Carroll Quigley - The Evolution of Civilizations

The nature of experimentation with controls must be clearly understood, because it has frequently been distorted from ignorance or malice. A number of years ago a book called Science Is a Sacred Cow made a malicious attack on science. In this work the method of experimental science was explained somewhat like this: on Monday I drink whiskey and water and get drunk; on Tuesday I drink gin and water and get drunk; on Wednesday I drink vodka and water and get drunk; on Thursday I think about this and decide that water makes me drunk, since this is the only common action I did every day. This perversion of scientific method is the exact opposite of a scientific experiment. In this performance we assumed that all conditions were different except one, and attributed cause to the one condition that was the same. In scientific method we establish all conditions the same except one, and attribute causation to the one factor that is different. In the perversion of scientific method, we made an assumption that was not proved and probably could not be proved—that all conditions, except drinking water, were different—and then we tried to attribute causation to the one common factor. But there never could be only one factor the same, since, as an experimental animal, I was breathing air each day and doing a number of other common actions, including drinking alcohol.

There would, perhaps, be no reason to pay attention to this perversion of science if it were an isolated case. But it is not an isolated case. Indeed, the book in question, Science Is a Sacred Cow, attracted undeserved attention and was publicized in America's most widely read picture magazine as a worthy book and a salutary effort to readjust the balance of America's idolatry of science. The magazine article in question reprinted extracts from the book, including the section on experimental method, and seriously presented to millions of readers the experimental proof that water is an intoxicant as an example of scientific method.

Scientific method as we have presented it, consisting of observation, making hypotheses, and testing, is as applicable to the social sciences as it is to the natural sciences. To be sure, certain variations in applying it to the social sciences are necessary. But this is equally true of various parts of the natural sciences. These variations are most needed in testing hypotheses. Even in the natural sciences we frequently cannot use two of the three kinds of testing: we cannot use forecasting in the study of earthquakes or geology in general; we cannot use controlled experiments in these fields or in astronomy. But these deficiencies do not prevent us from regarding geology or astronomy, seismology or meteorology as sciences. Nor should similar deficiencies, especially difficulty in forecasting and the impossibility of controlled experimentation, prevent us from applying the scientific method to the social sciences.

The applicability of scientific method to the study of society has also been questioned on the ground that theories of the social sciences are too changeable. We are told that every generation must rewrite the history of the past or even that every individual must form his own picture of history. This may be true to some extent, but it is almost equally true of the natural sciences. Science is a method, not a body of knowledge or a picture of the world. The method remains largely unchanged, except for refinements, generation after generation, but the body of scientific knowledge resulting from the use of this method or the world picture it provides is changing from month to month and almost from day to day. The scientific picture of the universe today is quite different from that of even so recent a man as Einstein, and immensely different from those of Pasteur and Newton. And even at a given moment the body of knowledge possessed by any single scientist or the world picture he has made from that knowledge is quite different from that possessed by other scientists. Yet such persons are all worthy to be called scientists if they use scientific method. The same is true in the social sciences.

The one major difference between the natural sciences and the social sciences is the assumption, made in the former, that human thoughts cannot influence what happens. This is an assumption, justified by the rule of simplicity, although few persons recognize that it is. There is a considerable body of evidence that human thoughts can influence the physical world, but this evidence, segregated into such fields as parapsychology or the psychic world, is not acceptable to the natural sciences. As a result, phenomena such as poltergeist manifestations (largely because they cannot be repeated on request) go unexplained and are generally ignored by the natural sciences. The latter continue to assume that physical processes are immune to spiritual influences.

In the social sciences, on the other hand, it is perfectly clear that human thoughts can influence what happens; and, accordingly, the social scientist must face the more complicated situation created by this admission. Thus we assume that a rock, dropped from a high window, will fall even if everyone in the world expected it to rise or wanted it to rise. On the other hand, we are quite prepared to see the price of General Motors common stock rise if any large group of people expects it to rise. In a somewhat similar fashion, expectation of a war or desire for a war will make war more likely.

This difference between the social sciences and the natural sciences makes it possible to draw up fairly definite conditions distinguishing between the two: the natural sciences are concerned with phenomena where we do not expect subjective factors to influence what happens, while the social sciences are concerned with phenomena where subjective factors may affect the outcome.

In this book we are concerned with the social sciences thus defined, and particularly with the effort to apply a scientific method of observation, formulation of hypotheses, and testing to such phenomena. The enormous size of this field has made it advisable to curtail our attention to the process of social change, especially in civilizations.

2. Man and Culture

At certain seasons of the year great turtles come in from the sea to deposit their eggs on tropical beaches. They return to the sea immediately, leaving their eggs to hatch in due time from the heat of the sun. Eventually the little turtles emerge from their shells, push up through the warm sand, and head for the sea. There, guided by a sure instinct and without any need for instruction or learning, they take care of themselves, seeking food where it may be found and avoiding the dangers which are everywhere. Enough survive to maturity to maintain this species of turtle in existence.

The ability of this species of turtle to survive depends upon two factors: (1) so many eggs are hatched each year that, even with heavy losses of the young, a sufficient number reach maturity; (2) these turtles are able to grow up without learning or instruction because their nervous systems are connected up and functioning as soon as they emerge from their shells. The newly hatched turtle is not so much an immature turtle as a small turtle. With the exception of his reproductive instincts, a newly hatched turtle is as fully equipped with a functioning muscular and nervous system as is an adult turtle.

Living things that can care for themselves in this way and for this reason are not unfamiliar. Insects do so and so too do such animals as chicks and ducklings. But man is constructed on an entirely different plan. When a baby is born, it is quite incapable of taking care of itself, and remains relatively helpless for years. Indeed, it would seem that twenty or more years are necessary before a human being reaches maturity.

The helpless condition of the newborn human arises from the fact that his neurological and muscular systems are largely undeveloped and uncoordinated. His nervous system in particular is like the telephone system of a great city in which almost none of the connections from phone to phone or from phone to switchboard are closed. Of course, this comparison is by no means perfect, for the human nervous system is much more complicated, much more adaptable, and much faster than any telephone system. The human brain alone, as a kind of central switchboard, has millions of neural connections. Other millions are distributed throughout the body. The way in which these are connected up, or even the fact that they come to be connected up at all, depends on what happens to the child, how he is trained, and how he grows. The things he is capable of becoming originally we can speak of as his potentialities; the things he does become, as the result of experience and training, we can speak of as actualities. The sum of his potentialities we call human nature, while the sum total of his actualities we call human personality. It is quite clear that human nature (potential qualities) is very much wider than human personality (actually developed qualities). Indeed, we might assume that everyone, at birth (or even at conception) has the potentiality for being aggressive or submissive, selfish or generous, cowardly or brave, masculine or feminine, pugnacious or peaceful, violent or gentle, and so forth, and that which of these potential qualities becomes actual (or to what degree it does so) depends, very largely, on the way in which each person is trained or on the experiences he encounters as he grows up. The fact that there are societies or tribes in which almost everyone is aggressive (like the Apaches) and that there are other closely related tribes in which almost everyone is submissive (like the Zufii), and the fact that infants, taken from one such tribe and reared in the other, grow up to have in full measure the typical characteristics of their adopted tribe would seem to indicate both that all such people are potentially about the same at conception and that their personalities are largely a consequence of the way in which they are reared. If this is so, it is clear that the way in which people are brought up is very important. This is, of course, evident from the consideration already mentioned; namely, that humans are helpless at birth and must be cared for and trained during a period of many years. The way in which they are cared for and trained depends very largely on the personalities of the people whom they encounter as they are growing up, but these personalities again depend on the way in which these adults were reared. Thus there appear in any society certain patterns of action, of belief, and of thought that are passed on from generation to generation, always slightly different both from generation to generation and from person to person in any single generation, but possessing a recognizable pattern. This pattern depends not only on the way people are trained to act, to feel, and to think but also on the more concrete manifestations of their social environment, such as the kind of clothes they wear, the kind of shelters in which they live, the kind of tools they have for making a living, the kind of food they eat and how they eat it, the kind of toys they have to amuse themselves, as well as the kind of weapons they have to defend themselves. All of these things, patterns of action, feeling, and thought, as well as concrete objects used in these activities, are known in the social sciences as culture. This culture forms the environment in which a child grows up as the natural environment surrounds the baby turtle as it grows up in the sea. Man is surrounded by natural environment, to be sure; but it is much more remote from him than from the turtle, for, in man's case, culture intervenes as a kind of insulation between him and his natural environment. In fact, the surrounding environment of culture penetrates both into him as a person and into his natural environment, changing both. His neurological reactions in behavior, in feeling, and in thought are largely determined by his cultural environment, and at the same time this cultural environment modifies his natural environment by such activities as heating his home, cooking his food, cutting down forests, draining swamps, killing off animals, and generally modifying the face of the earth.