The Knowledge: Can the world be Rebuilt from Scratch? By Brian Simpson

Professor Lewis Dartnell believes that even after a collapse, civilisation can be rebuilt from scratch, detailed in his book: The Knowledge (Bodley Head, 2014). He is not concerned with the run-of-the-mill economic collapse, but things nastier, like all-out nuclear war, a killer asteroid hit, or a virus that really was deadly, rather than merely constructed to economically destroy the West. He thinks that the scenario of a fast die off of the majority of the population will create a grace period, where the handful of survivors can make use of the left-over resources to rebuild civilisation, and he details how. Basically, the survivors need to have an understanding of fundamental science, such as the atomic theory of matter and the germ theory of disease.

I found the discussion of kick-starting agriculture, food and clothing, medicine, materials, transport and advanced chemistry fascinating. It is all based on preserving the scientific method, that the world is material rather than spiritual, and is governed by empirically ascertainable causes. I think this is where the book fails to get off the ground.

In the sort of ultimate disaster scenario considered by Dartnell, it is most likely that the catastrophe  that killed off most of humanity, would have wiped out most scientists and technologists, In fact,  there is a case that nerdlike creatures would perish in disproportionate numbers. Dartnell is thinking of a post-apocalyptic society populated by people like him. But, all due respect, that will not be so. Those most likely to survive will be the cold-blooded and ruthless, who will have street savvy, but not book smarts. Beyond the basics, they are not going to preserve the scientific method, which will involve too much thinking, and hence will be too hard, when killing comes easier. Thus, the reality is that even most normies know little about how the things they use in daily life work, in fine detail, let alone how to fix them, let alone how to make them from scratch.

Thus, to get science past the basics will require mathematics. Dartnell only mentions mathematics in a footnote saying: “Mathematics is one topic that has not been covered in depth here. Calculations are clearly important for engineering designs, and mathematics is the language for the statement of physical law, but it does not lend itself to explanation of general principles within the scope of this work.” (p. 283). That is a pity for his thesis, since to get to an advanced society, mathematical knowledge will be necessary, but most people today are ignorant of the mathematics need for science, even those who play games with computers, or have a spot of programming language, and as most students will tell you, mathematical knowledge is lost quickly after exams.

All in all, if we allow things to get as bad as Dartnell starts with, there will be no rebuilding, and human kind will have to hope that it survives for thousands of years to rediscover all of these fundamentals. But, I doubt it.