68
grou
persuasion and politics to establish that idea's dominance in their field, and
to drive rival hypotheses--along with those who propound them--to the
periphery.  In the struggle for control over scientific journals, over the
committees which determine what lecturers will be allowed to speak at
scientific symposia, over who will get tenure, grants, prizes, and over all the
various other power points which determine which ideas and researchers
will be admired and which will be shunned, battles can become intense,
insults snide and biting.  And occasionally, a pitcher of water is even
dumped on someone's head.172  But there is no violence.
In geopolitics, the closest equivalent is pluralistic democracy, a system
within which subcultures and the ideas that ride them compete without
bloodshed.  During the early '90s, it became popular to declare that
democracies, unlike more ideologically-rigid forms of government, do not
make war with each other.  The statement was an exaggeration (the War of
1812 pitted democratic England against the equally democratic United
States), but it carried a powerful element of validity.  According to Yale
University political scientist Bruce Russett, "Since 1946, pairs of democratic
states have been only one eighth as likely as other kinds of states to threaten
to use force against each other and only one tenth as likely to do so."173  In
addition, the Carnegie Commission for Science, Technology, and
Government commissioned a 1992 task force which concluded that pluralism
is one of the most potentially effective forces for promoting global
development.174  These findings imply strongly that the human race will take
a long step forward if it eliminates intolerant autocracies driven by a passion
for doctrinal or ethnic cleansing.
Even without this step, like the universe itself the world of Homo
sapiens has not been marching from utopia toward chaos.  The truth, in fact,
is quite the opposite.  Margaret Mead said that once upon a time men viewed
all brothers as people whose lives they should cherish, and all outsiders as
fair game.  In early human groups, said Mead, the number of those whose
lives were sacred was 50 to 75.  The rest of the earth's population was a target
for murder.  But today, Mead pointed out, the number a single society
prohibits killing extends to 250 million or more.
  ps of men and women cohere around an idea, then use the powers of
<<  <  GO  >  >>