{The Great Divide*}[11th June 1988]

[Redbook5:148A-D][19880611:0000]{The Great Divide*}[11^th June 1988]

11/06/1988

Irrationality seems to be getting a bad press, at least in the New Scientist. Hardly an issue of the journal appears without someone in Review, Forum or Letters having a go at the primitive superstitions of the benighted masses. Quite right too: logic is the organising principle of the Universe with which God doesn't play dice, isn't it? Well, isn't it? Come on then, is it or isn't it? Well, then, at least it's the organising principle of Science—I mean, Scientists don't have inspirations and dreams and emotions about their work, do they? They do? Well, at least they don't pay any attention to them, do they? Do they?

It's a strange feature of this rather one-sided debate that those who attack irrationality seem to employ rather irrational methods of attack. It's apparent that correspondents get hot under the collar about the Reagans consulting astrologers— which, by contrast, chills my blood (These are metaphors, you understand, my dear Scientists). I suspect that theirs is the heat of frustration and rage; mine is the chill of fear. Their frustration manifests itself in key indicators: too many question-marks, indicating rhetorical questions to which the answers are considered self-evident (not to be confused with the question-mark ironic, see last para); loaded terms such as "craze", "fashion", "pseudo-", which seek to dispose of the matter without argument. There are problems when contradictory mental approaches try to find common ground for constructive debate: but in this case, it is essential that they should succeed. By attacking irrationalists irrationally, Scientists concede vital ground, presumably on the assumption that rationality and irrationality do not mix.

It's clear that many Scientists and their associates regard "anti-rationalists" (which seems to mean most Artists, Religionists and other non-Scientists) as at best superficial, at worst incredibly stupid: witness David Hardy's self-distancing comment (Forum, 9th June 1988) that "Science-fiction and fantasy art draw purely upon the imagination, but space artists take their work very seriously" (my emphasis). It may come as a surprise to many Scientists to discover that many non-Scientists regard them in exactly the same light: at best superficial, at worst incredibly stupid. Both attitudes are mistaken – tragically so.

*[Short essay written speculatively for New Scientist; see [Redbook5:160-161][19880615:1642f]{Mysticism and Science}[15^th June 1988]]

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