TASMINA Ahmed-Sheikh (Scientific facts are taking a sinister bashing from all angles, May 19) is right that science has given us a lot to be thankful for. From science we have not just vaccinations and smartphones but astonishing insights into the nature of the world we inhabit. However, I fear it is no coincidence that the terrible problems we face (pollution, global warming, nuclear war) are happening after 400 years of scientific “progress”. As evidence, ask yourself why humanity never came anywhere near self-destruction in its first 100,00 years.

So it is right to question science but this is too rarely done. Why not? Because science itself is seen as a “fact”, a fact of life, something about which we have no choice. This is a terrible, possibly fatal misunderstanding.

There are some scientists – and philosophers – who are investigating science itself. They question, for example, whether there can ever be such a thing as a solid scientific fact.

It seems, rather, that all scientific knowledge is simply the best current hypothesis and so it should always be seen as provisional. Any decisions based on such “facts” must be made cautiously. The history of science is one of widely accepted ideas being overthrown by new ones.

Of even greater concern are the fundamental assumptions that science makes about the reality it is investigating. Briefly, reality is understood to be made up of inert material clearly separated from those who study and make use of it. This then gives us licence to exploit this material, and we have done so carelessly.

This assumption, that reality is basically material, is challenged by the findings of scientists investigating the quantum, sub-atomic realm. The quarks and bosons and other hypothesised particles do not behave in the way Newton imagined billiard balls bounced around. Instead, what the sub-atomic particles do does seem to depend on scientists choosing to observe them.

This is a radical finding. We are not as separate from reality as has been assumed. In part this is obvious. Treat nature badly, then it suffers and in turn we suffer. Clearly, we and nature are bound together. But we may be bound with reality far more intimately than science permits scientists to imagine.

There are now scientists and philosophers who are daring to suggest that reality is not basically made up of material stuff. In part, their questioning of materialism, as it is called, has been provoked by the strange behaviour of quantum particles. In part it is a reaction to the gross failure of astrophysicists to account for the make-up of the universe. Such scientists can only account for 5% of what they see: 95% of the content of universe is a complete mystery for science. This alone should cause us to wonder whether science based on materialism is sustainable.

Of even greater significance is that many scientists and philosophers have recently spotted the elephant in the room: consciousness. Consciousness: something we all have. Ever present yet somehow invisible. I have got mine. I assume you have yours and yet I can never know yours – or you, mine. This elusive character of consciousness helps explain why science has almost entirely overlooked it until recently. However, in the past 25 years consciousness has begun to be seriously studied. The revolutionary conclusion is that we can best understand reality as founded on consciousness rather than on material and energy.

The implications of accepting this very different basis for understanding ourselves and the world are profound. Not everything changes though. Just as Newton’s explanation of how billiard balls bounce remains useful even after Einstein, so will vaccinations and smartphones work should the new way of understanding reality prevail. The warnings of climate scientists will still be real. But by accepting that consciousness underpins everything we will better explain quantum behaviour. It shows how and why plants appear to communicate with one another so that the importance of preserving ecosystems is much better appreciated. Our health can benefit once we see how our minds affect our bodies through, for example, the placebo effect.

Basically we will properly understand that we are all in this together. We cannot separate ourselves from the reality around us whether that be nature, other people or even the past and future. Acceptance has enormous moral and ethical implications. And, of course, what we teach in our schools and universities will be very different.

This will be a revolution, arguably greater than the one Copernicus set in train. It took courage for Copernicus to challenge the accepted view of the world as the centre of the universe. But he did so, and the consequences for science and for us cannot be underestimated. Those now challenging materialism accept that their views will be subject to misunder-standing if not ridicule, a fate Copernicus’s followers, such as Galileo suffered. But challenge they must, they believe. It may be the best, perhaps the only hope of saving humanity and the planet.

You can find more on the work of these radical scientists and philosophers via the website of the Scientific and Medical Network. A leading proponent is the Dutchman Bernardo Kastrup who I recently interviewed.

Dr Richard Gault
Harderwijk, the Netherlands