The ugly truth of science

[alice wellintown]

Well take your hand off your political lever and pull on something more
rigid, like what junior scientists know about these issues that we old
ladies don't. I mean, we here can only pretend to have any idea about what
the bleeding edge of science is into these days. If a physicist here
teaches she can hardly find the time to keep up with what is the latest
theories because she's too busy teaching old fundamentals to young people,
if she do research, funded, presumably, by the government or some monied
concern, well, how can she know with any depth more than what they, with
their equipment and their bottom line are paying for? Only you, the
young  scientist, has the time, I hope, to keep up with the world of a
science. Which one? Me, I have but a carpenter's, what we once called a
country gentleman's knowledge of science, but it serves me. I can hammer
out on anything in science generally. Same with literature, most topics I
care about, but the latest science, or the latest anti-science, if such a
thing exists, is all protean particles proliferating prodigiously
perplexing me, reminding me of how old Humpty once tried to get the better
of me goat and yoked himself to depths he could't make the measure of once
he wobbled on his wall.


On Saturday, June 15, 2013, JZ Stafura wrote:

> Hi all,
>
>   Been a lurker on this list for a long time, haven't felt like I've had
> the time to contribute to the list, given the fine minds here. While I've
> enjoyed the discussions, debates, and thoughts for years now, the latest
> anti-science talk sounds more like a Michelle Bachman speech than the
> intelligence I'm used to on this list. As a junior scientist (who just must
> be bought and sold by the powers that be - those evil folks who want to
> find ways to help children with language impairments through
> non-pharmacological instructional techniques - gasp!), the level of
> discourse on science here has been depressing, small-minded, and reveals
> how little my 'kind' are thought of here. Yes, scientists are aware of the
> dangers of science, most of them are like me, curious and amazed at the
> world around us - and not stupid enough to take money to study things just
> because the money is there. It sounds like everyone on this list has there
> mind made up, but what if scientist lumped all literature students in the
> same pile (I also have a lit degree) - we could say something like lit
> theory has offered nothing new for over 50 years, which is why the programs
> are drying up - it isn't the worlds fault, it's yours. I don't believe this
> at all, but it is as accurate a description of humanities as the
> descriptions of science have been on this list over the last month or so.
>
> Take it or leave it, I don't mind, and I'll always enjoy reading what the
> brilliant folks on this list have to say.
>
> Joe
>
> Joseph Z. Stafura
> U. Pitt
> iPhone (apologies for the brevity and mistakes)
>
> On Jun 15, 2013, at 11:16 AM, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Look into a Astro-Biology textbook, or into an Astronomy Webpage, and
> you will see beautiful artwork. Artistic simulations of what the data from
> distant space probes fed into computers is adding up to. With the space
> probe, the computer, we can build entire worlds, above and beyond the
> confining fact of nature, and these built worlds are nothing next to the
> transformation wrought by science and technology, which has extended our
> bodies to manipulate and change the world to fulfill its very own, often
> evil and cruel plans for it and its unwitting inhabitants. Much as
> Science/Technic claims to educate and warn, Science and Technology has
> shown how to destroy before we understand. In P we have several
> unmistakable examples. We have the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
> This, of course, is the Science/technology destruction that continues, even
> after we exit the Theatre/Theater to hover above our heads in equations we
> can't understand, but in common sense parlance, it's the fucking bomb, and
> Science and Technology is only a hindrance to our grasping the
> sphincter-tightening reality.   Science/Technology has altered what is to
> be a human by giving the species the capacity to totally denude our Earth
> with war that escalates to madness and chaos. Remember WWII? madness.
> Chaos. GR is a reminder and a warning. Isn't it? Even if the anti-bomb folk
> are now pro-bomb for everyone folk, even Iran and N Korea have a right to
> the bomb, no? Even if the MAD men are now Peace Men who want to prevent
> proliferation while maintaining a huge advantage, even if the threat keeps
> the peace or whatever...we have been transformed by the bomb.
> >
> > McCarthy does delve into this, BYW. _The Road_ is set after some kind of
> holocaust that burns the Earth to a crisp.
> >
> >  In any event, the Earth, the Planet Earth no longer seems a home that
> we can live on forever. Science played god, and so we poor preterit must
> accept a home, a garden that is not eternal, but has an end to it.
> >
> > The Second Coming of Science-Technic is Modernity without Restraint.
> >
> >
> > But don't worry poor fellow, Science-Technology will make you immortal,
> ship your frozen head to a new planet or to a space station. The
> limitations of Science and Technology, once we see that it has extended our
> capacity to Destroy Earth and holds out space stations and frozen heads as
> compensation, are clear enough to a common thinker who reads and thinks,
> and who knows it's OK to be a reader and thinker even if this opens one to
> accusations of Luddism.
> >
> > Science and Technology is , of course, valuable. We are not going to
> abandon it. But we need to understand how Science-Technology has altered
> the Earth to make it yield more to satisfy immediate wants, and in the
> process has destroyed its beauty, what took Earth with no plan at all,
> billions of years to create, Science-Technology has destroyed in a few
> thousand years. But not to worry, Science-Technology has photographs and
> beauty too. The pink sky over the industrial motherboard is sublime!
> >
> > Extreme examples? Yes. But there they are. The Bomb. Man-made global
> warning or whatever term you prefer.
> > Extreme examples made weak arguments. But consider how powerful they
> are. A Paradox is useful. Contradictions are often powerful. Common sense
> is often more powerful than logic. A Carpenter is often more important than
> an Astro-Biologist.
> >
> > So how close to the bleeding edge do we need to go? Do we need to force
> our Scientists to pull a trigger and blow a child's head off? Would that
> bleed into his/her mind deep enough and disturb the comfort he/she takes in
> mouse-clicking a village to dust? Do we need to strap a Scientist to a
> Drone so he/she can see what he/she has done? Are mediated Deaths an orgasm
> in the chamber of the white visitation?
> >
> > The specifics are not  important. Technology and Science now destroy
> much of the beauty in the world that we don't yet  understand. It then sets
> its own beauty before us. Science-Technology is obviously misguided. The
> German Sickness is an epidemic in its fields.
> >
> >
> > More dangerous is the fact that the Prince must always keep his Military
> Industrial Complex on the Bleeding Edge.
> >
> > Will Obama move drones into Syria? He has Patriots in Turkey.
> >
> > What are we poor subject to do? Is it OK to read like a Luddite?
> >
> > For among other evils which being unarmed brings you, it causes you to
> be despised, and this is one of those ignominies against which a prince
> ought to guard himself, as is shown later on. Because there is nothing
> proportionate between the armed and the unarmed; and it is not reasonable
> that he who is armed should yield obedience willingly to
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