Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Daniel on February 15, 2013 at 9:50am

You value justice over science, but you don't have to; the dichotomy doesn't even exist.  You don't have to choose one at the exclusion of the other just because they are two different things.  In fact, I don't think that's what you do.  In theory, maybe, but in practice your values probably make more sense.  There's no way you really view DNA as a tyrannical idea.  Do you?

Permalink Reply by Titus Techera on February 15, 2013 at 11:17am

How is justice the same thing as modern science? Modern science is what the mathematician does. Or the physicist. Or the biologist. I am told it has to do with observations, experiments, highly abstract reasoning about causes & effects. I am told scientists have no truck with truth, they just have theories they try to falsify by said observations & experiments. If you ask them what is the human being, what do scientists say? Is human being a scientific category?

Tell me, can science decide who lives & who dies? Who gets thrown into jail? Justice has to deal with that everyday, without delay. Getting these problems wrong can destroy societies, ending up killing dozens of millions. Can science work with this kind of indomitable urgency & with these kinds of risks?

You have no idea what I value. If you want to take a crack at guessing, how about starting by thinking that I must put value on argument, because it would be irrational to do it otherwise? Of course, that might force you to ask yourself what it is to value...

Permalink Reply by Daniel on February 15, 2013 at 10:39pm

Is DNA really a tyrannical idea to you?

Permalink Reply by Titus Techera on February 16, 2013 at 3:25am

I am sorry to see you stuck on something I did not say. I said the manner in which science does its work, in respect of non-scientists, leads to the principle of the tyranny of the wise--because scientists have knowledge, which is a title to rule, & non-scientists do not; even the consent of the unknowing would be irrational, so they have to be tyrannized. This has been known & said for thousands of years, but people who are aware of science have recently become far more ignorant than previously thought conceivable. As I said, I am sorry; I thought we might have an intelligent conversation...

Permalink Reply by Daniel on February 17, 2013 at 5:01pm

You're throwing out science because it doesn't fit into something about what you would prefer the world to be.  That's what I'm getting from your answers.

It also seems to me that you've been swimming in a sea of your own rhetoric for so long that you haven't realized it's more style than substance when you talk about science.

Permalink Reply by Titus Techera on February 17, 2013 at 5:09pm

I do not throw out modern science; I think it is now impossible to undo. The consequences of undoing modern science are tremendous; the contemplation of them should be enough for any reasonable man to not even wish it undone.

You're just making stuff up because you cannot face the argument. If that's what defense of science has come to, you had better get mobs to stand behind you shouting about how I said DNA is tyrannical, because you're not fit for much else... If the practice of science was as weak as the understanding of what science means for human beings, there would be no science...

A man who is not able to see the phenomena as people do, who is not able to see the difference between the different ways of reasoning about the phenomena, is not able to take seriously the obvious distinction between political life, including the study of politics, & modern science. You come up with amateur psychopathology, but no answer to the argument...

Permalink Reply by Daniel on February 18, 2013 at 10:25am

You're not against science?  Then I am having some trouble breaking down what it is you are arguing.

Is it just that science is different from politics?  With that I agree, but I don't think they are as ultimately incompatible as you seem to assert they are, and if you are not asserting that, than I am making things up again, and you can point that out.

What I'm curious about is in what way scientific knowledge a title to rule, and how you see that manifest in politics today in some tyrannical fashion or otherwise, if at all.  Is science, do you think, an ultimately negative factor for the human race, or more specifically if you like, to politics?

Permalink Reply by Titus Techera on February 18, 2013 at 11:30am

1. Obviously, science is on the whole damaging to politics. But do people really want politics? More than what science has to offer? Politics is not an inevitability; there are ways for people to associate or live without politics. Science may create a new one, or more likely, a new version of something you read about in Homer & such like. The endgame of the scientific human being is apolitical.

2. My attachment to politics is a philosophical matter. I am not against science, not even modern science. I dislike, however, the inability to face the political facts, specifically the massive conflict between the requirements of republican politics & science. I believe even modern democracies need a couple of voices reminding people of the need for lucidity, including the possibility of holding two contradicting ideas in mind, given that democracy is not by virtue of popularity without contradictions.

3. I do not think modern science is bad for people; the basic good seems to me to be survival; without science, that is hardly possible. But securing that good hides all the other goods, many of which are more important than survival. I think science is bad for thinking about everything except the domains on which it offers expertise. It clouds minds, it cripples thinking. Science hides from people the awareness that there are things for which they would die, or think that they ought to die. They then never have to face that.

4. Examples of scientific tyranny are the same as modern tyranny. There is no modern form of tyranny that did not use & to some extent served scientific purposes. The term dictatorship, which has replaced tyranny, is supposed to hide the fact that science is a tyranny over the unscientific.

At the same time, the regulatory state today has powers over Americans that no previous rule imagined. It is impossible to have republican rule & a massive bureaucracy like America now has. One or the other has to go. I have a preference, as I said, for the republic. I believe, however, that there is a good argument to be made for increasing federal powers indefinitely into the future...

Permalink Reply by Daniel on February 19, 2013 at 4:14pm

These are some assertions I think need some support:

"The endgame of the scientific human being is apolitical."

-This is hardly ever the case.  Perhaps science is apolitical, but not necessarily the scientific human being, e.g. Carl Sagan.  

"I dislike, however, the inability to face the political facts, specifically the massive conflict between the requirements of republican politics & science."

-What conflict?  Give me some examples.

"Science hides from people the awareness that there are things for which they would die, or think that they ought to die."

-How so?  I don't find this to be true at all.  Examples?

Permalink Reply by Titus Techera on February 19, 2013 at 4:21pm

You maybe should think about these things. I don't see that I should do the thinking for you. If the subject does not arouse your interest, well, that's just not your way. Let me point out a couple of obvious things. Maybe you will want to do your thinking starting from them.

Is a scientist a Nazi by virtue of being a scientist? Or a Communist? Or a democrat Americans could love & respect?

Isn't the life of science apolitical? If all people were scientists, there would be no politics, would there?

Even if all people are not scientists, if all decisions can be reduced to scientific expertise, then there is no politics left.

What scientific question is fundamentally a matter of opinion, with no possible definitive answer? What questions of importance to politics are in principle above the reach of science?

That so many are considered to be reducible to science we see everyday, or else expertise & bureacracies should not exist; people would hear of political science or social science & have a hearty laugh...

Permalink Reply by Daniel on February 20, 2013 at 3:06pm

Correct, if all people were scientists then there would be no politicians, unless they took a sabbatical for the purpose, or just did both when needed.

Likewise, if all people were taxi drivers only obeying and thinking in terms of the traffic laws, we would have no politicians.  You can make the argument with any profession, occupation, or method of thought that might consume someone's time and divert it from politics.

But it's an absurd notion, that one person cannot think in several ways, at different times, for different purposes, without sacrificing other modes of thought, and still remain lucid, with purpose and virtue that reaches beyond politics.  Yours is a case of extremes that doesn't actually manifest itself in reality.  It's an unrealistic principle to equate apolitical with anti-political.  We see examples of this all around us every day, e.g. the way we treat nuclear technology with caution, or the funding of basic research with no particular immediate applications.

Now, as far as me asking for some examples...

You'll have to do better than "I won't do your thinking for you".

Clearly I do think about these things or I wouldn't be having this conversation.  That I have different conclusions than you is not evidence that I haven't given it thought.  I'm thoroughly unimpressed with such an argument.

Giving examples is part of a conversation like this.

This is more than pure theory, this is also a practical conversation.  You seem to insist on the former, I suspect, because the ramifications otherwise would damage your case.

You must necessarily throw out the baby with the bath water to maintain your position, and that simply doesn't wash.  

..Unless you have some real world examples to support the assertions:

"Science hides from people the awareness that there are things for which they would die, or think that they ought to die."

and:

"[there is] massive conflict between the requirements of republican politics & science."

Permalink Reply by Titus Techera on February 20, 2013 at 3:41pm

I don't think you're thinking through what you're saying. One man--one job specialization: Read Plato's Republic, maybe the first book written about that.
Specialization implies that the fundamental facts of life are irrational, & reason is useful in the details alone--it's not arrived at after comprehensive knowledge of the whole; it has not led there either.
Anyway, I do not find it hard to prove you wrong: If all men were lawyers, soldiers, policemen, slavers--there would still be politics. It's true that carpenters wouldn't make politicians by virtue of carpentry anymore than scientists by virtue of whatever science. The Bible make me think that if mankind were priests all, there would still be politics--the fundamentally problematic nature of opinions suggests politics is already there. Laws are made to be obeyed, but the obeying of them is not the same as the prudence to make them--the authority of the laws is double-natured.
I do not want to do your thinking for you in practical matters; the political science, if it exists, is also practical. If it is a matter of theory, I can do your thinking for you: Politics implies that awareness of the whole is dependant on awareness of man's position: The knowledge that science seeks is impossible. Letting go of the urgent for the sake of the important is always impossible. The human perspective is a trap.
It is in practical things that you have to think for yourself. Are all jobs or professions the same? What makes them the same? The fact that they're done for money? What is the political ground of science? You must be aware of the massive gov't funding for scientific research, the massive reliance on scientific expertise in however many parts of gov't, the complete dependence of modern warfare on science, & of course the dependence of democracy on scientifically-produced wealth. Capitalism is not just a marriage of science & democracy. It is also a question: Who rules?

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