raghu wrote: > Actually far from repudiating science, the Bush years provide an > excellent example of Tyranny of Science at work. > > It is under Bush that we saw such monstrosities as the high-tech > military doctrine of Rumsfeld, creationism, test-scores based > education reform (No Child Left Behind) etc. All of which have > scientific pretensions and are based on the hubris that logical > (usually reductionist) reasoning based on hard, cold facts can provide > simple one-size-fits-all answers to such things as what is the best > way to run schools, wage war etc.
* "high tech" is not the same as science: it's engineering (applied science). Its use by the military has nothing to do with science. It has to do with the power of the state, using whatever tool it can find. It also uses religion. Confusing science with high-tech bombs is like confusing financial theory with financial engineering. * creation "science" is not science; the "science" part of the name is pure PR. They've even dropped that (so they now talk about "intelligent design") because the scientific pretensions were so shabby. Besides, a lot of those who favor creationism do not like science (as they see it). It seems that raghu shares this antagonism. I hope not. *NCLB wasn't scientific; one program seemed to work (in Houston) and was generalized because one of Bush's cronies (Roderick Paige?) organized it. Just because something uses a test doesn't make it science: look at all the BS produced by the IQ "scientists." You point to the key element of these, i.e., scientific _pretensions_. Most of the time, people in power have to give lip service to "science" even though _in practice_ they oppose what it stands for. (An obvious exception is Sarah Palin, who was perfectly willing to trash science explicitly.) These pretensions do _not_ involve "logical (usually reductionist) reasoning." Rather, it involves the _appearance_ of science, just as cigarette commercials on TV used to involve people -- always men, if I remember correctly -- who wore white lab coats to look like scientists. Science is not about logic being the whole story, since a lot of it involves testing seemingly logical notions against empirical evidence. "Logic" and reductionism are quite distinct from "hard, cold facts." They are aspects of rationalism, pure thought, whereas those "facts" are part of empirical investigation (though of course many perceived facts are wrong). It is true that reductionism is often seen as scientific, especially by the reductionists, but that does not stand up to scientific scrutiny (logic, experiments, etc.) Science is also not about "one size fits all" solutions. The skepticism that should characterize science would reject that kind of thing. Instead, I'd say that the use of "one size fits all" thinking characterizes neoliberalism, which sees the world as one big market except for those darned imperfections that must be swept away. The World Bank and IMF have followed this "logic" to impose the same solution everywhere, imposing free-market totalitarianism where they can get away with it. Science is about skepticism. One person says "I think God created the species" and another says "how is that logical?" and "how can we get evidence for that hypothesis?" and "aren't you leaving something out?" Some propositions survive this scrutiny, because they are better (in this sense) than competing ones and become part of textbook science. But even these can be displaced, as Einsteinian physics displaced Newton. The other main pillar of science is respect for the research done by others. Just because I think I'm right doesn't mean that I have the right to dismiss the collective labor of others without a fair hearing. By the way, economics is not a science. -- Jim Devine / "If heart-aches were commercials, we'd all be on TV." -- John Prine _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
