Science in the Service of Humanity

As part of an ongoing history project, I have been reading a great deal about general systems theory and about cybernetics. Much of this reading began with some of the major works of Ludvig von Bertalanffy (Problems of Life, General System Theory, Robots Men and Minds). It has also included some biographical works about von Bertalanffy, as well as of other scholars involved in systems thinking and cybernetics. I have also pulled from the shelves of my library some classic works by Norbert Weiner and Gregory Bateson and placed them on the front burner.

One of the striking characteristics of von Bertalanffy’s writing is his emphasis on human values. Von Bertalanffy spent his career reacting against mechanistic views in science, and proposing an organismic alternative. One of his great concerns was that the mechanistic view of nature and of man deemphasized humans as individuals, and viewed them instead as cogs in a great machine. From his perspective, this led to many of the dark social and political moments of the 20^th century. One Bertalanffy was particularly critical of Weiner’s cybernetics for exactly this reason; he viewed cybernetics as turning men into robots and leading the society into peril by advancing military technology. In contrast, von Bertalanffy was one of the founders (along with Kenneth Boulding, Anatol Rapaport, and Ralph Gerard) of the Society for General Systems Research. They planted the seed for this society in 1955 at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Science. SGSR’s initial slogan was “Science in service of humanity”.

In the context of this slogan, von Bertalanffy’s criticism of the Weiner’s mechanized cybernetics misses the mark. Weiner himself had deep concerns about cybernetics’ technological impact on society and expressed these concerns in many of his writings. Similar concerns are easily found in the writings of other cybernetic leaders such as Bateson and Margaret Mead; in general, the cybernetic pioneers were actively sympathetic with the notion of applying their scholarly ideas for the betterment of society.

What strikes me as I read the optimistic values and goals of these eminent researchers; as I see their deep concerns about the relationship between science and the good of mankind; as I reflect upon their explicit goal of improving humanity through their scientific ideas, is this: half a century later all of these concerns seem missing from much of modern science. Nowadays it seems that science is replaced these noble social concerns with goals of developing products or commodities, or with solving specific problems that have been identified by government agencies as requiring particular attention.

“Science in the service of humanity” strikes me as a particularly powerful notion, and on this first day of 2017 I resolve to explore its implementation in my own scholarly activities.