In the second part of this essay, the progressive subordination of scientific endeavor and knowledge of business and profit is pointed out. For instance, the way facts are prioritized over concepts and ideas in scientific knowledge can translate into technological innovation, central to enterprise competitiveness and key to social mechanisms of control (military, cybernetic, ideological).
Overcoming the scientific reductionism approach indicates recognizing the need to define progress in another way, one that infuses scientific knowledge with real liberating and inquisitive power. Power is essential in the search for a more collaborative, inclusive and pluralistic society where respect for human dignity and care for the ecosystem that we live in are prioritized.
En esta segunda parte se analizan los vínculos de subordinación del quehacer científico con lo que se designa como la lógica del poder y la dominación, a través de dar prioridad absoluta a los hechos sobre las ideas y favorecer el conocimiento capitalizable por la innovación tecnológica, la cual es decisiva en la rentabilidad y competitividad de las grandes empresas (los intereses de lucro que gobiernan el planeta), y base de los mecanismos de control político-social de las conciencias y de la disidencia.
La crítica del reduccionismo científico reconoce la necesidad de otra idea de progreso humano que reoriente a los científicos a fin de conferirle a sus saberes (ideas) un poder liberador y cuestionador —diluido y desvirtuado entre miríadas de hechos— imprescindible en la búsqueda de sociedades deliberativas, pluralistas, incluyentes, igualitarias, justas y colaborativas donde primen la dignidad humana y el respeto al ecosistema planetario.
1. Power relations and scientific knowledge
Continuing the search for explanations in regard to the gap between contributions of scientific knowledge and expectations about them from different social groups (based on their needs), we now discuss a fundamental aspect often overlooked: the widespread and tacit acceptance of scientific discourse on the social scene does not show its unquestionable truthfulness but reveals its power over other discourses.1 Power is not a “thing” but a relationship dating back to primitive anthropocentrism and its ethnocentric expressions which, in turn, can be associated with social inequalities accompanying the evolution of mankind, established on supposed superiority or inferiority inherent to certain groups, lineages, traditions, ethnicities, religions or cultures over others and justifying underestimation, imposition, oppression, despoilment, conquest or annihilation of the dominated. The dominated usually show defiance but also resignation, servitude, submission or slavery. These social relationships have remained with different expressions and exchanging roles (wars have been invariant throughout human history) as the foundation of the dominant social and political order in each period.
Nowadays we find that inequality, without losing its ethnocentric roots, originates and perpetuates from the position that different classes or social groups have with respect to the interests of an abstract and dehumanized entity: the capital. On one hand, there are agents, custodians and beneficial owners; on the other hand there are the exploited, despoiled, oppressed, excluded, underprivileged and collateral victims (while recognizing intermediate or mixed roles of a depleted middle class). The imperative of “good business” and the logic of profit rule our world beyond any humanitarian consideration along with basic respect for human life and other life forms or the care and preservation of planetary ecosystem.
It is crucial to realize that scientific work and knowledge in its contemporary historical forms are “genuine products” of power and domination, contrary to the general perception and aspirations of the vast majority of researchers. The exercise of power in most contemporary states and nations is done through economic, social and political strategies (regime forms and government). Economic policies are the most prominent and therefore influence the life of contemporary societies. These economic policies are ruled by supranational agencies that “regulate” the economy of member states. Actually, they are coercive mechanisms that force governments to introduce and implement guidelines from economic policies imposed by foreign powers in favor of interests of large transnational corporations that embody capitalism in its current phase and are contrary to the interests of the majority represented by the social and public institutions that tend towards a “minimalist” state.
Social movement takes shape by the interests of capital: relentless growth, concentration, transnational expansion, high profits, markets control, unrestricted mobility, rampant speculation. This deepens differences and prevents an equitable distribution of material and cultural wealth, social ownership and consolidation of genuine values of progress and coexistence. This interest is fueled by job insecurity, unemployment, underprivileged and despaired population, commercialization of anything profitable even if it means outrage and denial of human dignity, species extinction and poisoning of air, soil and water, ecosystems devastation, threatening planetary climate regulation processes or cancellation of possibilities and opportunities for new generations. This is an all-around degradation of human condition and planetary life presented as the only way of “progress” and the inexorable reality in which we live.
No task can escape this prevailing political-economic logic behind the social movement as a whole and is present even in the farthest corner.
This global dynamic subordinates every working or living environment to dominant interests. In some instances, directly and starkly such as the labor market, the dispossession of communities or large-scale pollution; in others, it operates indirectly such as in labor division and specific social practices such as science. Therefore, it is not casual and much less incontrovertible that the scientific facts, especially if they can be applied on new technologies, represent the essence of scientific knowledge. Dominant interests are such that condition dominant discourses; i.e., they are behind “scientific convictions” to set the social movement as a benefit where technological innovations are key to successful competition among companies for market control, potential growth and expansion. They are also means of domination and control (military, space or cyber technology) par excellence.
Today, science and technology are perceived as two sides of the same coin (instrumental knowledge). Hence, scientific contributions that do not produce new technologies are labeled as useless or irrelevant, rejected, neglected, ignored or even discouraged. Everywhere we hear sovereignty and self-determination lies in the degree of scientific and technological development. This is a half-truth because the main stakeholders and beneficiaries that channel and condition such development are stateless corporations that are quick to pursue higher profits elsewhere collapsing economies; also, technological progress in its current expression is guided by profit at all costs and actual priorities are not explicit but covert: to create “indispensable,” fictitious, needs, lead to dependence and addiction for novelty, raise consumption aspirations (an illusion for the majority who deal with everyday survival, resorting to conformity, to resignation, to rebellion or transgression). Therefore, technology is displacing us in creative and challenging exercise of our faculties, skills and abilities and in our ways of responding to the problems of life, as well as distorting our ways of living.
Thus, scientific reductionism in life and health sciences by privileging the facts supported on physical and chemical truths (measuring vital phenomena through hard sciences standards) not only is syntonic with interests dominating the planet, but an effect of such domain (hence its axiomatic authority) that closes the gap between the exploration of scientific facts and concomitant technological development. Unprecedented findings, expressed in the language of physics and chemistry, are par excellence the input of technical and technological innovation. In other words, “physicochemical facts of life” are capitalized by new technologies, whereas “enlightening ideas” are not.a
In summing up the current role of scientific knowledge, it can be argued that, far from ensuring progress and improvement for our species and being the result of a genuine search outside vested interests, it is constrained by power and domination that condition and shape behind researchers, with several unfortunate consequences: disregards enlightening and integrating ideas, becomes simplified, expresses as utilitarian and pragmatic, ignores its social application, is stripped of its critical and liberating character, loses its inquisitive and penetrating spirit, perverts with biased donations, is used as an alibi in harmful and vile acts, and becomes the most powerful instrument of control at service of dominant interests as a mirage of progress.2
2. Reductionism and conscience control
In order to clarify the reason for limitations of scientific knowledge and myths surrounding it, we should now consider the most dire and disturbing consequences of social reductionism prevalence as the thinking and action guideline in sciences that lead to knowledge applicable to technological development and has a key role in relentless innovation (military, space, cybernetic, computer or medical), which serves as basis of control mechanisms over populations globally, necessary for the exercise of power and domination. Because the hegemony of profit-oriented interests and “good deals” that govern the planet deepens inequalities and exacerbates nonconformity and rebellion of disadvantaged majorities, a continuous renewal of control mechanisms is required and applied through suffocating propaganda disseminated by mass media in order to preserve, directly or indirectly, the status quo.3
The current technological innovation exists mainly (subjacent and outside the consciousness of those involved) to exercise social control of anything that deviates from the path of submission and agreement with interests that dominate our world by promoting and encouraging alienating, distracting, fanatic or avoiding consuming behaviors, typical of careless emotionalism. This control is also exercised through the manipulation of consciences, inducing prejudices, philias, phobias, fantasies, creating unrealistic expectations, encouraging passivity, obedience, individualism, self-indulgence, competitiveness or an attitude of “every man for himself”; by using also symbolic or physical violence to disparage, discriminate, exclude, subject, isolate or remove. The effectiveness of control mechanisms is directly related to their “invisibility”, the less obvious the better control. Hence, the proliferation of technologies and shows aimed to “enjoy life and get away from unpleasant or disturbing events,” which enable and encourage escape mechanisms. We should emphasize that the essential contribution of science to improve control mechanisms is often not deliberate or perverse, but an expression of the invisibility of such contribution caused by powerful influences and trends operating together, diffusely and intangibly, constantly reorganizing and reconfiguring social environments for the benefit of dominant interests, eliminating deviations, dissent and heresy (with a decreasing effectiveness) beyond wishes and expectations of the general population and often against their will.
On a different level, reductionist belief of science nourished by disjunction and simplification leads the reorganization of existing labor division standards. Here we should highlight exclusionary specialization, which penetrates all workplaces to such extent that it has become the only visible form of skilled labor. This expression of labor division promotes the theoretical/practical knowledge of increasingly restricted domains (reduction and simplification), that neglect or ignore knowledge of other domains even if they are part of related, close or complementary fields (exclusion).4 In this specialization type, core activities tend to become separated and isolated from their context (disjunction) because this type of specialist does not perceive his context as “object of inquiry”. His main concern and cognitive search is restricted to a very specific area of knowledge; in other facets of his experience, even if he becomes close with the outside world, he does so without cognitive attitudes and intentions. He is convinced that the knowledge of his “increasingly restricted area of interest and domain” only needs to be further analyzed, ignoring other areas subject to other specialists. Thus, as knowledge of social and global context is not perceived as a personal responsibility, he tends to overestimate technology that can be applied to cognitive challenges in order to increase the knowledge of his study field (underestimating questioning, inclusive or comprehensive ideas).
Exclusory specialization keeps a growing interdependence with technique and technology that fragments and isolates social tasks to the extent that certain jobs are valued according to the domain of techniques and an efficient use of current technologies. The specialist is increasingly becoming an “extension of machines” and must constantly adapt (train) to the operating requirements of technologies, which are updated constantly and have an accelerated obsolescence. For instance, in medicine, laboratory and imaging studies once regarded as “physician tools” for diagnosis have become increasingly complex and physicians are becoming a mere “complement of omnipotent technology.”5
Progression of exclusory specialization perpetuates and reinforces a widespread, fragmented and dispersed worldview where the idea that every little compartment of knowledge is independent gains increasing acceptance daily. Similarly, the only authorized judgments about reality of these environments can only come from within, from its protagonists. Everything takes place so that once the subject is immersed in a particular specialized area, this will be area of knowledge where certain authority is granted to say, to judge and propose (the myth of the expert) and he is unauthorized (excluded, “controlled”) to make opinions about problems related to other areas. We should highlight that exclusory specialization is an expression of labor division that best harmonizes with interests governing at global scale because it is a historical effect of the above. Therefore, it is the most effective control mechanism of consciences (escapes to perception), even for those who are dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge for their contribution to a fragmentary and disjointed view of reality projected as imperative to understanding the world, bypassing the logic behind the social movement from our times: power and domination to serve profit-oriented interests. These circumstances increase the vulnerability of scientists towards manipulation (if those who generate knowledge are prey of control mechanisms, what can be expected from “outsiders”) because of all areas regarded as outside their field of specialization. Their fragmentary, partial knowledge and reductionist conviction prevent them realize of the intricate connections, branches and hierarchies between various processes and orders of complexity of living and social world, responding to the underlying logic of power and domination. Holding a reductionist view implies to waive potentially liberating knowledge, which is made possible with a keen understanding of the world and the elucidation of its underlying organizational logic (relations of power and domination). It also means to disregard the mercenary and legitimizing role of modern science where dominant interests lead us to boundless degradation; implies complicity, open or veiled, deliberate or unwilling with oppression, exclusion and planetary devastation and at the same time become a scapegoat for control mechanisms that maintain an increasingly adverse status for a dignified lifestyle.
3. What can be done?
The previous exposure reveals the network of interactions underlying social reductionism as the exclusive work of official science. They also reveal the obstacles associated with any attempt to change this historical situation and, in turn, may raise an urgent need to devise ways of thinking and researching divergent from scientific reductionism viable nowadays. In this regard, we need to grasp that what we observe anywhere is a culmination of processes and trends that have taken place for a long time, penetrating and shaping modern societies and especially, scientific communities. Therefore, we are faced with difficult-to-change and inveterate habits; hence, the feasibility of change depends mainly on the education of new generations where we find the expression of different ways, thinking of and seeking knowledge with self-managed, unedited citizenships, capable progressive self-determination, to set conditions and circumstances of coexistence governed by absolute respect and protection of human and social rights and the preservation and care of a global ecosystem. This would aid their potentials, desires, preferences and aspirations to flourish. Such historical possibility requires a very different type of education, highly effective in motivating and directing future citizens in the pursuit of self-knowledge and their context, through criticism and self-criticism that helps them become protagonists of their own life as a cognitive experience.
We propose to overcome scientific reductionism with participatory education, which promotes in students the mastering of criticism as a diversified and versatile knowledge method, having great versatility before the enormous diversity of situations and contingencies of experience whose maturity involves: yearning for self-knowledge and understanding our context; willingness to question anything taken for granted to scrutinize ideas that underlie ways of thinking and acting; habits of problem-thinking–meditate, doubt, question, confront, discern, devise, plan; volitional habits to choose, decide, engage, persist, desist, reconsider; cognitive skills for action: to raise, to inquire, observe, experience, show, test, discuss, comment, argue, propose.6,7
Participatory education, by promoting awareness through the complex and global, is opposite from scientific reductionism and contrary to passiveness (which rules our world and perpetuates reductionism) where students without the tools of criticism are supplanted, manipulated and submitted and under the best scenario become skilled information producers and consumers controlled by others.
As the training horizon of passive education is exclusory specialization, the goal of participatory education is inclusive specialization where a professional relates his domain area with the context and, most importantly, his cognitive interests transcend his domain and are projected to social and global context. This allows a keen understanding of the world and his role in achieving a higher quality of life. The actual participatory education experience has shown its feasibility at both ends of schooling8,9; however, its presence on a social scale is remote because it has little acceptance and sometimes provokes suspicion and disqualification considering it unorthodox or utopian. The eventual overcome of reductionism necessarily involves a different type of educa tion where humans acquire new ways of thinking, experienced in the practice of criticism and self-criticism, fit to build an inclusive and welcoming world.
4. Epilogue
The purpose of these reflections on scientific reductionism is to show how we live and is presented to us as the only possible reality rooted in ancient times. This allows us to understand how current thinking is the result of contingencies that once tipped the scales of history in favor of certain ideas that prevailed over others and changed during the endless succession of generations into beliefs, convictions, traditions, forms of organization and thinking and action logic. By escaping awareness, they are perceived as the “apparent reality” for anyone who lives under its influence [disjunction, reduction, simplification and exclusion (DRSE) paradigm]. These underlying logics that escape perception act as a structuring framework, an organizational matrix on which are various social environments have been configured and reconfigured where individuals, groups, communities or organizations have acquired, in each historical moment, their distinctive cultural traits.
I stopped at why certain diachronic ideas are transmuted into actions and ways of being, to be pursued in the kind of relationships they have with the power and domination logic in any historical moment. Ideas that “bloom” and prevail are not usually the most insightful or penetrating, but arise and are favored because they are harmonic or syntonic with the dominant interests either by their covering or legitimizing effect. Conversely, ideas that are uncomfortable, disturbing, dissident, questioning and critical that reveal domination mechanisms or propose divergent and “unsuitable” ways to think or act, are drowned before birth, silenced, dismissed, fought, mutilated or excluded.
Exclusory specialization, the quintessence of reductionism, is the main obstacle to access a detailed outlook of vital events to integrate knowledge under standing its interrelations and hierarchies. It is also the biggest obstacle for scientists in modern societies (who represent hope for a better world and are delegated the “critical consciousness”) not to disappoint these expectations and can assume such responsibilities effectively. To that end, it is essential to realize the importance of ideas in knowledge (their various presences); only then the search horizon can be expanded, relativize their own work within the set of social tasks, seek collaboration with diverse and aim for an integrated and comprehensive view of the world, elucidating its organizational logic and underlying dynamics (inclusive specialization). Such situation is inescapable to effectively transcend the scientific reductionism approach and gain a truly liberating knowledge (enlightening ideas about life, the “whys and hows”) where the most representative and synthetic expression would be “to be a better person” in different aspects of life, based on the practice of criticism and self-criticism, equipped with powerful and versatile cognitive skills and comforting and generous attitudes that provide new foundations to ways of coexistence, cooperation and collaboration.
Accompanying the possible progression towards a different world, we glimpse situations where dignity and freedom prevail and life priorities are reconsidered. The key aspect of this development is to consolidate a progress idea that is divergent from what has been imposed by vested interests that transform anything in commodities, an idea based on higher values such as spiritual, intellectual, moral, and communitarian growth of the human condition. Without a strong idea of progress which is convincing, motivating and mobilizing we will find it difficult to germinate the urgent need to expand research horizons, to rethink cognitive priorities, to congregate and organize before a diversified social and long-term commitment which transcends the immediate and peremptory. This idea of progress is essential to guide, (re) direct and (re) target the collective and synergistic efforts on a journey without end, full of obstacles in the search, by successive approximations, of plural societies: deliberative, pluralistic, inclusive, collaborative, egalitarian, fair and careful of the global ecosystem.
From mental imprisonment imposed by scientific reductionism to the liberating potential of knowledge and criticism (which is mainly in the ideas) we will find not appropriate answers to the enormous problems of mankind, which are all-around degradation, inequality and progressive exclusion whose improvement has little to do with accelerating the pace of technological innovation at service of power and domination. Therefore, it is essen tial to keep from further development of science and technology per se, but shift our ideas about what is knowledge, it priorities (prefer everything that contributes directly or indirectly to freedom, and not to submission) of its progress (criticism and overcoming dominant ideas) and their forms of ownership (knowledge perceived as a need by a large majority). This means unusual ways of thinking, researching, acting, bonding and educating new generations who, using criticism, can meet the challenge and uncertainty, open to difference and learn to progress in that atmosphere, striving to build a better world for all.
Conflict of interest
The author declares no conflict of interest of any nature.
a Funding agencies or research "philanthropic donor" companies whose progress depends on innovation, prioritize absolutely the most promising research for its potential and tangible contributions to technological development. Ideas are increasingly dispensable. Awards such as the Nobel Prize are recognized only by exception theoretical contributions to knowledge.
Received 21 April 2014;
accepted 22 May 2014
E-mail:leonardo.viniegra@gmail.com