Manifesto for humanising science

The world needs a new integration of modern science, philosophy and ancient spiritual wisdom — a ‘New Renaissance’

- by RICHARD HOUSE

BELOW are ten core themes which, for me, stood out as the core necessary conditions for humanising science and medicine that emerged in the course of writing my forthcoming book (tinyurl.com/3sudcn2t).

These are harbingers of the evolutionary paradigm-shift that’s so desperately needed in our world, and in which process this newspaper is taking a leading role. The list should not be read as a prescription, or as definitive — merely a conversation-starter on what needs to happen for the humanising of science and medicine to advance.

1. Teasing out and articulating our (metaphysical) assumptions, and their effects. It would be a grave error to assume that this precept is something that all critical thinkers do anyway ~ far from it! Cultivating doubt in one’s views, and being comfortable with the discomfort of ‘not knowing’ — John Keats’ ‘negative capability’ — are necessary preconditions for being able to fearlessly question our deepest and most consequential assumptions. We should also never underestimate the acute existential anxiety that can stem from the destabilisation and undermining of our most taken-for-granted notions about the world.

2. Actively cultivating free, creative thinking. Based on my teaching experience at university level, the quality of human thinking has been substantially compromised in the current technological age. We’re routinely unaware of the extent to which the free nature of thinking is being radically attenuated, not least by the social-media techno-cultures of so-called ‘communication’ to which so many are addicted, and the stultifying ‘audit culture’ that’s so compromised mainstream education. Education professor, Philip Adey, maintained in 2006 that ‘The intelligence of 11-year-olds has fallen by three years’ worth in the past two decades’, with children today struggling with questions they could have answered 30 years ago. So there’s much to be concerned about here.