Someone help me with philosophy

[dexeron]

[Agent]

Despanan, Despanan, don't do the thing where you assume people are stupid. And I mean people in general not in this thread.

[Despanan]

[Rip]

No agent, it is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to appreciate poetry if one is also a scholar. Only Despanan could find the way....!

[Agent]

I just mean that he seems to have trouble believing that people could learn something in a different way than he did.

[Despanan]

[Despanan]

[Agent]

That sounds like you're talking about science either as knowledge or as the collective act of humans doing science, which I'm pretty sure Dex is not talking about.

[Despanan]

I'm talking about the collective act of humans doing science. Science in practice, not science as a method.

I'm sure Dex is talking about science as in the method. I don't have any problem with the method. I think it works and I agree with him.

What I'm concerned about is twofold: the effect the culture of science has on people's minds and the effect on society when science is excercised to gain illegitimate authority.

[dexeron]

There are a couple of problems with your analysis, Desp.

1. Economics is not science. Yes, "social science" has the word science in its name, but how things like sociology, political science, and economics differ from "real" science is the ability to do experiments with a control group, have the results of those experiments examined by peers and the experiment replicated, and having those results shape consensus by being confirmed or rejected. Social sciences deal with the behavior of humans outside of a laboratory setting, and that simply is not science. Now, that doesn't mean that these fields do not use scientific methodology (Research Methods is a vital course in any social science program, and there are very scientific studies and analysis that can occur within these fields, but for the most part they overlap with things like philosophy and other "unscientific" endeavors.) This does not diminish their importance or usefulness, but they just aren't science in the modern sense of the word.

And even so, if they are politicized, that is the fault of politics, not, say, economics.

2. We seem to be using different definitions of the word "authority." I'm not arguing for some technocratic elite making political decisions, and indeed, I reject such an idea. I prefer for scientists to remain apart from the machinery of politics (serving in an advisory capacity while being given absolute freedom to research and speak on that research) rather than being restrained by the artifice of diplomacy and politics. I'm simply arguing that science is the best method we have for determine important facts of incredible importance to society: how much lead is harmful in water supplies or how industry affects the climate, or conducting the research into food production and medical breakthroughs and any number of other things that the political leaders need to know so they can make educated decisions about who gets what, when, and how. What I am arguing for when I say that science must be respected as an "authority" is that science ought to be respected by those who make decisions, not ignored or mocked by lawmakers with an ideological ax to grind. For example, we should not have climate change deniers on a congressional science committee.

When I say "science should be an authority," I don't mean "scientists should be in charge," but "leaders should look to science instead of tea-leaves when the time comes to make decisions."

3. Bakunin died in 1876, when science in its modern form was in its infancy, and new technologies were beginning to play on the collective fears of the world. Within 40 years, especially in the wake of World War I, the world was both enthralled with the idea of, and terrified of the destructive potential of, technological progress. Lovecraft's writings about forbidden knowledge that could drive men mad resonated for a reason. Science today is a much different animal than it was over 100 years ago, and even 50 years ago. Scientists are still human, and science isn't perfect, but it is a self-correcting mechanism in the long-term, and more so than any other endeavor, tends to weed out falsehoods over time.

Also, I simply disagree with Bakunin's analysis of human character.