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From: jim@ISM780B.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: RE:  Weird Science (response)
Message-ID: <27500128@ISM780B.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 24-Sep-85 01:15:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ISM780B.27500128
Posted: Tue Sep 24 01:15:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Sep-85 08:40:43 EDT
References: <2250346@hpfcms.UUCP>
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Nf-ID: #R:hpfcms:-225034604:ISM780B:27500128:000:5168
Nf-From: ISM780B!jim    Sep 24 01:15:00 1985


> I believe it was Charley who tried to convince you of the subjectivity
> of science.  Let me try my hand at it.  Put simply, the work of a
> scientist, no matter how honest and noble a scientist he is, in large
> part always reflects his preconceived notions and assumptions.  Why?
> The reason is that the questions a scientist asks govern the results
> of his work.  Asking questions is a very subjective activity; it
> always reflects what concerns the asker.  To the degree that some
> questions are asked and others are NOT asked, science is therefore
> subjective.

The questions asked govern which results are obtained, but not the validity of
the results themselves.  Scientists of course only obtain a subset of the
truth, and which subset is determined is largely a matter of current politics.
But scientific method properly applied should lead to assertions with high
likelihood of truth.  Unfortunately, outside of the physical sciences, and
especially outside the physical and biological sciences, the situations are
incredibly complex, making the isolation of variables and the unambiguous
reproducibility of results very difficult.  And, the ability to demonstrate
that the predictions of a model are verified in reality, which lies at the
very heart of the validity of science, is difficult to come by, and the
recognition of its necessity is very weak.  Thus, e.g., psychological,
sociological, and economic theories live based more on popularity and their
appeal to "common sense" than on their verifiability.  Thus, there is a lot of
stuff called science that is bad science, but that fact should not be used to
undermine the power of the scientific method itself.

> Add to that Heisenberg's insights, and science is no
> longer the objective and value-free endeavor that you want it to be.
> It seems highly dishonest to ever claim objectivity.  It is an
> impossibility.

This reflects a very common misconception of
"Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle"; it probably wouldn't be such a problem
if it were more correctly referred to as "Heisenberg's Uncertainty Rule",
for it is a specific statement about the interrelation of specific physical
attributes, not some sort of general principle about the subjectiveness
of the universe:

	delta_x * delta_p >= h/(4*pi)

	where delta_x and delta_p are the root-mean-square deviations of the
	coordinate of a particle and the corresponding momentum from their
	mean values, and h is Planck's constant.

*That* is the HUP; now what does that say about objectivity and values?
What it does say is that what we call particles in fact are somewhat
wave-like, and the less their momentum (and thus mass) the more wave-like
they are.  But it states it in a very explicit, *objective*, *value-free* way.
Of course, scientists themselves are not objective or value-free;
Heisenberg himself was a Nazi and applied science in heinous ways, which is
why Einstein was driven to warn Roosevelt of the destructive potential of
atomic energy in the first place (but this highly ethical atheist did not
himself directly contribute to the development of weapons).
But this new-wave mystic interpretation of science comes from deep naivety
of the physics it is based on; folks like Frijof Capra are not helping us
along the road to understanding.  Of course, physicists aren't helping
either when they use terminology subject to such misinterpretation,
like "observer", which seems to imply consciousness, when they really
mean "observation system", or Gell-Mann's whimsical "Eightfold Way" in
regard to the attributes of quarks.  There are interesting things to
say philosophically about relativity in ethics, the illusory nature of the
duality between the mind and the body or the mind and the set of experiences
that formed it, and the indeterminacy of human behavior, but validation for
such concepts cannot be found in physics, which talks about quite different
entities.

The important thing to remember is that facts come from science,
not scientists.  That someone is seeking facts about the universe via science
does not affect the validity of any judgement or use of those facts by that
person.  At the same time, vileness comes from people, not facts.  The reality
of a statement is not determined by the uses to which it is put.

Historically, I believe, the restriction of knowledge and fact,
the intentional maintenance of ignorance in others, has been the most potent
tool of destructiveness to humans and the human spirit.  One form such
manipulation of ignorance is taking today is the channeling of all educational
funds into the "hard" sciences (but omitting discussion of evolution);
important areas being ignored are rhetoric, history, and comparative politics,
since these lead one to think critically and to challenge the authority of the
maintainers of the status quo.  Those who uncritically push the notion of more
"scientific" education should carefully consider the wisdom of providing
intellectual tools that can be used to build the mechanisms of war without at
the same time providing the tools required for understanding and changing
human social institutions.

-- Jim Balter (ima!jim)


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