Editorial: Masters of the World

In this issue of IAI News the battleground is science. We believe science is rational. But, like the Church it once fought, it has its own establishment and theories to defend. Has it become the new church, with beliefs tended by the faithful and heretics excluded from publication? Or is this a travesty of an institution that has brought so many advances? The UK’s most brilliant moral philosopher, Mary Midgley leads the charge. Here she challenges our unquestioning belief in the authority of the physical sciences. Science, argues Midgley, has replaced religion as the dominant authority of our age. How did it happen, she asks, and why does it matter?   Defending the power of science are particle physicist Tara Shears and chemist Peter Atkins. Shears praises the universal clarity of mathematics, while Atkins argues that one day science will be able to explain all of existence – that includes art, music, and even religion. To add fuel to the fire, we reach back into our archives where ph...