The Place and Value of Science

If we are to have any hope of eliminateing bias in the sciences, it seems that there needs to be a system of checks and balances in the scientific community such that it can prevent the old from blocking the new with predjudice, but how might such a system be orchestrated? Is it possible to create such a system?

And citing someone like Richard Dawkins or even Carl Sagan doesn't cut it, because they are not representative.

According to an article by Alston Chase for the June 2000 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, students in Murray's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-sponsored study, dubbed MKULTRA, were told they would be debating personal philosophy with a fellow student.[4] Instead, they were subjected to the stress test, which was an extremely stressful and prolonged psychological attack by an anonymous attorney. During the test, students were strapped into a chair and connected to electrodes that monitored their physiological reactions, while facing bright lights and a one-way mirror. The "debate" was filmed, and students' expressions of impotent rage were played back to them at various times later in the study. According to Chase, Kaczynski's records from that period suggest that he was emotionally stable at the start of the study. Kaczynski's lawyers attributed some of his emotional instability and dislike of mind control to his participation in this study.

What of science? If it might be presumed that man is a beast, and thus interested in survival first and foremost, it should be of utmost concern that we should find the best means by which we can secure our survival. Society, it seems, builds from this urge to saftey and security. Certainly as society and technology have progressed, the survival rate of our species and the normative quality as well as quantity of life have generally been on the uprise. No longer do we suffer from the bondage of total uncertainty and inconsitency, though we have certainly not conquered these aspects of life; nor do I condone any such efforts to this effect, lest we abandon the value of spontaneity in life.

We have most certainly improved the average lifespan and cut back the rate of infant mortality. We have most certainly cured a myriad of diseases and made nearly innocuous countless more. We have indeed covered the globe with our lines of communications and our systems of mass transit. We have even travelled to space and gazed upon other worlds, and we have looked at them with the hope that we might make them liveable in view of many possible cosmic and man-made dangers that pose a threat to our species so long as we inhabit only the earth.

The ultimate place of science and of society in general, is that of utility. Its first and foremost intent should be to ensure life and improve its quality in those ways that are within its domain of influence.

That being said, it is the hope of many that science might reveal the relational framework of reality in its entirety, and thereby enable us to master to the greatest degree possible, the physical universe(which to many is the only aspect of the universe). It is indeed a hope that goes well beyond the pragmatic basis of this field of study, and it may be a false hope. It may well be that the day will never come that we will know all there is to know of the physical universe, but should that discourage us from this course of action? It does hold true that past attempts at such a unification have yielded some very useful results, as have current ones(such as string theory). In that sense they are pragmatically justified, though it was not necessarily their intent to be such.

Theory is in a sense pragmatic, for it allows for application. The broader the theory the greater the range of applications. Take the basics of newtonian mechanics; with a touch of theory, we put a man into orbit. The equations were certainly not the most complex or esoteric, but their application was very powerful. Look at Einstein, who's theories allowed for applications both great and terrible. Theory is the essence of utility. Without the theory, the possibility of application does not arise. But to what extent does theory go too far? Why is it that so often the nature of a scientific theory is forgotten and it adopts the sense of a law for the general public? Certainly insofar as a theory is useful in application and no superior substitute is available, it should be taken as valueable. There is however, always the factor of vested interest. There are those who would have it assumed that the theories of general relativity and quantum mechanics are law simply because their lives have been directed towards the development of these theories, and it is certainly understandable that they do so, though it is not right.

Mathematics is the safest venue for those of inclination to the hard sciences and logic, for propositions in mathematics are provable, as they range over a closed system. The sciences hold domain over open systems, and thus conjectures are constantly shifting with new data, but the conjectures can only range over a closed system i.e. the set of previously gathered empirical data. It is then the case that empirical data, insofar as it does not contradict the prevailing system, only adds to it. But what of when we try to fit data into the prevailing system, taking it as true? We begin to interject a bias into it, where should wedraw the line? Certainly if there are multiple theories which might fit the total set of data, we should pick the simplest most effective one(not unlike Ockham's razor) in order to best enable application. When we have theories which build upon theories by taking into account new data, are we indeed building a house of cards? Is there an underlying problem of methodology here? Should we not attempts to periodically re-evaluate the data from the base up? Is this feasibile?

If we are to have any hope of eliminateing bias in the sciences, it seems that there needs to be a system of checks and balances in the scientific community such that it can prevent the old from blocking the new with predjudice, but how might such a system be orchestrated? Is it possible to create such a system?

Is science overstepping its bounds in today's society? Are we creeping ever closer to the enlightenment ideology that came to a crashing halt with the advent of nuclear proliferation? What of science?

"science marches on blindly, without regard to the real welfare of the human race or to any other standard, obedient only to the psychological needs of the scientists and of the government officials and corporation executives who provide the funds for research."

"attribute[s] the social and psychological problems of modern society to the fact that society requires people to live under conditions radically different from those under which the human race evolved and to behave in ways that conflict with the patterns of behavior that the human race developed while living under the earlier conditions."

Two years later, in 1971, he moved into a remote cabin he built himself in Lincoln, Montana, where he lived a simple life on very little money, with no electricity and no running water, feeding himself as a hunter-gatherer.

Stories like this...THIS, kill me inside. It's so inhumane it's inconceivable! And yet it goes unnoticed, it's allowable, and it will only proliferate. He was no criminal, but a martyr; he was tortured to put it mildly, and treated like a lab rat (not that animal testing is ok, either).

[gets excited] Then you must be arguing with the wrong crowd.

I will pull out my good, more popular friends John Zerzan and poor dear scrutinized Ted Kaczynski, or maybe you know him as the "Unabomber". Lol, what do you know. I looked him up in Tru crime and their harshest defense is "His mother had to face the cruel reality that her firstborn bombed, killed and maimed innocent people for nearly eighteen years - in a mindless crusade against progress." Progress! Ha! That is how they describe it, and he is the psycho?

Zerzan and Kaczynski are they themselves some of the brighter kin known to society, geniuses in fact (I'm not lacking in the IQ department myself). Don't be fooled, they have their "degrees", and...in science for a shocker! So why is it people in their "right" state of minds would propose such an insane "revert" in a "progressive" wave of the future? Let me introduce to you what it means to be anarcho-primitivist.

Stories like this...THIS, kill me inside. It's so inhumane it's inconceivable! And yet it goes unnoticed, it's allowable, and it will only proliferate. He was no criminal, but a martyr; he was tortured to put it mildly, and treated like a lab rat (not that animal testing is ok, either).

There are still opposers? Well, without further adieu, I will officially critique the op.

Interesting how your choice of word is "bondage" in your last sentence, when the irony is that we suffer from the bondage of certainty and consistency.

Here we come upon the nature of freedom as I view it. To me, freedom is a coin of two sides, or rather a balance which can only be optimized to preference but can never exceed a certain level, and thus never be absolute. On one side we have the freedom to; the freedom to act, to think to create. On the other side we have the freedom from action taken against us, from speech which attacks us from worry which afflicts us from the burden of choice which gives us our early graves and spurs on the uncertainty which the comfrot seeking species that we are draws aback from. You have made the false assumption based upon an inserted ideal which I do not hold, that I do not include this in my worldview and that it is at all ironic. It is not, it is a shift in balance.

cupofcoffees wrote:

We have even polluted the oxygen and H20 we once needed to stay healthy in survival, but today we live on gasoline and redbull, am I right?

And yet this is not due to science but to ignorance of it and aversion to it. There are many working and succeding in their work on alternative fuels and alternative, heathier energy supplements. There are many processes by which we can purify our waters and air all due to science, which is indeed a tool which can serve us and is all that might ensure our survival. I could not disagree more to the view that the pros are outweighed by the cons. A lot of good the disposal of science shall do when we are stricken by the next ice age or bombarded by a comet that we could have seen coming and whose resultant devistation could have been averted.

cupofcoffees wrote:

We have so many advancements in medicine, in fact, that the earth is overpopulated. We are so pampered, thought for, labored for, and given the legal right to take a piss that we forget we started in a machine; a force against nature for the sake of "progress"; an unidentifiable concept conviently laid out when we ask ourselves "why"; the new religion, if you will.

Progess is identifiable by induction. Progress to ensure our survival indefinitely is one facet of progress. Progress to maximize preferable outcomes which may well be defined in large part due to society is one facet of this goal. Progress as an absolute does not exist, for neither does an absolute goal for man to follow. In fact, when we deconstruct everything, we have no grounds for justification of anything at all.

cupofcoffees wrote:

Looks like it fails to meet your qualifications.

It looks to me like you wish it did such that the world would fit your preference which is a selfish one(not that there are really any non-selfish preferences, but yours seems especially so).

cupofcoffees wrote:

An easy way to lose sight of the universe is in the belief that our perspective, the human mind, from its preconditioned, determined state is in a position of power in comparison to its origin..

And yet you argue from a perspective based upon an equally unfounded belief, that we do not? How, then, do you make such appeal to this very stance which you oppose in your ouwn argument against it? To state that the mind is preconditioned, determined, shows a strong faith in science. You argue from determinism that science is limited? An odd stance for one who so dogmatically cherishes freedom above all else. Furthermore, it is not held that we are in a position of power in comparison to our origin, but rather that we might manipulate our environment to further ensure maximal prefered outcomes and more basically, our survival as a species.

cupofcoffees wrote:

How brave a statement to say we, a mere species among the brethren of others, has the authority to conduct the universe. This isn't a question of power, because clearly we have the power, but we don't have the wisdom, and in our questions we find no answers but a line of greater questions. In an attempt to radicate nature, we may theorize, invent, and use our brains to severe lengths, but we remain animalistic, evolved forms of a world that we are determined by.

Of course we do, so what? We are animals. How arrogant to assume elsewise. Our tools are towards animalistic means, and why shouldn't they be? They are made by apes. Again you refer to an arguement from determinism to make your point, this arguement presupposes what it attacks, that there is a definite accessible framework to the universe that we could potentially tap into. Further it contradicts your strong belief in freedom, unless you are some manner of compatibilist, a view which I must admit, escapes me. You subscribe to a worldview which attacks the mechanistic outlook of rational positivism yet you defer to arguements which arise from it to discredit it. Arguement by contradiction? Is this your attempt to turn upon itself the lens which it created, which presupposes its truth? I do not subscribe to the view that we might ever master our universe, only to the view that sicence and society are of great utility, that is, if you have the goals in mind which coincide whith those of science and society.

cupofcoffees wrote:

When did it go too far? When man's imagination outgrew his reality.

Yet look how easily it can be argued that man's imagination is his reality. Or rather that his normative reality is a subset of his imagination, for that which is not the case is a subset of that which is possibly the case and so is that which is the case. What difference would there be if all things and all senses were taken to be in the mind? The relational framework would still be intact, you would still be arrested if you shot someone and got caught, you would still experience everything in the same way that you do now, and your overall outlook should not change unless you were falsely disillusioned by this new(in the sense that is has not been previously considered) possibility. Man can imagine all that might possibly be the case, as his source of imagination is reality and comes form basic sensual building blocks. There is a place for debate whether or not man can imagine that which might not possibly be the case. So can man's imagination outgrow his reality? It is certainly true that what is the case is a subset of what is possibly the case, but is it ncessarily so that what is not the case cannot ever be the case? It seems quite presumptive to deny the possibility of anything which man might imagine to be the case. Man might imagine a contradictive sate of affairs, this is true, but the contradiciton cannot be imagined as both parts conjunctly, but rather arises due to a lack of reconciliation between two contradticting ideals. But can a reality in its totality be imagined to be the case when these contraditctions are brounght face to face? If so, then are these states of affairs really in contradicition or do the only appear to be so?

cupofcoffees wrote:

When we "try to fit data into the prevailing system, taking it as true" we commit as much of a logical fallacy as we do in language, only it's unrecognized as such.

Which is exactly what I was implying.

cupofcoffees wrote:

I believe the system of which you speak is the lost art of tribalistic living; extreme, I know, but remember that science is a child, but a child of philosophy. It's a branch of thought mistaken for thought itself, and the mode of life. Philosophy and thought is a result of neurology, and the brain a spec to its predecessor..

If science is a result of philosphy, how can it be such that philosophy is the child of neurology? Who mistakes science or philosophy for thought rather than a mode of thought? I certainly have never met anyone who holds this to be true. Again, you believe that X is better than Y, but we still have Z to deal with and we always will so long as man's imagination remains as unfettered as it is. There is no limit to the possible systems of living to choose from. We have chosen science and society because by general consensus they have served their purpose sufficiently.

cupofcoffees wrote:

What of sprinkles on your sundae?

I don't like sundaes.:disappointed:

And yet this is not due to science but to ignorance of it and aversion to it. There are many working and succeding in their work on alternative fuels and alternative, heathier energy supplements. There are many processes by which we can purify our waters and air all due to science, which is indeed a tool which can serve us and is all that might ensure our survival. I could not disagree more to the view that the pros are outweighed by the cons. A lot of good the disposal of science shall do when we are stricken by the next ice age or bombarded by a comet that we could have seen coming and whose resultant devistation could have been averted.

I'm only going to reply to what I feel is relevant, and not zippity doo da ontological terminology of freedom etc.

And there is a pill for the pill for the pill for the...
psychological manifestations of a bi-polar schizophrenic clausterphobic ...average american citizen.
But we're improving! The next pill is on the market for consumers to test, and new psychological disorders are being diagnosed to use it on..

If science is a result of philosphy, how can it be such that philosophy is the child of neurology?
I meant it in the modern use of the term as a reference to the complexities of the brain, though of course it has always existed...

We have chosen science and society because by general consensus they have served their purpose sufficiently.

I don't mean to be short, but I grow weary of defense for my position, so I'll offer you something pre-written..

The evolutionary principle. It's not a well known term; the evolutionary principle was coined by Claude Levi-Strauss, who proposes that we've swung from tribal living to modern so rapidly that we're maladaptive to our own behavior. We don't incorporate our past into our future; we've leaped, so to speak, into an unknown realm. It's the "man knows best" mentality. We're diving aimlessly into a psychotic urge for knowledge and control where we don't possess it. I've stated this elsewhere that I believe gods are, and have always been, for the purpose of filling the gap of our misunderstanding of the universe. We like to use it as a means to elevate ourselves from nature, to deny it, and destroy it. This can be tagged to government, domestication, patriarchies, science- any amount of control over what is not our being, or becoming of. It's a false means, therefore flawed, and it falls through the cracks to the very base of existence. So, here we are experiencing the failures of forefathers and our own race, culture, and beliefs. We are like masses of morons hitting concrete that have been convinced to jump off of a 5 story building in hopes that we'll somehow spread wings and fly. There's an unexpected loophole in every idea once applied.

[gets excited] Then you must be arguing with the wrong crowd.

Well, ignoring the fact that psychology is a psuedoscience, and one that I myself have many qualms about, I will attempt to take this very limited and dogmatic perversion of my statement seriously. Not. You have chosen what I might consider the least important aspect of the arguement I presented and totally skewed it by cherry picking an irrelevent example which itself is riddled with your own bias.

You speak of overpopulation in your first post, yet in industrialized nations reproduction rates drop quickly to the point of bare sustainablity and in fact many countries in Europe are well below sustainablity levels. The places where there is massive population growth are the ones with limited access to birth control, low life expectancy ect, namely thrid world countries. It is a simple fact that as survival is ensured, reproduction goes down and hits a point of basic sustainability and does not exceed it by much. Your example of longevity and technological advancment causing population to rise is simply false.

Well, you refer to knowledge that could only have been gained by extrapolations upon emirical observations(not to mention the fact that the word neurology does not exist outside of medical applications, so you missused it unless you refer to some specific dictionary I am not aware of), and what of the more serious problem of your appeal to determinism? Am I missing somthing? Can you elaborate upon this? How can one even address determinism without simultaneously addressing the logical and scientific roots of the ideology?

Elaborate. Show me a fallicy in our quantitative reasoning. If you mean it is false at its base in some sense, elaborate on this. What is it that is not natural about science? It is of course derived from nature. It deals with nature, or rather an aspect of nature. It deals with the realtional framework of nature in a very non trivial sense. When you say that we objectify what do you mean, we objectify nature? Subordinate other life forms? We manipulate our environment and each other to the advantage of pre-existing sytems not born of us no matter the cost?

What? You haven't even made an ernest attept at it.

This is very open ended and dogmatic. It has a slight ring of truth but it fails to provide a definite support for itself. What is false about our means of existence, where is the point when we were lead astray and how will you prove it? Can it be shown that there is a better way by more rigorous means than a couple paragraphs of ranting based upon questionable and certainly very subjective, theories? Where is your proof?

I simply flat out disagree that science flings us into the unknown. This is some irresponsible set of scientists perhaps, but our systems are quite explanitory and controlled. They do have a limited domain of influence, and they at best aim to describe how as opposed to why. So what? They have very pragmatic applications.

My biggest qualm about this view is that I have yet to see a method by which it can be implemented and what the actual results would be. Would it be a total reversion to primitive man? What is the intended outcome and what is there to prevent a reforming of the old intertwined system?

Otherwise the huge advantage computational power affords us will be spent erecting and maintaining codewalls, and further, the physical technology will be stunted, access will be differential, the benefits unevenly spread and the consequent social effect will be invalid....The ability of such machines to nullify individual liberty and personal privacy is a fearful prospect for they are important rights in a context of inequality, that it would not surprise me greatly if man came to resent the intrusive nature of the technology, if as the world turns sour these technologies are applied by states looking inward with the microscopic magnification these computers will allow.