It can be argued that the method the framers hit upon, democracy, is based to some extent on biology, via its roots in natural law. This argument is supported by recent research in the field of opinion dynamics by Princeton University biologist Simon Levin. His observations of animal herds show that, like human social groups, they follow certain innate rules of organization. A vote is an expression of opinion, and herd animals, quite literally, vote with their feet when determining the overall herd’s grazing patterns.
But the voting is not entirely egalitarian. There are opinion leaders in these herds, just as there are in human social groups. The idea of having equality of opportunity—in practical terms, having the right to vote—exists, but, just as in human society, all individuals do not have equal influence. In America, the framers of the Declaration of Independence had more influence in shaping our democracy than the average Virginia tobacco farmer did, and far more than an indentured servant or a slave. In herds, a very few individual opinion leaders make decisions that influence the entire herd’s grazing patterns. “Individuals in reality are continually gaining new information, and hence becoming informed,” says Levin. “So for sure, any individual could become a leader (just look at elections in the United States). That does not mean that all men are created equal, but in terms of the ability to lead, they all have equal opportunity.”
The idea that natural law and hard-wired biological instincts are somewhat synonymous forces lies at the very foundation of modern law. Remember Calvin’s Case: “The law of nature is that which God at the time of creation of the nature of man infused into his heart, for his preservation and direction.” In today’s language, this is another way of saying “biological nature,” or, more commonly, “human nature”—what drives us naturally, as reasonable creatures. What democracy did was to structure and channel those natural opinion dynamics—what we call natural law—for use in organizing society. Democracy is rooted in our biology.
Science, Art, and Creative Cultures
Science and art are intrinsically related and, in fact, were once one and the same. Both involve the detailed observation and representation of nature in its many aspects; both seek to capture and express some fundamental and perhaps ineffable truth. Both are concerned with the great questions of reality, of life, of an underlying order. Both require a sort of leisured study in a segregated place to maximize creativity, and both are driven forward by an intensely disciplined focus on the craft that can produce astounding bursts of creative insight. Physicists often talk about aesthetic qualities like beauty and symmetry, and indeed there is a long history of art apprehending the forms of nature later uncovered more explicitly by science. Great art and great science both produce a sense of wonderment, and the great artists and scientists are separated from the mediocre ones by the breadth of their minds and the originality of their ideas.
As with mathematicians, who are often also brilliant musicians, scientists frequently seek creative expression in other media such as painting, writing, or sculpture. The exploration of nature, the seeking of insight, the making of things, the importance of technique and finesse—all these drive both art and science.
As natural philosophy, science was considered part of the arts until around 1835, when the term “scientist,” which had been in circulation for a few years, was adopted at the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in order to better describe what scientists did in both the philosophical and technical-analytical senses, using the term scientist “by analogy with artist.”
Because of the close relationship between innate individual potential and creative expression, on the one hand, and the opportunity afforded by democracy, on the other, science has made the greatest advances in liberal (as in free and open) democratic societies that spread freedom and opportunity broadly, like fertilizer, through tolerance, diversity, intellectual and religious freedom, individual privacy, equal individual rights, free public education, freedom of speech, limited government authority, consideration of minority views, and public support for both arts and research that allow creative minds the opportunity to dream of new things. It is the cross-pollination of ideas that seems to have led to the greatest advances and the value is derived not from encouraging art or encouraging science, but from encouraging and supporting creativity.
These open, democratic societies that are supportive of—and attractive to—creative minds acknowledge the role of opinion leaders, but limit those leaders’ actions closely to the feedback of the herd. In The Science of Liberty, Ferris shows how powerfully open societies have promoted the wealth and progress of nations, and how fundamentalist, theocratic, and totalitarian governments—in other words, authoritarian governments—have had comparatively few scientific advances. This resulted in those nations falling further behind the liberal democracies both economically and technologically.
This has occurred for three main reasons. The first is intellectual flight. Historically, the brightest and most creative minds have migrated to open societies, and, once there, have made discoveries and created works of art that advanced and enriched those societies. A classic example is the intellectual flight from fascist Europe in the years leading up to World War II. In the 1920s and early 1930s, Berlin was the world capital of science, culture, and art, and these aspects fed off one another. Persecution—particularly of Jews, homosexuals, and artists—spurred emigration that turned the United States into an intellectual mecca. The United States offered these intellectuals freedom, tolerance, egalitarianism, opportunity, and support for their work, and it had the military strength to protect those ideals. In return, the new immigrants gave the United States enormous breakthroughs in chemistry, biology, and physics, and helped shape Hollywood culture, which, together with advanced technology, became America’s chief cultural export.
However, scientific leadership proceeds from not only openness but also the degree of opportunity available to creative citizens. By making education free and accessible to all, by stimulating cross-pollination and creativity with a diversity of views and languages and support for research and the arts, by financially supporting scientific research and artistic exploration, and by leveling the economic playing field to provide equal opportunity and freedom of inquiry, democratic societies have broadcast the intellectual fertilizer that helps talented people develop their creative potential wherever they may be—and that creative potential, in turn, benefits those societies.
Finally, these open societies with vibrant cross-fertilization between the sciences and the arts have historically produced innovations that have created new, previously unimagined economies, as well as profound technological breakthroughs that have led to the ability to project physical power over the natural world and against rivals. Personal computers were functional, but it took marrying science and technology with the art of design to make them into the ubiquitous and transformative tools that they became.
Combined, these three factors have had a stunningly powerful effect: even more than empowering individuals, they empower ideas. It is this mix of freedom, tolerance, creativity, talent, and diversity in science, in art, and in the social and intellectual interplay between the two that has spawned the great breakthrough cultures that produce new ideas and fresh insights.
A Nation of Thinkers—or Tinkerers?
Jefferson was certainly aware of some of this, and he heavily promoted science during the eight years of his presidency from 1801 to 1809, frequently writing and speaking of its value and importance to the nation and sponsoring major scientific expeditions such as that of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Befitting the great westward expansion, in the nineteenth century it was America’s pioneer spirit and can-do attitude that produced the world’s great inventors and implementers, the great trial-and-error engineers involved in communication, lighting, and power, including Eli Whitney, Samuel Morse, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, Nikola Tesla, and many others. But Europe was still the home of real science and the scientists—the curiosity-driven experimentalists and theorists—who made the fundamental basic-science breakthroughs, including Alessandro Volta, Michael Faraday, Andre Ampere,