The 'Science' of Differentiation - Being a Human Design 'Scientist' (Part 1)

In this article, we'll be exploring what it means to be scientific in our practical application of the Human Design system. 

The topic of Human Design as a science is something that I’ve been walking with for quite some time and found meaningful to think about, given our context here on this network as a school, and then my own context as a Human Design professional. It’s too vast for me to contain in a single article, and I’ll take it as far as I can in this first part.

To start off, I’ve been hearing that Human Design is quickly becoming more popular and fashionable, with a risk of decreased quality of service due to many unlicensed and untrained ‘professionals’. Along with that, some critiques of the Human Design system recently crossed my feed in which the authors took issue with people who falsely claim to be scientific in order to sell things to a desperate audience.

It's common to find attacks masquerading as 'critiques', 'myth-busting', 'debunking' and so on while the authors seem more interested in ridiculing their target and describing them as con-artists scamming their audiences for their money. And while these dangers do exist and we should be alerted to them, sometimes it just seems like the venting of frustration to me. But this is a side track.

Anyway, I quickly checked out some Google Trends statistics (2004 – Jan 2022):

The results above are for the United States. In this graph we can see the red results indicating a notable increase for the term ‘Human Design’, compared to ‘The Human Design System’ (blue) and ‘Ra Uru Hu’ (yellow).

This second graph shows results for Brazil. Here we have a comparison between ‘Desenho Humano’ (red), ‘Human Design’ (blue) and ‘Ra Uru Hu’ yellow.

This third graph shows results for the United Kingdom. ‘Human Design’ (blue) and ‘Gene Keys’ (red).

Here we have Germany. ‘Human Design’ (blue) and ‘Ra Uru Hu’ (red).

India. ‘Human Design’ (blue) and ‘Ra Uru Hu’ (red).

South Africa. ‘Human Design’ (blue) and ‘Ra Uru Hu’ (red).

Globally then, we find the following results (2004 – Jan 2022):

‘Human Design’ (red). ‘The Human Design System’ (blue). ‘Ra Uru Hu’ (yellow).

And so we can see a global upward trend (almost 3 times as popular on Google than 10 years ago) that is likely to be driven by the US and Western Europe mainly, and some swelling in Brazil and the UK since the initial hype almost two decades ago, compared to other regions of the world. We can notice the difference between these terms, suggesting perhaps that even though people may be interested in ‘Human Design’ because they heard or saw it somewhere, they may not necessarily be interested in the source material from Ra.

With this in mind, the Human Design system also being called ‘The Science of Differentiation’ is important to consider. Though this term isn’t as search engine friendly, Ra Uru Hu on several occasions emphasized that the scientific validation of Human Design was very important to him, in part to distinguish HD from other belief based systems that incorporate new age spirituality. Having said that, just because we call Human Design ‘the Science of Differentiation’ does not necessarily make it a science, and I hope to shed some more light on that in this article series (hopefully we get there).

Firstly, because it is something that I wanted to check my own understanding about for myself, secondly as a call to professional Human Design practitioners – in particular to those who may be doing the system and the vocation a disservice, and thirdly to encourage reflection and evaluation of what we are doing here in this particular community together (and maybe what we are not).

This is an article that I found very hard to write because as I did so, many layers of my own conditioning emerged to the surface that I had not yet faced. It was a confronting process in which I could see my Not-Self tendencies emerge while putting words onto the page, distorting the narrative and its message with an underlying purpose in mind. I had to rewrite and spend more time than I originally thought I would. It was necessary to dwell in the uncertainty and unknowing for longer while watching the mind propose all sorts ridiculous angles by which I could try to prove myself as a scientist, or as a professional, through this piece of writing. There was a strong Not-Self structure my system was invested in preserving as if my life depended on it. I wanted to write about this subject sincerely, and yet it continued to feel contrived for a while.

The guiding question for this article is: ‘If you are a practitioner of Human Design experimenting at any level, are you being truly scientific?’

Originally I was driving a second question related to HD professionals who use ‘The Science of Differentiation’ as a convincing marketing trick in order to sell themselves, without necessarily understanding the limitations of that claim. (And then I took a whole wrong turn by reducing the rest of the article digging deeper into that.) Instead, I’m now reorienting us back to the beauty of science and the interesting crossroads we might find ourselves standing at as practitioners.

Personal Sharing:

In my Design, aside from my Individual Channels of Awareness (61/24) and Structuring (43/23) I have Definition in the Collective Understanding circuit, which includes the Channel of Logic (63/4) and the Channel of Judgment (58/18). Much of that is unconscious and formatted by the Experiential Abstract Cycle and Mutative Individual Pulse. And so at first glance you might expect or say that I’m scientifically inclined. Though a sincere interest in science was not really catalysed in me until the year I was introduced to Human Design while in my final year of university. I’d actually given up on mathematics quite early on in secondary school due to conflicts with teachers and had grown a general dislike for abstracting life into formulas that my senses couldn’t connect to. Then much of the modern sciences became increasingly unavailable to me from that point onward.

By invitation, I was encouraged to continue studying economics and began to develop a taste for logical patterns and thinking about systems. But I was missing a lot of essential foundations to understand complex mathematics and found myself slower than others, which I also allowed to discourage me in the conditioned striving for high grades. Meanwhile, what my attention was really preoccupied with most of the time were challenges in personal relationships (the 2/5 Profile in close relationships). I was more interested in understanding social dynamics between human beings, and this was not something I could grasp through abstract mathematics, nor could I solve my relational issues with the kind of scientific thinking that reduced real living complexity to abstract patterns and cold calculation. There’s a significant difference between describing a relationship as an equation and actually living one.

Eventually I went on to study Regenerative Economics at Schumacher College in Devon, UK. As a school this place has a different scientific lineage than most esteemed universities. In fact, the whole ethos of the school follows holistic principles that structure the college into a living community where the student body grows its own food, takes care of the communal spaces and learns to live together in a way that encompasses as many dimensions of life as possible. We were encouraged to really experiment and bring all of that into the classroom to reflect upon relative to the subjects we were studying.

If you’re somebody without any Tribal Definition in your Design like me, this may not necessarily sound appealing to you. And while I’m glad I had the experience, close community life like that may not be my thing (though I’m not so sure I’ll be able to escape it either). Nevertheless, what was very meaningful and valuable to me was the embrace of the totality of life as part of our classroom conversations. The body of the individual had a voice in the classroom setting and could shape how we would go about our day. 

The intellect was not the only way of knowing that we appreciated. There was a deep scientific and philosophical inquiry into our relationship to nature, to the senses, to each other and to the complexities that emerge in the experience of living. Our focus, for most people, was much less on ‘getting the degree’ and much more on observing the mystery of what is actually meaningful in our lives and what connects us to each other. And especially, how we come to understand these things through scientific inquiry.

Scientists whose thinking I was exposed to, and some of whom I was taught by directly at this college include Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Alfred North Whitehead, Henri Bortoft, Brian Goodwin, Stephan Harding, Rupert and Merlin Sheldrake to name just a few that you might also be familiar with in one way or another. And though I’m not designed to be much mentally influenced by the thinking of others, by contrasting my own thinking with their essential concepts I found myself very enriched. I was given language for certain phenomena I did not have before, and I could question and evolve my own ways of thinking and knowing. All of this allowed me to expand what I could see and think about in my own way.

More importantly though, these scientists role modelled a different kind of relationship between the scientific observer and the observed than what you might traditionally find in academic institutions. Which is something I’d like to explore with you in this article series, as we think about practicing Human Design scientifically. But before we get there, let’s start with the basics. What is science anyway?

I think Wikipedia should at least be a good starting point for anyone beginning their inquiry into what science is conventionally understood to be. If we can’t trust at least that information to be accurate and reliable these days, then what can we trust right? 😉 …

The simple definition we find here is: “Science (from Latin ‘scientia’ ‘knowledge’) is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.”

And then you can also find a concise description of some of the scientific human endeavour throughout history, piecing together an image of how scientific inquiry evolved to where we are currently. At the core of this pursuit we find several vital aspects of science: the ‘Scientific Method’, ‘verifiability’, ‘falsifiability’ and ‘bias’. 

By understanding these concepts, we can get an understanding of how to approach Human Design scientifically ourselves, but also an understanding of where we are inevitably limited. By being able to hold both of these understandings side by side, we can practice from a place of humility and walk as closely to the truth as we can.

So before we briefly go into each of these concepts, I’d like to insert what I think is the quintessence of all of this. It is a question that reflects the scientific spirit, that I find helpful and necessary to bring myself back to continuously. And I invite you to remember this question if nothing else from this article:

“Is what I’m saying true and how do I know?”

There are many possible answers: 'yes', 'no', 'maybe', 'sometimes', 'I don't know', 'feels true enough but I'm not sure', ‘other people seem to think so’, ‘my gut makes an interesting sound’, etc. And all of those are fine - as long as we're aware of that and don't pretend it to be otherwise. There's nothing shameful about not knowing - that's where science begins. 

Then there is the process of moving from ‘not knowing’ to ‘knowing something scientifically’, which is not the same as moving from ‘not knowing’ to ‘thinking that we think we know’. How you ask yourself this quintessential question and move towards an answer from there, reflects the kind of scientist you are (or aren’t). And there are many different possible kinds scientists who are prone to disagreeing with each other. 

Ra Uru Hu in one of his lectures talked about Truth and Outer Authority, and that our process of getting there, sharing our awareness with each other, was not about agreeing with each other and seeing things the same way in the end. Rather, to be able to share peacefully how we see differently. I’ll elaborate on this more later on.

To answer this big question then, science proposes the ‘Scientific Method’ as a pathway to knowing:

1. You start with a curious observation.

2. You let your observation inspire or inform you with a question about its nature, 'what' it might be or 'how' it works.

3. You develop a hypothesis, a theoretical answer for what could be the case, projecting some anticipated results or predictions.

4. You find a way to test your hypothesis through experimentation, finding out how you would measure your results.

5. You analyse your findings about the observation to see if they meet your anticipations and substantiate your hypothesis or not, and what else they might indicate.

6. You draw your conclusions based on evidence and refine your process. 

This then is the guiding logical framework for training the mind to conceptualize and see scientifically. When we as Human Design practitioners claim to be practicing the ‘Science of Differentiation’, we have to understand how it follows this method. If we don’t, we’re better off just dropping the pretence. 

What connects the multiple threads I’ve opened up so far is the word ‘evidence’ in step number 6. All roads lead back to evidence. “Is what I’m saying true and how do I know?” – what’s my evidence? What do I consider to be the evidence for my conclusions and is it scientifically legitimate? 

In Human Design the practice is a proposed formula for you to experiment with and start validating the mechanics for yourself. This is your Type, Strategy and Authority applied as a way to make decisions and observe the outcome. ‘Decide for yourself to engage in this experiment and watch carefully what happens’. 

So let’s follow the scientific method in a hypothetical example for a Sacral Generator Type:

Observation: A feeling of dissatisfaction with one’s life, repeated struggle with decision-making dilemmas and feeling stuck.

Question: Can following my Type, Strategy and Authority make a measurable difference?

Hypothesis: If I follow my Type, Strategy and Authority formula, I don’t expect much will change or improve. If I simply wait for things to come to me without making anything happen, I expect nothing will happen. I’ll measure by observing changes in how I physically feel as a consequence of my decisions.

Experiment: At work, instead of going out of my office to initiate stuff to do with my colleagues which I usually do (I always think the quicker we get started the better - just do it.), I sat and waited for somebody to approach me with work. I felt nervous about what others were going to think of me but stuck with it. Eventually somebody actually showed up and asked me if I was okay and if I wanted to continue to work on yesterday’s reports. I felt something like a knot in my gut, and had the immediate urge to say no. But it was an important report and if I wasn’t going to do it, I don’t think it would get done properly and my supervisor would get upset with me. So I said ‘sure’ and started working on the report. I felt very bored doing it and really did not enjoy the feeling that ‘I had to do it’. I worked on it for two hours and noticed myself grinding my teeth until my jaw tightened up. My mind started thinking that I was stuck in a slave’s job and that I resented my boss. I was counting down the minutes on the clock so that I could quit it and go for lunch break. I felt very frustrated and could barely enjoy my meal because I was so uncomfortable in my gut.

Analysis: I can see that I ‘waited to respond’ according to the TSA formula, and that my expectations were incorrect because somebody did show up with work for me to do. When I felt in my body that I didn’t want to do it (the knots in the gut or stomach and the urge to say no) I continued anyway because I thought I had to and was afraid of consequences. When I went ahead with the reports, I felt very frustrated afterwards and this was physically noticeable. 

Conclusion: This particular case example does show a pattern between my decision-making, the feeling of frustration in my gut and overall dissatisfaction with my life and what I do for a living. It seems consistent with what is being suggested by the TSA formula. I have to experiment further to see if following my ‘gut response’ more liberally makes a positive difference and if making my decisions differently can connect me to something more ‘satisfying’ and how that would be. 

The evidence is mainly to be found in the signposts (Frustration and Satisfaction | Resistance and Ease) at first. If the formula says that you’re a Generator, can you observe that when you make your decisions one way it leads you to a physical feeling of frustration in the gut and dysfunction in communication with others? And when you make decisions the other way, can you observe a physical feeling of deep satisfaction in the gut and greater ease of communication with others?

This process may suffice for you, but scientifically what remains is weighing this ‘evidence’ in terms of ‘verifiability’, ‘falsifiability’ and ‘bias’, as mentioned earlier. And this is where we may run into the kinds of challenges that critics may then leverage as a way to dismiss the value of the system as a whole. 

On behalf of ‘real’ science, one of the main tools that aggressive critics use is the label 'pseudoscience', driving an assumption that when something is called a pseudoscience it doesn't merit attention and is invalid for exploration by definition.

Wikipedia defines a pseudoscience as follows:

"Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claims; reliance on confirmation bias rather than rigorous attempts at refutation; lack of openness to evaluation by other experts; absence of systematic practices when developing hypotheses; and continued adherence long after the pseudoscientific hypotheses have been experimentally discredited." 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience#Scientific_method

And so what do you reckon? Is Human Design a Science of Differentiation, or a Pseudoscience of Differentiation? Does this matter to you and why (not)?

And why is it worthy of exploration to you?

(Would you like to leave your perspective as a comment?)

I’ll close this first part on a cliff-hanger. The content so far may be good enough to start chewing on already as an introduction before we go deeper. In the next parts I hope to dive into what ‘verifiability’, ‘falsifiability’ and ‘bias’ are and how these things play into the scientific approach to practicing Human Design (or lack thereof).

I also intend to bring in some interesting perspectives from Rupert Sheldrake’s book ‘The Science Delusion’, also called ‘Science Set Free’, which turns things on its head by investigating whether the prevailing scientific worldview holds up to its own standards – or not. And this may open up an avenue for us to look at some of the alternative scientific role models I mentioned earlier, and how they might inspire the Human Design experiment.

Then finally we can get into the topic of individual truth vs collective or institutionalised scientific truth, which is what we’re gradually building up towards.

(To be continued when the energy shows up. 

If not, then at least you know where I was headed and have a trail you could follow.)

Hagen

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