Owing to three errors.

— During the last centuries
science has been promoted,
partly because it was by means of science that

one hoped to understand God’s goodness and wisdom best-
this was the main motive of the great Englishmen (like Newton); partly
because one believed in the absolute utility of knowledge,
and especially in the most intimate association of morality, knowledge, and happiness

— this was the main motive of the great Frenchmen (like Voltaire); partly
because one thought that in science one possessed and loved something
unselfish, harmless, self-sufficient, and truly innocent,
in which man’s evil impulses had no part whatever
–the main motive of Spinoza who felt divine when attaining knowledge

in sum, owing to three errors.

–excerpt The Gay Science, Book 1, Section 37 by Friedrich Nietzsche

I’ve had more than one conversation with a friend, a scientist who presently works in his profession.  He is a devotee of the notion that the method of science is a proven entrée to truth.  If only education were focused upon demonstrating, upon coaching students in the rigor of excising logical fallacies, of removing the non-causal elements in order to reveal the causal sequence of “truth”….  Wouldn’t we have a remedy for the attraction which cult-like religion continues to hold, the notion that only Faith bestows moral sensibility?

Wouldn’t we derive knowledge unstained by avarice, or by an immature, single-minded mania that one’s voice be the only voice heard…  The knowledge achieved by science arrives uncontaminated, does it not?  Isn’t a pure pragmatism the only way forward to respecting one another, to mediating toward the margins the differences in points of view?   The questions are rhetorical…

Yet, and yet — since belief frames our habits and our practices, wouldn’t we be better off believing that which on balance is accurate?  Proposal:

Homo Sapiens are mammals with a primary motivation to survive.  Everything else is peripheral;  that is religion, art, entertainment, social class etc., are derivative, all subsist to buttress the survival of our species.

I propose that we start right here.

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A tune for today, Africa by Toto performed by the Angel City Chorale.

Africa

By Toto

I hear the drums echoing tonight
But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation
She’s coming in twelve-thirty flight
Her moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation

I stopped an old man along the way
Hoping to find some old forgotten words or ancient melodies
He turned to me as if to say
“Hurry, boy, it’s waiting there for you”

It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had

The wild dogs cry out in the night
As they grow restless longing for some solitary company
I know that I must do what’s right
Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti

I seek to cure what’s deep inside
Frightened of this thing that I’ve become

It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had

“Hurry, boy, she’s waiting there for you”

It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had

Lyrics by Jeff Porcaro, David Paich