You have to keep in mind that the Watchtower Society was born at a time when scientific materialism was very much in vogue. Quantum mechanics was in its earliest phase of development and had not peneteated public consciousness. The theory of relativity wasn't even conceived of at this time. 'Holistic science' was an oxymoron. Most educated people lived in a simple 'common sense' newtonian world where action at a distance was impossible and the universe functioned like a mechanical clock with no room for randomness or uncertainty.
If you look at many of the Watchtower doctrines, they seem to reflect this worldview. For example, in denying the soul's immortality, the Watchtower is asserting the standard hard materialist argument that consciousness is just an epiphenomenon of the physical brain and thus cannot survive the death of the body.
I once read a WT article that mocked belief in astrology since science had proven that planets are "just dead pieces of rock" (guess they never heard of the Gaia theory).
Even the Watchtower's God, while not as anthropomorphic as the Mormon god of flesh and bone, is still basically a sort of deistic grand architect of the cosmos who sits on his throne watching it all wind down; a far cry from the traditional Christian God who is omnipresent, closer to us than our breath.
The weird irony of this is that despite their materialistic, no-nonsense, anti-mystical theology, JWs themselves, as a group, are the most superstitious people I have ever met. Everything has a supernatural (demonic) explanation in their world from missing car keys to malfunctioning electronics. They scoff at astrology, reiki, and parallel universes and yet they are convinced that fallen angels live in antiques and Satan spends his time playing practical jokes.
