Ciência e destruição

Abstract

This essay sees science as humanity's longstanding effort to stanch the Heraclitean river of things in perpetual motion, from which knowledge would emanate. The application of the inductive method to the study of living things, however, requires that these also be stanched - killed, ultimately. The history of biology provides abundant examples and, in modern times, fetuses and embryos have been victims of this paradigm. In physics, since the late nineteenth century, the stanching has engendered like destruction. In his old age, the philosopher Cratylus, disciple of Heraclitus and master of Plato, chose to silence himself in the face of the impossibility of knowledge, but when young he was a naturalist who believed that there is a proper "name" in Nature for each being. This article proposes that, to avoid contributing to the autophagy of contemporary society, science must cease destroying its objects of study and learn to understand their real name.