The Science Myth

A friend of mine recently quoted another friend as saying, “If it can’t be explained by science, it ain’t real.” I don’t want to play the telephone game too much, and I didn’t hear the quote myself, but let’s go with this one because lots of people think this way. So I think we can learn something here about being open-minded. In fact, that might be a post by itself. Let me jot that down… Good. Also, there’s lots of this kind of thinking that’s just built into society. That’s one reason why change can be soooooo slooooowwww. I’m trying to change the field of psychology and counseling, for instance, to make it more effective. Good luck with that, bro! At least I know to just have fun and not attach my peace to it. And when I forget this, which can be often, my body definitely lets me know…

Before we begin, let me say that I LOVE science. I always have. I just see it for what it really is more than I used to. Here’s the deal – science has always been a major work in progress. If you really think about it, at no time in history has science really known that much. There’s always been a lot that it didn’t know, and there’s always been a lot that was just plain wrong. That was their best at the time, and that’s fine. So here’s the big question, and really let this one sink in. Why would this be different now?

Science used to think the earth was flat. Ouch. And science is still trying to figure out some of the most fundamental implications of the quantum physicists, who discovered that everything is connected. Literally. Right now. Including you. And that discovery was almost one hundred years ago! Has it even made it into our classrooms yet, except for advanced physics courses? Nope. Almost a century later, we’re still teaching kids as if the universe were made up of a bunch of separate objects. And we’ve known this whole time that that’s not even close to being an accurate view of reality. Big ouch! (Note: this has been common knowledge to many people like Native Americans for thousands of years. Basic. Common. Knowledge. For thousands of years. Their kindergarteners knew we are all One. Ouch).

Let’s face it, mainstream science really doesn’t have that much of a clue what we are and what’s going on in the big picture. And again, that’s fine. I wrote recently that if a totally blind person dies in the hospital for a few minutes and is revived with our awesome medical equipment, and then she describes the scene in the hospital in incredible visual detail, that means we are not even these bodies we think we are (yes, this has happened, and it’s really good news!). But the view of mainstream science is that we totally are. Ouch. Gee, I wonder why the world is a total mess? For starters, we have some serious updating to do with how we see things! And the first step is to say that despite our AMAZING accomplishments, and they really do blow me away, we really don’t know that much. And that’s totally freaking okay!

Here’s another way to look at it. Do you really think that if humans are still around in the future, say in 200 years, in the year 2215, they’re going to look back at us in 2015 and say we were not pre-historic? Ha! Not a chance. Not a chance. Those people will think we were cavemen. Just look at how big the first mobile phones were, and that was just in the early 1980’s! It was like carrying around a shoe box. We should all have a big, hearty laugh at the thought that science really knows what’s going on now. I promise you, so much of the current body of knowledge of science will be known in the future to have been totally wrong. And another huge chunk will be stuff that hasn’t been discovered yet. You don’t think there will be a less clunky way to treat cancer than radiation and chemotherapy? And not better versions of those things, but totally different ways of going about it. Of course, by then people will eat better and have less chemicals in their lives so that cancer might be a thing of the past anyway. But if it’s still around, I’m sure the treatment will be totally different. We’re talking about 200 years from now. (Spoiler Alert: I’ll write a future post about this, but we might know of a much better way now. Read the amazing book The Field by Lynne McTaggart. But get ready to update your worldview…).

Since science moves so slowly and has always been a major work in progress, it’s one of the last things I’d want as my judge of truth. So the phrase, “If science can’t explain it, then it ain’t real” is just not a good one to hang your hat on. It’s like hanging your hat on 1+1=3. I used to be a firm believer in this idea, too, and then for some reason I took a deeper look. And then I learned that we all have this “truth meter” inside of us that’s built in, and the more we pay attention to it the more accurate we get. It just takes practice, and trust me – I’m practicing all the time! I’m a major work in progress…

When we get used to the fact that in the mainstream, we really don’t know that much, the whole thing becomes pretty comfortable. Much easier. We can simply be open. There can be fear there at first, though. But why have the burden of needing to know? Life is much easier when I just drop that. Then I can focus on my world and thriving as much peace as possible. And the funny thing is that when I do that, answers to the bigger questions tend to start coming to me instead of the other way around. I don’t have to seek them out anymore. And since I’m living at peace more and more anyway, the whole thing doesn’t even matter that much.

So that’s my take on science being this absolute judge of truth. It’s really not. That’s the goal of science, I know. And that’s a great goal. And I love science – I always have. But let’s face – science just isn’t there yet with all that it knows. And that’s okay.