The Hubris of the Sciences

In his famous essay “More is different”, physicist Phillip W. Anderson described the limitations of the reductionist approach (Anderson, Phillip W., 1972). Reducing sciences into a hierarchy from the planets to elementary particles does not lead to predictable behavior. We often believe that fundamental laws can explain behavior at all levels of complexity. While discussing this false hierarchy that people claim in the sciences, he writes, "At each stage entirely new laws, concepts and generalizations are necessary, requiring inspiration and creativity to just as great a degree as in the previous one." This seminal piece of work describes truths that go beyond the natural sciences.

While defining water scarcity, a reductionist approach can be as troublesome. Treating water scarcity as a 'security' problem warrants attempting to solve it through economics and engineering solutions. This is precisely the hubris that P.W. Anderson warns us about. Water scarcity should not be seen as an applied case study in economics or engineering. Zeitoun et al. tackle this in their paper, looking into the shortcomings of this approach (Zeitoun, Mark, et al., 2016).

Namibia is an excellent case study for looking into the hubris of this exact situation. Namibia is one of the driest countries in sub-saharan Africa. It depends on technological feats of engineering to ensure its water security. In the next few posts, I will take a look into the presence of climate change as an agent disrupting the effectiveness of the reductionist approach that Namibia uses, and perhaps what a different approach can be.