The ugly truth of science

[Christopher Simon]

An interesting point re: free thought and its importance in the discipline of the sciences is that, in the modern era specifically, there is a high rate of turnover for theories. Scientists, by and large, have been very honest in their willingness to give up old "stuff" when new data forces their hands. The past one hundred and fifty years have seen a rate of development and upheaval that shame the plodding thousands of religion, for example. This is one thing that keeps science from becoming the monolithic, dogmatic construct AW seems to see. Open-mindedness is a key element in the scientific progress.  Others are self-criticism, the idea of control groups, and a focus on the importance of repeatable experiments, peer review, and external verification.  It has never been a perfect system.  Human frailty rears its head at every turn.  The predictive power and results of the scientific method have, however, proven its fundamental soundness as a means of knowing.

-----Original Message-----
From: "malignd at aol.com" <malignd at aol.com>
Sent: ‎6/‎17/‎2013 6:41 PM
To: "pynchon-l at waste.org" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Subject: Re: The ugly truth of science

If so, then I would say you have only (mostly) yourself to blame.  Your speaking of science as something monolithic, at times as if it had a will of its own, isn't worth responding to and it's too bad people did. 


Science is a method of discovery and a very very good one.  The misapplication of science, if one believes it is being misapplied, is a human issue.


When you speak about what science "should" be focused on -- who do you think should make those choices?  And do you think science would be better served were scientists not free to follow their own questions and issues?  


It's also a silly idea: rope in the cosmologists (sorry, no more cosmology) and get them thinking about climatology.  Great idea.


And the argument from government/business money is not without merit, but very much overstated.  If anything will save us, it will be free thought, unconstrained by the sorts of chicken little ranting you're putting out.


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.


-----Original Message-----
From: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
To: P-list List <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sun, Jun 16, 2013 10:41 pm
Subject: Re: The ugly truth of science



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/."
> 
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