You just have to learn to talk to and listen to the Anihiyvtaqwatlosgi. The Thunder Beings. I hear they are getting really pissed over what the two leggeds are doing these days.
REH -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mike Spencer Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2012 11:32 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [Futurework] Re: Science held hostage in climate debate Steve Kurtz wrote (forwarded via Arthur): > http://afr.com/p/lifestyle/review/science_held_hostage_in_climate_Uamw > gc7zXE > sU6RbQJ5MWIJ > Uncertainty is key. The author make the point that uncertainty is the key element in the real science -- the real efforts to deduce or infer how climate works and whither (if anyplace determinate) it is trending. But he also opines: But the real worry with climate research is that it is on the very edge of what is called postmodern science. This is a counterpart of the relativist world of postmodern art and design. It is a much more dangerous beast, whose results are valid only in the context of society's beliefs and where the very existence of scientific truth can be denied. Postmodern science envisages a sort of political nirvana in which scientific theory and results can be consciously and legitimately manipulated to suit either the dictates of political correctness or the policies of the government of the day. Such postmodernist quasi-science was ridiculed in Alan Sokal's "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity". (q.g.) It's long been an object of my curiosity how people in the upper levels of traditional power structure can bear to live with science. Traditionally, one is not guilty (liable, divorced, whatever) until the judge pronounces. [1] In that moment, one becomes guilty (liable, divorced, whatever). The word *is* the thing. Truth descends unequivocally from authority. A promise, an oath, an absolution, an acknowledgment of paternity -- all traditionally create truth & reality when spoken. To the kind of individual steeped in the notions of law and authority, to a whole class of such people, science is anathema. Science rejects, for the most part, absolutely certain truths but claims the right, in turn, to reject authoritarian pronouncements on the grounds of contrary observational evidence. What a happy day for authoritarian personalities, whether religious or secular, when whole domains of science come to depend on uncertain data and statistical concepts of dubious applicability. Next stop, postmodern quasi-science, "valid only in the context of society's beliefs and where the very existence of scientific truth can be denied." On a different, if parallel line, From the social and economic side of things, one might take much more notice of the global warming scare campaign if it were not so obvious that many of its most vociferous supporters have other agendas. And that isn't even an *attempt* at science. It uses real science, bogus science, history, bogus history, real or bogus what-have-you to implement an agenda which, were it to be presented straightforwardly, would meet with resistance, outrage or worse. The famous sentence from the PNAC paper, "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor." has become a byword for concealing an unsavory and unmarketable agenda behind public fear. It appears that similar people are presently tooling up to something similar, scare mongering the threat of "cyberwar" to conceal the agenda of "total information awareness" and surveillance. - Mike -- [1] Someone (I forget whether it was on this list or elsewhere) rather condescendingly replied to my mention of truth conventionally emerging, ab ova as it were, from the pronouncement of a judge, with words to the effect that "We have juries in our country." Obviously irrelevant to the concept. Truth from the word of a jury is no different than truth from the word of a priest or judge. _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
