Science-as-Wisdom Versus Science-as-Manipulation

Economist E.F. Schumacher pointed out how science shifted from a focus on wisdom to a focus on manipulation, playing a role in developing the world crises we face. The science of manipulation assumes separable parts, focuses on fragments of reality, and attempts to find ways to control those fragments. It treats all the fragments as purposeless and only focuses on what can be measured and manipulated. (This is the left-brain’s worldview; McGilchrist, 2009.) It ignores the reality of dynamic, shapeable life, and the interconnection, interpenetration of all. (This is the right-brain’s worldview; McGilchrist, 2009).

Schumacher said:

“Western civilization is based on the philosophical error that manipulative science is the truth, and physics has caused and perpetuated this error. Physics got us into the mess we are in today…Science is concerned primarily with knowledge that is useful for manipulation, and the manipulation of nature almost invariably leads to the manipulation of people.” (Capra, 1997, p. 35)

A manipulative approach to science has been applied to parenting for over a century.

Unfortunately, this manipulative form of science has been applied to parenting for the last century or more. Most explicitly in psychological science, it began with John Watson’s 1928 book for parents. He encouraged a cold, unresponsiveness towards babies, so they would not feel entitled (“spoiled”).  You should mostly ignore them so they get used to such treatment from the beginning so that when they became college students they would not annoy him (Blum, 2002). This view is still pervasive in the USA.

In reality, babies expect and need an “external womb” for at least 18 months after birth in order to develop healthy neurobiological and psychological systems (i.e., flexible, resilient) (Lanius et al., 2010; Montagu, 1968; Narvaez et al., 2013; van der Kolk, 2014). But John Watson was eager to make psychology a science, like physics, and establish laws of human nature following a science-as-manipulation approach.

For example, do these kinds of concerns sound familiar (all based on misinformation)?

• Baby “independence”: It is “fake news” that babies can be taught to be independent—the opposite outcome occurs because caregiver unresponsiveness can shape neurobiological systems in unhealthy ways (e.g., the major stress response; Lupien et al., 2009).
• Baby “self-soothing”: It is “fake news” that babies can “self-soothe,” as if that is a thing. Babies learn self-control from caregivers!
• Baby “spoiling”: It is “fake news” that you can spoil a baby with too much attention. The “unspoiled” baby is a non-communicative baby that John Watson advocated. Just shut up, baby, and don’t bother the adults. Maybe a child who expects their needs to be met (being held or breastfed on request) looks demanding, but they are following their inner compass towards optimal development. Babies are rapidly developing brain functions in the first years of life.

In all these cases, the baby learns to shut down, slowing growth and development. Among other problems, insecure attachment may result and mental health issues may arise later.

Why do parenting “experts” perpetuate such strange concepts for a social mammal who needs social support all life long to stay healthy, and whose infants are the most immature of hominids and the most needy in the first years of life?

Science-as-Manipulation has stepped in to guide people who have lost their roots and their ancestral wisdom. The rise of parenting “experts,” like John Watson, emerged when millions of immigrants came to the U.S. without their extended families in the 1800s. Young parents are notoriously poor at raising their first children. Babies were dying from homemade “formula” since moms did not have time to breastfeed, which instigated eventually, for example, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the commercial formula industry (Wolf, 2001).

Often blind to complexity, Science-as-Manipulation reacts to the crises it creates with assumptions of separation and the separation of variables. This is a highly error-prone approach that uses no baselines for species normality, assuming that whatever a study finds is species normal (Narvaez & Witherington, 2018). This way of thinking about science continues to misinform parents and contrasts with our heritage, the evolved nest, a holistic approach to raising children.

And so we have shifting, slipping baselines for what we think is normal child-raising, child behavior, adult wellbeing, and cultural focus. All these have shifted downward toward minimal care for children, expectations of illness and aggressive self-concern in adults, and a culture that focuses on anything except building healthy, happy people. (See Narvaez, 2014.) We end up living as if in crisis, using interventions that should only be used in emergencies (e.g., commercial infant formula), and we accept misguided advice from misleading data and analysis.

Lacking baselines for appropriate child-raising, we foster imbalanced people and communities. And then because of these disturbing results are assumed to be ‘just the way humans are,’ some advocate for more coercion, harshness, and punishment. Ay ay ay.

They misunderstand who humans are and how they develop.

From a Science-as-Wisdom perspective, Science-as-Manipulation invents obvious false notions.

Science-as-Wisdom takes a broad interdisciplinary perspective, taking insights from multiple domains to answer questions. Ethology tells us what mammalian communities do. Anthropology tells us what communities do in pre-industrialized societies (99% of human existence across millions of years), the type of society where we evolved our capacities and needs. What do we know about humanity? Ethological science tells us we are social mammals.

• What do social mammals need? Affective neuroscience and primatology tell us that social mammals need extensive touch, breastfeeding, play and nurturing in the first years of life (i.e., the evolved nest). (Hrdy, 2009; Panksepp, 1998).
• Why? Neuroscience tells us that a child’s brain grows through social experience and requires a calm biochemistry to grow in a healthy manner (Schore, 2019; 2025).

How do we know what to provide babies?

When the parent’s caregiver attachment system is activated (i.e., in the first hour or so of skin-to-skin connection after birth, or from extensive skin-to-skin carrying), instincts for caring are awakened—by mothers and others.

In our ancestral context, band societies, Science-as-Wisdom was learned from experience across generations. If the community did not provide the evolved nest for the young, the young were less likely to survive, due to poor health and dysregulation (e.g., aggression). The community suffered too. Survival and virtue went hand in hand (Narvaez, 2014).

Humans who are well-raised tend to become good people, just like any animal that is well-raised tends to become a good specimen (species-typical). Animals that are misraised become poor specimens (species-atypical). Those who raise animals or plants know what is required for a good specimen.

Humans develop good bodies, brains, sociality and morality with loving, supportive care—the evolved nest.

References

Blum, D. (2002). Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection. New York: Berkeley Publishing (Penguin).

Capra, F. (1997). Encounter at the edge of the new paradigm: A dialogue with E.F. Schumacher. What is Enlightenment?

Clark, M. E. (1990). Meaningful social bonding as a universal human need. In J. Burton (Ed.), Conflict: Human needs theory (pp. 34-59). New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Hrdy, S. (2009). Mothers and others: The evolutionary origins of mutual understanding. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.

Lanius, R. A., Vermetten, E., & Pain, C. (2010). The impact of early life trauma on health and disease: The hidden epidemic. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Levine, A., & Heller, R.S.F. (2012). Attached: The new science of adult attachment and how it can help you find – and keep – love. New York: TarcherPerigee.

Lupien, S.J., McEwen, B.S., Gunnar, M.R., & Heim, C. (2009). Effects of stress throughout the lifespan on the brain, behaviour and cognition, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(6), 434-445.

McGilchrist, I. (2009). The master and his emissary: The divided brain and the making of the western world.  New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Montagu, A. (1968). Brains, genes, culture, immaturity, and gestation. In A. Montagu (Ed.), Culture: Man’s adaptive dimension (pp. 102-113). New York: Oxford.

Montagu, A. (Ed.). (1978). Learning non-aggression: The experience of non-literate societies. New York: Oxford University Press.

Narvaez, D. (2014). Neurobiology and the development of human morality: Evolution, culture and wisdom. W.W. Norton.

Narvaez, D., & Bradshaw, G.A. (2023). The Evolved Nest: Nature’s Way Of Raising Children And Creating Connected Communities. North Atlantic Books.

Narvaez, D., & Witherington, D. (2018). Getting to baselines for human nature, development and wellbeing. Archives of Scientific Psychology, 6 (1), 205-213. OPEN ACCESS

Panksepp, J. (1998). Affective neuroscience: The foundations of human and animal emotions. New York: Oxford University Press.

Schore, A.N. (2019). The development of the unconscious mind. New York: W.W. Norton.

Schore, A.N. (2025). The right brain and the origin of human nature. W.W. Norton.

Van der Kolk, B. (2014). The body keeps the score. New York: Penguin.

Watson, J. B. (1928). Psychological care of infant and child. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.

Wolf, J.H. (2001). Don’t kill your baby: Public health and the decline of breastfeeding in the 19th and 20th centuries. Columbus: Ohio State University.