The sounds that emanate from a mammal's throat
can be used to communicate and to arouse. The monkey's cry
both informs its neighbors of danger and arouses them to
action. We too, use sounds (words) to convey our knowledge
and opinion to others, and we often use words to arouse the
emotions of our fellow humans.
We can tell ourselves the most wondrous and
plausible things with words. We can inspire our fellows to
fill their lives with a sense of purpose. We can encourage
people to perform great feats. With words we can tell
enthralling stories that enchant and we can devise analogies
and metaphors to help explain our personal epiphanies.
Unfortunately, words can also kill. The voodoo doctor
can turn the tribe against one of their own; whispered
stories can accuse a too-attractive girl of witchcraft;
millions can be slaughtered if emotionally charged words can
bear witness of evil and danger from the targeted race or
sect. Look at Kosovo.
Words are powerful tools that we humans use for
inter-human purposes --and that is the operative word here:
inter-human. Words do not constitute evidence. Words cannot
be used to directly explore the world about us. A. Fleming
did not write a sonnet to save people from staph and other
such diseases-- he simply observed phenomena in the real
world, noting an accidental incongruity. So also Pasteur,
Faraday and others. Language, our neuro-scientists are now telling us,
comes in afterward, to rationalize our findings so that we
can understand, accept and communicate them to others.
Of course, it made sense to our ancestors-- lacking
the many thousand years of accumulated knowledge we have
since gained -- to try to extrapolate their power with
words to the often mysterious world around them. They tried
to persuade the world to give them a break; they tried to
intercede in planetary movement, tried to dispel plagues,
droughts, etc. with the mighty power of words. Whenever that failed they
invented an intermediary to
negotiate with the world about them. Enter Jesus,
Moses, Mohammed and a host of others.
But the universe continues to yawn, unable or
unwilling to listen.
Still, many even today try to affect the outcome of
matters beyond our control by throwing words with great
gusto at the disinterested universe. Many still try to
forestall typhoons, prevent earthquakes, even their own
demise, by hurling words about like rocks or spilling them out in prayer.
Words are a powerful tool for inter-personal use, but
are pretty impotent as a means of dealing with the real
world about us, and that is why science is so important to
our species. Only through direct observation, measuring,
and then testing our conjectures, can we further unveil the
wondrous nature of this fascinating universe.
Our survival so far has not been achieved by bluster
and bluff, no matter how convincing, but by quietly
probing the real world about us. We should continue to
listen carefully to the Silence of the Wise.
Andy Mulcahy
* * * * * * * * *
"Our natural aversion to killing our own kind
can be overcome with spiritual rhetoric."
agm