Falsifiability: Ra was a 26th Gate who loved to make bold claims rooted in what he individually ‘knew’ to be true in his bones. And this could alarm people into identifying his claims as persuasive and dangerous exaggerations. The falsifiability of claims means that they should be logically testable with available means. If we cannot verify aspects of the system directly, nor run an experiment that could contradict our predictions or hypothesis, then we have no scientifically meaningful way of knowing whether the claim is actually true or not. It’s fully untestable.
The main example used to illustrate this notion is Karl Popper’s statement “All swans are white.” This is a hypothesis that could be either logically ‘verified’ by observing all swans – which we do not have the means to do. But on the other hand, the claim could be ‘falsified’ by observing a single black swan.
A strong distinction is then made between what is considered to be ‘science’ and what is not on this basis. If claims made within Human Design cannot be technically falsified, if we cannot logically test their validity by finding contradictory evidence using available means, then it is not a scientific claim.
So if we think about that for a moment, we can see that many aspects of the Human Design system cannot be falsified. Ra knew this and therefore, as far as my interpretation of it goes, his focus was to prove at least the scientific validity of Type - out of which the Strategy follows, serving as the basis for the proposed decision-making formula. The next step then would be collecting empirical evidence for the Inner Authorities rooted in people’s personal experiments. These are things that could in a way be measured through sufficient statistical analysis, correlating and predicting patterns.
So ultimately, the scope is brought back to the individual, which is both the practical bottom line of the Human Design system as such, and also where the empirical evidence for any of it is going to come from. How we collect and evaluate that data could accumulate into a resource base for making scientific claims (or not).
For yourself, you can verify or falsify your proposed decision-making formula and evaluate its legitimacy by following it (or not) and checking the outcome against what it predicts. The limitation to this, however, is the all-pervasive ‘confirmation bias’ that each individual is hyper-prone to - and that scientific critics can hear almost instantly in the subtle shifts of intonation in your voice from many miles away with their acute sensitivity.
Bias: there are many kinds of biases, but one of the more prominent ones that we are concerned with when it comes to scientific experimentation is the so-called ‘confirmation bias’. This essentially means that we are prone to interpret our findings in a particular way that is most convenient to us and would serve to confirm pre-existing beliefs or what we’re already hoping to get out of it. There is an outcome we already have in mind, consciously or subconsciously, and we will warp information to conform to that outcome in order to bring it closer to fulfilment.
This can lead to distortions of evidence, paying disproportionate attention to that which seems to confirm and verify, while ignoring or even eliminating contrary evidence or attempts at refutation and falsification. This can lead to major mistakes in many professions, such as medicine or urban planning for example.
If you're reading this and you've already taken the Living Your Design course, then you're probably familiar with the concept of the Not-Self and how it works. You can probably see how it lines up with long-held confirmation biases. These are the strategies and ways of thinking that keep us stuck in life following the same mistakes over and over again. It serves the purpose to keep our system stable, which is adaptive in terms of not falling apart under constant survival stress, but it also prevents us from actually growing and developing as ourselves.
When this influences our interactions with others and impacts them, there's backlash eventually. And the tricky thing is that we're blind until suddenly we are not. We've all got our shadows and distractions out and about that help us cope with the uncomfortable intensity in the openness - and we don't get to sidestep their consequences.
One way of dealing with the problem of cognitive biases in science is that our experiments should be open to logical challenge - in particular by field ‘experts’. Investigation should be made in order to test how solid our explanations really are and whether the evidence is sufficient. We may say that we were frustrated because we didn’t trust and follow our perceived gut response, but does that explanation hold up when it is probed more deeply? And can it be probed at all?
Are there any other expert authorities on you and your decision-making process? If there are, how empowering is that really and what is their agenda? And perhaps the more relevant question: would you like to be probed?
Again we're getting in contact with this strange relationship between the collective logical process and the integrity of individuality. In order for something to be collectively accepted as a scientific truth, you need a panel of experts who all agree on a pattern due to its predictability, which they need to investigate and measure in significant detail within the context of existing knowledge. (Imagine a group of scientists deciding amongst themselves that you're wrong about your life...)
The individual in me is already sighing: 'Ain't nobody got time for that!' The Collective in me is saying: 'Yes, wouldn't it be interesting if we could reliably measure the gut responses of a whole batch of Generator's according to Channel variations?'
Nevertheless, biases and shadows are part of the game. I’m quoting one of my teachers in neurobiology here: ‘We’re biased to believe that we’re less biased than others!’ (Steve Hoskinson) And we have to come to practical terms with that. It is legitimate for a group of scientists to point out I'm wrong when my subjectivity has a significant sphere of influence.
If you take on the Human Design decision-making formula during a desperate and stressful time in your life (in the same way that many people turn to medicine or any other kind of ‘solution’ to their life problems that is being sold on the market), wouldn’t there be a psychological incentive to maintain a sense of security and mental stability by perceiving that ‘it works’ when all else has failed? Wouldn’t there be a bias to believe that you’re doing the right thing?
This is the kind of thing critics are afraid of and for good reason. In the end, we're all concerned with the consequences of decision-making and having the ability to see what we're getting into. For example, if you’re following Human Design’s Primary Health System, you are moving into pioneering territory - not a well-tested and scientifically proven miracle cure-all. Your experiment may end up on the list of 'things that didn't work'.
This modality is so counter to conventional dietary regimen advice and healthcare practices, that it can be a really radical step to take. If you’ve been experimenting with it for a long time and you aren’t really finding your health and wellbeing improving – but you persist anyway, then there may be a confirmation bias driving the process rather than careful attunement to your own body.
Quoting the Definitive Book: "Primary Health System (PHS): Discipline within The Human Design System that studies the Form's cognition; a dietary regimen which best supports each person's complex and unique brain development."
If anyone knows to what extent we have got brains scans or EEG readings that track someone's PHS trajectory, I'd love to hear about it.
Personally, I find PHS a component of the Human Design System where we need to get as scientifically sound professionally as we possibly can, collecting and evaluating data properly. And to my knowledge, this isn’t really happening currently. (If I’m wrong about this, someone please correct me.)
So having presented these three concepts, I’m bringing it back to the essential question of this inquiry:
‘Is what I’m saying true and how do I know?’
Knowing then that you and everyone else have certain biases at work might foster greater attention to what you and others express, or at least where it's coming from.
At whatever level you’re practicing the Human Design System, the points outlined above emphasize at least one major thing: it’s probably in your own best interest to be as scientific about your experiment as you can be.
And I'm breaking away here from what I had written in the previous version of this article because I was getting preachy. What I really meant to say with being 'as scientific as possible' is to pay very careful attention to your process, to consider the evidence you're really seeing versus what you think you're seeing, and how you actually come to know this mysterious thing called truth. To watch your mind distort things and bring that into the light. And perhaps, to document your observations following the scientific method if you feel inclined to make your experiment scientifically useful for others.
(Or, your know, 'Ain't nobody got time for that!' and enjoy your life.)
This is a simple orientation of mind to the unfolding of your life as it is, tracking what happens all the way through the cycle while the known and the unknown dance with you and things are revealed. I'm not suggesting you get your lab coat, read René Descartes and start dissecting your partner in order to measure their gut response from the inside in order to prove it.
Just as much, it's about evaluating honestly how you really move through life and being clear for yourself about where your authority is. To be scientific in this sense is to assume a direct relationship to truth, not externalising it to a third party who gets to plaster their 'expertise' across your life. However, this also means recognizing that you don't know what you don't know, and that well-founded expertise can be valuable information. It's a measured pattern that you can put into context, and that you can take or leave and see what happens. It's also about understanding that if you want to make claims that are scientifically applicable to the Collective, it's going to have to undergo scrutiny before it can have legitimacy.
So much of the work of understanding this term 'the Science of Differentiation' is disentangling the misguided personal proving from the logical collective process of establishing the patterns. What is a scientific pursuit in Human Design is to correlate scientific findings with what is described in the mechanics, given available means. Given the way in which the HD community is not very well organised around this, I don't see it as scientific by conventional standards. Right now, we've got individuals worldwide connecting the dots amongst each other in small groups and through online platforms as they share the patterns they notice in their lives. It's a myth-making in progress, which includes some really incredible stories that may point any one of us in a direction we could follow and check out for ourselves. And we'll live and die by that.
If at this point you're doubting about moving forward with it at all, I’d say that’s a good checkpoint to be at. It’s an opportunity to evaluate exactly what it is that has driven you and motivated you in this direction. This is an opportunity to get clearer with yourself that when you do make the decision to proceed, you are responsible for yourself, and that it’s time to really start paying attention to your decision-making process and its consequences. You won’t be the only one in the Human Design boat, but you’ll be the only one on your unique path.
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