>>> Jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk 10/22/00 02:02PM >>>
In message <s9f2e09e.062 at mail.ci.detroit.mi.us>, Charles Brown
<CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us> writes
>
>CB: I'd urge a little more questioning of how the discoveries of science today
>are likely to be used under our capitalist regime, based on the objective
>evidence of the history of capitalist use of science.
Yes, I agree, that the pressures that capitalism puts upon scientists to manipulate their data are profound - almost as bad as the kind of pressures that scientists in the Soviet Union were subjected to.
The example of the global panel on climate change, strong-armed into adopting the theory of anthropic climate change for political reasons, at a point where evidence was already being published that did not fit the proposed model is a case in point.
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CB: Yes, pressures on scientists, but I'm speaking more about how valid scientific theories and facts have been used misanthropically by capitalism. Discoveries in navigation and shipbuilding were used to go around the globe conquering, murdering, colonizing and enslaving just about everybody, instead of establishing a peaceful , egalitarian panhuman network. Biological discoveries were used to make biological weapons, as used in WWI. Physics discoveries were used to make bigger and bigger bombs and missiles. Anthropological data was used to control and colonize peoples. Chemical knowledge was used to develop crack cocaine.
GM food may involve strongarming scientists to manipulate data, but the misuse of accurately reported data is a big danger with capitalism too.
>
>CB: Perhaps it is your unquestioning optimism about how scientific discoveries
>are likely to be used under our capitalist regime that starts to move toward a
>religious type of outlook. "Don't worry , be happy" optimism is not scientific;
>it is not "questioning everything" and looking at the "objective" history of
>capitalism to warrant your answers about what capitalism is likely to do in the
>future with powerful scientific discoveries.
>
Charles, this is a sleight of hand. I say 'optimistic' and you smuggle in the charge 'unquestioning' as if that was my case. But my case is precisely the opposite. I am the one defending rational enquiry against religious belief.
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CB: You had said
"When Carl uses the term science, he doesn't know that this is merely a compacted way of saying 'to question everything, taking only the objective as warrant for knowledge'. (By contrast faith founds knowledge on belief.) So, 'faith in science' isn't really faith. It means faith in the evidence of the sense, which is to say, that every proposition should be tested."
What are you questioning about GM food , and specifically capitalist use of GM food ?