Section 12

Section 12 — EXTREME DIMENSIONS OF MODERN SCIENCE

De te fabula narratur (the tale is told about you)

French doctors treated children with growth hormones and believed they were acting in accordance with scientific truths discovered by scientific methods — everything was done collegially — but seventeen years later it emerged that the “truths” on which they had acted were wrong, and the children they treated all died. This is one small episode from the history of modern science. How should such a situation be assessed? Into what scientific category should it be placed? A scientific error, or erroneous science?

European science arose and evolved in opposition to religious dogmatism, to the reactionary resistance of the official church, and to its brutal persecutions. Scientists who uncovered the truth about the Universe were imprisoned (Galileo Galilei), burned at the stake (Giordano Bruno), had their tongues torn out (Vanini) — there is no escaping the truth. And this was not at all because religion contains a bad teaching, but because it was run by the very same kind of people who later made revolutions, replaced national elites, organized holocausts and famines, destroyed the national economies of other countries, and so on. When science became a prestigious branch of public life, the same people who had once strangled science began to use it at their own discretion. Now, through official power, they destroyed churches and servants of God, imposed atheism by force, and by intrigue, slander, and denunciation hounded genuine scientists out of existence.

Religion and science have long since become distinctive branches of power, and official authority cannot fail to reckon with them; but between them, just as between all other branches of power, contradictions constantly arise and an open or covert struggle continues. There are many contradictions within science itself. The materials on pseudoscience that have appeared recently on the Internet often resemble a “crusade against the devil,” in which the interests of particular groups of scientists, rather than of society as a whole, are placed in the foreground. At the same time, the authors of such articles — specialists in a particular branch of science — do not always take into account the current level of the philosophy of science, and use outdated notions and terminology to discuss the truth-status of science.

To discuss any phenomenon, it must be defined. At present there is no generally accepted definition of science within science itself, which is one of the factors behind arbitrary interpretations of this concept by individual scientists. Let us proceed from the premise that a definition of science, in order to be scientific, must rest on a certain axiomatic basis. All other definitions will be subjective opinions. Let us attempt — without hoping for a final and perfect solution to this problem — to reconstruct this basis in accordance with the existing literature.

It is now taken for granted in science that the general features of science were defined by the works and attitudes of two outstanding scientists: Descartes and Newton. This is designated the Newtonian–Cartesian paradigm of science (NCP). These scientists formulated their attitude toward scientific inquiry most clearly, but many other scientists and philosophers made major contributions to the formation of this paradigm. Strictly speaking, the scientists of normal science work in accordance with this paradigm, but philosophers and theorists of science hold that over three centuries this paradigm has changed considerably: it has passed through philosophical positivism and modernism and is now in a postmodern phase [14: 34]. For the normal scientist this is practically a matter of indifference, since he needs to find material suitable for developing the newest technologies, and the refined ideas of philosophers merely add nuances to the possible interpretations.

In condensed form, according to the existing literature, the NCP is presented below.

1) From the ontological point of view, it is recognized that:

a. The order of nature is stable and universal; the human mind cognizes it by means of stable and universal categories of thought;

b. Matter is inert and fundamentally different from consciousness, which is the active source of rational activity;

c. Consciousness (the “I”) resides in the inner world of the individual human body.

2) In methodological terms, the principles of the NCP of science are the following:

a. Science deals with the “general”; there is no science of the individual — that is the sphere of interest of humanistic inquiry and art;

b. The general propositions (laws) discovered in the natural sciences are invariant for everyone and always;

c. In the natural sciences these general propositions can have mathematical representation, and the other sciences must move toward this ideal;

d. Science gives priority to quantitative and experimental methods; scientific interpretation is, above all, the explanation of the properties of a whole on the basis of the properties of its parts.

3) The NCP admits the existence of certain, albeit very abstract, sociological characteristics:

a. Science is neutral in socio-political terms; it has its own autonomous goals and values connected with the search for truth;

b. It is morally and emotionally neutral; rational principles and arguments dominate in it;

c. The subject of cognition is regarded as nature’s counteragent, who must control and subordinate the course of its processes;

d. In relation to society, science is a form of activity of specialists and constitutes a specific product of the scientific community.

Is the above list complete and perfect? If we accept that it is, then all humanistic directions of research fall outside the definition of science — and that is obviously unacceptable to the scientific consciousness of the 21st century. Still, let us note that the concepts of the empirical approach in the natural sciences and in the humanities may differ very strongly. For example, conducting a physical or chemical experiment differs, to put it mildly, from assessing and establishing the content of a musical work. In the first case the objective factors are more visible than in the second. The same applies to the development of social theories, to psychological generalizations of the Freudian type, to the analysis of cultural phenomena, and so on.

In V. V. Kalinichenko’s article “Ontological Foundations of Scientific Cognition” [6], the following list of characteristics of a possible alternative view of scientificity is proposed:

1. The order of nature is not given once and for all. Matter is not inert — it possesses sources of its own motion and activity, and it cannot be identified with spatial dimensions, as Descartes did.

2. The division between the material and the ideal (consciousness) is relative. Man does not so much stand opposed to nature as constitute an immanent part of it. He should not rule over nature but stand in other — for example, dialogical — relations with it.

3. There are no methods common to all sciences; other kinds of interpretation and explanation are possible besides the reduction of a whole to its parts.

4. Mathematical knowledge is not the universal language and standard of science. Qualitative, “understanding” methods are no less important.

5. Science cannot be ethically and politically neutral; it must be subordinate to the primacy of humanistic values and be answerable to society and to its individual strata and groups.

6. Science need not necessarily be specialized. It can be developed, for example, by groups in society for whom cognition is not the principal aim of their activity. Science can be the affair of society as a whole (a non-specialized “people’s science”) or, conversely, the personal affair of an individual, in the sense that everyone is entitled to discover the laws of nature independently and to create a science of their own.

This list, too, can be supplemented, altered, and criticized, but such actions must be substantiated. In this list it is not easy to understand what “an individual’s own science” means. In a totalitarian state such activity was persecuted, but it existed all the same. Do objective criteria exist for evaluating such science? Is it really impossible for a person to discover certain objective truths, use them at their own discretion and for their own benefit, and achieve a goal they set for themselves in advance? Incidentally, this can also be highly effective destructive activity directed against society, as is the case with terrorism.

Taking the above characteristics into account, still others can be added to them, provided they are reasonable and expedient at the present stage of science’s development. We then obtain yet another list, which may likewise be incomplete, but which can be accepted on first reading, or at least considered:

1. Recognition of the inexhaustibility of the world.
2. Objectivity.
3. The possibility of proof.
4. The possibility of experimental verification.
5. The possibility of reproduction of scientific results by other scientists.
6. Recognition of the relativity of the division into the material and the ideal (consciousness).
7. Reliance on facts.
8. Reliance on quantitative and computational methods.
9. Admissibility of qualitative, “understanding” methods.
10. Recognition of the possibility of a science of unique objects, one that would rest on empirical facts.
11. Pragmatism and usefulness.
12. Rationality.
13. Novelty.
14. Ethicality.
15. Humaneness.
16. Universal human significance.
17. Recognition that there are no methods common to all sciences; other kinds of interpretation and explanation are possible besides the reduction of a whole to its parts.
18. Ecological soundness.
19. Conformity to requirements specified in advance.
20. Admissibility of individual scientific inquiry.
21. Admissibility of “folk forms of science.”
22. Recognition of the results of a scientist’s activity by the scientific community.
23. The presence of a scientific approach in the development and governance of science, and so on.

In connection with the development of holistic approaches in science, many of the above “non-Cartesian” requirements look acceptable. Other requirements are possible too. For example, in official Soviet science the so-called “principle of partyness” was in force (and it operated in one form or another in the science of other totalitarian regimes). And even now the consequences of the unformulated and unreflected, but hardly concealed, “principle of mutual cover-up” and “principle of corruptness” are widespread in science; meanwhile, the facts indicate that science is not yet capable of overcoming these negative phenomena, however many official and unofficial committees of leading specialists may be convened.

Note that at different stages of its development, science answers to different sets of possible requirements. This gives grounds for considering the concept of science variable and dependent on many factors. If anyone insists on the abstract self-identity of science, let them recall how academicians “snap to attention” before those on whom their posts depend, and how ready they are to sacrifice the truth when speaking before the people, hushing up and distorting the facts — as happened, for example, in the days of the Chernobyl genocide. There are no grounds now for believing those times are behind us. And the people who come into science may be pursuing, first and foremost, not scientific virtues at all, but their own material and social position. It is no secret that science today is corrupted to a considerable degree. It is therefore very difficult to take on faith the official statements even of those who are considered authorities in science and occupy the highest posts — and as a result a very complicated situation has arisen around the concept of pseudoscience.

Scientific titles have always been a choice morsel for honest and unscrupulous operators of every level alike, which is why an unprecedented struggle is being waged — not at all for truth in science, but for influence and money. To whom will the budget money be given? Who will persuade sponsors to invest in a dubious project? For what sum can a scientific post be bought? How much does a candidate’s or doctoral dissertation cost? How, then, is one to find a way out of the complicated labyrinth of relations within science and between science and society?

Let us broaden the circle of concepts relating to the definition of science. If one looks closely at the processes taking place in and around science, one can see a fairly wide spectrum of rather different phenomena. Here one can speak not only of science and fraudulent science, but also of parascience, pseudoscience, antiscience, quasiscience, protoscience, periscience, and so on.

Let us give preliminary definitions. Normal science is the acquisition of information about the laws of nature and of the knowledge that follows from this information. Scientific activity rests on social tradition and uses intuitive, logical, sensory, and ethical methods. This is done with the aim of increasing humanity’s knowledge of nature and of using the knowledge obtained to achieve practical results of a local and global character, directed at the survival both of individual substructures of humanity and of humanity as a whole.

Modern normal science does not meet these requirements, but the assessment of this is highly subjective and depends on the scientist’s personal point of view. It is now clear, however, that under Soviet rule many institutes of the Academy of Sciences produced no useful output for years on end, but merely composed dissertations proving the necessity of conferring an academic degree and the corresponding salary on loyal supporters of Marxism-Leninism of both sexes with crystal-clear worker-peasant credentials. For the sake of this, the crystal-clear ones, sparing neither their strength nor their souls, branded the “venal wenches of imperialism” — and only after perestroika did they themselves, with pleasure (that is, for suitable remuneration), become such wenches, but now New Russian ones, regardless of nationality.

Fraudulent science [lzhenauka] is activity around science involving the deliberate manipulative use of complex scientific, political, religious, and ideological argumentation and rhetoric, directed at achieving personal or corporate interests, but with an overt or elegantly disguised violation of the principles of scientific methodology. Fraudulent science is very hard to distinguish from pseudoscience, but in order to do so, let us hold that fraudulent science is deliberate fraud using scientific terminology, while pseudoscience is the consequence of a scientist’s sincere methodological errors. Fraudulent science can quite easily disguise itself as official science, fuse with it, and create complex informational centaurs.

Pseudoscience consists of informational complexes that have the formal attributes of science but whose conclusions do not withstand logical, methodological, or experimental verification. It is the sphere of scientific errors and dead-end wanderings. But as soon as people begin deliberately using erroneous results to achieve goals connected with the self-assertion of their own egoism, pseudoscience turns into fraudulent science. A pseudoscientific result, so long as it does not become a means of misleading other people, can be a neutral, exploratory stage in the development of science — something like a mental experiment using imagination — and this strongly distinguishes this instrument from a hypothesis formulated within the existing paradigm.

Quasiscience is formal activity in scientific institutions whose positive value approaches zero. Scientists may write dissertations, compile multi-page reports, run experiments, travel to conferences and on foreign assignments, but society will gain nothing from it except losses. This activity can be very energetic, vigorous, self-assured, documented, and can enjoy official support at the highest levels of power, yet be objectively devoid of scientific content. Understandably, this can be very hard to prove, because “everything is sewn up.”

Antiscience is inhumane activity by scientists involving cruelty and sadism, as well as anything whose direct consequence may be the destruction of people or the worsening of their lives. This variety of science becomes obvious if the axiom of the humaneness of science is accepted. At present, however, this axiom has not been adopted in a single state on Earth. To antiscience must be assigned the participation of scientists in projects directed at aggressive actions against other peoples, at worsening their lives, destroying their national economies, and the like. But who can accuse those who develop weapons of mass destruction, if the politicians in power consider it expedient? Here we run into the paradoxes of logical definition, for if any country even slightly weakens its defensive capacity, its near and distant neighbors will immediately take advantage of it.

Parascience is the study of paranormal phenomena that have a certain phenomenology and statistics but are not recognized by official science. It is known, meanwhile, that the intelligence services of many, if not all, countries are working intensively on this subject matter in top-secret laboratories.

Protoscience is an informational complex that by various criteria cannot yet be considered a fully-fledged science, but that may become one as a result of development.

Periscience is the totality of phenomena around science and in connection with science that concern science and may have a certain influence on it.

Official science is a state-funded, organized community of scientists with an authoritarian hierarchy, carrying out the commissions of state institutions.

Let us also distinguish the concepts of science and technology. Science is, above all, theoretical activity directed at the search for the laws of nature and society, while technology is the practical use of the laws of nature and society for the purpose of achieving concrete results. A scientist can be a technologist and vice versa, but an effective technologist may use methods far removed from science — for example, lies, manipulation, and intrigue — and do so on a scientific basis. That is, he may draw on scientific knowledge from psychology about how one must lie in order to be believed. Is that not how political technologists work?

Situations frequently arise in science in which potentially valuable ideas — as is later confirmed — can for various reasons be blocked, hushed up, vilified, distorted, or simply appropriated by bureaucratic structures. A case close to this theme occurred even with such a universally recognized scientific genius as A. Einstein. The numerous variants of the equations of the relativistic theory of gravitation that he proposed from 1911 to 1915 were erroneous by definition, since they were exploratory in character. Only in 1915, after meeting the mathematician Hilbert, did the great scientist publish the gravitational field equations that are universally accepted today. If one proceeds from the terminology of experts and the prescriptions of the Patent Law of the Russian Federation, then from 1911 to 1915 A. Einstein was a “fraudulent scientist,” since he was proposing equations of gravitation different from the then generally accepted equations of Newton’s theory of gravitation, and only in 1915 did he turn into a “true scientist.” The history of science knows very many similar examples.

Four hundred years of the formation of normal science have shown that scientists possess not only virtues but all the failings of “ordinary” people: mendacity, malice, hatred, envy, obtuseness, greed, baseness, scheming, and so on down the list. The well-known historian and theorist of science P. Feyerabend criticizes in his works [24] the understanding of science as something for which notions of methods — as special actions characteristic of it — are essential. He held that the value of science is quite relative, and that in the modern world it differs in no way from other repressive social institutions such as the state or the church. For a democratic society, according to Feyerabend, a science that restricts the freedom of its members constitutes a serious threat [24]. A great many people use science only as a way of earning money.

In contradiction to the above definition of science, one can maintain that the knowledge accumulated by humanity is not at all used for optimal adaptation to the environment — as wars and ecological degradation eloquently attest. At the same time, science does not guarantee that it solves all problems correctly; above all, it is unable to solve current social problems, to say nothing of the fact that different representatives of science may hold different and even incompatible views on one and the same question. Therefore, in a certain sense, one can say that science has in many respects disappointed humanity, and humanity no longer relies on it as it did even a hundred years ago. [14]

If one accepts the axiom of individual human activity as motivated by personal interests, then many negative phenomena in science become scientifically comprehensible. As soon as the risks of falling under social repression become smaller in comparison with the size of the profit, ethical principles immediately yield to internal and external subjective pressure, and the probability of deviation from normative limits can rise considerably. In science this leads to the transition of a scientist’s activity from the zone of normal science into the zone of pseudo-, quasi-, anti-, and fraudulent science — and, clearly, official science is in no way insured against this.

The problem of the confrontation between normal science and the various forms of its distortion has always existed, but at different times and in different circumstances it has had different emphases. In the earliest period of the formation of normal science, the greatest emphasis fell on the confrontation with religious dogmatics. On this point let us note that religion from the very beginning chose the wrong tone in its relation to science, in which the human factor — the interest of specific individuals in the status quo always being in their favor — was undoubtedly of dominant significance. Scientists can therefore always say that the churchmen “started it.” But the problem has remained. Religion and science are two spheres of social consciousness. They have different subjects and different methods, but their functions coincide in many respects. Religion deals with the Higher — that is, with spirituality — and probably with what is still unattainable for science, since there are no corresponding devices for detecting this Higher; while science, in its normal guise, deals with the gradual mastery of matter and energy. In its self-assurance, however, science denies the Principal Objects of religion. Religion uses faith and people’s emotional relation to the World as its chief method, while for science that instrument is experiment and logic. But each of these spheres exceeds its own competence when it begins to lay claim to control over human consciousness. And yet every power lays claim to precisely that. But if science and religion renounce the repressive function, then they have nothing to divide, and mutual understanding can be achieved fairly quickly.

Still, one may hope that sooner or later mutual understanding between religion and science will be found, since, first, each of them carries a certain truth to people and, second, each exists in the very same world, which each reflects, to the extent of its capacities, in its own codes. From the scientific point of view, the existence of God has not been proven and can be regarded only as a hypothesis; but science has not proven that God does not exist either, and therefore His non-existence is, from the scientific point of view, likewise only a hypothesis.

How some physicists relate to the idea of God can be understood from the position of A. V. Borodulin [2]: “…physics, for a number of reasons, can neither prove nor refute the idea of god: even in its philosophical foundations it does not set itself such goals; the question ‘Does god exist?’ has no meaning and consequently needs no substantive answer; the words of authoritative scientists cannot serve as an argument either for the hypothesis of god or against it.” Such a position can be characterized as neutral. Naturally, such assertions have the status of axioms accepted on faith.

But yet another hypothesis is possible — one that science approached long ago but cannot advance in proving or refuting. This is the hypothesis of a primary world substrate (PWS) that could lie at the foundation of the Universe. The first to speak of this, in philosophical terms, was B. Spinoza, but scientists never fully assimilated his ideas, since even the concept of such a substrate is not simple. The idea of such a substrate, without the use of this term, was formulated by the most ancient philosophers. Some of them held that water lies at the basis of everything; others, air; others, fire; others, atoms; and so on. From the standpoint of modern science we understand that these are greatly oversimplified notions, since such a substrate must be something of which anything whatsoever consists — and not only, say, the elementary particles of which atoms consist, and of atoms all other material objects. All energy fields must also be formed from this substrate — above all those already discovered by physicists, that is, the electromagnetic and gravitational fields and the fields of the strong and weak interactions, but also those not yet discovered by science. Yet scientists now find it hard even to imagine that different fields might have a single foundation — though scientific intuition in no way contradicts this. There are physicists who have proposed for the role of the foundation of everything the never-discovered ether, the physical vacuum, torsion fields, and perhaps the most fundamental of fields, the field of inertia (Shipov); but there is still no consensus on this question, and the discovery of the fields listed has been annulled as belonging to fraudulent science. Yet the idea remains. Moreover, several physicists have attempted to create a unified field theory — that is, they believed there exists a single field of which the fields known to physics are particular cases. Unfortunately, the presentation of this idea by certain physicists (Shipov, Akimov, and others) deviates too far from the logical and methodological standards of scientificity.

Without any restriction on scientific inquiry, this idea can be made maximally concrete. The substrate of the Universe must be real rather than ideal, but it would be wrong to speak of it as material, since matter — that is, the “coarse” material of which things consist — must itself arise from this substrate. It is now hard to doubt that matter is “made” of energy, that is, that energy is the matter of matter. Matter is “merely” arrested energy — which is apparently what the famous “E equals m c squared” says. It must necessarily be supposed that the PWS is capable of quantization, and this does not contradict modern notions of the properties of fields. Some “subtle” or “ultra-subtle” energy field would be suitable for this. It seems that precisely such a field is what physicists are searching for, and modern physical notions do not contradict it. But this is not enough. An essential component of the PWS hypothesis must be the supposition that consciousness is inherent in it. Philosophers and politicians may object to this on ideological grounds, while physicists “have no right to,” since by definition they are not competent in questions of consciousness — though of course they may hold their own opinion on the matter. Philosophers are not competent here either, since the issue is not what someone thinks about something, but a real fact. For if the PWS has this property — perhaps alongside many others — then it has it, and no philosopher, scientist, or politician has the right to object, though they may. If we admit the possibility that the PWS has such a property as consciousness, then such “eternal” problems as dualism and the emergence of consciousness through evolution fall away at once. Consciousness belonged to the PWS from the very beginning and merely manifested itself in different ways in ever more complex material-energetic-informational conglomerates.

There are now authorities in science, at the level of official academician-physicists, who deny the existence of bioenergetics, reducing it to the fields and phenomena known to them; but such a position is not correct, since this must be proven by scientific methods rather than by reference to one’s own opinion. No such proofs exist at present, while a multitude of non-physicists work with something they consider bioenergetic phenomena. Clearly, among these people there may be many swindlers and simply semi-literate enthusiasts, but there are also genuine psychics among them. And if physicists prove the existence of bioenergetic fields and the existence of the PWS, and psychologists prove that this substrate possesses consciousness, then the positions of the church and of science will be brought considerably closer, though still not made identical. And if science someday verifies the PWS hypothesis, this will not at all mean that science must accept on faith all other religious assertions — for example, that the World was created in six days — since no one is entitled to speak in God’s name. At the same time, believing that God exists as the highest factor ensuring the existence of the World does not require accepting this or that religious scheme explaining the World’s origin and existence. Of such schemes, incidentally, there are quite a few, and many of them wage irreconcilable struggle against the others. All the concrete details of the World’s structure must be investigated by science using scientific methods.

Another aspect of the opposition between scientific and periscientific processes is the presence of social mechanisms that generate pseudo-, quasi-, and fraudulent science. These mechanisms can be resisted only by constructing a scientific theory of them. No such theory exists at present, and therefore even authoritative pronouncements on this subject by academicians occupying high posts remain their personal opinion, since they provide no instruments for solving these problems. Academicians may not even know what corruption schemes are unfolding in their circle, or that they themselves may be objects of near-scientific intrigue; and rumors circulate about certain academicians — which may itself be an element of intrigue — that they occupy their posts not for their scientific achievements but as a result of corruption schemes. If this is so, then the complexity of periscientific processes becomes even greater, and a scientific approach is indispensable here.

Empirical observation of contemporary processes in and around science gives grounds to point to the following facts:

1. Real scientific work and real scientific achievements exist.
2. There exists well-”protected” quasiscientific activity for which someone receives large sums of money.
3. There exist charlatan fraud-scientists who exploit the elements of democracy in society in order to deceive consumers with the help of pseudoscientific terminology and rhetoric and to earn unearned super-profits from it.
4. There exist directions of scientific work — effective and promising ones — that official science does not recognize and brands as fraudulent. Who benefits from this? Politicized scientists once did this with genetics and cybernetics, and now it is being done with bioenergetics and other protoscientific directions. The fact that bioenergetics is exploited by swindlers and rogues in no way testifies that there is no reality behind it — so why should scientists not finally turn to face it?
5. There exists a complex corrupt system uniting official science, the bureaucratic apparatus, and criminal structures, which makes it possible to distribute state money in one’s own interests and to profit from the trade in scientific posts and titles. Clearly, this does not testify to the absence of honest scientists and honest scientific work.
6. There exist no effective social mechanisms that would make it possible to distinguish “honest” from “false” directions of work that are presented as, or look, scientific.

To this last category belong, for example, searches and developments in the field of genetic engineering, the development of new medicines and new methods of treatment, the newest devices for maintaining and restoring health, innovative designs of household equipment, and fundamental theoretical work that could become the basis of new industrial technologies and military weapons. Thus, if Shipov’s “torsion” promises had been fulfilled, transport, communications, types of weaponry, and the theoretical explanations of the Universe’s existence would have changed radically. The opinion has taken hold among academicians that Shipov not only committed an error, but that he deliberately misled people — that is, acted as a swindler, rogue, and charlatan.

Since no academician has ever answered for his errors (recall Chernobyl), several naive questions can be posed in connection with the “Shipov phenomenon”:

1. Did Shipov really act as a swindler?
2. Might this have been scientific inquiry?
3. Did Shipov have the right to scientific inquiry, and what are the permissible limits of such inquiry?
4. Is Shipov a scientist at all — and, specifically, a physicist?
5. Is there at least a grain of truth in his results?
6. Or might torsion fields exist after all, and the academicians “closed” the subject the way they once closed genetics and cybernetics — as a way of fighting competitors?
7. If such dishonest competition exists, what then of scientific truth — or can one part of the truth be sacrificed in favor of another?
8. Is the operation of the law of force permissible in science — whoever is stronger, whoever has greater influence, may decree what counts as truth?
9. Does a scientific mafia exist?

To answer the last question, mere suspicion — in accordance with the presumption of innocence — is not enough: a detective investigation and a prosecutor’s inquiry are needed. Clearly, observing contemporary social processes, it is hard to believe in the impartiality, lack of bias, and objectivity of investigative and judicial procedures, and it would therefore be naive to count on an “honest” answer here.

Of course, Shipov’s name is used above as a template in whose place many others could be substituted. Take Grabovoi, for example. He was convicted and is in prison for fraud — his crime was proven by the investigation and confirmed by the judges. But can one really say that there is nothing objective behind his “teaching”? Even granting that the promises and the concrete actions to resurrect the relatives of the clients who turned to him were deception — a normal scientist finds it hard to believe in such possibilities even hypothetically, and belief is beside the point here: experimental confirmation is required. Yet Grabovoi cured many people and earned large sums of money from it, and that is not a theory but a real fact. Let the official physician-scientists consider him — their competitor — a rogue; but people know that thanks to Grabovoi they were rid of their illnesses. And, on the other hand, there now exists large-scale statistics on scientist-physicians whose unprofessional actions have done their clients great harm: according to 2010 statistics, 50,000 people die every year in Russia from medical errors(!?), and by no means all of these doctors have gone to prison, since collegial “solidarity” has done its work. Where, then, is scientific truth? Evidently, wherever human interests are present, truth loses its priority, and the problem turns from a scientific one into a social and commercial one. And where is the science that can solve contemporary social problems? Where are the scientists who work on social problems? Why do they not solve these problems? Are they really paid too little? Or are they perhaps paid for something else entirely? Rumors persist that in the upper leadership of science there are agents of foreign influence who, in exchange for grants, help to hold back post-Soviet science.

From the standpoint of official science, parascience — the mass of reports of mystical phenomena that happen to certain people and their surroundings but remain outside the direct perception of scientists — must be assigned outright to fraudulent science. And this despite the fact that these phenomena, puzzling to scientists, have extensive worldwide statistics and belong to the integral experience of humanity. But there are scientists so confident of their rightness with regard to parascience that they consider it normal to use extreme language toward it. Thus academician E. Kruglyakov [9] cites a fragment from an article by another academician of the International Academy of Informatization, L. N. Melnikov: “Every bioenergeticist knows about biopathogenic zones. These are nodes of intersection of the Earth’s magnetic force lines. If your bed stands on such a node, you will have restless sleep, heightened irritability, and even illnesses. But it is enough to place under the bed, at the point where the lines intersect, a mirror face-down, and the beams of negative energy will shatter and depart” — and then, without any further explanation, says: “Do these shameless ‘kulturtraegers’ really take the people for complete idiots, if they endeavor to preach such drivel to them?” That academician Kruglyakov does not admit the existence of biopathogenic zones and considers it impossible for a mirror to neutralize them is his personal affair; but from the scientific point of view this topic is relatively easy to verify or falsify, and if mirrors placed under beds help sick people, then — irrespective of the attitude of scientific authorities and the absence of theoretical explanations — this method has a right to exist, and there is no benefit in abusing it or those who use it. Of course, the academician, owing to the limits of his horizon, may not know, for example, that churches were always built in places where a specific energy is present — one that physicists have never identified. This is precisely the case where the people know and the scientists do not.

From the existing literature one can sometimes conclude that science considers itself rational — at least some of its adherents hold this view and propagate this idea. This, however, is a misunderstanding, founded on the absence of an adequate treatment of the theme of rationality–irrationality. These predicates, as follows from the works of C. G. Jung and as was further developed in socionics — discovered by Aušra Augustinavičiūtė [1] and actively developed by her followers — indicate the primary orientation of the subject of cognition and enter into the formula of that subject’s psychological type. From this point of view one can speak of primarily rational and primarily irrational subjects, in which there is no discrimination whatever, since each of them has its own social sphere of full-fledged existence. And science, as a generalized subject of cognition, belongs, from the psychological point of view, to intuitive-logical extraversion (ILE) — which links science with the predicate of irrationality, something that may come as a surprise to those who consider science wholly rational. This, incidentally, partly explains the essence of many of the alogical processes that can be observed in science as a social institution.

Conclusions

1. In and around science, a number of processes are taking place that are perceived by individual subjects of science as negative and extreme, and this constitutes one part of the systemic crisis in science.
2. There is at present no fully-fledged theory in the world, nor a corresponding technology, for the governance of scientific processes, which leaves little chance of a rapid overcoming of science’s systemic crisis.

Literature

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Translator’s notes:

• Lzhenauka (лженаука) literally means “lie-science” / “false science.” Standard English renders both лженаука and псевдонаука as “pseudoscience,” but the author explicitly distinguishes them (deliberate fraud vs. sincere error), so лженаука is rendered here as “fraudulent science” to preserve the distinction.
• “Venal wenches of imperialism” (продажные девки империализма) — a stock Soviet-era slur famously applied to genetics and cybernetics.
• The epigraph as printed reads “De te fadula narratur”; the correct Latin (Horace) is de te fabula narratur — “the tale is told about you.”