The Nature of Knowledge
What is the nature of knowledge? Can it be said that
knowledge is built on facts and that these facts are
variously illusory, transitory and subject to change
at the whim of self-interest, economic or political
imperatives?
As the great French writer Albert Camus wrote: “But
again and again there comes a time in history when
the man who dares to say that two and two makes
four is punished with death.”
The schoolteacher is well aware of this, and the
question is not one of knowing what punishment or
reward attends the making of this calculation; the
real question is that of knowing whether two and two
really do make four.
Knowledge, we are being cautioned, is a social
construct. The wise person knows this as does
the businessman, the politician and the lawyer.
The scientists, always at a disadvantage from this
point of view, must therefore be first and foremost
people of courage and conviction, theirs being the
role of the bellwether whose treatment signals the
degree to which a society is open to the task of self-
examination. Galileo would attest to this, having been
threatened by the Church with the death penalty if he
did not recant his statement that the Earth revolves
around the Sun.
How open is our society to an objective examination
of our impact upon the very things that enable
our continued survival as a species? Our society,
the product of the great intellectual movement we
refer to as ‘The Enlightenment’, is no less damned
by those who would hide and distort the evidence
supporting a wide range of uncomfortable truths
By David Ricketts
about the impact of our untrammelled consumption
of Earth’s resources.
Currently we are in the midst of the sixth great
extinction of life on Earth. Some points to reflect on:
• The number of animals on Earth has halved since
1970;
• The area of the Great Barrier Reef has shrunk by
50% in the past 30 years;
• The oceans contain vast ‘dead zones’ where
the oxygen levels are so low that most marine
organisms can’t survive.
• Rising global temperatures due to the Enhanced
Greenhouse Effect are driving a change in
Earth’s climate – and all the consequences that
this entails. Many scientists fear we have reached
the ‘tipping point’ after which it will become
unstoppable.
Thus it is the scientist we must start listening to,
the scientist of courage and conviction who, like
Galileo, knows that two and two does indeed make
four. How can we do this? One must eschew the so-
called journalists who interpret their role as one of
entertainment and the provision of opinions rather
than commitment to uncovering the truth. One must
make efforts to access and understand the science
behind the evidence. In a world awash with trivia
and the misinformation disseminated by special
interest groups, one must always be sceptical of
motives. Sooner rather than later we must recognise
that economic growth based on the exploitation of
finite resources, apart from being unsustainable, is
of far less importance than the preservation of the
foundations of life itself.
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