Re: Slow Death for Real Science

Brian Tung wrote:
Phil Wheeler wrote:

You have a very narrow view of what consitutes "civilization". Somewhat reminiscent of Orwell's "1984" and some past societies where science was honored in the shadows cast by burning books.


Perhaps, but I think if you look into the real past (as opposed to the
fictional past), you'll find that the anti-science folks are far more
likely to burn books than the pro-science folks.

This statement is impossible to support in any significant way. Where, for example, would you put the book-burning fascists on such a spectrum? They were nutty romantics who drooled over Nietzsche and Hegel, but they also loved efficiency and order. If you want to see what architecture designed by anti-humanists would look like, take a look at the work of Albert Speer - cold, rational and hideous. The final solution was a scientific answer to a humanist question. The Nazis embraced both sides of the fictional dichotomy you present.

Conversely, the Khmer Rouge hated knowledge in all forms, embracing neither science nor humanism. Where do you place the Stalinists, who threw dangerous writers and artists into the Gulag, while pouring huge sums of money into the (comparatively safe) sciences?

If you look into history (real or otherwise) science as an idea independent of humanism hasn't been around long enough to justify the sweeping generalization you make above. For which I see no historical foundation, btw.


I do agree that the humanities make civilization worthwhile, but if
you're in a crisis over the continuation of civilization, I can't help
thinking that you're far better off with science.

With all due respect, Brian (and I have a lot of respect for what you've written here over the years) you're getting pulled into a foolish argument and it's causing you to make foolish statements like this one. No rational thinking creature would take a stand on which type of knowledge is better or more useful. In the words of Norton Juster (in _The Phantom Tollbooth_), "Words and numbers are of equal value. It is no more important to count the sands than to name the stars."

Whether you rely on scientists or humanists to help in your crisis over the continuation of civilization ought to depend on the nature of the crisis. I'd hate to have the art department try to get rid of the asteroid hurtling at the earth, but scientists would have been useless in ending the Springs and Autumns anarchy in pre-Han China. And from the perspective of Joe Blow who's about to have his wife and little ones wiped out by either, both are equally horrific.

And if you start getting too complacent and sanctimonious about the superiority of science, know that the scientists handed the world the key to its own physical destruction (for the first time in history), as you note here:


Science has created
tools that are probably a bit more dangerous than we're emotionally
equipped to use, but that doesn't mean that we can or should rely on
the humanities to get us out of the hole that science dug.

Nor can or should we rely on scientists to do so.

Regards,
Chris

.

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