Science or faith? No, science AND Faith
To my mind, these are complementary: science is like building a bicycle, whereas faith is like riding it.
Another comparison, which a statistician might make, says that science applies when you have more observations than there are variables, and faith applies when you have no observations, or at least fewer observations than variables.
Let us start with the observations in the graph opposite: the X axis is income, and the Y axis displays money spent on betting on horses. It is very clear that the money spent betting on horses goes up with income... indeed we CANNOT REJECT THIS HYPOTHESIS... indeed the hypothesis that betting on horses is a toff’s game, à la David Cameron.
But hang on... it is clear that in formal terms there is a positive correlation, and does indeed suggest that if you have no income you might borrow money to finance this pursuit. But in the lower cluster there would appear to be a negative correlation. The less money you have, the more you will bet on the horses. In the middle-income group it is not totally clear – probably your spending will go down with income, but in the upper-income group, there is a clear positive correlation.
So much for two variables and 17 or so observations. But if we have only two observations, then we have a good old simultaneous equation scenario. If we take two at the bottom of income scale, we get the impression that if someone had no income, they are likely to run up serious gambling debts. Such selectiveness of observations may well ‘prove’ a well-intentioned point, but we are now in a region where faith in the representativeness of our selection is a little dangerous.
But what say we have only one observation: let us say my uncle... there he is. And I know roughly how much he spends on the horses, and I reckon - indeed I have every faith - that if he had more money he would spend more money on gambling.
So this maroon line goes through the origin: I have every faith in him not running up gambling debts if indeed the thought occurred to me. However I think it’s a load of rubbish that if he had more money he would feel more secure and actually spend less on gambling.
And finally, what say we don’t have any actual information... doesn’t stop me having an opinion! Simple! We see all those toffs on Channel Four going to the races. Clearly it’s a rich man’s pastime, so let us assume that the more money you have the more you will go to the races... and the more you go to the races, the more you will have a ‘wee [or not so wee] flutter’.
We have every faith that our superiors will keep up appearances. Hence the dark maroon line on the chart opposite. :]
Now I received a text from the good editor – and I have every faith in his judgment, suggesting that the maroon (on diagrams in previous articles) might be coming back. Well I have made a good start, with the ‘scientifically arrived at’ line shown in pink, and the ones involving an element of faith in maroon. Let us bring back that picture which analysed exploitation...
Here the pink represents technological power possibly scientific, blue its abuse, maroon culture – the inner maroon the culture of the exploiting groups and the outer square that of the exploited – and grey where the latter culture is undermined. So blue is degenerate technology, or perhaps the abuse of science, and grey ‘degenerate’ culture.
Now someone who is anti-religion would associate science with pink and faith with grey, while a devoutly religious person would associate faith with maroon and science with blue.
Here we have the maroons, slightly different, however there are no reds but lots of green. Note that as well as the outer green of the environment, we have three stages of green: the outer environment, the inner environment surrounding the maroon circle, which relates to things like the environment created by health and education services. This environment is determined or ‘tamed’ by sciences, technology and other skills. Or…. (wait for it)… Scientific Socialism.
And then there is another in-between environment, which we create through culture and perhaps faith, which is a necessary environment for sciences, technology and the other skills. This ‘semi-tamed’ environment is a bit like not dropping litter or other obstacles where people might be riding bicycles.
Another example would be the social environment in which some scientific articles get published and others don’t. I would know nothing about this, but I am sure the present editor has an excellent understanding.
As I said above, we have not captured socialism by any red colour; rather by the interaction of stages. The circle [maroon in colour but a little bit reddish] represents economic equality, and the oval a degree of redistribution.
In the first example of a diagrammatic analysis I have tried to show how in certain environments science and faith can each work for good or bad, and really there is a continuum. In the latter, we have gone a bit utopian, but a utopia in which scientific socialism has a key role. Faith is a necessary element here, even if it is not explicitly in socialism itself.
By Martin Prior
