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Chapter 13
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Sapiens, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Foraging, Industry, and Human Happiness
Fiction, Cooperation, and Culture
Science, Wealth, and Empire
Human-Caused Ecological Devastation
Summary
Analysis
The world has changed dramatically in the last 500 years. A modern battleship could shred Columbus’s ships in a matter of seconds. A single computer can store all the data from the medieval world with room to spare. In 1500, cities averaged 100,000 residents; today, they house millions. Scientists in 1600 didn’t know anything about microbes. Harari thinks the detonation of the atomic bomb in 1945 was the most important moment in this 500-year history. All these changes, Harari thinks, happened because of the Scientific Revolution. He argues that in the last 500 years, humans have increasingly put their faith in scientific research, and he wonders why.
Harari compares technology in the present to technology 500 years ago to warn the reader that science and technology are developing at an alarming pace—he thinks scientists often mess around with new technologies without thinking about the effects on humanity. He wants the reader to be more skeptical of science in general, and he’s going to spend the next few chapters explaining his reasoning.
Themes
The Scientific Revolution, Harari explains, was unique in its approach to understanding the world. Science is based on the ideas that humans don’t know the rules, they must discover them by observation, and they can use these insights to gain power. Harari thinks earlier traditions (like religions) claimed to know the important things about the world, and that humans could learn those things by reading ancient texts like the Bible or the Qur’an. Modern-day science, in contrast, assumes that humans don’t know what’s important about the world. Harari thinks that Darwin, for example, didn’t claim to “solve the riddle of life once and for all.” Today’s scientific theories also often conflict and compete with each other.
Harari thinks that science is a new imagined order that’s quite different from religions. Religions argue that knowledge about the world is already transmitted to humans from God, and it’s documented in religious books. The scientific outlook, however, assumes that humans are ignorant about the world—and we have to discover knowledge by observing the world ourselves. Harari notes that many scientific theories conflict because he wants to stress that scientific theories contain a lot of guesswork, and they’re often wrong, so the reader shouldn’t be too quick to trust them.
Themes
Harari thinks many scientific theories are taken as true, but everyone still agrees that new evidence might prove them false. He thinks science has given humanity the tools to create many new technologies, but it presents humanity with a new problem. Myths have held societies together and made humans cooperate for millennia, but science tells humans not to believe them. Harari thinks this means that people who want to stabilize societies either have to claim that a scientific theory is the absolute truth, or they ignore science and live with a different conception of absolute truth. Harari thinks modern social orders are held together by a “an almost religious belief” in technology and scientific research.
Harari has repeatedly stressed that human beings often actually believe imagined orders are true—and that’s why they follow their rules. Science, to Harari, is no different. People need to believe that science tells them the truth and that they should live according to the knowledge that science gives them. Harari, however, disagrees. He stresses that scientific theories are often wrong to convince the reader that they should be more skeptical about scientific knowledge.
Themes
According to Harari, science combines empirical observations about the world with mathematical tools. He thinks people tend to disregard old knowledge and focus on looking for new evidence from the world instead. But to Harari, observations aren’t knowledge. Observations have to be described by theories. He thinks older traditions also formulated theories, that they told as stories. Modern science, in contrast, formulates theories in the language of mathematics. The Bible and the Qur’an didn’t have equations and graphs, but they still articulated general laws about the world. When Isaac Newton published The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy in 1687, he did the same thing, but he used mathematics.
Harari argues that religious texts communicate theories about the world in the language of rhetoric: compelling stories and tales. Science, to Harari, looks like it communicates the truth because it’s more technical, but in fact, it’s just doing the same thing in a different language. He thinks science communicates theories about the world in the language of mathematics. He subtly warns the reader not to trust in science just because it’s communicated in technical terms.
Themes
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Harari thinks it’s harder to communicate biology, economics, and psychology in the language of mathematics, but scholars still try, using statistics. In 1744, two Scottish clergymen named Robert Wallace and Alexander Webster decided to create a life insurance fund for widows. They didn’t pray to God to tell them how much money to allocate per widow. They used statistical data and probabilities to figure out an appropriate sum. Evolutionary biologists too, use probabilities to predict the likelihood of various genetic mutations spreading in a population. Historically, rhetoric was the most powerful language. Today, it’s mathematics. Harari thinks this would have really “bewildered” ancient figures like Buddha and Jesus.
Harari uses the example of insurance to suggest that scientific thinking, rooted in the language of mathematics, permeates all aspects of human society—meaning it extends into social sciences like economics, and it deeply shapes the way humanity tends to function. He wants to show that scientific thinking is pervasive in human culture nowadays, and that it’s taken over aspects of human culture that used to be driven by storytelling (or, rhetoric). Harari is not entirely sure that this global shift to scientific thinking—and away from rhetoric—is a good thing.
Themes
Harari thinks that most modern people find mathematical language difficult to digest. Nonetheless, science gives human beings “new power.” Scientists don’t think new theories are necessarily true, but they think new theories are valuable if they enable humans to do new things. Harari thinks that most people think science is important because it enables humans to build new technologies. He also thinks that science and technology weren’t as closely connected as they are now before 1500. To Harari, historical rulers spent money on educational institutions that would spread knowledge and reinforce “the existing order.” Today’s rulers spend money on scientific research to develop new technologies, especially weapons.
Harari expands on his idea that humans should be more skeptical of science than we tend to be. He wants to highlight that science isn’t just a blind, neutral endeavor that’s solely centered on learning, knowledge, and discovery. Harari suggests that powerful people pick and choose scientific advancements that generate more power and more wealth for them. To Harari, science just reinforces their position at the top of the hierarchy, much like other imagined orders reinforced the position of historical rulers at the top of their social hierarchies (for example, belief in the divine right of kings to rule).
Themes
Scientific research was central to World War I, as governments funded research into aircrafts, poisons, tanks, and guns. In World War II, German, American, British, and Soviet governments thought they could win the war when they had new technology. When the Americans invented the atomic bomb and detonated it in Japan, the Japanese surrendered and the war was over. Today, people think that terrorism can be solved with nanotechnology like “bionic spy-flies.” Harari even wonders if scientists are developing brain scanners that can detect hateful thoughts in people’s minds.
Harari reinforces his claim that scientific research often functions to cement people’s power by showing that governments often fund research into science and technology that will create weapons, which they use to exert power in the world. He also worries that human societies mistakenly think that science can solve all their problems—because he thinks science often causes more harm than good.
Themes
Harari thinks the human obsession with military technology is relatively recent. When the Arabs and Sassanid Persians fought, the Arabs didn’t win because they had better technology. In many historical cases, those with inferior technology actually won their wars. Even the Roman empire was powerful because of its manpower, not its technology. Back then, Harari says, generals didn’t obsess over developing new weapons. He thinks that “science, industry, and military technology” intertwined through capitalism, and this changed the world.
Harari notes that scientists focus a lot of their efforts on developing new technologies. Harari worries about humanity thinking that a good society is one with more technology, because he’s not sure that new technologies (like advanced weapons) are necessarily good for humanity. He reminds the reader that many advances in science and technology are designed to make some people richer, rather than make humanity better as a whole.
Themes
Before the Scientific Revolution, Harari says, humans thought the past was a “golden age” and societies were getting worse. Many faiths predicted a Messiah would come and save humanity from its ever-worse societies, and they thought inventing new tools and technologies would anger the gods. As science grew more dominant, people began to think they could improve their societies themselves. Harari thinks that today, humans see most social problems—like poverty—as technical problems that can be solved.
Harari thinks that the Scientific Revolution (which happened 500 years ago when humans started trusting their own observations of the world over religious knowledge about the world) encourages people to think they can improve humanity with more science and more technology. He’s not so sure that more technology is the answer. In fact, he often thinks new technologies cause more harm than good.
Themes
One problem that humans try to solve with technology is mortality. Harari tries to imagine a world without death. He thinks about the ancient Sumerian myth about a king named Gilgamesh. According to legend, Gilgamesh saw a worm crawl out of his dead friend’s nose and resolved to live forever. He traveled around the world searching for a way to conquer death before realizing death is humanity’s destiny. Harari thinks today’s scientists think death is a “mere technical problem” that can be solved. They constantly try to prolong life with medications, artificial organs, and new treatments. Harari strongly feels that the whole point of the Scientific Revolution is to seek eternal life (a goal which he nicknames “the Gilgamesh project”).
Harari reinforces his claim that humanity’s relentless pursuit of new technology (through the avenues of scientific research) is a bad idea with the example of Gilgamesh, who sought immortality. Harari thinks that modern scientists, like Gilgamesh, also seek to prolong life—and ultimately cheat death. He’s going to spend the rest of the chapter explaining why he thinks this a terrible idea. Most of all, he doesn’t think that living forever will make people any happier.
Themes
Science has already achieved things that seemed nearly impossible a few hundred years ago. People used to die from infections, and doctors would cut off limbs without anesthetics. Now, they have pills, injections, and operations to cure illnesses that would have once been deadly. Harari thinks about the English rulers King Edward I and Queen Eleanor, who lived in the 1200s. They had every technological luxury of the time at their disposal, but 10 of their 16 children died before reaching adulthood. Harari thinks that’s inconceivable for modern humans. He wonders how long the Gilgamesh project will take to complete. Some scientists estimate that by 2050, it will be theoretically possible to extend human life indefinitely.
Here, Harari wants to show that advances in science have been centered on prolonging life for quite some time. He uses the example of King Edward and Queen Eleanor to show that scientists have progressed leaps and bounds in that effort—the level of child mortality that humanity’s wealthiest rulers endured less than 900 years ago is unimaginable to a modern human being. Harari wants to stress that scientists are closing on their goal to extend human life—and he worries that it's happening so quickly that humanity hasn’t really spent much time thinking about whether or not that’s a good thing.
Themes
Many modern humans assume that science and technology can solve all of humanity’s problems, but Harari doesn’t think that science isn’t some special, superior enterprise. He thinks that—like all cultural practices—it’s shaped by other interests. Harari thinks about how expensive science is. Without extensive financing, he says, many scientific discoveries would never have happened. He thinks it’s naïve to believe in “pure science” for the sake of science. People fund research because they want to achieve a political, economic, or religious goal. In the 16th century, for example, kings financed geographical expeditions so that they could conquer new territory.
Harari revisits the connection between scientific research and the social, political, and economic goals of powerful people. To Harari, many people assume that science is a neutral effort to learn more about the world, but he feels strongly that the opposite is true: rich and powerful people tend to fund scientific research that will bolster their wealth or power. Harari thinks that most scientific discoveries benefit the elite, but they don’t necessarily serve humanity’s goals.
Themes
Harari thinks it would be impossible to remove outside interests from the scientific endeavor. There are always scientists with different research programs competing for funding, and somebody has to decide which program to choose. Harari strongly believes that there are always political, economic, or religious motivations behind such choices. If a society values milk production, it’s unlikely to fund research into the mental anguish of calves being separated from their mothers. He thinks, in fact, that science can never set its own agenda. So, he decides to look at capitalism and imperialism next, to see how they affect scientific progress.
Harari thinks science will never be a neutral endeavor. Somebody always has to foot the bill for scientific research, and whoever does that gets to dictate which research projects go ahead. Such people likely won’t fund research that might make them lose money in the long run. Harari, thus, thinks that the pursuit of wealth and power underscore all scientific research, meaning that the reader shouldn’t just blindly assume that scientific discoveries are true, good, or fair for humanity as a whole.
Themes
