> Who has the evidence for the atoms? Scientists may. Advanced
> university science students may. You say you are one of the latter,
> so you may. But most people *believe* in atoms, just like they
> used to believe in God. Ask the ordinary man in the street for
> proof that the earth goes around the sun. He doesn't even have
> access to a telescope to gather the evidence, and he wouldn't
> know what to do with the telescope of someone lent it o him.
>
Anyone who've seen nuclear powerstations or the pictures of
the mushroom cloud is aware, that the evidence for atoms
is "proven". The ordinary man on the street knows, that
he would be able to answer your questions if he went into
a library. I yet to see any consistent response in the physical
world that is due to a god. And nobody whether educated or not
can point me to such evidence.
And people are aware of this, it is only in the US and other
educationally/emotionally or just physically needy countries
where religion is taken as any sort of substitute for
reality.
> It's a long story, but the material universe
> constructed by the activity of scientists has
> come to be believed by people to be "real" apart
> from the activity of doing science which builds
> and keeps in circulation this world view. Thus
> we get such nonsensical ideas as that all
> human behavoir is causally determined because
> we detach the activity of science (explaining
> how things are causally determined, etc.) from the
> human activity -- the meaningful choices -- in
> which that activity is grounded. What is
> really real is not the *results* of science,
> but the *doing of science, including what
> scientists do with the results of their work*.
> If we focus on that human activity "as a whole",
> we see a very different "reality" than if
> we disconnect the results of the activity and
> say that those results are reality "Uberhaupt"
> (The wohle thing). The net of such a shift in
> our relation to science would not be to stop
> scientists from doing experiments (although
> some scientists, esp. pschologists, might change
> the kinds of experiments they do and the sense they
> make of their results!). The net of such a
> shift would be to bring a political discourse about
> the activity of doing science and that activity's
> connections with the rest of life into the center
> of what w think of as "reality" (displacing
> the "physical universe" from that role).
> Technics would become politicized not in the
> sense of meddling with what experiments
> are allowed to be done, but rather in the sense
> that we would focus in depth on what happens when
> scientists do whatever it is they believe right
> to do. Thinks like "ecology", "engineering ethics",
> "environmental impact studies", etc. all are
> small steps toward this kind of wholistic
> self-understanding of science in social life.
>
> Is that any clearer? I'm willing to
> try again.
>
I decided not to disect - or "decontsruct" if you like -
the above paragraph so I just give my impression;
Well, the gist of it seems to me, that you subscribe to the view,
that there is no such thing as a reality, and that human behaviour
therefore is an independent entity, devoid of physical/social
conditioning. I think the dynamic interaction between nature and
human society cannot be ignored as a reality through our history,
whether scientists are involved or
not. This is evidence for me for a physical reality of which we
are part of.
For most part human behaviour is determined by the physical and
social environment; progress and sophistication in social development
means that people may have more choice, be aware of these choices and
free to make these choices. At this point in time the vast majority
of people is missing out on these options alltogether, so freedom
of choice does not - yet - exist.
Social science however is not the same as physical science as
experiments/repeatability/controls etc. cannot be used for
proving things without doubt, and also human behaviour
(the examined social reality) maybe actually
change as the result of such social experiments; feedback has
a major role. Which ofcouse again
doesn't mean that social reality doesn't exist, only that we have
to find the best possible methods available to describe it and
eventually manipulate it also to our advantage.
Eva
> \brad mccormick
>
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