The ugly truth of science

[Joseph Tracy]

The conversation is too polarized. I have the sense that what I am actually saying is being turned into something far more extreme than it really is. I don't think there is any evidence Kai, myself or even the more extreme  aw posts are promoting a disdain for science, and I'm fairly sure we all see that science is a process with many benefits and great potential for the human endeavor. But its evolution has yielded enormous power, and in some ways that power is so dangerous as to potentially nullify its benefits and even  life itself. That is a power that has to be reckoned with. Humans have not evolved ethically  at the same rate as science  and that is a discord that is a global problem.  Science has become a godlike force and we are still territorial primates with an inclination to link our territories to beliefs. Unfortunately, what this means is that science has become something of a modern religion and critical discussion is not a dispassionate process. 

The critique I am trying to put forth is about the ways, psychological, social and technological science is historically and currenty linked to the destructive abuse of power. This is no more indicting all science or all scientists than it would be to indict all teaching or all teachers  for all the bad stuff that gets taught and what happens as a result, or indicting all written and graphic communication systems  for its inherent distortions of reality, broken treaties, the dishonest accumulation of wealth. My intent  is a matter of thinking about all these things in such a way as to know the potential dangers  of how we do all these things and be better able to avoid those dangers.  

 JZ. Comparing anyone on the list with the rightwing-xenophobic-fundamentalist-fascist Michelle Bachman is not what I would call an astute or credible observation. Instead of calling people anti-science, maybe it would be more respectful to engage on the level of responding to the actual words and ideas. How, for example have the descriptions of science on the list been inaccurate?

What alice wellintown is saying about science seems to me to be about showing the inherent psychological appeal of getting new knowledge and extending one's power,   that  it is not inherently benign, and has a dark side. The issue is that science is a human activity. 

Perhaps something about the role of science in my own life and family. I like science and talked about it with my adopted step daughter and 2 birth children often while they were still home. I don't think any of them would say I maligned science. My oldest daughter  has become a director of science curriculum at a large school district, my son, the youngest, is working  for a silicon valley entrepreneur on a prototype of an electric work truck, collaborating with Siemens and using Darpa developed batteries . My other daughter just graduated from Smith with a degree in environmental policy.  I continue to try to master the practical science of food gardening and working with glass as an artistic medium. Recently, along with literature, news and commentary I have been inclined to read about permaculture, mushrooms, soil science, global climate change, environmental issues, and the science of hot glass. I teach art glass every year and talk about surface tension, the random molecular structure of the glass as opposed to the crystalline structure of most minerals, the coefficient of expansion as a factor in the compatibility of fusible glass, the practical use of geometry in design for architectonic ornament and other things that boil down to the science that is helpful to know for joining art and glass. 


On Jun 15, 2013, at 9:40 PM, Joseph S. Barrera III wrote:

> As a fellow scientist I don't get the anti-science rants either. I'd recommend recognizing that half the anti-science content comes from one poster. But even so I've come close to dropping this list because of that poster.
> 
> - Joe
> 
> P.S. U. Pitt! I am a CMU grad but from long ago (1990).
> 
> On 6/15/2013 9:03 AM, 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 him who is unarmed, or that the unarmed man should be secure among armed servants. Because, there being in the one disdain and in the other suspicion, it is not possible for them to work well together. And therefore a prince who does not understand the art of war, over and above the other misfortunes already mentioned, cannot be respected by his soldiers, nor can he rely on them. He ought never, therefore, to have out of his thoughts this subject of war, and in peace he should addict himself more to its exercise than in war; this he can do in two ways, the one by action, the other by study.
> 
> 
> -- 
> "Extra credit is not /extra/. It’s just /credit/."
>