Science and the Myth of Progress

The scientific and technological marvels of today's world are generally viewed as evidence of humanity's advancement and as liberation from various forms of ignorance and prejudice - in short, as proof of human progress. Yet many of our most thoughtful and well informed contemporaries are voicing second thoughts about this almost universally accepted notion. For some, it is the ecological, social and human crisis of our time that have led to this re-examination. For many scientists, however, the reason lies in the nature of the scientific discoveries themselves. Since the second half of the twentieth century, questions of how what we know or what constitutes knowledge have entered more and more into the realm of science. The essays in this book show why this convergence is taking place. More importantly, they go beyond the practical problems and beyond conjecture to the very root of the issue. The core distinction is between a quantifiable knowledge about the "how of existence" and the qualitative knowledge that perceives the "why of existence." These authors share a clear consensus that the root of this knowledge is to found in Traditional Wisdom.…