Depedestaling Science

[Davian]

 

[Received]

 

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

Nice. I'd say science is the most certain way of testing reality, just the most restricted (next come reason, experience, intuition).

The nice thing about intuition is that you don't need funding from a nation-state, a formal education in formal rules (logic), etc., etc.

You really don't need those things to do science either. But then people will tell you that what you are doing is not really science.

That makes me ask if it is really the unwillingness to bother with anything that does not fit neatly into science that is going on. It seems more likely what is really going on is that formal modern science serves the interests of the powerful more than, oh, philosophy.

David Smail puts it this way in Power, Responsibility and Freedom:


"Global society constitutes a system of inexpressible complexity. It is like a huge central nervous system in which ‘social neurons’ (i.e. people) interact with each other via an infinity of interconnecting and overlapping subsystems. The fundamental dynamic of the system is power, that is the ability of a social group or individual to influence others in accordance with its/his/her interests. Interest is thus the principal, and most effective, means through which power is transmitted.

Here, already, is the starkest possible contrast with our conventional psychology: what animates us is not rational appraisal and considered choice of action, but the push and pull of social power as it manipulates our interest. It is not argument and demonstration of truth which move us to action but the impress of influences of which we may be entirely unaware.

Reason, then, is a tool of power, not a power in itself. Just like moral right, rational right is not of itself compelling and, when it is in nobody's interest to regard it, will be disregarded. Those who - like Thomas Paine for example - seem successful advocates of Reason in its purest form, may fail even themselves to see that it is in fact not reason alone that makes their words persuasive, but the causes (interests) to which reason becomes attached. No doubt Mein Kampf was as persuasive to those already sold on its premises as The Rights of Man was to 18th century revolutionaries in America and France. This does not mean, to those who value reason, that Paine's writing is not worth infinitely more than Hitler's; it means simply, and sadly, that Reason alone is impotent. What really matters is power itself.

In her mordantly compelling Lugano Report2, Susan George vividly draws attention to the inadequacy of rational argument as a means of influencing people. In starting to consider alternatives to the potentially disastrous practices of global capitalism, she writes:-
[SIZE=-1]
[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]"This section has to start on a personal note because frankly, power relations being what they are, I feel at once moralistic and silly proposing alternatives. More times than I care to count I have attended events ending with a rousing declaration about what ‘should’ or ‘must’ occur. So many well-meaning efforts so totally neglect the crucial dimension of power that I try to avoid them now unless I think I can introduce an element of realism that might otherwise be absent.

…because I am constantly being asked ‘what to do’, I begin with some negative suggestions. The first is not to be trapped by the ‘should’, the ‘must’ and the ‘forehead-slapping school’. Assuming that any change, because it would contribute to justice, equity and peace, need only to be explained to be adopted is the saddest and most irritating kind of naivety. Many good, otherwise intelligent people seem to believe that once powerful individuals and institutions have actually understood the gravity of the crisis (any crisis) and the urgent need for its remedy, they will smack their brows, admit they have been wrong all along and, in a flash of revelation, instantly redirect their behaviour by 180 degrees.

While ignorance and stupidity must be given their due, most things come out the way they do because the powerful want them to come out that way.[/SIZE].." "

 

[quatona]

Depedestaling Science

I guess I have problems understanding what the pedestal is (i.e. what is written on the pedestal) that you and/or Byrne perceive science as standing on and want to push it off from.

I am sensing that I don´t see it and have never seen it even being placed on the pedestal with the inscription you guys want to push it off from.

I think of the scientific method as a tool. An excellent tool for the purposes it´s been designed for, I may add. I am not aware of any other tool that comes even close to serving these purposes in the excellent way the scientific method does. That´s the pedestal science deserves to stand on, imo.

That there may be purposes that this tool isn´t designed for and consequentially can´t be used for, that there may be scientists who don´t know how to use this tool correctly (or even misuse it on purpose), doesn´t render this pedestal undeserved. Even more since the scientific method does quite a good job in providing self-correcting mechanisms.