by Hudson Ross

Created on: November 13, 2008   Last Updated: December 23, 2008

I have confidence that those with a sense of objectivity will respond favorably to the piece that I have written below. Let me begin by explaining what the key terms in the title mean to me:

"Science", as I understand it, means the systematic, unbiased study of natural or social phenomena. These phenomena may have been previously explained by theorems, attempted to be explained by hypotheses, or undergoing initial investigations due to their relative newness;

"Nature" is taken to mean the inherent behavioral traits of an entity, be it a person, organization, or system;

"Answers" means solutions to problems or pressing questions;

"Obsolesce" means to render someone or something useless or antiquated.

Based on these definitions, I have to conclude that the answer is "no".

The studies of natural and social phenomena are necessities for the advancement of society as well as the many subsystems that society depends on. The banking system, the medical system, as well as many other organizations relied upon by society that can be called to mind have all benefited from advances in science. Science has benefited mankind enormously when it has not been perverted by the immoral parts of the human psyche. We are quite aware of what happens when humans abuse the usefulness of devices such as explosives and firearms in mining and hunting, only to pervert them and use them as a means of causing destruction and murder.

Though we now live in an arguably more civilized age, science has also been perverted in more subtle ways. How so? For the purposes of brevity, I will discuss two important ways:

1. Science is being driven more and more by the forces of profit, and less and less by the forces of progress.

2. Agents of science (scientists, engineers etc.) have largely abandoned tackling the more basic problems that were initially posed to science and philosophy (the purpose of life, exactly how life came to be etc.), not because the demystification of these is more difficult, but rather because the evidence uncovered when attempting to elucidate answers does not agree with their own world view or that of their superiors and peers.

Firstly, let us consider profit being one of the driving forces behind science.

Please do not misinterpret the author of this article; profit is a magnificent notion: it is one of many indicators of the usefulness of a discovery and often provides incentive for the discovery to be made in a timely manner. Nowadays, it is too common for those supplying the capital

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