Honorable Forum:
At the suggestion of one subscriber, I am taking the initiative in posting
this on Ecolog initially to get the Open Discussion (OD) started. When it
appears to fizzle, those interested can continue off-list if they wish, by
emailing Meiss or myself.
Martin Meiss' most fundamental (no pun intended) point seemed to be:
". . . we should be looking for something better than "Does this have the
stamp of approval of people who think like I do?" We should be looking for
something that is not just an encodement of "Does this violate the doctrine
of my faith?" --Martin M. Meiss, Ecolog post, 7-9-2009
While Meiss was referring to publishing, his comment is fundamental; it
harkens to principle, a crucial divide that cleaves through human
consciousness and behavior from the beginnings of culture to the present.
And how we interpret this dichotomy may well be pivotal for our future and
that of much of life on earth. But it is as fully understandable as it is
tragic. Even our courts (or more accurately, especially our courts) court
and countenance countless miscarriages of justice, not to mention every
shred of human affairs and the systems they affect and effect.
Authoritarianism is recognizable as the ultimate evil in fascism and Nazism,
but embraced as the Holy Grail when sanctified by authority in the name of
science.
There is some ratio of high-level fakery to honest intellectual enquiry
today as in, say, the time of Copernicus, but we don't know just what it is
or was or whether it was greater then than now. Of course, wanting to save
face for ourselves and ridicule the dead (save our heroes), we presume that
we are more advanced today. But I wonder how the trajectory of integrity
throughout history might be graphed? Is it a straight-line function of
continuous betterment through time, or has it had its ups and downs? Have
disciplines become more or less disciplined, more or less honest? What is
the credibility quotient of science? Of the discipline of ecology?
At one time, I suspect that ecologists were more monk-like, eschewing the
grand life for the simple life, dedicated to the pursuit of understanding
what the hell is actually going on out there. Maybe it was in Clements'
time, for better or for worse, or maybe it is now, as ecologists struggle
mightily in cyberspace impoverished and unappreciated. Maybe they are still
monk-like. But maybe there are charlatans and knaves today as yesterday,
foisting off cyber-alchemy upon the kings in exchange for a larger and
larger largesse in the form of grants, secure in tenure, surrounded by
indentured and obedient students, struggling to breathe free. I am not
suggesting that all is going to hell in a handbasket, but I am suggesting
that there just may be more Emperors sans raiments that we might prefer to
imagine.
I do not deign to revise Meiss' remarks, only to extend them--and to invite
others to offer up answers to Meiss' "something better" than the fraction of
science that remains or perhaps accelerates more deeply into the tyranny of
Authoritarian Hierarchy. To put it another way, is "a scientific certainty"
compatible with science as a feedback loop question? Is the sky falling or
is all well or where in-between do we fall or stand? Is much of science,
after all, yet another religion?
WT
