The Super Summary of World History (49 page)

Power
of
Science

Science grew in importance rapidly by 1900. Through the scientific (empirical) method, mankind made broad advances in understanding and controlling the world. Medicine uncovered new ways to fight disease; engineering invented new ways to build everything from trains and ships to houses and skyscrapers. Myth was out; proof was in—scientific proof. The scientific method requires
repeatable
experiments
that yield repeatable results. Because of this repeatability people worldwide could conduct the same experiment (test) and know the results would be the same. As new empirical knowledge emerged mankind advanced to new plateaus of provable knowledge.

There was a problem. Science was discovering a world beyond what a person’s senses reported as fact. Einstein’s theory of relativity replaced Newton’s mechanical universe
in
1905.
Max Plank’s quantum theory, published in
1900
, and Freud’s theories on the subconscious mind (
The
Interpretation
of
Dreams
,
1900
) all pointed to a world of seeming irrationality.

Plank’s theories of quantum mechanics concerned subatomic particles (smaller than atoms), and that world was without absolute certainty. The position of an electron is stated in terms of probability, particles and waves exhibit similar behavior, and particles “communicate” with one another over large distances faster than the speed of light. Einstein’s theories described the large-scale universe. In Einstein’s world, distances were vast and nothing traveled faster than the speed of light which was always constant. In relativity, a person’s observational position determines what is observed; thus, “truth” varies with the observer’s position. In Newton’s world, truth was absolute (laws); but in Einstein’s world, truth did not exist as an absolute—except for light . . . maybe . . .

The discovery that the world is made of atoms was critical to science, and it had a profound impact on the intellectual world as well. Atoms, the building blocks of everything, are mostly nothing. Between the center of the atom (the nucleus) and the electrons flying around the nucleus is . . . nothing. If a nucleus of an atom was the size of a basketball and placed in downtown Los Angeles, the nearest electron would be located (if it could be located) somewhere around San Diego or Bakersfield, some 200 plus miles away. The point here is the distances on a quantum scale are actually huge, and the space in between contains zero. It would seem impossible for this to be a fact because how can nothing become a solid something? The answer is the strong and weak electromagnetic forces existing between the atoms. These strong and weak electromagnetic forces actually hold individual solids apart so solids “appear” solid. However, as the reader can easily ascertain, this is not the world of our human senses. Thus, science told the world that what you see, taste, or feel is not reality. Reality was far deeper and more mysterious than anyone could have dreamed.

Physicists understand another problem separates the theory of relativity and quantum theory. One (relativity) described the macro; the other (quantum) described the micro, and
they
do
not
agree
. How could it be that the tiny “universe” of atoms, electrons, and quanta acted and reacted in a very different way than the huge universe of planets, solar systems, and galaxies? Could the universes, large and small, be so different that the fundamental principles of one do
not
apply in the other? The answer in 1900 was
yes
, and the answer is the same today. So far, science agrees that the two “universes” exist and they do
not
operate by the same basic principles.

Worse yet, Freud probed the human mind and theorized the subconscious portion of the mind, unknown and uncontrolled by the conscience mind, actually controls actions and decisions at the conscience level. For illustration, people choose everything from clothes to mates based on signals from this subconscious area of the mind to the conscience area; however, these signals are unknown to the person making the decision. Thus, decisions are fundamentally irrational because the subconscious mind is not a rational thinking part of the mind; rather, it is an area of wild emotions and unconnected deep experiences normally suppressed below the conscience surface. Freud tried to reach this area of the mind through dream analysis (one method) and psychotherapy which caused the patient to reveal the meaning of symbols appearing in dreams. These symbols contained keys to conflicts in the mind patients must resolve to rid themselves of various mental illnesses caused by these conflicts. Thus, at a fundamental level, Freud proved humans were not rational (any historian could have told him that).

Another “science” came onto the scene before 1900, but it was gaining more steam by the turn of the century.
Darwin
wrote
On
the
Origin
of
Species
in 1859 putting forth the theory of evolution saying species found on the earth had long ago been simple one-celled creatures and slowly developed to the complex organisms of 1859 through a series of small steps. Which creatures take the next step was the product of evolution determining what type of organism best suited the environment. Those most fit survived to have more offspring which then became dominant and competed with others to see which ones would be most fit to advance again. In theory, each advance was to a more complex organism better able to fit into a niche in the environment.
[161]
The organism should not become too specialized, that is, fit for only one unique kind of environment, because a change in environment would destroy the species. Some generalization is good in that it increases the chance of survival if the environment changed.

One can see there is little room for a god in this theory. The natural forces of the earth drive everything, and as the environment of the earth changed so did the organisms dependent on that environment. Knowledgeable people in 1900 realized this theory applied to people as well as animals. After 1900, a secularized scientific world-view dominated the West, and evolution fit nicely into this view. In education, the secularized
naturalist
worldview became dominate under the guidance of men like Dewey.

The science of
geology
came of age at the same time the theory of evolution came into vogue. Lyle, an attorney, is the father of modern geology. He studied the landscapes very closely, deciding the processes at work on the environment in 1859 were the same forces at work in 500,000 BC or earlier. He stated,
“As
things
are
now,
they
have
always
been.”
This was the
uniformitarnism
theory that was directly at odds with the catastrophic theory of earth’s history which had been the accepted idea. The catastrophic theory held cataclysmic events formed the earth causing massive geologic changes over short periods of time.

For Darwin’s theory to be accurate the uniformitarnism theory had to win acceptance as the foundation for geologic theory. If the earth were formed by cataclysmic events the species would not have time to evolve between the obliterations. The numbers of species on earth is great, and to reach this kind of diversity took long spans of
uninterrupted
time
. Thus, the two theories of evolution and uniformitarnism managed to complete one another, bound together as a package. This fact is seldom part of an analysis of the theory of evolution.

Darwin’s theory challenged religious beliefs about the nature of man. If man was not created by God (or gods), then he was just an animal. The problem here was the lack of purpose and a lack of foundation for evaluating human behavior. Without God, where would morality come from? Who could then say what was right and wrong? Philosophy battled this problem since the ancient Greeks and never reached an agreed conclusion. Thus, science added to the stripping away of rationality from the world; and the world became a place without meaning, purpose, rationality, or god(s).

Art
and
Literature

Including
music,
philosophy,
economics,
and
more

In the era of 1900, the artistic world experienced the death of rationality. Realism turned up dead, cause and effect dead, humanity dead, purpose of life . . . dead. Most ordinary people overlooked this in 1900, but it became evident soon enough.

As usual, artists led the way in predicting this new “reality.” Painters moved beyond Impressionism to Modernism. In this new way of painting, reality was unimportant. Van Gogh painted his famous
Sunflowers
in 1888, and this was already a great departure from Realism. Monet’s
Water
Lilies
exhibited in 1916, and it is a stretch to call this Impressionism. Other paintings were coming, paintings of a dark and sordid world where shadow and form merged and made the subject hard to discern. In some paintings, clocks melted and landscapes became unrecognizable, or surrealistic, as we say today. Paintings contained no recognizable theme and often no recognizable center of attention. Most of the rules were gone. Cubism allowed the viewer to see the subject from many different perspectives; other paintings seemed formless, and without the title could not be recognized (
Nude
Descending
a
Staircase,
Marcel Duchamp, 1912), and in others (
The
Scream
, Edward Munch, 1893), the subject itself melts into a controlling title. In
The
Scream,
the subject is the scream even though a scream is a noise. The artist made the person screaming appear as noise as much as a human (barely recognizable as human).

Figure 44 Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, 1912

How artists can know the future before it arrives is an interesting issue; but in the era of 1900 the predictions of a dark and sinister future world were there for anyone to see.

In literature the same theme emerged. Nietzsche’s
Thus
Spake
Zarathustra
, 1883, and Marx’s
Das
Kapital
, 1867, predicted the coming of new worlds. Nietzsche foretold of a world without a god, a world ruled by the supermen of the epoch who were without mercy or rationality. In 1848 Karl Marx (1818 to 1883), in his
Communist
Manifesto
, wrote of a utopian world without government, ruled by workers who overthrew their capitalist masters and replaced them with workers (without a government) who gave and received as needed.