(This is post 2 in a series from the new book, “The Science of Spirituality”. The term “silo mentality” usually refers to a communication breakdown between departments within a single organization when members of different teams fail to share information with each other. I’ll be using the term slightly differently by taking it beyond the confines of a single organization and applying it to the existence of belief and self-interest within communities. )
Silos exist in any area of industry, expertise, faith or values based conviction. Inhabitants of silos have a core set of beliefs in common, but there is also a fringe where disagreement occurs. Silos are formed and shaped by aspects of the human condition and while their adherents may see them in rational black and white terms, perspectives are usually fuzzily constructed at the intersection of dogma, choice, personality type and experience. Silos also exist in scientific communities. Although science is commonly misunderstood as a library of facts there are actually no facts in science.
The true scientific mind is always open to a better explanation for any observed phenomenon, and, in such a mind, each so-called “fact” is always a candidate for revision. It is in the area of re-evaluation that conjecture, opinion, faith and taboo exist. Far from being a codified system of objective fact, as it is often presented, science is a perspective on reality that works well enough to accomplish some amazing feats. Science can put a satellite in orbit and land the first stage of the rocket on a barge in the Atlantic. It can construct towers thousands of feet high with reasonable faith in their ability to withstand winds, earthquakes and impacts.
Other areas of research, however, are either far more complex or not as mature as those of rocket science and construction engineering. The arena of healthcare, for example, is vast, and scientific policy is constantly being re-evaluated. We were told that fat was bad for us so the entire food industry moved away from fats, often substituting sugar for flavor and texture. More recent studies indicate that naturally produced fats are good for the body and only hydrogenated fats cause health issues by raising bad cholesterol and lowering good cholesterol. At the same time, other recent studies have shown that sugar, once viewed as a healthy alternative to fats, is in fact a poison that contributes to breast cancer, obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. As kids we were told to avoid sun exposure, but a recent Swedish multi-decade study has shown that sun avoidance is as destructive to the body as smoking. The negative effects of sun avoidance on cardiovascular health were so profound as to more than outweigh the skin cancer risks.
What to do with this information? Do we ignore the latest scientific findings and leave things as they are while awaiting more comprehensive research? The ethical decision would seem to be to act on the best knowledge available. But this often comes at a high cost. Legislating changes across an entire industry comes at a premium and much energy is required to build momentum. In the sugar context, many stakeholders currently depend on government subsidies for corn production as corn is a primary source of sugar in the USA. The prospect of losing these subsidies will predispose the industry to resist any change in policy. Additionally, most of the corn used in sugar production is genetically engineered by Monsanto, a company with massive lobbying clout and friends in high places. Factors like these give rigidity to silos.
Probably the most notable example of industrial resistance to the findings of science concerns global warming. It’s true that 95% of climate scientists believe climate change is real and that human activity is the cause (a perspective that I happen to share), but it is a belief based on the latest research and not a fact. It is possible that further research will show this conclusion to be false. Do we act in faith and, at fantastic cost, attempt to eliminate carbon dioxide and methane emissions from all industries, only to find that climate change was not due to human activity, or do we risk the future survival of our society by taking no action? The people who stand to lose big to climate legislation are pre-disposed towards climate denial and become members of the climate denial silo. Do they take this position based on a rational analysis of the data or on a perceived risk to their efforts, expertise and investments? As Upton Sinclair wrote “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”.
How are the walls of a science-based silo constructed? Let’s take an example from the late 19th century. It was proposed that as waves on water require the existence of water as a substrate, and sound waves in air need gasses for their propagation, there must be an analogous substrate through which light waves are propagated. Scientists at the time called this the Liminiferous Ether. Another concept, the Ether Wind, was proposed through which the earth must travel on its journey around the sun. If that were the case, it seemed logical that, in the same way as a transatlantic flight takes longer to travel from east to west as it fights the winds of the jet stream, so light would travel slower if it were moving in the opposite direction to the Ether Wind. It was also suggested that as the earth orbits the sun at a speed of approximately 30KM per second, light would travel faster if the earth was moving into the Ether Wind and slower if it was moving away. Between the 1880’s and the 1920’s several experiments were devised to test this hypothesis, but all of them determined that the speed of light (in a particular medium) is constant regardless of the motion of the earth. As the speed of light was assumed to be invariant by Einstein in the formulation of his General Theory of Relativity, and as that theory has weathered the test of time for the past century, the concept of the Ether was dropped.
It was not just dropped however, it also became a taboo. During the genesis of Einstein’s General Theory, proponents of the Ether theory became devil’s advocate to Einstein’s relativistic ideas. Much passion and energy were expended in these discussions, but relativity emerged as the winner. Any further discussion on the subject, even from new perspectives, could be construed as money bet on a horse that had already lost the race. It could also be viewed as an attempt to reassess who actually won. It would be a challenge to those who bet on, or continue to support, the winning horse and would threaten their winnings, ultimately their own sense of expertise and intelligence (self-concept).
Science should be objective, but as its very existence depends on the activities of human minds there is always a subjective component. As I mentioned earlier, Silos have their fringe members – we could broadly categorize these as people who care more about the truth than being right. Because taboos prevent public discussion and analysis they actually hinder the search for truth. Being a seeker I decided to test the boundaries of the Ether silo by asking a question on the web site Quora. Robert B. Laughlin, Nobel Laureate in Physics, endowed chair in physics, Stanford University had this to say about the nature of the vacuum of space:
“[The Ether] rather nicely captures the way most physicists actually think about the vacuum… Relativity actually says nothing about the existence or nonexistence of matter pervading the universe, only that any such matter must have relativistic symmetry. [..] It turns out that such matter exists. About the time relativity was becoming accepted, studies of radioactivity began showing that the empty vacuum of space had spectroscopic structure similar to that of ordinary quantum solids and fluids. Subsequent studies with large particle accelerators have now led us to understand that space is more like a piece of window glass than ideal Newtonian emptiness. It is filled with ‘stuff’ that is normally transparent but can be made visible by hitting it sufficiently hard to knock out a part. The modern concept of the vacuum of space, confirmed every day by experiment, is a relativistic ether. But we do not call it this because it is taboo.”
The ether he describes here is also known as quantum foam, dark energy and zero-point energy. This is composed of masses of sub-atomic particles that constantly come into existence and then disappear again. It made sense to me that this could be the substrate through which light propagates, so I directed this question to the general scientific community:
“Is light propagated by the collective oscillation of quantum foam particles?”
I received four answers to this question. A Master of Science student conducting a double major in Physics and Literature at Harvard University said “Yes, that is accurate”. A certain D. Smith, with no noted field of expertise, but who has answered over 3000 questions, mostly in the field of physics, said “No.” The third answer, from a Bachelor of Physics post graduate was “Maybe, but it’s unlikely”. Finally, a Professor Emeritus at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of British Columbia answered, “To the best of my understanding, the ‘quantum foam’ does not consist of particles.”
In the absence of any further discussion I cannot claim to know the individual positions of these writers on the subject, but these responses do beg the question – why do four people from the same field of expertise have such diverging views on the subject? Do the course materials at different universities contain different information? I don’t believe that’s the case. What we’re seeing is the scientific method in action using a form of peer-review. One thing to note is that the first answer (Yes, that is accurate) received so many down-votes that it was hidden from public view. What we can assert from these responses, however, is that the person who answered “Yes, that is accurate” likely belongs to the Ether theory silo, and the one who answered “No” probably does not.
To be continued…