Incubating in the Search for Knowledge

The Incubation Period in Our Search for Knowledge

I attended elementary school in the fifties and in the sixth grade I learned the scientific method. It went like this:

l. Identify a problem.
2. Gather relevant data.
3. Go through an incubation period.
4. Form a hypothesis.
5. Test the hypothesis.

I have italicized point number three because it is omitted in the present day scientific method. In our hurry up world we don't have time to incubate on problems. I don't know if anyone else remembers the incubation period step. I have looked for it extensively and found no mention of it. This is tragic, for by omitting this step we forfeit the chance to test ideas over time with our thoughts and feelings. We become caught up in "proving we are right" rather than searching for the truth.

I am not a scientist, but I am told most good scientists don't use the scientific method. They use whatever method will produce results. They think, they wonder and ponder. They approach problems with openness. If they didn't they would be stuck in a ruts and wouldn't learn anything. Yet the scientific method, stripped of the incubation period (the one opening in the method that allows for weighing ideas with your mind over time) is the one we teach our children. What does this do? It stifles thinking, discourages honest questioning and compels the formation of hypotheses without giving children a chance to think things over within themselves. This short-circuits the wisdom process, turning children into data collecting automatons instead of thinking human beings.

In real life most people don't make important decisions without incubating on them for a while. Why should we behave differently in science or any other academic pursuit? In our world science is a powerful tool, but it is being grossly misused because in too many cases the "wisdom component" is missing. This had led to the utterly stupid and evil notion that "just because we know things means we should change things." So, for example, because we have learned a few things about genetics means we ought to play around with it and change some things. Nine times out of ten when you alter something in nature you end up hurting the whole culture. During the seventies some scientists produced the Killer bee by mistake. Somehow, these vicious bees escaped from the lab and have been proliferating ever since. About a month ago a woman was killed in Tucson by killer bees. This would not have happened if the scientists performing their experiments on bees during the seventies had thought about how things might go wrong. Now the bees are so widespread it is very difficult to stop them. If these scientists had been thinking comprehensively and not tunneled in on their project they might have noticed the dangers and taken steps to prevent them. Even our most learned scientists know practically nothing (the best ones realize this), yet there are many who are pushing ahead full bore to make changes that could very possible alter life on Earth for the worse forever. A good person wouldn't chance it, even if he thought the odds were good no harm would be done, because the price is just too high, but some of these scientists are willing to gamble everything, and we are willing to let them. What is the price to be paid a thousand years from now because someone altered the genes of plants, animals and humans in our time? What will be the long term consequences of cloning any life form? Do we know? No, we don't! But we are willing to play around with it and pretend we know. We can't be sure mankind won't become extinct because of what we are presently doing. No one can say that isn't true. Imagine how we will feel if mankind is destroyed because we experimented with gene technology! We really don't know what we are doing,and because we don't know we shouldn't be doing it.

You may think I am making too big a deal of the incubation period and you may think it is a stretch to relate this to the possibility that Earth might be destroyed. But what is missing in science and learning in general is wisdom. Taking time to think things over and relate ideas to other ideas and your own gut feelings is critical in these areas. Wisdom isn't only intellect and it isn't only gut feelings. It is so much more than both of those. It is memory, conscience, awareness of natural law, of true morality. It is so many things it would take volumes to talk about it. It is significant that the incubation period is no longer part of the scientific method and that apparently few people seem to have noticed its disappearance. It shows where we are going and it's frightening. Man is acting like a teenager who has figured out a few things and thinks he knows everything. He knows next to nothing and he is fast forgetting some of the basic lessons that have brought him as far as he has come. The technology we are developing on Earth is far outpacing the wisdom we are developing to handle it. A wise person doesn't want technology unless he knows he will use it right. A wise person would rather walk than ride in a car if riding in a car would make him a worse person. In the area of science we need the incubation period so we will weigh what we do in the light of wisdom. We won't just do science experiments. We will think about what we are doing and how it relates to other things and in what ways it will help or hurt, not just in our time, but also in the distant future. If we are not capable of or willing to do this we have no business being scientists.

I am not opposed to technology. Technology can be wonderful, but wisdom has to be the number one priority. We cannot afford "tunnel vision" science that looks at only one aspect of a question while ignoring the big picture. Scientists need to be among the most comprehensive thinkers amongst us, or they shouldn't be scientists. If we want good thinkers in the future we need to encourage original thinking in our young. Inserting the incubation period back into the scientific method is one step towards awakening true scientists who revere wisdom.