Yes, Virginia

[Stefan Schuber]

Andrew Dinn makes the following points:

"Well, the problem with this argument is that whether a choice is good
or bad involves politics and ethics. So developing science and
technology is implicitly performing a political act. You change the
lie of the political landscape by changing what people can do and how
they can do it. Pretending that the politics must be someone else's
fault just is not good enough.

"And just as bad is the common response that if I don't do the science
someone else would have got there first, and probably someone much
more evil than humble, disinterested scientist yours truly."

These points are well taken, but IMHO there is a tremendous difference, 
on the one hand, between saying that science takes place within a culture 
that invokes politics and ethics -- and, on the other hand, giving this 
culture/politics/ethics consortium a controlling vote in the exercise of 
science. The latter, I fear, results in "politically correct" science, 
vague notions of PoMo "science" (e.g., creationism), and finally a 
vulnerability to exactly the sort of mordant irony and slapstick that so 
wonderfully infect GR.

To put this another way, there's no escaping the brutal reality that 
atoms can be split. The "better us than THEM" argument that (correctly, I 
think) bothers Andrew is postpartum rationalization that must be 
countered by a good grasp of history and a Pynchonesque sense of hilarity.

ss