[lbo-talk] Scientism

joanna 123hop at comcast.net
Fri Oct 6 09:37:07 PDT 2006


ravi wrote:


>
>
>
>A while ago when we discussed this, I put up the Wikipedia list of the
>various forms of scientism, and I think I agree with most of them,
>including what you write above. In these debates, what bothers me is
>people (typically non-scientists) using the term "science" as a
>short-cut appeal to authority.
>
Yes, yes, yes! Doubly underline "typically non-scientist" because anyone who has done real science knows 1) that it's mostly shades of gray and that even though 2) it uses numbers, that does not give it the "certitude" of 1 + 1 = 2, because the whole point is that measurements and the application of numbers to real world problems need further interpretation and this interpretation is usually governed by unquestioned and unacknowledged cultural assumptions like "The Male is the Universal Subject," "There is a Universal Subject," "The Observer Is Netural," etc.

As for science as a short cut to authority. I suspect that's mostly what the Milgram Experiment proved. Not, as was argued, that people are thinly veiled psychotics but that in our culture, "science" is the authority that must be obeyed.


>Some might say that attitudes should not matter that much to us. I do
>believe it does in various ways: it closes our mind to reason (in the
>wider sense of that word... I think Gadamer wrote something, IIRC,
>regarding this: Reason in the Age of Science, or some such), it
>alienates us from the regular Joe (and makes him suspicious of us), it
>destroys the humanist identity within us (which ultimately, IMHO, is
>what makes us leftist), etc. Also, it is not just an attitude... often,
>it translates to a prescription: such as the recommendation, that
>Munevar talks about, to mothers in the so-called 3rd world to substitute
>breast milk with formula.
>
Or, the command to first world mothers that babies be fed no more than once every four hours. A commandment that was often followed, with the baby crying in one room, and the mother crying in the other, until the clock released them.

Joanna



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