Re: [A-List] How "scientific" is science?

[Dale Allen Pfeiffer <daleallen0416@xxxxxxxxx>]

My own doubts about how scientific science is go to
the core beliefs on which the various branches of
science are founded. I had a brilliant chemistry
professor who liked to point this out. He showed our
class the Joseph Campbell/Bill Moyers Power of Myth
series by way of introducing us to the idea that
Science is the mythology of our day.

Chemistry is based on the concept of the perfect gas,
which doesn't exist. Classical physics is based on the
model of a perfect world, which likewise does not
exist. Then there is the atom, and subatomic
particles. Oh, we know they exist, even though we
cannot see them directly with our own senses.

No, all of these things are myths, as is any
explanation of reality. Humans are myth makers, we all
have our myths to explain the world around us. And we
will never escape that with concrete knowledge.

The important thing is how consistant the myths we
live by are, and how well they explain all observable
phenomena. In this regard, science is the most
successful and the most useful myth we have created to
date. But even the myth of science has its limits.

It appears that the limits of science were built into
it from the moment of its inception. Science is
objective, and it runs into its limits when it
approaches anything subjective. Science has a very
hard time tackling issues like hope and faith, and
even the true purpose of biology: discovering what is
life. We know what makes living things tick, but we
have no clue what life really is.

And now it appears that our scientific civilization
has helped to create a crisis of objectivity. Science
has allowed us to manipulate our environment to the
extreme, but we lack the subjective empathy to
understand when we have violated our environment and
our fellow human beings. And this is at the crux of
all our various problems: so long as we do not
empathize subjectively with our environment and our
fellow human beings, we will go on using them as we
see fit for our own personal benefit.

This is why there are no technofixes for resource
depletion, global climate change or our various other
problems. All of these problems are just symptoms of a
much deeper problem: our insular, individualized
consciousness.

just my own rant,

Dale

--- Sabri Oncu <soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Here is some rant before the below New York Times
> article entitled "'A
> Tragic Turn' for Science."
>
> Being a "scientist" of some sort, I have serious
> doubts that "science" is
> "scientific," whatever "scientific" means. My main
> question has always been
> this: if my "scientific" performance is measured in
> terms of some easily
> defined quantities, that is, if my scientific
> performance is somehow
> quantified, what is there to stop me from
> manipulating these measured
> quantities?
>
> For example, if the number of papers I publish is
> what matters for my
> survival, what is there to stop me from publishing
> the same paper a few
> times with some minor twicks and twists? Or, if I am
> a 35 years old
> assistant professor (the average age before what is
> called tenure in the US)
> at some university and if I need to publish one more
> paper to keep or lose
> my job, and if my family's future depends on it,
> what is there to stop me
> from changing a few numbers in my tables in such a
> way that my paper gets
> accepted by some journal? I know for sure that the
> so-called referees of my
> paper have no hope of knowing whether my numbers are
> the result of my model
> or not, unless of course, I am dumb enough to change
> them in such a way that
> it is noticable. Well! If I am that dumb, I do not
> have much chance to
> survive in that world anyway, so I better try other
> things to secure the
> future of my family. And if I am not that dumb, I
> know that it is highly
> unlikely that my refeerees have any intention to
> replicate my work to check
> my numbers for two reasons:
>
> 1) If they do that, and that becomes a tradition,
> others may start to check
> their numbers in the same way and things may go out
> of control: after all,
> in this "science" business, at least as it is
> conducted in these days,
> almost everybody "lies" here and there and some of
> these lies are
> unforgivable by any standard.
>
> 2) The pay off of replicating someone else's work is
> next to zero, if it is
> not negative. Nobody in the academic world gives you
> any credit for
> replicating other people's work in the first place,
> and, secondly, if you
> keep replicating other people's work and reporting
> their mistakes, you have
> no hope of surviving in that world, as is the case
> in every other world.
>
> This was where dear late Mark Jones, the initiator
> of this list, and I had
> major disagreements:
>
> He used to take science seriously whereas I have
> never been able to do that.
>
> Best,
>
> Sabri
>
> ++++++++++++
>
>
> Clone Scandal: 'A Tragic Turn' for Science
> New York Times, December 16, 2005
> By GINA KOLATA
>
> Last May, a stunning research paper in Science, one
> of the world's most
> respected scientific journals, instantly changed the
> tenor of the debate
> over cloning human embryos and extracting their stem
> cells. A team of South
> Korean scientists reported in the paper that they
> had figured out how to do
> this work so efficiently that the great hope of
> researchers and patients -
> to obtain stem cells that were an exact match of a
> patient's - seemed easily
> within sight.
>
> But that rosy future has been cast into doubt with
> the statement last month
> by Dr. Hwang Woo Suk, who led the team that wrote
> the paper, that it
> contained fabricated evidence. Questions have also
> been raised about earlier
> research and a new debate has begun.
>
> Scientists and ethicists caution that the full story
> is not in, but they are
> staggered by how the research has unraveled so far.
>
> "This is a tragic turn," said Laurie Zoloth,
> director of the Center for
> Bioethics, Science and Society at Northwestern
> University. Stressing that
> she considers Dr. Hwang innocent until proven
> guilty, she asked, however,
> whether the edifice of stem cell research was built
> on sand.
>
> "We depend entirely on the truthfulness of the
> scientific community," Dr.
> Zoloth said. "We must believe that what they are
> showing us and what they
> say has been demonstrated is worthy of our concern
> and attention."
>
> The South Korean story, Dr. Zoloth added, raises
> questions about whether the
> science is good. "Good as in true and real and
> morally worthy of our
> funding," she explained. "That is so most especially
> in this twilight sort
> of terrain with a lot of open questions that people
> disagree about. At least
> we thought that the step-by-step slow technical
> achievements had placed the
> science on a trajectory."
>
> "Is this our version of W.M.D.?" Dr. Zoloth said.
>
> A vocal opponent of cloning human embryos voiced a
> similar concern.
> "Certainly, if these reports are true, it's a
> tragedy for science," said
> Nigel Cameron, president of the Institute on
> Biotechnology and the Human
> Future at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
>
> He said the episode showed that stem cell research
> and cloning to create
> human embryonic stem cells, "is a hype balloon and
> it's been pricked." Not
> so, said the ethicist Arthur Caplan, an outspoken
> supporter of stem cell
> research. "We know that in science, speed kills if
> you go fast, and that's
> what the South Koreans did," he said. "It's also
> clear that they will do
> whatever it takes to right this ship. At the end of
> the day, critics of stem
> cell research will try to use this, but they won't
> get very far. People
> bending the rules in other countries doesn't reflect
> badly on us."
>
> The promise of cloned human embryonic stem cells
> remains, said Dr. George
> Daley, a stem cell researcher at Children's Hospital
> in Boston.
>
> "The goal is still there and the medical value is
> still largely theoretical
> but no less than before."
>
> Dr. Cameron, however, said the political
> implications of the South Korean
> scandal are huge.
>
> When it seemed that the South Koreans had taken a
> giant leap forward in stem
> cell research, he noted, "we panicked into thinking
> that we have to join
> in." Politicians and patient groups argued that
> cures were around the corner
> if scientists could get the needed support. States
> poured money into stem
> cell programs.
>
> The collapsing South Korean claims, Dr. Cameron
> added, made him ask:
> "Where's the beef? Where are those cures? Why is it
> that there is no private
> money going into this research? The business
> community values it at zero."
>
> Richard Doerflinger, deputy director of
> anti-abortion activities at the
> United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said
> that he has argued for
> some time that the stem cell proponents were
> exaggerating
=== message truncated ===


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