I will now give in to the impulse that prevented me from becoming popular in high school -- thinking too much. I am sacrificing comments for introspection. Anyway.

I have been reading a book by psychiatrist Elio Frattaroli titled Healing the Soul in the Age of the Brain.

While ostensibly about his profession, it also touches on the issue of technocracy. From the book:

"Why, for instance, do we consider it scientific to believe that our most profound inner experiences are by-products of neurons firing - though this can never be proved - but dismiss the idea of an immaterial soul as religious prejudice precisely because it can never be proved? Why do we imagine that science, in which our culture seems to place a quasi-religious faith, is nevertheless free from religious prejudice, when we know nothing at all about the religious or antireligious convictions of the scientist? Why are we so ready to trust someone else's statistics? Why are we so reluctant to trust our own instinct?"

I find this paragraph compelling for a number of reasons, not all relating to psychology.

For instance, while I strongly oppose introducing the concept of "Intelligent Design" into our classrooms, I think the scientific community may have let itself open to attack by being so rigid in its beliefs, just as religion did in recent centuries.

Also, it also speaks to our willingness to hand over responsibility and power to "experts." That's just pure laziness on our part. Self-discovery? Knowledge? Understanding? The search for truth in an uncertain world? In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, "Can't somebody ELSE do it?"

I will ponder this passage while I clean up after breakfast and start the laundry. Feel free to discuss it amongst yourselves.