I Love Science.
I unabashedly love science. True, it has been used, especially in its more social capacities, to justify any number of horrific things, but at times a bit of scientific or medical achievement gives me hope that there are at least a small minority of people out there who aren't simply trying to make a buck or bathe in the blood of their enemies. Of course there should be social constraints on scientific and medical research, and on the same token these fields should be isolated (this is probably impossible) from the corporatism that they have recently been forced into. Science and Medicine are specific disciplines, wherin the active engagement with them should not involve conditions extraneous to the scientific or medical situation. These fields become prostituted when instead of being practiced by their own set of internally consistent principles, they are subverted to the profit making or political interests of some external control. The scientist, on his own, merely discovers, the doctor heals. It is in situations where people ignorant of science attempt to intercede in the name of some sort of pseudo-ethics or ethos that problems occur, that danger arises. To paraphrase Badiou, there is no "medical ethics" there is only the 'clinical situation' wherein the imperative comes from the situation, not considerations of insurance, liability, etc.
As they are in isolation, these things are just tools; it is the responsibility of the end users to understand the tools in themselves, and then use them only insofar as would not compromise them. The situation is most perverse, most grim, in medicine, where doctors have their hands tied by increasingly corporate hospital policies on insurance, the fear of absurd liability lawsuits and the like. In the sciences, where abuse has occurred in the past, the presence of politics can only result in bad science. I think that some of the things that we've been talking about, how science shouldn't be considered some monolithic, universally infallible discipline, is often true, but the degree to which science is therapeutic and helps promote human understanding or betterment seems to be in some way directly correlated with the disassociation of science from politics (in the sense of government) and from an artificially supervenient ethical system divested from any scientificity
(This seems to be something of what Nicholas Kristoff was talking about today, in a piece much more enjoyable than I find alot of his writings.)
As they are in isolation, these things are just tools; it is the responsibility of the end users to understand the tools in themselves, and then use them only insofar as would not compromise them. The situation is most perverse, most grim, in medicine, where doctors have their hands tied by increasingly corporate hospital policies on insurance, the fear of absurd liability lawsuits and the like. In the sciences, where abuse has occurred in the past, the presence of politics can only result in bad science. I think that some of the things that we've been talking about, how science shouldn't be considered some monolithic, universally infallible discipline, is often true, but the degree to which science is therapeutic and helps promote human understanding or betterment seems to be in some way directly correlated with the disassociation of science from politics (in the sense of government) and from an artificially supervenient ethical system divested from any scientificity
(This seems to be something of what Nicholas Kristoff was talking about today, in a piece much more enjoyable than I find alot of his writings.)
posted by shrf at 10:19 AM
5 Comments:
In full agreement. If only we were practitioners of science and not just armchair theorists. Also related to this is a new book that Austi 5000 has been talking about (via a book review in Commentary) called "The Singularity is Near: when Humans Transcend Biology." The author, Ray Kurzweil, apparently predicted well before it happened that the internet would become widespread, and that Deep Blue would defeat a human (he estimated the date within a year of when it actually happened). In this book, he talks about a period around a half-century from now, when he thinks we will be able to use nanobots and other forms of A.I. to gain immortality, end poverty, and in short time basically force the universe itself to yield to our intelligence.
I for one can't wait for science to deliver us with immortality, space travel, and eating all the chocolate we want without getting fat. But -- and I've been saying this for years -- we must defeat gender inequality here at home we try to deal with it on Principia 582 in Galaxy Normolustron. I for one am doing something about it by interviewing Eve Ensler. What are you doing?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0670033847/qid=1133889660/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-6218593-1163061?n=507846&s=books&v=glance
"Science is the best governor ever!" C'mon Sherief, wake up from your wet dream and realize what Ben Fisher has been saying for years: Science is the enemy of all that is good in human life, and it's fearful power should be constrained, lest we categorize all poetry into species, find the wavelengths of each class of distinction in society, and find the atomic number of the soul.
And so Fisher hath spoken!
What Icarean hubris, what Phaetonic audacity! Clearly I have underestimated the sun, source of beauty and grace, as I have seared the wings of my freedom and the Africans of my hope.
I call bullshit on that poll. First off, belief is not a criterion of truth, especially not in the sciences. Second, the poll inapropriately presumes that the results of the first survey is real, as it phrases this belief as "the impending disaster", as if it were some certainty. This goes to show, just because scientists believe something doesn't mean it's science; the belief of scientists is not performative.
PS> Where does the guy who invented Java get off saying that we're all gonna die? Do you think he'd be making such prophesies if he would have beat out Microsoft?
yawn
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