Scientism and C.S. Lewis - "The Magician's Twin" by John G. West

Stephen Alexander Beach 

(2082 Words) 

The author, John G. West, in this chapter draws out an interesting comparison in C.S. Lewis' works between modern day science and traditional magic, or between the scientist and the magician, so to speak. Now while his may seem paradoxical -- what do a scientist and magician have in common?--, Lewis argues that these similarities are serious concerns for civilization as we know it. The three parallels that West outlines in his article are: "Science as Religion," "Science as Credulity," and "Science as Power". 1

Science as Religion

Popular today are mythical and fairy tale stories which dominate the contemporary mind, such as Harry Potter or Star Wars [not to mention Avengers], as these imitate the grand meaning which religion has traditionally provided to human life. So too in Lewis' day were the substitute grand narratives of cosmic Darwinian evolution, in which the universe creates itself, and brings itself to a conscious state in the human race. In this state man then realizes that he is God. 

"In a bleak and uncaring universe, the hero (life) magically appears by chance on an insignificant planet against astronomical odds. “Everything seems to be against the infant hero of our drama,” commented Lewis, “… just as everything seems against the youngest son or ill-used  stepdaughter at the opening of a fairy tale.” No matter, “life somehow wins through. With infinite suffering, against all but insuperable obstacles, it spreads, it breeds, it complicates itself, from the amoeba up to the plant, up to the reptile, up to the mammal.” In the words of H. G. Wells, “[a]ge by age through gulfs of time at which imagination reels, life has been growing from a mere stirring in the intertidal slime towards freedom, power and consciousness.” 2 

Now, of course, CS Lewis did not agree with this view, as there can be laws in nature only because there is a lawgiver to nature. Yet not everyone in his time saw this so clearly, and so he feared that many would turn Darwinism into a quasi-religion. This may seem hard to believe, but there are examples in American life in which science takes on a religious symbolism for people. 

West brings up a contemporary example of the "Reason Rally" held in Washington D.C. in 2012 where Richard Dawkins and Michael Shermer, two popular atheist figures, spoke, extolling science as a type of savior from religion. 3 There is also the "Darwin Day" celebration in February 12th each year. One of the co-founders, Amanda Chesworth, said that, "by doing science, scientists in her view are building 'secular cathedrals'". 

"Perhaps the most tireless proponents of cosmic evolutionism today are the husband-and-wife team of Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow, who bill themselves as “America’s Evolutionary Evangelists.”16 A former evangelical Christian turned Unitarian minister turned religious “naturalist,” Dowd is author of Thank God for Evolution!, the subtitle of which is “How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World.”17 Dowd calls his brand of cosmic evolutionism the “Great Story,” which is defined on the Great Story website as “humanity’s sacred narrative of an evolving Universe of emergent complexity and breathtaking creativity—a story that offers each of us the opportunity to find meaning and purpose in our lives and our time in history.”18 The Great Story comes along with its own rituals, parables, hymns, sacred sites, “evolutionary revival” meetings, Sunday School curricula, and even “cosmic rosaries,” necklaces of sacred beads to teach children the fundamental doctrines of cosmic evolutionism." 4

The basic conclusion for many Neo-Darwinists is that if there are great achievements and mysteries in this world it is always attributable to matter and energy. This is the foundations of Scientific Materialism which was so dominant in the 20th century and continues today. This view of things functions as an all encompassing worldview in its answers to life's big questions, the same questions which religions seek to answer. 5 

Science as Credulity

The second way in which science often functions as the "magician's twin" is through the type of credulity that it garners from the average man. Lewis noticed that if only an idea is given the title "scientific" that it would be accepted with an uncriticality that other things were not accepted with. 6 And yet it is also the educated class that can likewise have a uncritical mind towards the contemporary findings of science. "For Lewis, two leading examples of scientism-fueled gullibility of the intellectual classes during his own day were Freudianism and evolutionism." This science influenced the milieu of Lewis' day and in his work "The Pilgrim's Regress" he describes a prison in which the spirit of Freudianism makes people see others as simply bodies and vital functions, not as persons. 7 

"The dungeon is the hell of materialistic reductionism, the attempt to reduce every human trait to an irrational basis, all in the name of modern science. Lewis saw Freud as one of the trailblazers of the reductionist approach. By attempting to uncover the “real” causes of people’s religious and cultural beliefs in their subconscious and irrational urges and complexes, Freud eroded not only their humanity, but the authority of rational thought itself." 

Lewis pointed out that to reduce everything to psychological function was itself to reduce Freudianism to a psychological function, undermining science itself. Yet, again, not everyone saw through these contradictions as Lewis did. Likewise, Lewis objected to the view of common descent in evolution that was blind and undirected in which matter forms itself into more and more complex forms. 8 Indeed if reason itself is a product of the irrational, then why should one trust their reason at all or when they are reasoning about evolution? "Although science is supposed to be based on logic, evidence, and critical inquiry, Lewis understood that it could be easily misused to promote uncritical dogmatism, and he lived during an era in which this kind of  misuse of science was rampant. Consider the burgeoning “science” of eugenics, the effort to breed better human beings by applying Darwinian principles of selection through imprisonment, forced sterilization, immigration restrictions, and other methods." 9 

This enthusiasm for eugenics was present in America as well as Germany in the first half of the 20th century. West then lists many other cutting edge scientific theories of the time which turned out completely bunk: Missing Link forgeries, brain lobotomies, and Kinseyian sexual theories. 10 But what does this do to a society and its general sense of truth in authority? Well, given that as scientific progress is made in society the more subjects require experts to understand the given nature of the field, and so the average person is going to have to rely more and more on the testimony of expert scientists. And so the average person cannot verify these truths for themselves, but must, indeed, appeal to authority. This being the case, the scientist has power, like the magician, to speak with an authority which the masses cannot question. 11

Science As Power

The third similarity that West connects between the scientist and the magician is that of control. This is not just a quest for knowledge, but a quest to control reality and bring it under human power. The difference, though, being that science actually provides that power over the world. The question becomes, though, how far should this power extend. West includes an interesting quote from "... evolutionary biologists J. B. S. Haldane and Julian Huxley during C. S. Lewis’s own day. Haldane viewed science as “man’s gradual conquest, first of space and time, then of matter as such, then of his own body and those of other living beings, and finally the subjugation of the dark and evil elements in his own soul,”52 and he urged his fellow scientists to no longer be “passively involved in the torrent of contemporary history, but actively engaged in changing society and shaping the world’s future.” 

While Lewis is not against science, the concern is a lack of moral guidance, a reductionistic view of reality which treats everything as matter in motion to be tamed and controlled by man. 12 This is because at the end of the process man reduces himself to matter to be controlled, stripped of his mystery. "Lewis worried that scientism’s reductionist view of the human person would open the door wide to the scientific manipulation of human beings. “[I]f man chooses to treat himself as raw material,” he wrote, “raw material he will be: not raw material to be manipulated, as he fondly imagined, by himself, but by mere appetite, that is, mere Nature, in the person of his dehumanized Conditioners.”

Why would this be the case that man would turn on himself? Well, the story of Scientism is an all encompassing one, as was mentioned above, and thus the fundamental truths of the natural law or Theistic worldview are themselves undone for the blind forces of evolution. "Thus, any restrictions on the application of science to human affairs ultimately would be left to the personal whims of the elites." This downfall can infect even the most egalitarian societies in the West, not just the Nazis or Communists. 13 

This is exemplified in Lewis' work That Hideous Strength where England is turned into a scientific utopia. "The Institute’s all-encompassing agenda reads like a wish list drawn up by the era’s leading scientific utopians: “sterilization of the unfit, liquidation of backward races (we don’t want any dead weights), selective breeding,” and “real education,” which means “biochemical conditioning… and direct manipulation of the brain.” 14 Guided only by science, many of the common sense truths, beauties, and good things of life are cast aside as they do not explicitly fit in the narrow views of experts. 15 And, yet, while during the horrors of the World Wars enthusiasm waned for such utopias, West points out it wasn't long before such desires sprung up again in the later 20th century. Lewis called these "technocracy" or "scientocracy". In such a government, the scientific experts become the politicians, or control the politicians, in the implementing of law and public policy. 

"Lewis’s most eloquent post-war statement on the subject came in the article “Willing Slaves of the Welfare State,” published in The Observer in 1958. In that essay, Lewis worried that we were seeing the rise of a “new oligarchy [that] must more and more base its claim to plan us on its claim to knowledge… This means they must increasingly rely on the advice of scientists, till in the end the  politicians proper become merely the scientists’ puppets.” Lewis believed that the world’s desperate ills of “hunger, sickness, and the dread of war” would make people all too willing to accept an “omnicompetent global technocracy,” even if it meant surrendering their freedoms." 16 Government and political science deals not just with technical improvement, but with moral and philosophical questions that lay outside the purview of the physical sciences. And so to oppose certain forms of science or certain experiments does not make one anti-science, but means that one is operating with a moral framework. 17

Altogether scary are those movements in science which seek to operate without any moral compass, such as the "Transhumanist" or "Repro-genetics" movements which West talks about. 18 West then offers more contemporary examples of scientific experts calling for radical changes to society because of climate change, "over-population", obesity, and birth control." 19

A Regenerate Science?

Can science be brought back from Scientism? Clearly this is a fundamental concern of Lewis', and should be of everyone's today. The key is that for Scientism to rule in a democracy, the average person must go along with the expert scientists. And so the solution is to "...ask questions, challenge assumptions, and defend a broader view of rationality than that permitted by scientific materialism" 20 Lewis, himself, called for a "regenerate science" which did not study the world solely in reductionistic terms, but was open to higher realities as well. 21 The possibility of this will remain to be seen. 

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1 - West, John. "The Magician’s Twin". from The Magician’s Twin: C. S. Lewis on Science, Scientism, and Society. Ed. by John West. Seattle: Discovery Institute Press. 2012. 19

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