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Robert Canright

Jurassic Park and the end of Progressivism

An important fact that we all need to understand is that the foundation of progressivism is dead.  Progressivism is a form of socialism espoused by President Woodrow Wilson and all the Democrats that have followed in his path.  The basis, the foundation, of this progressivism is the belief that by having political control and enough power, then paradise on earth can be attained by experts in the Administrative State wielding the power of science.  Progressives place enormous faith in science, but the foundation of this faith is gone.

We need to explain to the liberals and socialists that progressivism is dead and they need to abandon it.

In this short article I will quote Michael Crichton expounding on this point within his novel Jurassic Park.  It is a real treat to see such a profound idea laid out in a novel.  The following quote is from pages 350-351 of this book.  The scientist Malcolm speaking to the Jurassic Park owner, Hammond.

"But now," he continued, "science is the belief system that is hundreds of years old. And, like the medieval system before it, science is starting not to fit the world anymore.  Science has attained so much power that its practical limits begin to be apparent.  Largely through science, billions of us live in one small world, densely packed and intercommunicating.  But science cannot help us decide what to do with that world, or how to live.  Science can make a nuclear reactor, but it cannot tell us not to build it."
...
"At the same time, the great intellectual justification of science has vanished.  Ever since Newton and Descartes, science has explicitly offered us the vision of total control.  Science has claimed the power to eventually control everything, through its understanding of natural laws.  But in the twentieth century, that claim has been shattered beyond repair.  First, Heisenberg's uncertainty  principle set limits on what we could know about the subatomic world.  Oh well, we say.  None of us lives in the subatomic world.  It doesn't make any practical difference as we go through our lives.  Then Godel's theorem set similar limits to mathematics, the formal language of science.  Mathematicians used to think that their language had some special inherent trueness that derived from the laws of logic.  Now we know that what we call 'reason' is just an arbitrary game.  It's not special, in the way we thought it was."

"And now chaos theory proves that unpredictability is built into our daily lives.  It is as mundane as the rainstorm we cannot predict.  And so the grand vision of science, hundreds of years old -- the dream of total control -- has died in our century.  And with it, much of the justification, the rationale for science to do what it does.  And for us to listen to it.  Science has always said that it may not know everything now, but it will know eventually.  But now we see that isn't true.  It is an idle boast.  As foolish, and as misguided, as the child who jumps off a building because he believes he can fly."

"This is very extreme," Hammond said, shaking his head.

"We are witnessing the end of the Scientific era.  Science, like other outmoded systems, is destroying itself.  As it gains in power, it proves itself incapable of handling the power."

Here are the key points from this dialog.  These are direct quotes:  (1) Science has claimed the power to eventually control everything, through its understanding of natural laws.  (2) And now chaos theory proves that unpredictability is built into our daily lives. (3) And so the grand vision of science, hundreds of years old -- the dream of total control -- has died in our century.

Do you see that with the death of the dream of total control comes the death of progressivism?  This is huge revelation for our society, but we are not spreading the news like we should.

This is a point of hope!  We have hope that we can turn our liberal and democrat friends and neighbors away from the delusion of progressivism by explaining how it is intellectually bankrupt, that progressivism is a false dream.

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
ISBN 978-0-345-53898-7
Ballantine Books: New York,
copyright 1990