Jimena Canales, science historian: “All technologies that have changed the world are associated with demons” | The science

Demons have accompanied science for centuries. But those in the laboratories are not supernatural beings, but rather questions, paradoxes, mysteries and laws that surprise scientists and challenge human understanding. They helped bring to life what was considered a fantasy, and to this day continue to motivate the search for what could not be found. In his new book Science and its demons (Harpa), doctor in…

Demons have accompanied science for centuries. But those in the laboratories are not supernatural beings, but rather questions, paradoxes, mysteries and laws that surprise scientists and challenge human understanding. They helped bring to life what was considered a fantasy, and to this day continue to motivate the search for what could not be found. In his new book Science and its demons (Arpa), a doctor of science history from Harvard University, Ximena Canales (Mexico City, 51), offers an excursion into scientific evolution through the demons that tormented the minds of figures such as René Descartes, Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin. The collection demonstrates that even in the Age of Reason, science was accompanied by its own intellectual ghosts, and confirms the importance of historiography for understanding the great milestones of knowledge. “There are many scientists, but few historians of science,” says Canales.

Ask. His book shows how scientists, traditionally rational and skeptical, turn to seemingly superstitious creatures. How can we accept both sides?

Reply. We need to start changing the traditional concept of how science works. What fascinates and excites us about it is that it is used to create new things, like iPhones, electric cars, or vaccines. The fact that science’s demons don’t exist and are imaginary gives them their power: they are tools that can change the world in unexpected ways.

TO. What was the importance of these demons?

R. In my research, I kept seeing the word “demons” used. in articles and key texts on the history of science. From the nature of their appearance, I realized that if I traced the history of these creatures, I would be able to see the development of modern science in its entirety over four centuries. “Why did this thread fit so well?” I asked myself. And I discovered that the demons of scientists, unlike the demons of religion, do not exist (in the history of science). Then I realized the role of imagination and its importance in scientific discoveries.

TO. How does the imagination of scientists work?

R. We all know the typical stories of a scientist having a eureka moment. Experts on the subject say it is impossible to know what inspired them because it is too complex and irrational, but I believe it is possible because imagination is pedagogy. Science students learn to use their imagination to create new experiments and theories. I want to shift the focus to this territory of discovery and imagination.

TO. Do modern demons exist?

R. Descartes Descartes is a lying demon who puts another virtual reality before your eyes. This is very relevant today when we see deepfakes or misinformation. These demons still exist, and some are more pressing than others. They don’t die, they transform.

TO. Why are technologies like artificial intelligence demonized?

R. All technologies that have changed the world in a general and revolutionary sense have been associated with demons. This is happening now with artificial intelligence, but it happened with Karl Marx and steam engines, with calculators and other technologies as innocuous as the telephone. When they were introduced, people thought they were profoundly changing the world and they were considered demons, but in a figurative sense. Behind our association of the demonic with technology, scientists are looking for new demons in their laboratories, using their technical and specialized language. You have to know these demons, their qualities and how they relate to good and evil or to ethical issues in ancient and modern societies.

Eddington called Albert Einstein an exorcist because his theory of relativity put an end to some superstitions about absolute time and space.

TO. Some scientists turned to religious language not just to name the mystery, but also to express existential dread, like the creators of the atomic bomb.

R. Adam and Eve were taken from paradise because they ate a fruit that gave them more knowledge. Why do we often associate science, technology and knowledge with the demonic? Because scientists were looking for these demons. In religion they are associated with good and evil. In the case of the atomic bomb, they were used to identify research such as quantum demons, which were very small and very fast, even faster than the speed of light, and according to Einstein, this is why they could not exist.

TO. That’s why Albert Einstein is referred to as an exorcist.

R. Einstein’s most important popularizer, astronomer Arthur Eddington, often called Albert Einstein an exorcist because his theory of relativity put an end to some superstitions regarding absolute time and space. At the same time he performs this exorcism, a new one appears, which scientists call Einstein’s Demon. They are quantum demons. Einstein is one example of how the development of the history of science can be understood in terms of searches and experiments to exorcise demons, which at the same time create others when new answers are sought or found.

TO. Are there any similarities between these demons and modern technology?

R. Yes, what is interesting about demons is that they are still alive, and researchers continue to create them. Laplace’s demon is a figure that, through infinite calculations, could know the future and past of the world. This figure served as an incentive for the development of megacomputers and calculators. Oliver Selfridge’s pandemonium is now the basic structure of artificial intelligence programs, and Stephen Hawking or Elon Musk talk about it as a kind of demon. By understanding how the tradition of imaginary creatures works, we can better understand how science has developed in the past and how it will develop in the future.

TO. What is this future?

R. When people read history books, they think they are talking about the past, but we must remember that historians also know the future. Today, there were an estimated 117 billion people on Earth, and now there are about 8 billion of us. When we read about what has happened in the history of science and technology, we see what the future was like for those 109 billion, although it is not ours.

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