Masayoshi Nakawo
Has Science Become Religion?
Since childhood, I have been taught by my parents that “the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west.” Even near our house, looking at a map with North printed on the top, the Sun comes out from the right direction. It seems that the Sun certainly rises in the east. I thought what my father and my mother told me was really true.
That is right. In the morning, the Sun rises in the east, passes in a direction above our head, and in the evening, it sets in the west. The Sun goes around us day after day. I learned at school later on that this idea is called the geocentric theory.
Most people, like me, all probably believed in the geocentric theory. There is no doubt that most people living on the face of the Earth believed in the geocentric theory down the ages. This is because by believing so, situations can be explained as they appear to us.
Around the time I became a graduate student, I visited the Antarctica. The Sun does not rise from the east. During summer, the Sun actually rose from the northern direction. In addition, the Sun rose not in the morning but in the middle of night. And as it went around at an angle to the east, it gradually rose in altitude. After that, it passes through the southern sky and then careens in the direction of west, but it does not set in even when the evening comes around. When it is near the middle of night, the Sun gradually goes down from the west at an angle in the direction of north. When the season changes, and spring begins to give way to winter, the Sun, specially during the day time half-day, moves across the horizon in a rolling fashion. One can observe this phenomenon, which is called the rolling Sun.
I faced a troubling situation with the geocentric theory. At this time, having had my own experience, I felt for the first time that the Copernican system, which explains the movement of celestial bodies, is true. This is because, invoking what I learned at school about the relation between the Earth and the Sun, such phenomena can be somehow explained.
Probably, that was the case with Catholic religion in the past. They thought that the Sun moved around the Earth. It is now a famous story that in early 17th century, an Italian astronomer called Galileo Galilei expressed his opposition to this idea, and advocated the Copernican system. As a result, Galileo was tried by the Inquisition and found guilty, however, he persisted in his belief and allegedly said, “the Earth is revolving.” This event is said to be the trigger in the conflict between religion and science from that point on. And as you all know, after that science won the victory. And so far, science and technology based on scientific knowledge have achieved unprecedented results.
I believe that religion is necessary for people. During tough times, trying times, and sad times, many people have been saved by religion; therefore, religion has come to possess the power. However, the result of the conflict between science and religion shows that the religion must avoid to become arrogant by claiming to know everything and capable of solving everything.
However, it seems that recently, science has become a sort of religion. Listening to news on radio or viewing news on TV, we frequently come across expressions such as “such and such thing has become understood scientifically.” By using the term “scientifically,” it seems that they are indeed maintaining a fact of reality, even when it is not endorsed by objective facts. However, what we can say from objective facts alone is very restricted. Nevertheless, I feel an environment where we have become arrogant because we think that we can understand and solve everything with science. I do not think there are so many things in the world that can be endorsed by objective facts. Can we really understand everything through science?
Nature and People React in the Most Unthinkable Way
Let us think about the future of the Earth. People have acted on nature in so many ways. As a result, those actions have produced so many unthinkable results, and there are so many examples of such results. Also, in order to overcome those results, the way how human beings should behave exceeds the scope of our scientific understanding.
For example, what changes as a result of global warming is not only the temperature or the amount of rain fall or some other elements pertaining to meteorological phenomena, but also variations in the fruit bearing timing as a result of changes in the time of flowering of agricultural crops. This is not limited to plants. Even in the case of animals, during the summer season and the like, the amount of food intake is reduced, and therefore, the reproductive abilities drop, and as it seems, causing a possible fall in the volume of production of meat, milk, and other similar food. Conversely, if winters turn warm, the productivity of meat and eggs may rise. Furthermore, cattle diseases peculiar to tropical regions could also spread to warmer regions as the habitats of carriers of these diseases, such as mosquitoes, flies, and ticks. And, when the global warming is here, is it possible to predict scientifically what kind of agricultural practice people would do?
Also, in order to increase the agricultural productivity, great quantities of fertilizers must be used on agricultural land, but this in turn can cause an increased weed problem. Furthermore, because of the fertilizers, the agricultural products become weak, causing them to become susceptible to diseases and harmful insects. However, the fact remains that if herbicides and insecticides are used, not only the weeds, harmful insects, and the disease-causing bacteria are killed, but other insects and important microorganisms will also be killed in the process. These facts have never been foreseen scientifically up to now. In order to solve problems, new technologies have been developed, but we must admit to the fact that these technologies in turn have given rise to intractable, new problems.
In addition, because Japanese lumber and wood building materials have become too expensive, cedars and Japanese cypress that have been planted to harvest lumber have been removed from their necessary protection, and Phyllostachys pubescens, a bamboo that has been planted to harvest bamboo shoot has come to be considered as nuisance. These things have never been thought through by anyone before. Wolves have been driven out to remove their threats to livestock and cattle; however, this has in turn caused an increase in the number of deer in the wild. The increase in the number of deer caused the ecosystems of natural reserves that were supposed to be protected to become actually spoiled. In fact, the construction of roads in forests to promote the forestry and plantation of trees has been contributing to this outcome. Such an effect has never been predicted.
These facts are not limited to the land. For some reason, there has been a large breakout of jellyfish. It may have been caused by the amount of nutrition coming from the coastal cities. Tetra pot and concrete structures used to protect the coasts against the sea might have also played a role by becoming an attractive material for jellyfish polyps. People overfishing sardine and Japanese horse mackerel, and causing a great increase in the planktons, could be another possibility. But the exact cause is unknown. Because of the large volume of shrimp farming, mangrove forests have been cut down, creating greater damage from tsunami unfortunately. Following this, there was a ban on cutting down mangrove forests, then people simply moved inland to create artificial lakes to farm shrimps. Therefore, the water yield from the underground water sources increased dramatically, and this in turn invited water shortages. In addition, because of the shrimp farming, the chemical agents have been seeping into the ordinary wells and causing concerns and other issues pertaining to adverse effects on the health of residents in those areas.
There are also problems with the well water. To increase the food productivity, the agricultural development has been encouraged, and as a result, a great volume of water has been taken from rivers, and this in turn has caused adverse things to happen; for example, lakes to dry up and vegetation to decline. To recover these ecosystems, a policy for the so-called ecological immigrants has produced new demand for fresh water, and this demand has been met by digging wells and has resulted in consumption of more water than in the past. Therefore, the underground water levels have dropped even more so and in an accelerated pace, leading to the use of important water from the deep underground sources, and resulting in other adverse cases.
As an example for a kind of modern version of the proverb that says “when the wind blows, the cooper makes profits,” also consider the following case: Because of the high price for the skin of sea otters, they have been captured excessively, and as a result, mussels that have been eaten by sea otters have increased in quantity, and in turn, the volume of sea weeds that have been eaten by mussels has decreased dramatically. In human activities there are also cases that are similar to these cases where the ironic results such as these have never been anticipated in advance. One example is an effort to decrease the temperature for heating without using organic solvents, which has been introduced in the manufacturing process of meat-and-bone meal, and this measure has been taken not only to lower the costs, but also as a consideration to improve the health environment for the employees, but as a result, there is a good possibility that this measure has lead to the spread of a dreadful disease called BSE.
In summary, people have always searched for better lives and acted on nature in ways to achieve them, but they suffered backlashes in ways that they had never anticipated. As a result, people have reacted in ways that are totally unexpected, and that in turn has triggered reactions from the natural world that are completely unexpected. As this process continues, the fact remains that what is called the cycle of interaction between the people and the nature is in reality not well known, and we do not know quite enough how this process works.
Trying to be Skeptical of a Variety of “Myths”
Since the environmental problems have widely entered into the public consciousness, the human efforts to improve the environment have also increased. However, regarding the result of those efforts, it is necessary to make careful observations and consider what outcome might follow think about those results in great depth. Human activities that are not based on full and well-thought knowledge could have the opposite results, and some of those results are rather very harmful to the environment.
There are many “myths” that have been born out of efforts to solve the environmental challenges. One among many of these myths is “the myth of tree plantation.” A myth was born asserting that planting trees is a good thing for the overall improvement of the environment of the Earth as a whole. However, without giving thoughtful considerations to the right conditions and locations for those trees to be planted, some unintended and absolutely egregious things could be the result.
“The myth of well” is another example. A myth was born maintaining that it is a good thing to dig wells in areas where there is a shortage of water. As a typical candidate for development aid to counter the problem of poverty, aid is being provided to dig wells in many regions around the world. And in many cases, this has been advertised as a great success story. However, at the same time, it remains a fact that in those regions around the world where wells are dug, the underground water that feed into those wells are going dry, and thus presenting a major environmental problem. Specially, the deep underground water needs extremely long spans of time to recharge, and in that sense, it may be more appropriate if we considered the deep underground water, similar to crude oil, a resource that cannot be regenerated. Yet, the human race tends to live for the moment, and therefore, people are tapping a resource that if it is lost it could never be recovered and in turn would be lost forever.
“The Way People Live Itself” Is the Problem
Recently, Satoyama has become a focus of attention as a splendid environment. It seems that it is becoming a kind of “myth” that protecting Satoyama is a good thing. Recently, they say that wild matsutake mushrooms cannot be harvested in Japanese mountains. The idea is to restore Satoyama with plenty of wild matsutake mushrooms like in the good old days.
However, if we stop to think about this, we can also put it in another word; that is, Satoyama is a system that allows people to strip the bounty of the nature. Since early times, people have entered their nearby mountains to collect fallen leaves to use as fertilizers for their farm lands. People have stripped the fallen leaves that should have been used as nutrients for the rebirth of trees such as evergreen laurels for use on their own farm lands and as nutrients for their own farm products. The trees that were stripped of their nutrients could not grow and therefore gradually deteriorated, and then were taken over by other trees such as Japanese red pines that could grow without a lot of nutrients. As a result, wild matsutake mushrooms that grew on Japanese red pines could then be harvested. In that sense, it could be said that wild matsutake mushrooms are a symbol for a history of people who stripped the nature.
Put it simply, the reason wild matsutake mushrooms could not be harvested is due to the introduction of artificial fertilizers and other plant foods and because people stopped using fallen leaves as fertilizers for the farm lands. It could be also put in another word; that is, by not using the leaves as nutrients the way they were used in the past, evergreen laurels that tend to grow on lands with rich nutrients have made a comeback. For example, simply put, it can be maintained that the Satoyama that people used to collect grass at their nearby mountains and use it as material for heating or fuel for cooking was some balding, stripped mountain lands.
Thinking along those lines, one might come to a conclusion that protecting Satoyama is not necessarily a good thing after all. Similar to the myth of planting trees, it seems it is necessary to give a good thought to the requirements of protecting Satoyama; that is, under what conditions Satoyama should be protected and what would be the location of Satoyama in order for it to be protected. Or putting it another way, I think is it not necessary that we should think seriously regarding the kind of Satoyama that is to be protected, and the kind of Satoyama that is not necessary to be protected, or the kind of Satoyama that should be created. In essence, this is the issue of how people interact with nature. Or one might say this is the very issue of how people actually live their lives.
We by the very fact of living alone impact the environment in a major way. As a result, nature reacts, and that reaction comes back and back fires on us. Nature reacts in ways that none of us have thought out. For the most part, the modern science can never quite predict what would be the form or the forms of this reaction.
The significance of the effects a key species in an ecological system have will become understood for the first time only after that species becomes extinct. The current science will also not be able to tell us what would be the problems that could occur from alien invasive species until it actually becomes a wild species.
No Other Ways Exist But to Accumulate Knowledge
By saying so I may be scolded for my comments because we are living in an age that science and technology allows us to send rockets all the way to the moon and Mars. However, the knowledge or scientific laws that we came to understand and have allowed us to send rockets all the way to the moon and Mars became available to us in the 17th century. These are Newtonian mechanics or classical mechanics, which are a body of laws that can explain the movement of bodies in a systematic manner. The fact remains that only 300 years have passed since then, and we are now at last able to actually send rockets all the way to the moon and Mars.
At present, we still do not have any basic knowledge or know of any basic rules that are necessary to solve environmental problems on the Earth at all. We even do not know if there are any such knowledge or rules, and if so, what they really are. Therefore, in order to solve the global environmental problems fundamentally, first of all, it is necessary to research very meticulously and in great detail the following: As it has been mentioned in this book, if something happens, what comes next, and how people would receive those results and how would they behave, and how it would be connected to the changes that occur thereafter.
Science has developed by simplifying things, and it has discovered a great number of rules by viewing specific relations between one thing and another in a simple way. This is because simple rules cannot be discovered by looking at complicated matters as they are. As a result, a variety of specialized fields have been born, and a great number of scientific accomplishments have been produced.
The variety of laws that has been the result of great achievements of science has all been based on the laws of experience. This law states that if ‘A’ acts in such a manner, then ‘B’ shall always act in a certain manner; therefore, if this should be ‘A’ then the result would be ‘B.’
Even when thinking about the global environmental issues, the only law that we can follow to derive knowledge from is through experimentation. However, multifaceted relations where such relations are intertwined in complicated ways must be viewed in their entirety, and they should not be thinly sliced into individual and simple relations. Based on all the experience available at a given time, one must attempt to know the entire picture by analyzing what would happen, where would it happen, and how would it happen as a result of something else happening and what those effects would be. There are no other ways other than accumulating such body of knowledge. This means to investigate the experience of human race, which means finding out what have been the results of our actions as imposed on nature, and also finding out how we as human beings have reacted against those results, and to what changes have the results of those reactions been connected.
Thinking along these lines, the environment research is nothing more than history research. However, I cannot help but have a feeling that up to this point, the history research has not produced any accomplishments from the standpoint of interaction between nature and people. This is because the so-called science of history is over-emphasizing the viewpoint that the human history is created solely by human activities, and it is giving almost no consideration to the reaction from nature and the human reaction against that. I have a feeling that in order to solve the environmental problems in a fundamental way, we have no other avenues than reviewing the human history up to this point in a thorough manner, and gain some hints (insights) on how we should interact with nature along the way.
What We Should Tell Our Children
Science has come to produce a tremendous volume of achievements under extremely simple conditions, or by creating such extreme conditions. I believe that science, similar to religion, is important to people. However, science is almost powerless when it comes to solve the so-called environmental problems where even one event, no matter how close to us, could affect almost all of the events that surround us. Even if science should be able to dissect each individual event, it cannot make possible the entire picture for us to know. Science is supposed to be aiming at making the entire picture clear; however, it could take an enormous amount of time to achieve that aim. And I do not think that even if such an amount of time is spent, such an achievement can be realized through scientific approaches alone. In summary, I think we cannot help but conclude that we cannot solve the environmental issues solely by science.
We have come to realize at last, and only in recent times, that “nature reacts in ways that we have never expected.” And I have a feeling that this discovery appears to us in the same way as the “geocentric theory.” And the reason for this is because this discovery describes things that happen as we see. And it would be undreamed happiness to me if you could tell your children the same story as what we have been told by our parents; that is, “the Sun rises from the east and sets in the west.” And, please tell the children to be skeptic about myths.
For that reason, in the current situation, it is necessary to recognize that we actually do not know anything. I think we must avoid becoming arrogant by assuming that science can provide us knowledge of everything and give us solutions for all things. It is absolutely indispensable for us to have a humble attitude that allows us to realize that when we act upon our environment, it does not mean that we are able to understand all the consequences of our actions. And by doing so, for the first time, we will be able to look at various problems in depth and with insight by and of themselves with our own eyes without being swayed by myths, and be able to think independently.
I am only hoping that our children who are future adults become dissatisfied with the geocentric theory and think independently in the same fashion that the Copernican system replaced the geocentric theory, and come with new ideas to solve the environmental problems of the Earth.
（ Quoted from『子どもたちに語るこれからの地球』 講談社（2006））