[lbo-talk] more thoughts on scientism

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Thu Jun 14 08:16:55 PDT 2007


CG:

On the other hand, I think it is up to the scientic communities to clean themselves up here and start becoming more critically active in defending themselves. Unfortunately, most of the scientists I've met or known didn't quite have the level of political awareness needed to see what was happening. They were just not used to thinking in these more political and concrete terms. And like everybody else they were afraid for their jobs. Working for a big pharma company in QC labs by day, and writing long tracks on the political consequences of their work by night is a hero's job---and most of these guys are not heros.

[WS:] I agree. I've met a lot of scientific types, very smart people, who could not make an effective public presentation of their ideas to save their lives. They seem totally oblivious to the fact that their ideas may be interpreted differently by different segments of the public. I think part of is the lack of training, but another part is general geekiness (if not outright Asperger Syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome) i.e. being more comfortable with analyzing abstract ideas than interacting with people.

BTW, here is a tongue-in-cheek definition of "sociologist" that rings some truth - "a person who is better at analyzing social life than at participating in it."

Wojtek



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