David Suzuki tends towards emphasising the destructive consequences of scientific discovery and the shortcomings of modern science. On the other hand, he is a world-esteemed geneticist with a string of degrees. I like the fact that he has managed to take a look over his shoulder at science, while still keeping his foot in the arena - a kind of self-regulation. I also like the way he emphasises that science can be much more than it is now, rather than simply ruling it as inadequate and missing the point.
David pointed out that scientific analysis tends to look at the world in fragmented pieces. take one aspect of nature, isolate it from everything else, control everything impinging on it and measure everything that happens. From here, add all the isolated snapshots of nature together and what do you get? A fractured mosaic rather than the big picture.
He wrote about the mosaic view of science in his book Inventing the Future (1990) which was full of ideas which reflected my own fledgling thoughts. I admired the way he questioned the infinity of scientific knowledge and recognised that science has a responsibility as well as an important role in the world - that scientific discoveries can have profound social consequences!
Suzuki's personal odyssey towards evaluating the role of science in our society had its beginning in childhood. During the second world war David Suzuki and his family were stripped of all rights of Canadian citizenship for sharing genes with 'the enemy' - despite being 2nd and 3rd generation Canadians! It was also in his childhood that he developed a real love of nature through father-son camping and fishing trips. Lots of fishing trips - the number of pictures of 'David with caught fish' in his autobiography Metamorphosis is amazing.
The college-age David Suzuki planned to take his love of science down the medical path. However, somewhere along the way to medical school, he was seduced by fruit flies and genetics and ended up in the lab. Genetics totally absorbed him and he loved pure research - the lab was his favourite place to be! It was as a grown-up geneticist, that he remembered his childhood experience of being judged because of his genes. He began to assess the impact of genetics on society and then gradually to consider the nature of scientific discovery and the limits of scientific knowledge.
Since then, David Suzuki has gone a step further towards developing a holistic approach to science - acknowledging that science has relegated some aspects of life to the margins of our values and experiences. Big on accountability and responsibility, he has also moved towards the integration of other sources of knowledge with science - from elders and indigenous populations. He is now foremost an environmentalist, and an educator, and has written many books as well as writing newspaper columns, doing radio shows and TV shows. Recently he set up the David Suzuki Foundation as a grass-roots education centre. However, for me his greatest impact has been in not only acknowledging the limits of science but in suggesting that science can also
No comments:
Post a Comment