It's Nice, But Is It Science?

Being currently in the thrall of the family chaos attendant upon the repeated prolonging of the life of a person dead but for his pulse, perhaps the writer is not the most objective of observers. Nonetheless, he finds it a good moment to express his doubts concerning the utility of the notion that the best large outcome is a product of the sum of all good small results - this being the backbone of the defense of the idea of scientific progress in general and, more specifically, that of the triumph of modern medicine (not to mention the impetus for the widespread availability of consumer credit).

To make the point more clear, we ask the reader to translate the possible newspaper headline 'Seven Saved From Festive Fire' into the less probable but more realistic 'Fearless Firefighters Delay Ten Deaths'. Don't want to hear about it? Nor do we, but the matter interferes with our own ponderings concerning the future much like a chicken bone stuck in our throat might with the continued enjoyment of a fine meal - especially if we had thought that we had been served beef.

Among the consequences of assuming that the successful delaying on a massive scale of the worst possible destiny for individuals (or the 'saving' of their lives, if readers really must have it their way) is an unequivocally desirable outcome, one would be foolish not to note that the total number of deaths has risen in lock step, but for an arithmetically lengthening time lag, with the increase in population attendant upon that same success. The only reasonable conclusion to be reached is that scientific medicine has been the cause of the demise of horrifyingly and incomprehensibly large numbers of human beings and is, no matter how one measures it, an evil of proportions not previously imaginable.

Currently, by the way, there are about 6.7 billion of us lined up for this treatment. Readers willing to provide a scientific argument that this number indicates that science itself has been able to optimize, in a sense that does more than self-servingly equate more with better, macro-eventualities (the sociopathic 'it's preferable for me' not being acceptable) should do so in the comments section. Barring evidence to the contrary, this writer is forced to believe that animism*, mythology, legend, superstition and their accompanying tourist-pleasing rituals provided far more effective solutions.

*Click here for an interesting example of therapeutic animism on the website of a manufacturer of very high tech cancer treatment machinery.

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