Jim Devine wrote:
> I commented:
>
>>> Robert Oppenheimer (the Father of the Bomb) and many of the nuclear
>>> scientists involved in the Manhattan Project became convinced that
>>> you are wrong. They argued _against_ building bombs, bringing
>>> normative issues in. They had seen Evil (especially in the hands of
>>> Truman) and decided that moral issues couldn't be shelved, that the
>>> ends don't always justify the means. Means and ends can't be
>>> separated, since the means applied shapes and limits the nature of
>>> the ends attained.
>
> Ravi writes:
>
>> jim, arent you saying the same thing as david in the text above. i
>> read david to be saying physics is a tool and it is morality/ethics
>> independent, and it is society in the larger sense and physicists as
>> moral/ethical members who can influence whether physics is used to
>> build bombs or not.
>
> whereas consensus does seem to rule physics (unlike in economics, where
> political positions influence research in a big way), people's moral
> stance does affect which physical laws are discovered and how these laws
> are applied. The US (and the USSR) dedicate a lot of resources to
> developing bigger and better bombs, so that kind of physics was
> developed. That says that resistance to military physics -- by
> Oppenheimer, etc. -- affects the nature of the physics developed.
>
yes, i would agree with that. but you have to forgive me if i point out
that that still sounds the same as saying "scientists and society have
to set the right goals for research in physics. if the goal tends to be
building bombs then physics can [try to] satisfy that need" (which
seemed to be what david was saying - i cut his text out for brevity).
the fault lies not in physics but in the humans who set the direction
of research in physics. perhaps i am only agreeing vigorously?
i would also add that it is not just moral stance but also ease and
efficacy among other things, that drive research direction and effort.
those aspects of phenomena that are most susceptible to the methods of
science are the most explored and utilised in further theorizing, and
if the methods of science are [say] dehumanizing in nature, then so
will be the direction of research (compounding the reductionism that
seems inherent to science). the point here is that a technological
approach to truth-finding contains inherently immoral and dehumanizing
aspects (as heidegger/marcuse/others might theorize). of course that
still falls short of negating truth claims of scientific theories.
there is an increasing set of accusations that can be levelled against
scientific practice and ultimately theory:
- clearly you and i agree that what is published as scientific truth
is the outcome of research directions. different directions would
have unearthed different truths, but:
- can the different truths contradict the discovered ones? the
extreme relativist position holds that (in contradiction to what i
read as david's original point) scientific truth itself (not just
the direction of scientific research, as you and i seem to agree) is
a social construct and therefore reflects the cultural and societal
norms in whose context they are described (latour, prigogine and
some of the STS folks seem to hold this view, and are attacked for
it by sokal and philosophers like jerry fodor).
- there seem to be intermediate positions in relativity: that
scientific truths are contingent, but that is a philosophy of
science issue and does not seem to relate significantly to this
discussion.
>> ... this latter point takes on an interesting dimension in one aspect
>> of the "science wars" - the biological and gene/iq academic wars, in
>> particular the arguments of dawkins and others ("we just say it as it
>> is") and lewontin (a marxist by the way). dawkins, who wishes to be
>> perceived as liberal/left accuses lewontin and others of trying to
>> bend (or avoid) truth to meet moral needs, which he
>> considers doomed, but rather suggests that knowing the truth does not
>> prevent us from acting in an ethical way ...
>
> As I understand Dawkins (author of THE SELFISH GENE), he is making a
> clear political stand, which affects the biology he develops. Lewontin's
> point -- as I understand it from reading books like his DIALECTICAL
> BIOLOGIST -- is that Dawkins-type stuff is bad science, not just
> unethical. So the roles are reversed from what you say above.
>
i (being in agreement with lewontin's position) would not disagree with
what you say above. my text above is just a report of the respective
claims of each party. lewontin's work and your own text above do a good
job of responding to dawkin's criticism by exposing his own subjective
motivation.
>
> I think the point is that no science or social science is "value free."
> My experience is that those who claim that they practice "value free"
> science are the _worst_ -- since they refuse to put their values on the
> table.
>
indeed, or as howard zinn might say, you cannot stay neutral on a moving
train? ;-)
the more interesting issue to me is: over and above the obvious
incompleteness of scientific facts and laws, is it correct to say
(as some relativists do) that these facts and laws are subjective
and not "truth with a capital T", and would be false in a different
cultural or social context.
as is probably obvious, this is a topic of great interest to me,
but is [i would guess] not of particular relevance to this list. i
will try to limit my posts. jim, thank you for your response and
clarification,
--ravi
ps: perhaps i should lay my values on the table and confess to being
a fairly thoroughgoing relativist (if only on very shaky grounds) and
a feyerabend influenced "epistomological anarchist" (for silly legal
reasons i have to immediately clarify that i am not in any way an
anarchist as defined in popular usage i.e., to imply that i endorse
or practice lawlessness and violence).
