Show Me the Money

Old TV shows can seem quaint about things like money. What they regard as significant we might actually laugh at.

An episode I stumbled upon of Our Miss Brooks, a sitcom from the middle Fifties, was centered on the 'safeguarding' of forty cents. That's right, four whole dimes. On The Andy Griffith Show, a litterer was upset over a four dollar fine and vowed to extract revenge on Barney Fife for having issued the ticket which cost him so dearly. Vengeance was sworn over four bucks. It sounded downright absurd for a man to be mad over such a paltry amount.

Of course, I remember me Pops talking about making $100 a week in 1963 and feeling it was good money. And when I had my first $50 dollar bill at age 16 it felt like I had struck gold. I was in total awe of General Grant. I kept a guard on it as though I were Fort Knox. Still, I don't think twice about four dollars let alone 40 cents these days. And when you think about it, maybe that's a shame on me.

Science and Value

Science is fascinating, ian't it? And there are so many fields of endeavor within it that it isn't likely our appetite will ever be sated. One would think so, anyway.

After all the flap about the expanding universe which we raised the other day we now find ourselves enthralled with questions empirical. Today our subject is, we think, biochemistry. At the least, what we are considering are the notions of whether our physical makeup controls us.

Must we think what we think and if we must, how honestly responsible are we for our actions? There are those out there who believe, to paraphrase Mr. C. S. Lewis, that human thought is nothing more than cerebral biochemistry. If that's all it is, how can we argue for personal responsibility, indeed of any real ownership of our lives and ourselves?

Can we usefully speak of freedom and liberty if we cannot help who we are? Why bother with discussions of any sort if all we are is whatever nature drives us to be? What actually is the value of even such noble callings as scientific inquiry under such circumstance? Such a scientist after all must really only be thinking what he must think. If science were ever to prove that thought is only physical, wouldn't that include the value of science along with whatever morals or values we may deem to be true?

And that's our issue with so much of modern science. It attempts to argue that all is empirical when not everything is. Or, if it is, then everything is meaningless. For value is not empirical, and there is no value whatsoever to thinking what we cannot help but think and believing what we cannot help but believe.

In short, if science is correct and empiricism is king, then all human action is pointless. Even science itself.

Science Lacks Virtue

We overvalue science in our modern world. We truly do. Oh, this isn't to belittle the great engineering feats which science has made possible, nor the advances in medicine which make our lives longer and healthier, nor even things such as television or the Internet which offer the possibility of making our mental lives better, even when they merely entertain. All of that is well and good, so far as they go. The trouble lies in the attitude that science makes us better simply because it's science. We act as though science has value, or gives virtue.

Not necessarily, if at all, can science do that. It may offer the opportunity to be a better, more virtuous people. But it does only that, and we are speaking somewhat anthropormorphically in attributing that much to it really.

Can science define or defend the value of a human life? Can it teach us that stealing is wrong; indeed, can it define theft? Can it say anything about our responsibility towards the environment or, more importantly, one another?

Obviously not. To be sure, it may tell us that if we continue on such and such a road we might drive ourselves into extinction. But that's all it can do. Whether we ought to do such and such else so that we will not become extinct is a question of value. Science only tells us what will happen should we construct a building without the proper strengths, or perhaps even what may happen if we continue on a certain course with no variation. It does not, will not, and cannot tell us what we should do with the information it supplies.

People make those judgments, and they are not argued in the realm of science. They're argued in the realm of philosophy, the realm where we might actually be able, by conscious debate and a reasoned consideration of who we are rather than merely that we are, conclude what are and are not good things to do. Science provides facts; however useful they may be, they are ultimately very rote and, by themselves, without meaning. We provide value and virtue. We are above science.

Science by itself lacks virtue. Those who pray at its altar pray to a valueless void.