TRP and Science 2 (was: Science Plays God)

[Antonin Scriabin]

In regards to Dawkins (and Lawrence Krauss, for that matter, and some of
the other leading New Atheists) I think it is important to make a
distinction between the guy who writes pop-atheism diatribes and the guy
who wrote dozens of scholarly articles on biological topics throughout the
70s, 80s, and 90s.  Dawkins probably wouldn't claim that what he is up to
in *The Selfish Gene *is "doing science".  He is championing a specific
type of atheism and trying to promote scientific literacy in laymen, in
writings geared towards people who already agree with him.  He may be
overly aggressive and condescending at times, but he is preaching to a
fanbase, not trying to win people away from the clutches of fundamentalist
religion.  He was once a practicing scientist, now he is a cultural
warrior.  So what?  Nothing about his approach is superstitious or
authoritarian, and none of his writings or behavior detract from the
accuracy, precision, and thoroughness that the sciences bring to the
analysis of the world around us.

On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 9:53 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen <
lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:

>
> >> There simply is no agreement on how to derive prescriptive, “human
> values” statements of the form “this is what we ought to do (or not do) in
> the world”  from normative statements of the form  “this is the way the
> world is,” or even “this is the way we humans are.” The values have to come
> from authority, tradition/imitation (culture), intuition, revelation.<<
>
> But isn't science - in modernity, where "authority", "tradition",
> "intuition" and "revelation" have all become questionable - a kind of
> nowadays' equivalent to the pre-modern times' religion? Isn't that where
> the new authority does come from?
>
> Take brain research (especially in the nineties and early zero-years): In
> this country there are internationally famous neurologists who call for the
> complete abolishment of criminal law. Why? Well, they have those digital
> machines spitting out beautiful pictures of your brain. And on these
> pictures they can even identify the region where it shines up when you're
> happy, or sad, or aggressive. This makes them - I don't know why - think
> that human action is determined by neurons to a degree of 100 %. And so
> they say: Down with criminal law! Nobody is responsible for anything he or
> she does. It's the neurons, nothing but the neurons, so please give us more
> money to find out all about it! Well, of course this is utter nonsense
> (consciousness takes place on an emergent level of operation where the
> internal brain data are externalized and - that's where human freedom comes
> into the game -  reconfigured in a new context), and everybody - you don't
> need any college education for this - realizes it.  Yet it's official
> science, and so even long time law experts among the politicians felt the
> need to comment on this.
>
> Being confronted with similar tendencies, Karl Jaspers coined the term
> "Wissenschaftsaberglaube" which means --- superstition in science.  Monte,
> I know that you are not wissenschaftsabergläubisch, not superstitious with
> view on the 'wonders' of science. But the folks from so-called New Atheism
> are exactly into this. Richard "selfish gene" Dawkins is not a scientist in
> his fight against religion, he is a cultural warrior, or the anti-pope.
> This, of course, has nothing to do with science anymore. Thrown into the
> world, always communicating inside (and never ever outside) of society, we
> simply have no place from where we could overlook the universe and judge
> for sure. So agnosticism - We  cannot really know! - is the only acceptable
> epistemological position when it comes to ultimate questions. To say
> "science proves there is no god" is not the tiniest bit more rational than
> any statement from the most obscure cult.
>
> And then science does derive 'values' but these are not human values yet
> the (economy-affine) criteria of transparency, efficiency, and control. And
> these criteria,we're entering GR territory, are, when applied to human
> beings (and - remember the Dodos? - living beings in general), not neutral.
> That's what I was referring to, when I - borrowing a term from Zygmunt
> Bauman - spoke of modernity's *war against ambivalence*. The best example
> for it from the 20th century is Eugenics which was an *international*mainstream project. And this is not over; the Brock Vonds of the world
> still read their Lombroso, and handicapped people and their parents ("Why
> didn't you get an abortion?") are still treated ugly.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics
>
> "The methods of implementing eugenics varied by country; however, some of
> the early 20th century methods were identifying and classifying individuals
> and their families, including the poor, mentally ill, blind, deaf,
> developmentally disabled, promiscuous women<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promiscuous_women>,
> homosexuals <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuals> and entire racial
> groups<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28classification_of_human_beings%29>— such as the
> Roma <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people> and Jews<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews>— as "degenerate" or "unfit"; the segregation or institutionalisation of
> such individuals and groups, their sterilization, euthanasia, and in the
> case of Nazi Germany, their mass murder<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_murder>
> .[7] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#cite_note-7> The practice of
> euthanasia was carried out on hospital patients in the Aktion T4<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktion_T4>at such centres as Hartheim
> Castle <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartheim_Castle>.
>
> Eugenics became an academic discipline at many colleges and universities,
> and received funding from many sources.[8]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#cite_note-8>Three International
> Eugenics Conferences<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Eugenics_Conference>presented a global venue for eugenicists with meetings in 1912 in London,
> and in 1921 and 1932 in New York. Eugenic policies were first implemented
> in the early 1900s in the United States<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States>
> .[9] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#cite_note-9> Later, in the
> 1920s and 30s, the eugenic policy of sterilizing<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization>certain mental patients was implemented in a variety of other countries,
> including Belgium <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgium>,[10]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#cite_note-10>
> Brazil <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil>,[11]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#cite_note-11>
> Canada <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada>,[12]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#cite_note-12>and
> Sweden <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden>,[13]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#cite_note-wsws-13>among others. The scientific reputation of eugenics started to decline in
> the 1930s, a time when Ernst Rüdin<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_R%C3%BCdin>used eugenics as a justification for the racial
> policies <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_policy_of_Nazi_Germany> of Nazi
> Germany <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Germany>, and when proponents
> of eugenics among scientists and thinkers prompted a backlash in the
> public. Nevertheless, in Sweden the eugenics program continued until 1975.
> [13]" <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#cite_note-wsws-13>
>
> On 17.06.2013 04:42, Monte Davis wrote:
>
>  KFL >Ain't modern science - and I'm talking here about hard, or, as Paul
> Mackin puts it, "real science" - a self-referential functional system
> completely unreachable for something as old-fashioned as values of the
> "real, important human" kind?****
>
> ** **
>
> Two angles of vision on this: one is via the is-ought problem<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem>or  fact-value
> distinction <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact-value_distinction>. That
> came up in philosophy and ethics independent of (in fact, long before
> before) discussions of science and values. There simply is no agreement on
> how to derive prescriptive, “human values” statements of the form “this is
> what we ought to do (or not do) in the world”  from normative statements of
> the form  “this is the way the world is,” or even “this is the way we
> humans are.” The values have to come from authority, tradition/imitation
> (culture), intuition, revelation. They are not to be found in facts, or in
> the principles we come up with to organize and distill our understanding of
> facts. ****
>
> ** **
>
> NB that this applies to **all** knowledge – but in my experience,
> scientists live more comfortably with that, and are readier to acknowledge
> it, than others. That may appear bloodless and “value-free;” it isn’t.
> They’re every bit as likely to care, think and feel strongly about “what we
> ought to do (or not do) in the world;” but to the extent they’re honest
> scientists, they’re actually less likely to claim that “the facts” dictate
> this or that ethical (i.e. value-loaded) choice than others are.        **
> **
>
> ** **
>
> Second angle: Many aspects of scientific method and protocol “exclude
> human values” as *prophylaxis* against letting the researcher’s
> preferences (conscious or unconscious) distort the choice of what data to
> collect and how to interpret it. As you know well, much of statistics
> serves that purpose: we don’t trust our “feelings” about what’s an adequate
> sample size, or how far from the null hypothesis the results need to be to
> establish significance at what confidence level, because there’s a long,
> sorry history of bad science done without statistical care. We’re all too
> prone to see what we want to see and stop looking as soon as it’s
> “confirmed” to our satisfaction. And a scientist taking precautions against
> that, like (say) a journalist following her own profession’s protocols to
> cover a story as completely and objectively as possible, is likely – again
> – to look cold-bloodedly methodical and “value-free” to a more passionate
> or pre-committed observer. Again, I disagree: I think the scientists are
> just as likely as anyone else to cherish and to and act on “human values” …
> they’re just more concerned than others to doubt, test, and be clear about
> what they know (and don’t know) before deciding what to do.  ****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org<owner-pynchon-l at waste.org>]
> *On Behalf Of *Kai Frederik Lorentzen
> *Sent:* Saturday, June 15, 2013 6:19 AM
> *To:* Monte Davis; pynchon -l
> *Subject:* Re: TRP and Science 2 (was: Science Plays God)****
>
> ** **
>
>
> On 13.06.2013 00:38, Monte Davis wrote:****
>
> Is it possible that at the same time he is suspicious and minatory and
> worried about science and technology (and he is, like so many other
> writers),  he is also (like very few others in literary fiction) really *
> interested *in it? Attracted to it? Even fascinated by it? Concerned to
> show us some real, important human values that come to us *through*, even
> *because of*, math and science and technology?****
>
>
> How math, science and technology can bring us "real, important human
> values", I do not see. I'm not saying this polemically, and there are
> certainly good things - antibiotics have been mentioned - about scientific
> modernity. Or, as Jesse says when Walter shows him how to cook up the shit
> right: "WOW ... *Science*!"  But "values"? How? We do not have to come to
> a consent on this. But I really would like to hear - and please note that
> I'm not Alice - from you a detail or two on the criticism on science one
> can doubtlessly find in Pynchon. The thing is that he's not simply "worried
> about science and technology ... like so many other writers"; to Pynchon
> the pitfalls of science-based control are a key issue. I don't find this
> in, say, Philip Roth or Cormac McCarthy. It's plausible to say that
> Pynchon's attitude towards modern science's war against ambivalence became
> more relaxed in the second phase of his work, but in the first three novels
> the theme is central, imo. Pointsman makes his points, Schoenmaker finds
> his clients. And Dr. Hilarious can continue his concentration camp
> experiments under civil conditions in context of MK Ultra. These motives -
> all based in the real history of the 20th century - do unfold a fundamental
> criticism regarding modern science and its lack of values. I'm not
> discussing here - though we might come to this - whether the loss of human
> values is a necessary product of social differentiation, as Luhmann
> ("Modernity has more advantages *and* more disadvantages than any other
> society before") puts it, or whether this could be avoided by different
> forms of political organization. Just that much: "Keep cool and care!"
> won't do. That Pynchon is "attracted" to modern science is certainly right;
> even after the successful publication of *V* he wanted to complete his
> scientific education with a math grade from Berkeley. But, as already said,
> how to get from Pynchon's fascination by science to any kind of 'scientific
> value generation' to be found in the texts themselves, is not clear to me.
> What I find instead, especially in *Gravity's Rainbow*, is the tendency
> to connect the progress of science to deadly war technology. Not only in
> the case of rockets or nuclear weapons, yet regarding modern science as
> such. "There has been this strange connection between the German mind and
> the rapid flashing of successive stills to counterfeit movement for at
> least two centuries --- since Leibniz, in the process of inventing
> calculus, used the same approach to break up the trajectories of
> cannonballs through the air" (GR, p. 407). It's not really "the German
> mind", it's science ---
>
>
>   ****
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20130617/a8a148e5/attachment.html>