For millennia, even before Neolithic times, our species’ earliest ancestors survived by their intelligence, adaptability, and perhaps some luck. Creating ever more effective tools and forming more functional social groups increased their likelihood of success. Problem-solving skills emerged in response to varied environments, abilities only possible because of their awareness and understanding of the world around them—an accumulation of essential knowledge. Today’s humanity inhabits a planet transformed into physical and cultural environments unlike the world of pre-history, but the necessity for knowledge, intelligence and adaptability has never been more obvious. Yet, our era is afflicted by troubling ironies, limiting our adaptability.

Today’s Knowledge Horizon, grounded on science-based inquiry of many forms, has given our era a comprehensive and strongly validated understanding of the nature of our world, including a rich description of the human species. We understand much about our evolved cognitive and emotive processes, the species’ genetic grounding and the influence of cultural memes, all mirroring the complexity that constitutes a human being. Our Knowledge Horizon has grown through centuries of empirically supported thinking—reasoning in the most general sense. And while the benefits of technology are eagerly consumed by most segments of society, fundamental aspects of accumulated knowledge have not taken hold and formed a culturally dominant frame of mind. This troubling reality is partly explained by the long-lasting influence of several elements within world cultures.

In opposition to the naturalistic, science-oriented description of our species, strongly competing views—best described as tradition-based—are socially and politically powerful. We see their various forms strongly infused with emotion, their proponents viewing traditional world-views as essential to personal and societal identity, commitments bringing deep resistance toward altering world-views.

Part of the attraction of tradition-based thinking may stem from a natural tendency to exaggerate the differences between humans and the remainder of life on the planet. Granted, humans do differ in important ways from other mammals, but this does not support the much stronger assumption of absolute Human Exceptionalism, a conceptual leap requiring especially robust justification. Humans become viewed as categorically apart from the remainder of life, even from the most cognitively advanced non-human mammals. Human Exceptionalism finds its most forceful expression in creation stories of the Abrahamic faiths, especially the more tradition-based varieties—those retaining the earliest creation accounts. Their advocates view the very idea of the commonality of all life forms as an affront to the absolute uniqueness of humans. Our species is perceived to uniquely connect with not only the fabric of the cosmos, but in some sense its essence. Humans truly matter, and in the in the Abrahamic narrative we are created in the image of God.

Human Exceptionalism—as an element of creation stories—finds frequent pairing with the ideal of objective and absolute ethical values, with moral values somehow imbedded within the very structure and nature of the cosmos. This belief in value permanence—an ethical imperative derived from the created nature of things—carries emotional power, offering individuals and social groups a foundation of true and absolute moral standards, vital for meaningful lives. Veracity and certainty form crucial elements of this world-view. The converse, more typically naturalistic concept, pictures ethical and moral structures as societies’ pragmatic creations, and hence practical rather than absolute or fixed. Tradition-based epistemologies focused on certainty, tied to any variety of moral system, bring rigidity into social relationships, making reasonable adaptations to changing circumstances difficult, if not impossible. The belief in absolute and certain ethical principles mirroring the cosmos is a mis-guided mind-set, fraught with needless social conflict and disfunction. Embracing the knowledge Horizon offers a powerful antidote.

The Knowledge Horizon’s Naturalism: Over the past decades a science-based and philosophically grounded description of our species has been emerging from the consilience of multiple fields of inquiry. Its roots reach back centuries, but recent decades have given this frame of mind a compelling replacement for tradition-bound philosophies. Evolutionary biology, cognitive and social psychology, neurobiology, anthropology, and science-influenced philosophy have established a comprehensive naturalism. The term “consilience” was suggested by E.O. Wilson to capture the unity of all science, describing a powerful consistency between the physical and life sciences, including the social sciences. However much this success is acknowledged, today’s naturalism lives by a strongly felt epistemology of humility—essential for inquiry to evolve. Genuine humility implies the world—the totality of the cosmos—may be much stranger than our intellect is prepared to imagine, even given highly sophisticated AI-aided inquiry now becoming available. Yet, naturalism can claim the strength of consilient inquiry implies many current scientific views are “true”, not in some tortured version of “Absolute Truth”, but to the degree a mass of fundamental principles become so well established their wholesale rejection is unlikely—in extremis—although they could become valid aspects of some future, grand synthesis. Prime examples include the genetic theory, evolution by natural selection, quantum field theory, plate tectonics, the germ theory, the laws of thermodynamics, the Big Bang and expansion of the universe, and much more. Some areas of inquiry are poised for significant new and revealing understanding. The best example may be the search to understand dark energy and dark matter, where deeper knowledge may carry surprising implications. These are intellectually exciting times.

This essay is not about providing comprehensive arguments for the veracity of today’s understanding of the cosmos. That task has been accomplished by dozens of gifted authors, especially working scientist with consummate communication skills. What is relevant to the essay is interpreting and emphasizing the cultural and social effects of either rejecting, or embracing, the Knowledge Horizon. Without the moderating influence of current knowledge, the combined effects of absolutism in ethics and an anthropology grounded on human exceptionalism. will push societies toward intolerance, ethical rigidity and truncated creativity—the opposite of Karl Popper’s Open Society. The full acceptance of Human Exceptionalism means the most important principles of evolutionary biology and anthropology are cast aside, and with it the liberating influence of seeing ethics and morality as pragmatic creations by society, and hence open to future adaptations. Enhancing human cultural adaptation is a paramount ability of our species, a view made vividly clear by the life sciences. A society’s willingness to adapt—its flexibility—is associated with tolerance, compassion and the acceptance of universalism in the human experience. As a corollary, especially valuable today is the mind-set of progressive, more adaptive religious groups. Long ago they moved beyond literal interpretations of pre-modern creation narratives, and now focus largely on shared social and ethical practices, usually inclusive of the larger society—a vital part of the movement toward open, more creative societies.

Tradition-based world views, especially those deepened by emotion and connected to a person’s sense of value and worth, are by their nature difficult to successfully counter. To that end, moving society toward a more science-consistent mindset involves presenting scientific thinking as one of several exemplars of humanity’s triumphs. Of importance is realizing science does not hold a flag of supremacy, although scienced-based inquiry has established far-reaching truths that need to become the common core for a truly flourishing society. But other human-created elements are equally essential—an ethics of caring and compassion; the rule of law and sense of fairness; a commitment to community, both small and large; equal reciprocity between all members of society; creativity in all the arts; valuing physical skill and creativity. All elements are critical for a flourishing society; none is sufficient. In this sense science-based inquiry is not supreme, although other elements, to be truly viable, risks irrelevancy if inconsistent with established science.

When science is not waving a tall flag of supremacy in the face of traditionalist members of society, emotional temperatures tend to drop, and the likelihood of seeing common ground increases. Incremental change, even if glacial, becomes powerful. Publicly embracing the Knowledge Horizon, if accomplished with a measure of empathy and respect toward those holding different views, can carry us nearer the long-term goal of a truly pluralistic society, yet one maintaining common bonds.

One final remark is necessary in concluding this essay. The traditionalist conception of Human Exceptionalism—humans as creations in the image of God—describes us as part of the essence of the cosmos, and hence inordinately infused with value, importance and permanence. This ideal conception is discounted by everything implied by naturalism and the Knowledge Horizon, but equally telling is so much of human memory and literature, expressing our fundamental contingency, limitation and lack of permanence. It becomes honest and even heroic to accept and act within these parameters. We are contingent and evolved creatures, often struggling to form flourishing societies.