Science the destroyer

[undergroundpanther]

by Ran Prieur
October 25, 2002

What we call "science" is not neutral. It's loaded with motives and assumptions that came out of, and reinforce, the catastrophe of dissociation, disempowerment, and consuming deadness that we call "civilization."

Science assumes detachment. This is built into the very word "observation." To "observe" something is to perceive it while distancing oneself emotionally and physically, to have a one-way channel of "information" moving from the observed thing to the "self", which is defined as not being part of that thing. This kind of relationship is supposedly not only possible, but good. In fact it's not even possible -- science refutes itself at its most advanced stages, with theoretical physicists discovering that it does not make sense to talk about "what is" independent of perspective. Detached observation is not itself an observation or a fact, but a mental habit that we have learned and can unlearn. As Stan Gooch has noticed, "experience" is a healthier word than "observation" because it does not imply detachment.

.....

The death-based or "mechanistic" view is a religion, the dominant religion of our time. It is far stronger than Christianity, which has totally adopted the machine model, but just tacked souls on top and personified the objectively true detached perspective as an omnipotent sky father deity named "God," manipulating the world from a safe distance just like the scientists.

Both mechanistic science and mechanistic Christianity were popularized by the philosopher Rene Descartes, who really believed that the scream of a tortured dog is no different from a bell ringing on a machine.


Read this article.. it's something to consider..
http://www.altruists.org/f760

[Az]

1. Trouble with this premise

Science is a tool. Scientists are those who apply the tool to learn things. Thats pretty much where science ends. Everything after that moves into engineering, marketting, politics, and all manner of other social functions.

The real issue this article seems to have is with what we do with science and its knowledge. And we are not detached. In fact we should make sure we are very attached. Grounded as to what we do with the knowledge that science enables us to pry loose.

[lvx35]

2. Good point, but there is also something really sublte and true about the point.

Regarding the nature of knowledge itself, the intractible influence of the observer in any observation. I think anybody who understands this gets a healthy humility about the power of science, and that humility is a good force in the realm of what we do with science.

[undergroundpanther]

5. I remember a saying

That said something along the lines of... Before you invent something and let it be used as a tool,by as many people who can afford it.. imagine what it's impact on the lives 7 generations removed from yourself could be in the good and the bad sense. Some things should not be in existence but they were made and rushed to market and we reap the sickness of it's convenience made into necessity.
Imagine if the inventor of the Car thought deeply before the mad rush for money,and instead thought about the way zoning would be corrupted by the convenience, about the emissions of burning gas, could it hurt people or the planet? What if he thought about how the car would effect the future generations..But than again not many inventors THINK of what their invention might do that could be bad, they are blinded with their logical optimism and the lure of money.. They don't want to consider the darker side of what problems their product may cause beyond the immediate ones.

Corporate types are short term thinkers, scientists are not into the more chaotic aspects of reality when proving their points, and admit they are limited and that is reality is NOT lab conditions, maybe the reason everything in science is so repeatable IS because the lab is not the chaotic Earth and so they work with a limited reality,and think it's true proven fact..always. So they never see the full picture just like Ford limited his perspective based in what he wanted to see and sell. He failed to consider what might be bad the car might cause humanity and the Earth by it's existence.

[Az]

7. The problem still lays in the hands of those who use the discoveries

Most scientists I know (and I do know a few) are very aware of the repurcussions of their studies. Its a very active part of their passion.

I think the real problem facing our society is that we have created an asocial entity and essentially handed it the keys to our kingdom. Corporations may be made of people but they operate by rules that are devoid of social impetus. Don't blame the guy that invented the match. Blame the guy that lit it and set the building on fire.

Regulations are the means by which We The People attempt to reign corporate entities back under control. But freemarketers have stripped away any notion of controlling a corporation for the benefit of the people.

[bloom]

41. I know a scientist

who gave up her University teaching post - when she found out that the research she was using was being put to use for things that she found reprehensible.

That may be extreme - she may have been able to find other projects - but there are some scientists who take the consequences of their actions/research very seriously.

She found other outlets for her knowledge.

[lvx35]

13. It's the culture of scientism, that's what I would call it.

I totally agree with what your saying, but I can't really blame it on "scientists", because there are ones out there doing exactly what you are talking about, and its good safe responsible science...The problem here is really deeper, its in this culture of recklessness and non-consideration, blind optimism which believes that whatever science gets us into a greater generation of more responisible scientists in the future will get us out of.

Did you know the scientists who invented the atom bomb actually thought it would bring world peace? They thought the the threat of global mutually assured destruction would end war...Naturally, because the cadre of rational scientists ruling the world would supposedly be too rational to use them. What a failure! Look at the proliferation issues the world is faced with, Iran being another member of the club, private entities arising with the power build nukes, and the privacy party officially over for everybody else.

They thought they had the game beat, but they made fundamental failures in their assumptions about society and human nature. And that's the thing that bites you in the ass, the assumptions. All science depends on assumptions...we had better damn well be aware of what they are before the next nuclear genie comes flying out of somebodies ass to "bring world peace"!!!!

[undergroundpanther]

25. Actually

Einstein was blinded by optimism like many inventors are..Some of the others working on it were concerned it would not cause world peace.THey were scared it would cause a chain reaction and ruin the planet.

Einstein's greatest role in the invention of the atomic bomb was signing a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt urging that the bomb be built. The splitting of the uranium atom in Germany in December 1938 plus continued German aggression led some physicists to fear that Germany might be working on an atomic bomb. Among those concerned were physicists Leo Szilard and Eugene Wigner. But Szilard and Wigner had no influence with those in power. So in July 1939 they explained the problem to someone who did: Albert Einstein. According to Szilard, Einstein said the possibility of a chain reaction "never occurred to me",

[lvx35]

26. Chain reaction to fuse the hydrogen in the atmosphere, right?

I think I heard about that on the history channel...But I always thought Einstein was left out of the bomb building efforts because he was a socialist, and others built it, with Einstein not wanting it to be used....Then tearfully apologizing in Japan.

edit:
here's the scoop from wikipedia...looks like you were right, he wanted it, then regretted it later:

In 1939, under the encouragement of Szilárd, Einstein sent a letter to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt urging the study of nuclear fission for military purposes, under fears that the Nazi government would be first to develop nuclear weapons. Roosevelt started a small investigation into the matter which eventually became the massive Manhattan Project. Einstein himself did not work on the bomb project, however, and, according to Linus Pauling, he later regretted having signed this letter.<32>

nevertheless, the scientists I heard about thinking would bring peace were not Einstein, it was somebody else...Oppenheimer, maybe?

[TheMadMonk]

32. Nitrogen actually IIRC.

The fear was that the initial blast would be hot enough to cause nitrogen to fuse and that in turn might fuse the hydrogen ion the oceans, also that the ensuing 'fire-front' would remain hot enough to keep the reaction going until it turned our planet into a very short lived star.

The fear was a small one, and I suspect it was massively overhyped in later years by the anti-nuclear movement. Just as there was a big flap about the possibility of creating black-holes in the latest/next generation of supercolliders.

Now really? Eddington had the basics what made the sun shine sussed out in 1920. Essentially piling enough matter into one place that gravity becomes strong enough to first totally overwhelm the forces keeping atoms apart, and then stronger still until it can compete on even terms with the forces holding them together.

From there it is a no-brainer to figure out that any unconstrained fusion reaction must by its very nature be self extinguishing. If it weren't the universe would be full of tiny stars blinking on and then out in a fraction of a second. The known math said that the fusion of nitrogen was a) possible and b) exothermic. (if one can apply that term to nuclear reactions) What was missing was the computing power to determine whether the nitrogen fused fast enough to maintain the energy density necessary to sustain the reaction.

The sheer size of the sun (and all other known stars) was/is a fair indicator of the forces (which could at the time be closely estimated) necessary to keep fusion happening for any period of time.

[lvx35]

38. interesting interesting stuff.

So it was all about sustaining the reaction, like the sun, which the earth clearly can't do or it would right?

[TheMadMonk]

47. Not quite.

A closer characterisation would be: That the only conditions under which a self perpetuating fusion reaction were known to occur, required stellar sized concentrations of mass to maintain the enormous pressures and incredible temperatures necessary for nuclear fusion. Whilst the latter two conditions were predicted and of course observed, there was no posited mechanism whereby these conditions would be sustained. There was only the "fear" that the reaction might somehow become self-perpetuating under standard atmospheric conditions. That inertia alone might be enough to provide the necessary "containment"

There was nothing in the evolving theory of nuclear/quantum physics to even remotely suggest such a possibility, just the admission that there was nothing there at the time to absolutely rule it out.

Regarding the Earth itself, at least a couple of billion years (we know know it's well over 4 billion) of unscathed existence pretty much demonstrated that the chances of such a reaction taking place spontaneously were/are essentially zero. That it might happen in the presence of a triggering event was only a possibility that couldn't be ruled out absolutely. just as I can't rule out absolutely the chance that a bag full of money (no change please, I don't own a 'protective') might somehow fall into my lap one day.

That there aren't planets going stellar all over the sky constitutes 'proof', does rest on a couple of unproven assumptions: a) that we are not alone; and b) that if we are not alone, we almost certainly have plenty of company. Sufficient company to give us a sample sufficiently large enough to reach the conclusion that if 'they' didn't check themselves out in a fashion spectacular enough to be visible (at least) halfway across the galaxy, then the chances of us managing the feat are vanishingly small too. However, I should have left it out, since humanocentricity was still relatively in vogue at the time. Maybe it's just that I'm not arrogant enough to presume our uniqueness without better evidence than: "No one's talking."

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

40. No.

Chain reaction in an atomic pile.

[TheMadMonk]

31. And how does one do that?

And just which invention do we keep the lid on? The motor car or mass production? It was the second innovation which made it possible for the first to do all the damage it has done. Indeed it is mass production which has enabled so many of this planet's woes. But on the other hand, without the techniques of mass production there would be virtually no advanced pharmaceuticals; Much of what we take for granted in our lives would either not exist at all, or would have to be craftsman built.

Should the bloke who first played with the strangely malleable "not stone" he found in the ashes of his fire be posthumously castigated and hung in effigy for his contributions to the beginnings of metallurgy and his failure to see where it would inevitably lead. After all it can easily be argued that that particular discipline underpins virtually all of modern science, and thus by your arguments all of the woes in the world today.

I call bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.

The problems are not down to a handful smart people thinking up newer and more dangerous thoughts, but the willful stupidity of the vast majority, who place the importance of their own convenience and immediate gratification ahead of and above that of any possible future outcome/consequence.

I blame all of us who are too willfully stupid, to learn the very basic lesson that all actions have consequences.

[greyl]

14. You're describing a connection, not detachment.

"the intractible influence of the observer in any observation."

So, you disagree with Ran, correct?

[lvx35]

16. not sure who Ran is...

...so I dunno. but I agree that the philosophy of detachment/dualism you see in certain philosophies that claim to be scientific is bad. However I don't believe in calling those philosophies "science".

[greyl]

20. Ran wrote the article in the OP. Are you talking about pseudoscience? nt

[lvx35]

22. I would call it pseudoscience, yes.

but here's a cartoon example:

A) Some doctors try to gather data by asking people about their sexual behaviours.

B) Some doctors try to gather data by asking people about their sexual behaviours, with the doctors carefully screened regarding their ideas on sexuality and trained on the asking of the questions in a very standard way.

In approach B, the observer is being taken into account, and much better science will result.

[undergroundpanther]

23. Science

poses objectivity. It denies personal bias in observations.But personal bias is there because a person is observing it.There is no way out of that fact. So result is skewed by default.
That is one of Ran's points.

[piedmont]

3. Another rational human being...

hello, fellow non-Luddite!

[Posteritatis]

4. Indeed

I always get a kick out of people talking about the evils of science and technology and modernity and whathaveyou on the fucking Internet.

[piedmont]

6. Oh. My. Dog!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[undergroundpanther]

12. Ok Go ahead

Faithful worshiper of human invention.
You know Stephen Hawking said for humanity to survive we are going to have to leave this planet,
http://www.thetechlounge.com/news/10920/Stephen+Hawking+Humans+Must+Leave+Earth+to+Survive/
Wonder why Bush is so into the moon right now?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6208456.stm
Because he and his rich buddies are going to escape while we stay here and die off.
http://dieoff.org/

Wonderful technology, Do you ever ask what have we done with it?

[piedmont]

27. No worship, just appreciation

You know Stephen Hawking said for humanity to survive we are going to have to leave this planet,
Well, yeah. One day this planet will cease to support life. That's because it will be engulfed by the expanding Sun. Might we kill ourselves out before then? Maybe. That's Hawking's point-- right now all our eggs are in one basket: Earth.



Wonder why Bush is so into the moon right now?

Because he and his rich buddies are going to escape while we stay here and die off.

He's W, not Dr. Evil. But I hope he does go to the Moon. It really can't sustain life.


I love your sig picture, btw. And I confess-- I'm freaky scared of autonomous robots.

[undergroundpanther]

8. Technology is a problem

Yeah I can use the tools laid out before me. No shame in it, I didn't invent it.. I don't have the fastest latest whizzbang puter and I don't need it.I'm fine with my slow ass machine.
But I think if you went to where all our computer trash goes you might see the evils of technology there.
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Export/Tech-Trash-Poisons-China28feb02.htm

Sometimes it isn't easy to see when conveniences cross over into tragedies. I'm not a luddite but also I am definitely not a fan of civilization as it is, because it is destroying us all.
The Net works to get the word out. The Net won't be here forever.
Because empires cannot expand forever.
What would you do when the crash hits without technology? Could you handle it?

For now I think it's best to be a creature of both worlds. Use the tools you got now while they work and learn to do without them when they can't work, too.

[Az]

15. The problem still isn't science

Its marketting. Consumerism. Shortsighted corporations.

Science can inform us of all the paths in the universe. We have to decide which ones we are going to walk. Science can't make us walk them. We have to decide which ones are the best for us. And we need science to inform our descisions. Deciding where to go and what to do without knowledge is literally ignorance. And you may as well take a walk along a cliff blindfolded if you are going to embrace ignorance.

[Az]

10. Luddites of the internet unite

Old IRC saying.

[Selatius]

11. I would have to agree with your words.

If I had invented a cheap, effective plasma drive engine in the 21st century to travel to the moon and to other planets, would I be held accountable if the technology I invented was used in the 22nd or 23rd centuries to propel missiles or propel flying warships used to lay claim to land and resources on other planets?

[Posteritatis]

17. Why, clearly that was your plan all along! Fiend! (n/t)

[undergroundpanther]

21. But would you even think

About the dangers of it? When you make something, Of course it has a good purpose but also a bad one , Einstein drove himself into turmoil over the bomb.He didn't want it to be made..He did not feel right helping it be made.
http://www.doug-long.com/einstein.htm

for the most part the Technology of the bomb has not been used for good that much.It has caused more harm than help.Some of the scirentists voiced concerns and of course they went unheeded because most of the people we let lead us are power mad,dispicable, greedy souless egomaniacs who sell us on an image.

[Selatius]

28. The nuclear bomb probably helped prevent World War III between the US and USSR

I am fully aware of Einstein's moral wranglings over the bomb. In my mind, the only real point of the atom bomb and the more powerful hydrogen bomb was to make the potential cost of war so devastating, so complete, so shocking in scale that no one would be foolish enough to provoke a general war without the fear of annihilation. Nevertheless, to be the man known as the father of the atom bomb should be a title that is not to be celebrated but one taken with sobering self-reflection and the hope that it did ultimately keep the peace and forced people to re-examine old attitudes on war.

[Az]

29. Its important that you notice

Scientists were there on the front line informing those using the tools of the dangers of them. And their message got through. Dropping the bombs was not an easy descision. Although I do not agree with the fact that we did I understand the thinking behind it. I have the privelige of hindsight and thus can second guess FDR's thinking behind using them. And from what I know about FDR I do not think we can cast him as a power mad, dispicable, greedy souless egomaniac that sold us on the image of power.

Lets compare notes on whether the technology of the bomb has been used primarily for good or evil.

Nukes dropped? 2

Lives saved by or improved by medical discoveries based on radiology? Millions.

Energy produced in the trillions of kilowats.



Gotta say I put nuclear science in the positive category.

[hobbit709]

30. Every invention of mankind

has been a two-edged sword. Pointy sticks can kill people too, fire can also be used to destroy, etc. Advances in medicine allow people to live that otherwise wouldn't-that allows the population to increase faster. If we could extrapolate the effects of anything for 6 or 7 generations into the future, we'd go into a funk and commit mass suicide. A tool is neither good nor bad-it's how it's used.

[hfojvt]

42. it is not really about the tools

science is more of an idea, than it is a tool. Some of it is the idea of expertise and of quantifying. The experts come in with their numbers - that is how we decide things 'scientifically'. Except that the numbers people usually leave things out of their cost-benefit formulas. Worker satisfaction or safety? Doesn't count! How can you objectively measure that? Community? Doesn't count! Peace? Friendship? Solidarity? Stewardship? - Don't count! Just sentimental hogwash that cannot be measured or will take care of themselves automatically. Or let's bring in another consultant, an expert, to crunch some numbers and set up some rules. It's all about numbers and rules.

Science is the Innovator, which says 'do not stand in the way'. It is an idea wielded by the ruling class, and the managers against the poor. It is remorseless in its supposed objectivity. "The Great and Powerful SCIENCE has spoken!!" and yet it is often speaking for the great and powerful. The problem is not just the people wielding the science - it is the way they control the debate and frame it so that only quantifiable things matter. Then the debate is settled - that we are going to industrialize, it is only a question of technique that we debate. The goals are taken for granted. Being outside the scientific field, they are not worthy of careful study and besides 'more, further, quicker, richer' are objectively and undeniably good aren't they? Only a tree-hugging luddite lunatic fool (excuse the redundancy) would dare to question them.

[hobbit709]

43. You're confusing science with bean-counting

[hfojvt]

44. where I come from it would be the science of economics and finance

they are given some of their power and some of their presumed validity, because of the veneer of 'objectivity' that they assume.

"The issue that is raised most directly by these farms-of-the-future is that of control. The ambition underlying these model farms is that of total control - a totally controlled agricultural environment. Nowhere is the essential weakness of the specialist mind more clearly displayed than in this ambition. Confronted with the living substance of farming - the complexly, even mysteriously interrelated lives on which it depends, from the microorganisms in the soil to the human consumers - the agriculture specialist can think only of subjecting it to total control, of turning it into a machine." Wendell Berry p. 70

That is not science, per se, but it is tied very tight to it in our culture - the idea that we can control the world. It is like a big machine and science will tell us how it operates.

[hobbit709]

46. That's bean-counting-just basic math

Economics is not a science where I come from.

[greyl]

9. Here's the correct link:

http://ranprieur.com/essays/scidest.html

Horrible article. Scientific thought predates civilization by 100's of thousands of years.
Prieur is making the grievous error of supposing that human intellect, creativity, problem solving, and technology are unnatural. It looks like Ran saw the first half of Mindwalk, then got high.
Too bad, because there are a few novel points spread throughout.
______________

Checking Prieur's site for context, there's this: "Liberals don't feel bad about the actual dead children in Iraq any more than conservatives feel bad about the 9/11 dead, because we do not feel bad about suffering we do not see of people we do not know."

[undergroundpanther]

18. And for some people

The distance from death makes it easy for them to ignore it.
A soldier pushing a button on a base in Florida to set off a bomb that will blow up in Iraq has an easier time with guilt. Because he does not see the carnage his obedience caused. It's a sick thing about humanity. How do you think Rush Limbaugh can make camp gitmo t shirts, because he isn't in gitmo seeing the torture smelling the puke and hearing the screams and the stench of suffering and the senseless sadism. I have gone through torture, so I cannot turn away.I think If Rush was to be in gitmo as a prisoner he would be unable to joke about torture after feeling it for himself.How do soldiers kill they DEHUMANIZE the enemy make them a less than human, than stoke the hate and they kill because they have convinced themselves the enemy is not like themselves. THe Nazis did it. The guards in the Stanford prison Experiment.Why do they cut dog's vocal chords to silence them in labs when they do tests on the dogs for?
Even Pink Floyd wrote a song about turning away.

On the turning away
From the pale and downtrodden
And the words they say
Which we won't understand
'Don't accept that what's happening
Is just a case of others' suffering
Or you'll find that you're joining in
The turning away'

It's a sin that somehow
Light is changing to shadow
And casting it's shroud
Over all we have known
Unaware how the ranks have grown
Driven on by a heart of stone
We could find that we're all alone
In the dream of the proud

On the wings of the night
As the daytime is stirring
Where the speechless unite
In a silent accord
Using words you will find are strange
And mesmerized as they light the flame
Feel the new wind of change
On the wings of the night

No more turning away
From the weak and the weary
No more turning away
From the coldness inside
Just a world that we all must share
It's not enough just to stand and stare
Is it only a dream that there'll be
No more turning away?
Yet Another Movie
One sound, one single sound
One kiss, one single kiss
A face outside the window pane
However did it come to this?

A man who ran, a child who cried
A girl who heard, a voice that lied
The sun that burned a fiery red
The vision of an empty bed

The use of force, he was so tough
She'll soon submit, she's had enough
The march of fate, the broken will
Someone is lying very still

He has laughed and he has cried
He has fought and he has died
He's just the same as all the rest
He's not the worst, he's not the best

And still this ceaseless murmuring
The babbling that I brook
The seas of faces, eyes upraised
The empty screen, the vacant look

A man in black on a snow white horse,
A pointless life has run its course,
The red rimmed eyes, the tears still run
As he fades into the setting sun

[greyl]

19. I'm not interested in that reply. nt

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[GeorgeGist]

33. Like the answer to the fate of Schrodinger's cat...

experience comes from observation. Until then the the box is empty.

[J Miles]

34. Another anti-science tirade

Reading that anti-science, anti-intellectual garbage gave me a headache.

[Crandor]

35. What a big pile of crap

Ooh, there's that bugaboo "civilization" again. You know, life was so much better when if you didn't like someone you could just kill them. :sarcasm:

Relativity doesn't make science "refute" itself, it only refutes your fallacious interpretation of it. Detachment? You would rather have science be done emotionally? "Well, all the evidence says global warming is happening, but my gut feeling says it isn't, so it must be a liberal hoax!"

That "mechanistic" view you decry isn't a religion, it's just reality for most things we see. Are you going to try to tell me that a rock has free will?

[Taverner]

36. Um....so are they saying we should go back to praying to magic beans?

Sacrificing virgins to volcanos?

Just a thinly disguised attack on Secular Humanism I'm afraid.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

37. "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him."

Whether it's science, politics, religion, or whatever.

For you literalists, "kill" is a metaphor.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

39. Reads like it was written...

with a random word generator.

[muriel_volestrangler]

45. This gives you an idea of how the author thinks

Some of my heroes are scientists who really do follow humanity and curiosity and get thrown out of the dominant system, researchers like Wilhelm Reich ...

:rofl: Orgone energy? :rofl: Well, it's certainly different from science. Maybe not from fraud, but definitely from science.