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Intelligent design is smrat.

LAD wrote:My point would be that if you look at funding and grants, look at what drives research and development, look at the arms race, private sector profits, intellectual property rights on basmati rice, etc, etc, a claim for some sort of 'pure' value-free science is difficult to make. Science and industry, just like science and the state, are intertwined.

They are often involved with each other, but these areas of concern are distinct, and operate by different rules.

Often enough, it doesn't matter who pays for the research. If a tobacco company spends a fortune trying to disprove a link between smoking and cancer, that they cannot do it is still valuable.

Science is about results. Science is about finding what is true, now and always. It thrives on being proven wrong in its assumptions. This is why it is noble.

Business will always try to exploit things it sees as reliable. Science has a way of generating reliable predictions, and that is why it is the object of attention from business.

Anyone who says scientists "act on faith" is speaking nonsense. Science is about finding the underlying truth that makes predicitions reliable. This is reason, and faith is the enemy of reason.

steve wrote:

LAD wrote:
My point would be that if you look at funding and grants, look at what drives research and development, look at the arms race, private sector profits, intellectual property rights on basmati rice, etc, etc, a claim for some sort of 'pure' value-free science is difficult to make. Science and industry, just like science and the state, are intertwined.

They are often involved with each other, but these areas of concern are distinct, and operate by different rules.

Often enough, it doesn't matter who pays for the research. If a tobacco company spends a fortune trying to disprove a link between smoking and cancer, that they cannot do it is still valuable.

Science is about results. Science is about finding what is true, now and always. It thrives on being proven wrong in its assumptions. This is why it is noble.

Business will always try to exploit things it sees as reliable. Science has a way of generating reliable predictions, and that is why it is the object of attention from business.

Anyone who says scientists "act on faith" is speaking nonsense. Science is about finding the underlying truth that makes predicitions reliable. This is reason, and faith is the enemy of reason.

This is a romantic and idealistic argument, suggesting a romantic and idealistic view.

I am pro-science! But the position quoted above, it is a romantic notion, detached from 'actually existing' science, especially if one is willing to 'freeze' science at certain moments and see what it has begot. Eugenics, anyone? Phrenology?

Just because, in time, some things are dispensed of, doesn't mean that science in-itself has not had, and will not always continue to play, a marked, ideological role in societies. To suggest otherwise, is a form of scientism which elides the uncomfortable truth of history.

LAD wrote: Eugenics, anyone? Phrenology?

Yes, and science proved that both those two examples were wrong. These are pointless examples, you could just as easily said, "Leeching or drilling holes to let out noxious vapors". Strawman isn’t a good path to go down.

Science is a method of inquiry, that looks at the nature of the physical universe, how people take the results is irrelevant to a certain point, because the universe exists whether we are involved or not.

The biggest mistake that human beings make is thinking that they are the centre of the universe, that discovered truths about the nature of the universe are relative to an individual’s idea about religion etc. This is the worst form of nonsense.

The universe plods along whether we involved or not, so any “faith” based ideas are totally without even the slightest merit. If you don’t know the answer to something you can't just fill in the gaps with “faith” which is “just making shit up”.

If the scientific method doesn’t come up with a reliable answer at least we can then make an educated guess but admit that there are gaps in knowledge – some they may never be filled- “Faith” on the other hand begins with an answer and expect the universe to fall into place around a set of “man-made” ideas… which obviously is the least rational way of engaging with the universe possible, and is pure unrefined camel shit.

Gramsci wrote:

LAD wrote:
Eugenics, anyone? Phrenology?

Yes, and science proved that both those two examples were wrong. These are pointless examples, you could just as easily said, "Leeching or drilling holes to let out noxious vapors". Strawman isn’t a good path to go down.

My point is that at given historical moments science plays an ideological role in society, and has real, human and environmental consequences. While one of the great, great things about science, is that it can call into question and potentially even obliterate ideological worldviews, placing science itself outside history is a highly ideological and self-immunizing move to make.


It's a move that is very obviously the product of a dehistoricized narrative of progress and it ignores a huge amount of scholarship in the history and sociology of science and that of the emerging field of science and technology studies.

E.g.

Robert K. Merton, _The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations_

David Bloor, _Knowledge and Social Imagery_

Barry Barnes, David Bloor and John Henry, _Scientific Knowledge: A Sociological Analysis_

Martin Hollis and Steven Lukes (eds.), _Rationality and Relativism_


Steven Shapin and Simon Schaeffer, _Leviathan and the Air Pum_

Andrew Pickering, _Constructing Quarks: A Sociological History of Particle Physics_

(Pickering's homepage at the university of Illinois lists his current interests as follows:

My recent research has concerned the intertwining of scientific, technological and military developments in and since World War II, the growth of the industrial research system in the second half of the 19th century (specifically concerning connections between the synthetic dye industry and academic organic chemistry), and the post-WWII history of cybernetics and theories of self-organisation (which connects interestingly with developments in popular culture and the arts, as well as in the sciences and engineering, philosophy and warfare).

It's not simply that scientists fuck-up sometimes, it's far more complex than that.

Edit: I'm not advocating an attack on science. Maybe in the context of a thread in which people have argued in favour of teaching creationism and intelligent design in schools, I need to state this outright. Science = good. But the 'science as pure, "noble," and value-free activity of timeless rational man' [sic] position is far too simplistic.

Gramsci wrote:The universe plods along whether we involved or not, so any “faith” based ideas are totally without even the slightest merit. If you don’t know the answer to something you can't just fill in the gaps with “faith” which is “just making shit up”.

Ironically, this is exactly what you do; this very statement contradicts itself. You will never, nor will anyone else, be able to offer scientific proof that the universe plods along without us in it. This cannot be proven or disproven. It is a statement of opinion and faith. Ironic!

steve wrote:faith is the enemy of reason.

I understand the context of the discussion you said that in, Mr. Albini. And when it comes to doing science, I agree. But would you say unequivocally that "faith" is the enemy of reason as well? In other words, do you think "faith" is simply irrationally run amok? Is reason just another word for science?

Gramsci wrote:

LAD wrote:...Phrenology?....

Phrenology still seems to exist in a form. Scientists still designate parts of the brain to certain functions, albeit they do it with some degree of research and analysis, unlike phrenology.......yet there is nothing terribly conclusive about certain parts of the brain being designated to certain functions. In fact there is a growing notion that this is not the case. I don't think phrenology is deceased. It has just morphed into a new, more scientific guise.

matthew wrote:

Gramsci wrote:

LAD wrote:
...Phrenology?....

Phrenology still seems to exist in a form. Scientists still designate parts of the brain to certain functions, albeit they do it with some degree of research and analysis, unlike phrenology.......yet there is nothing terribly conclusive about certain parts of the brain being designated to certain functions. In fact there is a growing notion that this is not the case. I don't think phrenology is deceased. It has just morphed into a new, more scientific guise.

What are you even talking about? I'm hoping that you are not comparing modern psychology with the pursuit of studying bumps and depressions on people's craniums and attributing psychological characteristics to said persons due to the topography of their skull.

Yes, the brain has specific functions that occur in specific places. That's what brains do. Scientist study that and attempt to determine what happens where. That has nothing to do with "whoa! she's got an enlarged mass here near the right half of the hippocampus! must be a complusive masturbator..."

Phrenology has about as much to do with science as Astrology has to do with Astronomy. The two involve the movement of the planets but that is where the similarity ends. One school is based in faith and the other in fact.

As a biology student, I am trained to be as self-critical and personally-debasing as humanly possible. This works out well for me as I am also Polish-Catholic in origin. I write lab reports and spend the vast majority of my time thinking about the report rationally. It would be much easier to say, "meh, God did it," or, "this shit's crazy!" I endlessly sit and imagine the day or days of the experiment and I think to myself, "what could have gone wrong? What did I miss?"

Science is like that. We base things off of statistics, not observations. We do t-tests and linear regressions and correlation matrixes and we analyze them until our brains cease to function. We are a pack of perfectionistic assholes, even when it comes at our own expense. We pray for failure because at least then we'd have something.

Phrenology, Industry, Things That You Want To Happen Because They Would Be Convenient...those have no bearing on us because they are not scientific and therefore not real. We are sensibility incarnate. We question whether or not you have a p-value.

This entire debate (I.D. vs. evolution) has pretty much rendered me mute due to trauma. I can't believe that this thing that I hold so sacred is being trampled upon by Religion, of all creatures. I do not ask for Science to be taught in Philosophy so why is anyone attacking my art? I.D. can be debunked in one move: so why do we choke? It makes sense through an evolutionary path, but why would a perfect God willingly spill out the choking fun upon humanity?

I want Science to be Science again. I want anything that cannot be summarized in a chart to evacuate. I want cold, callous rationale.

Mandroid2.0 wrote:
Phrenology, Industry, Things That You Want To Happen Because They Would Be Convenient...those have no bearing on us because they are not scientific and therefore not real. We are sensibility incarnate.

Ricockulous.