often violently disagreed with each other. Each claimed that his own theory was "correct" and that the others failed to accurately model the real world. At first I tried to defend the General Relativity model, but soon I became disillusioned with this, and with arguing about science in general.
I began reading the history of science and my eyes were opened. People have been studying science (or Natural Philosophy, as I prefer to call it) for millenia! And all over the world, not just within the western tradition. For example, the ancient Celts were avid astronomers and built Stonehenge in order to calculate solstices and phases of the moon. That's not something they tell you about at high-school or University.
I soon began to question my own scientific beliefs. If so many people over the centuries had come up with such a diversity of scientific theories, who was I to claim that mine was a better model than theirs? And, after all, weren't they all striving to answer the same fundamental questions about matter and energy, space and time? I realised that there was a world of ideas outside the narrow western patriarchal worldview I had been raised in.
For example, take Gallileo's famous quotation "The world moves" to explain the apparent motion of the celestial bodies across the sky. Few people realise that this is just a reformulation of the ancient Egyptian belief that the Sun was a firey chariot being driven across the sky by the god Ra. They are both trying to explain the same thing. The sun rises, the sun sets. Who can truly say they understand such mysteries?
Or take Newton's celebrated "discovery" of gravity. If you look a little deeper into history you will discover that every nation has had an understanding, in one form or another, that objects fall to the ground when you drop them. This is really a basic fact of the nature, and should not be "claimed" by one scientific tradition or another.
There is such arrogance in saying that we have the "most accurate model" and that other theories are incorrect. Who are we to say that the moon is not made of cheese? It is merely another expression of Western Society's attempt to dominate other cultures.
And what good has science ever done us? Science has been the cause of more wars in history than any other issue. Just look at such things as the invention of catapults, gunpowder, or napalm. And we moderns are not innocent either. The nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima was a direct result of study into general relativity at Los Alamos. Many of the great "heros" of the western scientific tradition were directly involved in the creation of this atrocity.
I strongly believe that all scientific dogmatism is the cause of so much unnecessary conflict. Take the current debate between String-theory, General Relativity and Quantum Electrodynamics. Why is there such strong disagreement between these groups? If you look closely into it, you'll realise that they share an incredibly large amount in common. In fact, historically they have all grown out of Newtonian Mechanics. And yet they each claim that the other fails to correctly model the world. Can't they just embrace their commonalities?
Anyway, in my studies I have recently started learning about Religion. It surprises me how little theology these scientists actually understand. Religion has long ago disproven many modern scientific "facts". For example the scientists will tell you that the universe was created out of nothing in a "Big Bang", a silly name for an equally silly idea. What they fail to realise is that the Pantheists has proven long ago the universe is eternal and exists solely in the Mind of the Ideal.
Other supposed scientific facts are equally as dubious. Who can say they seriously believe in nonsense like the wave/particle duality of light (and of matter!)? Or the Twin Paradox resulting from Special Relativity? These things defy common sense. I can't see how any rational person can honestly claim to believe such things - things which soundly contradict our everyday experience. Do the scientific elite really expect us to believe that an intelligent mind can evolve from unintelligent matter? Or that matter and antimatter are spontaneously created in empty space? Do they believe it themselves, or is it just dogma - an empty creed? Such claims are frankly incredible and their inclusion in scientific theories seriously undermines their believability. The scientists would be better off excising all such nonsense from their theories if they wish to present a credible explanation for the universe.
Ultimately it boils down to a question of proof. Who, for example, has ever seen a quark? Not I. Quarks are the fundamental building-blocks of matter, or so they say, yet in a decade of studying science I did not observe a single one. I grew suspicious and questioned my teachers about this. They had no first-hand knowledge either. They could only point to what they had read in textbooks and journals - information that was second- or third-hand at best. Who has seen the actual data? Only a select few. To a man (and they are almost exclusively men) they are elite researchers working at highly esteemed univeristies and research institutes. Every one of them is a scientist - not a single ascientist among them. Why not? Why are ascientists denied access to their facilites and publication in their journals? Could it be that they fear challenge to their unshakeable scientific worldview? You really have to wonder.
Here again the contrast between science and religion couldn't be stronger. Unlike science, religion deals with demonstrable realities: good and evil; life and death; justice, mercy and revenge. These are familiar facts of everyday experience for each one of us. You don't need a multi-million dollar research centre to separate generosity and greed, and you don't need to trust the word of an expert to tell love from hatred.
Anyway, it is for all these reasons that I can no longer sustain my belief in science. I am reluctant to let go of the comfortable explanations it offers for natural processes, but I feel I cannot conscienably believe it anymore. It galls me to think that in this modern spiritual era that science is still being taught in our high-schools and actively funded by our government. I urge you all to join with me in the campaign to stop these lies from being taught to our children. People should not have one particular scientific worldview thrust upon them. Our children should be allowed to develop their own scientific theories as best fits their personalities.
Don't get me wrong. I do not want to abolish science entirely. Far from it. I myself am still attracted by the beautiful rituals of alchemy and organic chemistry. But I do not think that I have to believe in all their "rules" - forbidding certain reactions and labelling some chemicals as "poisonous" or "carcinogenic". Such systematisation, I feel, takes away from the beauty of the process in itself. Only by permitting free exploration, unimpeded by "rules" and "warnings", shall we produce a society which can truly relate to Nature and understand itself.
I urge you to join me in this vision.
Malcolm Ryan
Addendum Feb 2008: Mr. Elmentcius Koronel has taken it upon himself to write a detailed rejoinder to this article. I'd like to thank him for his contribution.