Demons have accompanied science throughout the centuries. But those in laboratories are not supernatural creatures, but questions, paradoxes, mysteries and laws that surprise scientists and defy human understanding. They have helped make reality what was considered fantasy and, to this day, they continue to motivate the search for what has not been found. In his new book, Science and its demons (Arpa), PhD in History of Science from Harvard University Jimena Canales (Mexico City, 51 years old) offers a tour of scientific evolution through the demons that tormented the minds of figures such as René Descartes, Albert Einstein or Charles Darwin. The collection shows that even in the age of reason, science has been accompanied by its own intellectual ghosts, and vindicates the importance of historiography to understand the great milestones of knowledge. “There are many scientists, but few historians of science,” says Canales.
Ask. His book highlights how scientists, who are traditionally rational and skeptical, turn to seemingly superstitious entities. How can we accept both facets?
Answer. We have to start changing the traditional concept of how science works. What fascinates and obsesses us about it is that it is used to have new things like an iPhone, electric cars or vaccines. The fact that the demons of science are non-existent and imaginary is what gives them their power: they are tools to change the world in unexpected ways.
Q. What has been the importance of these demons?
R. In my research I constantly found the use of the word demons in key articles and texts in the history of science. In the pattern of their appearance, I realized that if I followed the history of these beings, I could see the development of modern science in its entirety over four centuries. “Why did that thread fit so well?” I asked myself. And I found that the demons of scientists, unlike those of religion, do not exist. [en la historia de la ciencia]. Then I realized the role of imagination and its importance in scientific discovery.
Q. How does the imagination of scientists work?
R. We all know the typical stories of the scientist who has a eureka moment. Experts in the field say that it is not possible to know what inspired them to get there because it is too complicated and irrational, but I propose that it is possible to know because imagination is pedagogy. Science students learn to use their imagination to create new experiments and theories. I want to shift the focus to that territory of discovery and imagination.
Q. Are there modern demons?
R. Descartes’ demon is a lying demon that puts another virtual reality in front of your eyes. It has a lot of relevance today when we look at the deepfakes or misinformation. These demons still exist and some are more relevant than others. They do not die, they transform.
P. Why have technologies such as artificial intelligence been demonized?
R. All technologies that have changed the world in a general and revolutionary way have been associated with demons. This is happening now with artificial intelligence, but it happened with Karl Marx and steam engines, with calculators and other technologies as innocuous as the telephone. When they were introduced, people thought they were changing the world in a profound way and they were thought of as demons, but in a metaphorical way. Behind our association of the demonic with technology, scientists are looking for new demons in their laboratories with their technical and specialized language. We must know these demons, their qualities and how they are tied to good and evil or to ethical problems in ancient and modern societies.
Eddington referred to Albert Einstein as an exorcist because his theory of relativity put an end to certain superstitions about absolute time and space.
P. Some scientists turned to religious language, not just to name a mystery, but to express existential fear, like the creators of the atomic bomb.
R. Adam and Eve were thrown out of paradise for eating a fruit that gave them more knowledge. Why do we often associate science, technology and knowledge with the demonic? Because scientists have sought out these demons. In religion they are tied to good and evil. In the case of the atomic bomb, they were used to define studies such as quantum demons, which were very small and very fast, even faster than the speed of light, and according to Einstein, that is why they could not exist.
P. Hence Albert Einstein is spoken of as an exorcist.
R. Einstein’s most important popularizer, astronomer Arthur Eddington, often referred to Albert Einstein as an exorcist because his theory of relativity put an end to certain superstitions about absolute time and space. At the same time as he performs this exorcism, a new one appears, which scientists call Einstein’s Demon. They are quantum demons. Einstein is one of the examples of how the development of the history of science can be understood in terms of searches and experiments to discard demons that at the same time create others when new answers are sought or found.
P. Is there a similarity between these demons and modern technologies?
R. Yes. One interesting thing about demons is that they are still alive and researchers keep creating them. Laplace’s demon is a figure who, with infinite computation, would have the ability to know the future and the past of the world. That figure motivated the development of megacomputers and calculators. Oliver Selfridge’s pandemonium is to this day the basic structure of artificial intelligence programs and Stephen Hawking or Elon Musk speak of it as a kind of demon. By realizing how the tradition of imaginary beings works, we can better understand how science has developed in the past and how it will develop in the future.
Q. What is that future?
R. When people read history books they think they are about the past, but we must remember that historians also know the future. To date, it is estimated that 117,000 million humans have lived on earth, now we are around 8,000 million. By reading what has occurred in the history of science and technology, we are seeing what the future of those 109 billion was, although not ours.
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