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pic_11.jpg (16747 bytes)In this light, science seems to have intruded onto the natural world. Our perception is that science and nature are separate entities, in spite of the fact that science is the study of nature and has always existed alongside it. Science is essentially one with nature, but these days most people fell that what we call science is not natural. Products of technology are often called ‘artificial’: we have ‘artificial lungs’, ‘artificial kidneys’ and so on. Science seems to be an intruder on nature.

This ‘manipulation of nature’ implies that the world of nature may in due course become a world of science. When science has completely invaded the world of nature, we may be left with only a scientific, or ‘artificial’, world. Human beings are natural beings, living in a natural world, but in the future we may find ourselves living in an artificial world. If we want human beings to live harmoniously with this artificial world, it may be necessary to adapt the human body, becoming artificial people living in an artificial world. At the present time this isn’t the case, we are not compatible with our environment. When we are out of touch with nature, we are bound to experience problems.

In this light, scientific progress does not seem to have been very harmonious. Science, in its attempts to ‘improve on’ the human environment, seems to have turned it into a scientific world. Many new and exciting inventions have been made but science has not been able to adjust people’s lives to meet them. The progress of science has transformed the external physical environment into a scientific, or artificial, world.

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For human beings, possessed of both body and mind, that part which should correspond to the external physical world is the body. But what we find instead is that the mind has adapted. Science has transformed people’s minds into artificial minds: minds which esteem science and aspire to artificial things, minds that are alienated from nature. There is conflict here, both internally and externally. Internally, the mind and the body are at odds with each other, while externally, this biological, physical body is at odds with the scientific world. While still a purely natural organism, which needs pure air, pure water and pure food, the body is experiencing problems with these very things. The air, water and food are not pure, they have been altered by science.

At this juncture it may be necessary for humanity to decide on a course to take, whether for a natural humanity living in a natural world, or whether to attempt to make a ‘scientific human’ for the scientific world.

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