In the comments thread, you’ll find some people wondering at what science can and can’t do. As to the why questions, science asks them all the time but seems to assert a certain kind of knowledge. Beyond that…Metaphysics? Religion?
You’ve probably seen the Templeton Conversations around, where some interesting thinkers are asked if science makes a belief in God obsolete.
From Roger Scruton’s book:
“How can I view the world in its totality? And yet, how can there be explanation if I cannot? How can I explain the existence of anything if I cannot explain the existence of everything? If I am confined for ever within my own point of view, how can I penetrate the mystery of nature?”
Ch 4, pg 66.
It’s not a literary theory, nor one of being, nor a psychological theory, nor one of mind, so how is it we come to know a world beyond ourselves, and what can Kant’s metaphysics (beyond physics) offer in this quest?
I’ve Been Asked To Provide A Literary Reference: Okay. The Aleph?
Ah, we’re so close…
Angier quotes David Sloan Wilson:
“If you do statistics in the context of something you’re interested in and are good at, then it becomes an incremental as opposed to a saltational jump,”
You see that the mechanics are not so hard after all, and once you understand why you’re doing the statistics in the first place, it ends up being simple nuts and bolts stuff, nothing more.”
Not a bad argument…if the imagination is piqued and the interest is there, perhaps a platform for other areas of study, especially the sciences, can be more easily developed.
Perhaps (though isn’t this always the way?) there has been cultural erosion enough to make science a misunderstood field among the public. If this is true, then clearly English departments busy with continental philosophy, cultural relativism, the denial of meaning etc have helped make this state of affairs possible…
So how do you unite the arts and sciences?
To illustrate how the New Humanities approach to scholarship might work, Dr. Heywood cited her own recent investigations into the complex symbolism of the wolf, a topic inspired by a pet of hers that was seven-eighths wolf.
Dear Lord. Apparently in a way that doesn’t do justice to either one. After all, the arts require entering into the creative imagination and genius of great artists like Shakespeare, Milton, and Melville. Science is different.
“Dr. Wilson is determined to avoid romanticizing science or presenting it as the ultimate arbiter of meaning, as other would-be integrationists and ardent Darwinists have done.”
Good luck with that, Dr. Wilson…though some political and social good may come out of your work…
Some good scientists and writers of science who are much better than this Angier’s loyalty to more political and social concerns: Nigel Calder, Carl Zimmer, George Smoot, Richard Feynman…
See Also: The moral thinking both Angier and Sloan Wilson neglect in The Economist On Moral Thinking: David Sloan Wilson’s Research and Natalie Angier In The NY Times: In Most Species, Faithfulness Is A Fantasy
Say what you want about people insisting we go green: They’re watermelons (green on the outside, red on the inside), they’re busy constructing the new secular religion…they’re do-gooders more interested in being right then in thinking the ideas through…
…but how can you distinguish the science and doubt from all the ideology and certainty?
Freeman Dyson in his review of two books in the NY Times Sunday (covering the politics, science and economics of GW), would seem to wonder at the same questions, and stresses:
“The main point is religious rather than scientific. There is a worldwide secular religion which we may call environmentalism”
Which doesn’t help public discussion of the science nor protect reasonable skepticism…
…of course there is much truth there as well. In Dyson’s work and in the data that leads some to say global warming is happening.
See Also: From The Literary Review–An Appeal To Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming, The National Geographic-Marching To The Eco-Drumbeat,
Al Gore: Confusing Science With Politics Since 2006!
With so many deadly tornadoes in the news lately, I thought I’d post a few links:
-Here’s a link to the How Stuff Works tornado page.
-The Tornado Project Online. (Affiliated with How Stuff Works, lots of top-ten lists etc…)
-How to make a tornado box for a science fair.
-Is it a vortex of rising, warm and moist air or cool air dropping downward? Does anyone really know what’s going on in there? Good models here.
-The Red Cross Tornado Preparedness Page.
-You’ve got to check out Tornadovideos.net.
Some really cool Youtube videos here and here. A dust-devil here. If you have time and are a real weather geek, the formation of a supercell here.
See Also: The Greensburg Tornado on Doppler Radar
Pinker attacks ”dignity” arguments put foward by the President’s Council On Bio-Ethics in Human Dignity And Bioethics.
He’s not impressed with the set of largely conservative ideas he finds there, a few of which are rooted in Catholic doctrine. Who’s putting them foward?
“…a group of intellectual activists, many of whom had jumped from the radical left to the radical right, has urged that we rethink the Enlightenment roots of the American social order. The recognition of a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and the mandate of government to secure these rights are too tepid, they argue, for a morally worthy society.”
A group grimly attaching its interests to politics and enfringing upon our cherished enlightenment values as enshrined in the Constitution.
So is Pinker trying to define himself as closer to national goals? His concept of “dignity” is:
“…a phenomenon of human perception…
…Just as the smell of baking bread triggers a desire to eat it, and the sight of a baby’s face triggers a desire to protect it, the appearance of dignity triggers a desire to esteem and respect the dignified person…”
“…This explains why dignity is morally significant: We should not ignore a phenomenon that causes one person to respect the rights and interests of another. But it also explains why dignity is relative, fungible, and often harmful. Dignity is skin-deep:”
In this view, “dignity” is not a deep enough argument upon which to base the kind of moralism that will end up restricting progress. Instead, Pinker is seeking to define and create more freedom for this progress to occur where biology, medicine and technology meet.
In fact:
“Even if progress were delayed a mere decade by moratoria, red tape, and funding taboos (to say nothing of the threat of criminal prosecution), millions of people with degenerative diseases and failing organs would needlessly suffer and die. And that would be the biggest affront to human dignity of all.”
These people are morally responsible to all the sick people that would have been helped had they not gotten in the way!
That seems a little extreme. I’m glad that neither Pinker nor the “dignity” crowd is the final word on any of this, nor solely responsible for our moral thinking.
See Also: Ross Douthat has more here at Pinker vs. Humanism, Ann Althouse has more here.
Here’s his first post and here’s the second.
From the first:
“The new atheists hate religion for causing between-group conflict and especially for its wanton disregard of the canons of rational thought. Yet, both of these problems extend far more widely than religion”
Agreed. Also…
“The new atheists will need to display a virtue typically associated with religion–humility–if they wish to join this enterprise.”
Yes, they will, if they wish to honor the free thinking that helped create the intellectual roots of their atheism….but what enterprise would that be?
“…the circle of cooperation…”
You’re kidding me. This almost makes me want to go join an organized religion. Wilson seems to have made the mistake of not separating his evo-biology/athropological research from current thinking and politics, and a pretty naive politics at that.
Is there something about evolutionary biology that appeals to liberalism? liberals to evo-biology? liberals to less objective fields of science? Karl Popper seemed to think evolution wasn’t a science, but why were Popper and the Vienna Circle so interested in a radical empiricism in the first place?
Or does politics have nothing to do with science unless we insist that it does?
See Also: The Economist on Moral Thinking: David Sloan Wilson’s Research, A Sympathetic View Of Noam Chomsky? From New York Magazine: If God Is Dead, Who Gets His House?
It’s tough to provide a sceptical, yet non-scientific take on global warming in such a political and social “climate.”
Does Nigel Lawson’s book pull it off?
Quite apart from the science (which is clearly the best place to start), it’s so often the interpretation of the science and the media presentation of global warming as an inevitability…which is not always reasonable.
See Also: The Weather Channel’s Green Blog: A Little Too Green? The National Geographic-Marching To The Eco-Drumbeat
by Juampe López
An Inconvenient Truth: Where science is used to serve a genuine moral concern, but largely to unify people around a moral concern which happens to correspond nicely with a set of political ideas…er…which could eventually serve Al Gore’s political career.
See Also: The Spiked Review Of Books has more.
Chris Hedges is the son of a Presbyterian minister who takes the new Atheists to task (Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins) for engaging in modern day utopianism. For Hedges, their fallacy lies in simply believing in a kind of rationalism or “Science,” and not providing sufficient justification for that belief.
“Science” is leading us foward they claim, technology is making human progress possible. From such a position they write books with hyperbolic titles, claiming that religion is bad and is poisoning everything etc…
For Hedges, they are engaging in precisely what they criticize religion for doing: over-simpifying complex matters within an ideological doctrine. In rallying around their cause, they are engaging in one of the oldest human games…
I’d say Hedges takes a refreshing view on these new atheists. I especially like his individualistic view of all institutions, especially the church (institutions are not capable of the depth of moral sacrifice that individuals make, and so the good they do comes at the cost of the individual…).
One problem I might have with Hedges is in making such arguments as he does, he falls back into the metaphysical thinking of Christian theology (the importance of orginal sin, for example). I would suggest the works of Immanuel Kant as a possible response. Here I am thinking of his title as “Der Alleszammer” or all destroyer.
Kant’s metaphysics pretty much invalidate the arguments for God, though perhaps not an existence of that which lies beyond us.
Thanks for reading.
See Also: Hedges’ interview on KUOW, the local Seattle NPR station. Also, my post “A Brief Defense Of Agnosticism,”
Addition: A brief excerpt of a debate between Hedges and Hitchens.
Really, you’ve got to take a look at this.
How do you create a robot that can respond anywhere near as well to a complex environment as a living organism does?
I’m reminded of Searle’s Chinese Room, and Deep Blue (really smart and really dumb), and Shakey.
Do you aim for emotional attachment like the Japanese do?
See Also: The BigDog promotional video set to Herbie Hancock’s Rock It. You remember that video? An Introduction to Artifical Intelligence to which someone will undoubtedly bring up Skynet.
Addition: From Military.com: ‘This is the upgraded “Big Dog” from Boston Dynamics. The unit is gas powered, weighs 235 pounds, has a payload of 345 pounds, and can traverse a wide variety of terrain.’
