Our society is fundamentally based on the premise of democracy. Modern democracy is the daughter of the rationalism of the 17th and 18th century and is therefore, in a sense, the twin sister of science. It is, by its very origins, committed to rationality, to optimism about the future of mankind, to faith in progress based on factual knowledge of the world.
But, at the same time, Western democracy is also committed to a utilitarian view of the world, a world of budgets and appropriations and cost-benefit accounting that puts a price on every item and on every activity within society. And, in addition, democracy is buffeted by irrational forces, which range from the irrationality of various countercultures to the irrational persistence of economic injustice, to the aberrations of war and nationalism, racism, and to sectarian prejudices of all sorts.
The scientific enterprise itself also presents a multitude of faces. ...
