[lbo-talk] more thoughtlessness on scientism

tfast tfast at yorku.ca
Thu Jun 14 11:08:33 PDT 2007



>
> That is to say, I agree with Ravi that science (like markets) cannot
> effectively self-regulate to achieve some mythical Pareto optimum or
truth.
> However, science is seldom a self-regulating market. More often than not
it
> is practiced in a definite institutional settings, and its accomplishments
> reflect those settings. If these institutional settings actively promote
> intellectual monopolies, the science turns out to be as Ravi claims.
> However, if these institutional setting promote rational search for truth
> (as it is the case, for the most part in the EU and still in the US) -
> science will be what it claims to be - the most accurate and rational
> representation of reality under particular historical conditions.


>
> Wojtek
>

I could agree with much of this as long as you kept it to the hard science. The status of economics is one of a neoclassical mafia.

I would just want add, however, that especially in the US in terms of the sciences, the problem is not so much about whether it produces truth but rather which kinds of truth it is directed to uncover. And given the funding structure science works much less like entrepreneurs in the presence of deep and liquid venture capital markets and more like a half starved beggar making themselves instrumentally useful the question arises to whom does truth serve?

Travis



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