Evolution of Freedom
Part I: Evolution of cooperation - Chapter 5
SCIENTIFIC METHOD
The revolutionary idea that governments could be built on a rational scientific understanding of the world animated Enlightenment thinkers. Despite the giant leaps science has made since, as a culture, we seem to have given up on this idea. Instead, a deep pessimism has set in about what our political systems are actually capable of. Marred by stale political ideologies, partisan bickering and divisive culture wars, the malaise is so pronounced that a growing segment of the population embraces authoritarian leaders as the solution–the very thing Enlightenment thinkers fought against.
It is therefore high time we reignited this line of inquiry and seriously thought about how best to organize our societies using science. What makes this inquiry timely and worthwhile is the fact that science and technology have taken such massive strides since the Enlightenment that the answers we produce today are likely to be completely different from those of the past.
Enlightenment thinkers weren’t aware of the theory of evolution by natural selection, the laws of thermodynamics, the Theory of Relativity, quantum mechanics or the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), to name just a few of the scientific discoveries that have revolutionized our thinking.
While we can never fully take “politics” out of politics, by using science to solve our problems, I believe we can get rid of much of the unnecessary conflict and acrimony surrounding it.
When we talk about science, it is important to understand that we are talking about methods and not the results they produce. The current understanding science produces should be seen as provisional, as it represents our best understanding so far. What makes the scientific method so important is that it is by far the best way humans have come up with to determine what is actually true.
The process usually starts with a simple observation of a fact, say, an apple falling on our head. We can measure various objects falling on the ground and derive a law that gives us the exact speed at which an object falls to the ground. What we don’t yet know is why this is happening, and to explain the why we need a scientific theory. But even if the theories about why something happens the way it happens change, it won’t change the facts themselves or the laws.
To explain the phenomenon, we can propose multiple hypotheses of why something works the way it does. By repeated tests, we can eliminate some hypotheses and hopefully confirm at least one. One critical standard here is the idea of falsifiability. For a hypothesis or a theory to be scientific in nature, there has to be a way of disproving it using an empirical test. If the claim is that all swans are white, it is impossible to observe all swans to prove this to be true, but it only takes one black swan to disprove it. The claim that God exists is not a scientific claim precisely because it cannot be falsified. It is a matter of faith.
To quote Karl Popper:
It is therefore high time we reignited this line of inquiry and seriously thought about how best to organize our societies using science. What makes this inquiry timely and worthwhile is the fact that science and technology have taken such massive strides since the Enlightenment that the answers we produce today are likely to be completely different from those of the past.
Enlightenment thinkers weren’t aware of the theory of evolution by natural selection, the laws of thermodynamics, the Theory of Relativity, quantum mechanics or the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), to name just a few of the scientific discoveries that have revolutionized our thinking.
While we can never fully take “politics” out of politics, by using science to solve our problems, I believe we can get rid of much of the unnecessary conflict and acrimony surrounding it.
When we talk about science, it is important to understand that we are talking about methods and not the results they produce. The current understanding science produces should be seen as provisional, as it represents our best understanding so far. What makes the scientific method so important is that it is by far the best way humans have come up with to determine what is actually true.
The process usually starts with a simple observation of a fact, say, an apple falling on our head. We can measure various objects falling on the ground and derive a law that gives us the exact speed at which an object falls to the ground. What we don’t yet know is why this is happening, and to explain the why we need a scientific theory. But even if the theories about why something happens the way it happens change, it won’t change the facts themselves or the laws.
To explain the phenomenon, we can propose multiple hypotheses of why something works the way it does. By repeated tests, we can eliminate some hypotheses and hopefully confirm at least one. One critical standard here is the idea of falsifiability. For a hypothesis or a theory to be scientific in nature, there has to be a way of disproving it using an empirical test. If the claim is that all swans are white, it is impossible to observe all swans to prove this to be true, but it only takes one black swan to disprove it. The claim that God exists is not a scientific claim precisely because it cannot be falsified. It is a matter of faith.
To quote Karl Popper:
In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality.
When we have confirmed a hypothesis, we can publish our findings. In scientific journals, this requires an interim step where the paper is peer reviewed by other scientists working in the field before publication. This helps to identify possible flaws in the study and allows the researchers to address them before publication. The purpose of publication is to allow other scientists to verify the findings. When independent experiments verify that the hypothesis is true, we can propose a theory to explain the phenomenon.
A theory is a rigorously tested explanation that is confirmed both by observations and repeated experiments and allows us to make accurate predictions. While in casual conversation the word theory often takes the meaning of hypothesis, in science a theory represents the gold standard of scientific understanding. This is why the Theory of Relativity and the theory of evolution by natural selection (which was, lest we forget, conceived independently by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace) are not just possible explanations of how things might possibly be: they are the most accurate descriptions of their respective phenomena we have to date. No other explanations even come close.
While science is never finished and much is still unknown, it can account for most natural phenomena and tell us with great accuracy how the world works. While the theories might be refined or even overturned, the observable facts and laws remain intact. Thanks to the information provided by science, we can manipulate the physical world to an extraordinary degree. As proof of its veracity, science can produce technologies that work: air planes that defy gravity, medicines that heal and cell phones that connect people across the planet. Natural science can be said to be the single greatest human contributor to well-being.
Behind all scientific knowledge lies a larger scientific narrative that allows us to arrange all that we know into a meaningful bigger picture, in which every piece of information has its place and relationship with other disciplines. This big story of science is called evolution. Modern evolutionary science, which includes cultural evolution, is the grand scientific narrative of life and the universe. All other stories are just branches of this much larger story. Any body of knowledge that doesn’t build on or connect to it is most likely built on sand.
The story starts with the Big Bang and the birth of physics, and goes as far as explaining the complex cultural phenomena our societies are built on. Augmented by recent findings in anthropology, neuroscience, game theory and dozens of other related fields, evolution’s explanatory power is breathtaking. It can now make sense of symbolic meaning systems and offer hard science answers to moral questions once confined to the realm of philosophy and ancient wisdom traditions.
Evolution is the intellectual framework I use to propose a better solution for how humanity and the planet could be organized. Where Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species sought to explain how nature works, this book seeks to identify practical ways in which humanity could become its harmonious extension.
The phrase “survival of the fittest” doesn’t mean the survival of the strongest, or the richest or the smartest. It means the survival of the most adaptable. In our quest to create more human well-being, we are essentially trying to find better ways to adapt to our environment. This is why we must not only understand our physical reality but also design our institutions in such a way that makes them compatible with that reality.
Despite the mission of Enlightenment thinkers, we have never actually used the scientific method to perfect our institutions in the way we have perfected our other technologies. Instead, they’ve been shaped by a much more archaic force: power. Power comes in many forms, such as military might, most votes, economic power and cultural hegemony, but what they all have in common is that they grant their holder bargaining advantages in public affairs. At times one party can dictate its terms without opposition while at other times parties are forced to negotiate an even settlement. An endless series of power struggles has given shape to the way our political and economic institutions are built today.
When we compare the outcomes of these two different processes, we can only imagine what would happen if we designed our boats and airplanes the same way we have designed our economic and political institutions. The length of the wings or the width of the hull would be dictated either by the winner of an armed struggle or by the proposal with the most votes. Designing technology like this would obviously be insane and result in sunken ships and crashed airplanes. Yet this is exactly the way our political and economic institutions have been built.
Now, advocating for science to shape our institutions might at first sound like an endorsement of undemocratic technocracy, but this is not the case. If we think about politics as a destination we want to get to, our task in this book is to build the best possible car and come up with the best choice of who drives it. The destination is still chosen by the passengers – us.
The better the engine, the brakes and the steering of the car are, the more efficiently and reliably it is likely to arrive at the chosen destination. The drivers also make a difference: how experienced they are as drivers and whether they know the best route to their particular destination. Getting the car and the driver right makes an enormous difference to the well-being of the passengers. Our task in this book is to build the prototype for the car and propose a way to determine how the driver should be chosen. But it is ultimately up to the passengers to democratically determine what their destination should be.
To do this, we undertake an institutional design process rooted in science, starting by reviewing the basics of what natural science has to teach us about the nature of our physical reality and life on this planet. We will then arrange this information in a way that helps us deduce how best to organize our society in the future. The final step requires a dose of creativity as we want to distill our proposed system into the simplest and most elegant solution possible. As the solution to our problems, the book recommends a managed process of cultural evolution. If a critical mass of citizens adopts this new form of cooperation, it will qualify as a major transition in evolution. But let me be clear–the solution I present in this book is built on a series of hypotheses. I present them publicly so that they can be studied, criticized and challenged. If using my proposed tool improves human well-being, my claims may have some merit. If other tools create better outcomes, my hypotheses have been falsified.
To get started, we summarize the most recent understanding that biological and cultural evolution provides us about life, our existence and our current position on evolution’s long trajectory. We will learn what an important role cooperation plays in making complex life possible. We will also speculate about the logical endpoint, the Omega Point, where evolution is likely to take us. Using this vantage point, we will articulate the concrete challenges we have to overcome to optimize human existence on this planet.
A theory is a rigorously tested explanation that is confirmed both by observations and repeated experiments and allows us to make accurate predictions. While in casual conversation the word theory often takes the meaning of hypothesis, in science a theory represents the gold standard of scientific understanding. This is why the Theory of Relativity and the theory of evolution by natural selection (which was, lest we forget, conceived independently by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace) are not just possible explanations of how things might possibly be: they are the most accurate descriptions of their respective phenomena we have to date. No other explanations even come close.
While science is never finished and much is still unknown, it can account for most natural phenomena and tell us with great accuracy how the world works. While the theories might be refined or even overturned, the observable facts and laws remain intact. Thanks to the information provided by science, we can manipulate the physical world to an extraordinary degree. As proof of its veracity, science can produce technologies that work: air planes that defy gravity, medicines that heal and cell phones that connect people across the planet. Natural science can be said to be the single greatest human contributor to well-being.
Behind all scientific knowledge lies a larger scientific narrative that allows us to arrange all that we know into a meaningful bigger picture, in which every piece of information has its place and relationship with other disciplines. This big story of science is called evolution. Modern evolutionary science, which includes cultural evolution, is the grand scientific narrative of life and the universe. All other stories are just branches of this much larger story. Any body of knowledge that doesn’t build on or connect to it is most likely built on sand.
The story starts with the Big Bang and the birth of physics, and goes as far as explaining the complex cultural phenomena our societies are built on. Augmented by recent findings in anthropology, neuroscience, game theory and dozens of other related fields, evolution’s explanatory power is breathtaking. It can now make sense of symbolic meaning systems and offer hard science answers to moral questions once confined to the realm of philosophy and ancient wisdom traditions.
Evolution is the intellectual framework I use to propose a better solution for how humanity and the planet could be organized. Where Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species sought to explain how nature works, this book seeks to identify practical ways in which humanity could become its harmonious extension.
The phrase “survival of the fittest” doesn’t mean the survival of the strongest, or the richest or the smartest. It means the survival of the most adaptable. In our quest to create more human well-being, we are essentially trying to find better ways to adapt to our environment. This is why we must not only understand our physical reality but also design our institutions in such a way that makes them compatible with that reality.
Despite the mission of Enlightenment thinkers, we have never actually used the scientific method to perfect our institutions in the way we have perfected our other technologies. Instead, they’ve been shaped by a much more archaic force: power. Power comes in many forms, such as military might, most votes, economic power and cultural hegemony, but what they all have in common is that they grant their holder bargaining advantages in public affairs. At times one party can dictate its terms without opposition while at other times parties are forced to negotiate an even settlement. An endless series of power struggles has given shape to the way our political and economic institutions are built today.
When we compare the outcomes of these two different processes, we can only imagine what would happen if we designed our boats and airplanes the same way we have designed our economic and political institutions. The length of the wings or the width of the hull would be dictated either by the winner of an armed struggle or by the proposal with the most votes. Designing technology like this would obviously be insane and result in sunken ships and crashed airplanes. Yet this is exactly the way our political and economic institutions have been built.
Now, advocating for science to shape our institutions might at first sound like an endorsement of undemocratic technocracy, but this is not the case. If we think about politics as a destination we want to get to, our task in this book is to build the best possible car and come up with the best choice of who drives it. The destination is still chosen by the passengers – us.
The better the engine, the brakes and the steering of the car are, the more efficiently and reliably it is likely to arrive at the chosen destination. The drivers also make a difference: how experienced they are as drivers and whether they know the best route to their particular destination. Getting the car and the driver right makes an enormous difference to the well-being of the passengers. Our task in this book is to build the prototype for the car and propose a way to determine how the driver should be chosen. But it is ultimately up to the passengers to democratically determine what their destination should be.
To do this, we undertake an institutional design process rooted in science, starting by reviewing the basics of what natural science has to teach us about the nature of our physical reality and life on this planet. We will then arrange this information in a way that helps us deduce how best to organize our society in the future. The final step requires a dose of creativity as we want to distill our proposed system into the simplest and most elegant solution possible. As the solution to our problems, the book recommends a managed process of cultural evolution. If a critical mass of citizens adopts this new form of cooperation, it will qualify as a major transition in evolution. But let me be clear–the solution I present in this book is built on a series of hypotheses. I present them publicly so that they can be studied, criticized and challenged. If using my proposed tool improves human well-being, my claims may have some merit. If other tools create better outcomes, my hypotheses have been falsified.
To get started, we summarize the most recent understanding that biological and cultural evolution provides us about life, our existence and our current position on evolution’s long trajectory. We will learn what an important role cooperation plays in making complex life possible. We will also speculate about the logical endpoint, the Omega Point, where evolution is likely to take us. Using this vantage point, we will articulate the concrete challenges we have to overcome to optimize human existence on this planet.
