Science is not a perfect institution

Well, as a metallurgist, I tell you that there is more (witch)craft involved in invention of superb alloys than science

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Seems you don't discern between science and technology. Technology does not need as much honest peer critique as cutting edge science, cause technology either works or does not work (well). With science, it's not that straightforward, it's not that fast.

 

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It would be nice to read a few sentences above the denial sentence, even if my English is not that much pleasant to read. Science is an abstraction, it does not exist, it cannot deny anything on its own. Scientists can. Again, modern science is a bread winning professions (with all good and bad sides of it), it's not gentelman science of 17-19 centuries anymore. In two words, it's much more about money than anything else (including the desire to understand the world better). Scientists are in denial (mostly) of that fact, even if their actions suggest otherwise, they climb on "we are savior of the world tree" instead, statement we may argue a lot about.

 

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Thankfully, otherwise I wouldn't have learned all that I learned --- no training had biased my mind and closed me to the truth beforehand! I did receive training on male gender and sexuality amongst other things, but by that time I'd already learnt enough truths, not to believe everything that I was told by science or other westernised/ heterosexual institutions.

Yet, its so true. .... Someone recently told me that the real truth is actually simple, very very simple, and I couldn't agree more (even though explaining it in the mesh of lies created by the society is way too complex a task.

The society has already developed a strong infrastructure and mechanism with the brainwashed and others (vested interest groups) in charge. This mechanism serves as the ubermeister --- and no one knows it consciously or does anything consciously. Making it seem all natural.

In any case the emotional issues of men --- especially those related with masculinity are already a strict taboo subject for men --- and deeply embarrassing for him --- discussing them makes him vulnerable and makes him appear weak, which is dangerous in the race for manhood. So the inner voices of men being well suppressed, the lies are easily perpetuated --- to such an extent that everyone believes them to be the truth --- including the vested interest group.

Social masculinity is an important weapon through which the ubermeister controls everything.

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No (straight) man will share such things even when he is standing before a mirror all alone with himself. In fact he will have a tough time admitting such feelings to himself. That's where sexual identities help --- to psychologically marginalise one's own deepest sexual feelings which have terribly negative social-masculinity value.

In the west there is no dearth of sexual health counsellors who tell adolescents that their thoughts of being aroused by male body (and counsellors get innumerous such calls) is not significant and will pass, if they have a girlfriend (read -- you will be able to suppres them if you can do it with a girl). They stress the fact that "you are not gay". Thus, not being gay helps a lot in dealing psychologically with such feelings, i.e., in suppressing them.

The artificial pressures created by the heterosexual society greatly helps in this process, including by providing motivation/ fear. The attempts to scientifically concretise 'gays' as 'others' is part of this pressurisation process, although it helps 'homosexuals' and the naturally 'heterosexual' males.

(Although in a strict sense --- if we look at the fact that 'gay' primarily refers to feminine gendered males who like men, then they ARE slightly different than the straight population.)

Well, we can all try to figure that out, if only we could discuss/ analyse the thing without fear, prejudice and with honesty --- (in the process some of things I'm saying may come out to be a misjudgment too)

As for me, I've already figured that out. A certain section of the society was already made powerful by the christian societies' empowerment of male-female sex (albeit only as part of marriage) and by the persecution of male-male sexual bonds. The latter had gone underground in the mainstream male society, but was very much there and flourished.

Nevertheless, in the traditional society, those that had been given power by the traditional society's inequations could still not (ab)use their power, as there were several restrictions on male-female sex. And as religion waned they were threatened with their power being removed. That is when they went forward and took control of the society and its 'science'. Male-male sexual bonds were still behind the scenes and without a voice. You didn't talk about them and it seemed that they did not exist. The only visibility of it was in the feminine gendered male section (transvestites', cross-dressers, transexuals, etc.) and the emerging heterosexual order made use of this to portray same-sex desire as feminine and different -- a concept not existing before.

This is an imperfect world, and there are many you can't stand. Running away is not such a good strategy.

 

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Pl. read the above again. I've edited it a lot.

 

Well, actually like 'sexuality' and 'color', 'western' is a peculiar English word.

It refers to power equations than to the exact geography of a region.

It basically refers to the first world --- the rich, advanced, heterosexualised, so-called Free world.

Notwithstanding the exact meaning of the term west, the western world does not include Africa or South America, etc. which are in the west too. But includes Australia etc. which actually are in the east.

That was a different thread! And it was one discussing 'homosexuality' (sic) which according to me is an 'unnatural'/ artificial/ manmade phenomenon (just like heterosexuality). And you'd yourself chosen to come to the thread.

 

When you stop one line ranting about the evils of science, you make more sense, and also a more moderate position. Keep it up.

Aye, I suppose so.

But which reality? Different perceptions lead to different realities, yet somehow we manage to function ok even though they are different realities.
Anyhooo, I've been reading about history of science anduniversities in the UK and a bunch of other stuff. It seems that science hasnt been scaring off talented youth, except insofar as a small minority of the population ever went to university to do science anyway. In the late 60's in the UK, the percentage of people taking science started to drop and its been on the decline ever since. Yet there is no evidence that they cared to research the career first, nor that not doign science was the best thing for them. And as I have already mentioned, plenty of people do science because they are interested in it and what they find out. It is patently obvious that not everyone will want to become a scientists anyway, and what you seem to be suggesting is that tehre are people who have the talent to bcome scientists yet dont want to after finding that a career as one is "bad". You have yet to produce any evidence, nor have you suggested what they are doing instead of science that is somehow better. Because lets face it, every career in a modern capitalist society is alienated in some way, scientists are the least of your worries.

Yet it does encourage cooperation. Not just monopilistic agreements between big companies, nor research tie ups, or government/ company cross fertilisation by swapping staff members (which I abhor because its one step on the road to fascism) but also science does proceed by controlled competition by means of cooperation of research groups and people in said groups. You do research, you have to get on with your peers, your technicians, your bosses. The fact that peopel will compete to be the first to do something seems to be hardwired into humans, but the fac tis that plenty of people will do stuff without competitive pressures.
to sum it up, I agree there is a little too much competition in science these days, but its not exactly destroying it. What you shoudl be worried about is endemic competition and will to win being encouraged in schools, and winner takes all mentalities, since we are after all all stuck on the same world together, and that kind of mentality is not sufficient anymore.

Moral authority in science? You jest. What you mean is that someone says that because the scientist says its ok, it must be right. Which is an appeal to authority, not morality. And dont get me started on media stupidity. A scientist says "oh, it looks like that seems to be slightly related to this occurence under certain circumstances" gets changed to "We're all going to die next thursday!!!!!". Now, I am well aware that sometimes this suits the financial bods who run things, but these situations are usually quite obvious.

In fact, veneration of science is so alive and well that people flock to get treated by homeopaths, Deepak Chopra, and a bunch of non scientific rubbish. I think you are doing average Joe a misfavour. If said Joe had been brought up to be more independently minded, and less like Sheeple, he would be more interested in getting things explained. But then many people dont want things explained to them, it gets in the way of doing what they want to do, and are you going to blame them for all that?

Hey its politics! So, we are agreed that science can get misused in the daily pwoer games? I'm so glad we agree on something.

 

Well, make up your mind- are you ranting about the evils and misuses of science or technology? In my opinion, the science tells you how it works, and why, the technology is what you do to use it. besides, as far as I am aware, stuff like aluminium magnesium alloys did come out of scientific research. Yes, metallurgy etc was one of the early areas of science/ technology, back when there was less of a divide, but that does not lessen the real and critical role of modern science in the past 60 years. Or do high temperature triple composite turbine blades not exist at all?

As an aside, have you ever read Agricola's "De Re Metallica"? Or "De Pyrotechnia" by Biringuccio? they are interesting, books written in the 16th century about metallurgy and mining and stuff.

 

If anyone is ranting here it is you. You have beautifully avoided discussing the basic issue --- of the serious lacunaes in the institution of science that now at least two insiders have perfectly and beautifully exposed.

You are just harping on about the 'goodness' of science and its superiority --- but unless you answer the lacunaes, you'll not be able to defend 'science'.

 

LAcunaes? Where? Problems, yes. Find me people who think that the scientific method is the be all and end all of life. Otherwise, cease prattling on in a meaningless fashion.

 

Find people? There are any number of people on this forum who will not listen to reason but insist on 'external peer-reviewed scientific papers' as if none other than the 'selected' scientists are capable of observing life or reasoning.

As a layman and as a social worker who has worked at the grass roots, and someone who often interacts with the 'authorities', planner and those who have sway over young people, I can tell you that 'science' or what is forwarded in the name of 'science' is seen as the word of god and decides upon important decisions people take in their lifes, influences their attitudes, self-perceptions and how they deal with people and those in authority take important policy decisions based on them.

People don't question science or its methodologies and accept their results or interpretations like it were the word of god.

Doctors are one group which see themselves as Gods, and in my country you cannot really 'talk' to a doctor -- who act as if they know more about you than you do. They treat you like 'guinea' pigs without any qualms.

 

Thank you, Guthrie. You seem to be saying pretty much what I would be saying, thus saving me a lot of trouble. I'll let you know when you get it wrong.

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What would have made this whole topic more interesting would have been for it to take place without the anti-science faction. We could them have explored notions such as the following.
Science has gone through phases. The ancient Greeks used inductive logic in an effort to explain the world. The importance of the experimental method emerged in the Renaissance, expressed at first as descriptive science; then metamorphosing into the deductive creation of falsifiable hypotheses we use today. The question is, what is next.

 

My closing words for tonight, (I'll be back!!!!!) are:

You argue like an Intelligent Design proponent!

Actually, you have done previously. Your latest post is more interesting and to the point, so I shall get back to you later.

 

Mutual back slapping :bugeye:

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I agree that the press does look for spicy news, and it has a strong 'heterosexual' agenda. I remember when we started working with school students on sexual health education, a reporter once took our interview about our work and then did a big article on it with the title, "youth organisation finds majority of school students indulge in sex". Now that was untrue and none of us ever made that statement. I was too young then to understand the actual consequences of this. I did not care to put the record straight.

That media would play with a research in this manner clearly proves that the media has a strong 'heterosexual' agenda, and the fact that it gets away with it shows that it has the support of virtually every other social institution before which the individual is just voiceless.

However, if 'science' is indeed blameless, then it should have taken immediate steps to set the record straight, in the light that virtually every media piece said the same thing. Surely, science cannot function in isolation from the other social institutions, and it cannot absolve itself of the results of how its 'results' are being spread.

a. You had a point only if I was referring to how the media has interpreted the results of the research. But here the media has quoted him 'verbatim'. That means he actually did make those claims.

b. If science is actually not involved in the 'heterosexual conspiracy' and cannot be accused of 'broad generalisation' designed to mislead the public, then how do you explain the following:

- What is the basis for the assumption that the two socio-political groups of heterosexual or homosexual are two distinct biological 'species'?

- We can understand that given the social hostility the 'gay' person would be really and often exclusively be 'gay' (sic), but what is the basis for assumption that the persons who are taken in as 'heterosexuals' are naturally incapable of feeling sexual arousal by men.

- What made the researcher so sure that if he encountered differences in the anatomy of the two groups it would not be because of 'gender orientation' rather than the sexual orientation? What measures did he take to prevent that from happening? Did he care to mention the 'gender' of the people he took on board? How can we say that his data is reliable?

Clearly a scientist who is spending so much of public money to conduct researches on sexuality is expected to know of and accomodate all these issues. What was the need to conduct the study in such half-baked and hurried manner?

c. What useful information did Rahman Qazi hope to get from a research conducted in such haphazard and abstract way? Even if there was indeed a difference between how gay men reacted to noise and how straight men did, what great insight was it going to give us about human sexuality or even male-male sexuality (if there is anything like that!).

d. What do researches like these tell us about 'science' institution? What does the fact that such researches escape the so-called stringent 'peer-review' (Ophiolite listening?) tells us about the reliability of science or about its ulterior motives? What does it tell us about the heterosexual agenda? And what does the fact that the media has merrily lapped up the research tell us about the media and its role in the heterosexualisation process?

e. The false 'propaganda' that men who like other men belong to another 'species', which is like 'women' puts immense pressure on masculine gendered men to conform to heterosexuality. That science is extremely eager to give scientific validity to the heterosexual/ homosexual divide that it has created in the first place, makes the role of science extremely suspicious. Especially, when science has come up with innumerous such researches in the past few years --- all with the theme that gays are different from heterosexuals and that they are 'feminine' (meaning not real men!). And this inspite of the fact that they are all being proven wrong one after another or are not able to stand questioning.

Science, thou are great!

 

Here’s another thing that is “not perfect”:

The human mind.

Not a novel idea but one that so accurately predicts and explains the proceedings.

 

and most importantly, less not fogfet that te very root of science is the determination to leave value, quality, sensuality, and quality OUT of its acrueing of 'truth' 'facts'..........so, when it then becomes so up itself sit HAS, it ten decides--from hat original premise/metaphysical assumption now ala materialistic positivist science to dictate to us what reality IS.....s that any other alternative feeling, view, interpretation gets challenged by the robotic voices of the materialistic scientific cul--thus: 'show me solid evidence or crawl away like the ignoramous you are...before MEEEEEE the great scientifisist!!".....Thatis where we are at. these so-calleds scientists srutting about, and policin this forum cause its name 'sciforums' like some gestapo.

These advocates of the mscientific religion shun all who deny or threaten teir limited wqorldview, INCLUDING the peoples from our vast past 'pre-scientific' history, which stretch way back into thepromodial mists of time. all that is ridiculed by these exponenents of the brave new world........they'll be strutting about wheezin when the last tree is struggling for breath

 

The reason peer review etc is usually preffered is that it means that other people around the world have usually noticed something similar to what the people in the papers have said/ done. This can be contrasted to such phenomena as religious experience, where we have no way of knowing whether the same thing is happening to different people. Science is a collective social endeavour, about building up a picture of "reality" that people agree on. And as importantly, one that actually works without any faith in it working or not.

HHmmm, that sounds about right. However that they take it as the word of god is contrary to how most scientists would like their work to be taken (at least when they are being sensible, plenty of them would like to be worshipped, have money thrown at them, not to mention groupies...). I think what we have here is the problem of specialisation and the difficulties inherent with the sheer size of knowledge that has accrued over the past few hundred years.

The thing is, they are perfectly entitled to question science and its methodologies, the problem is that in many cases unnecessary questioning leads to disasters. People need to be educated and interested enough to ask the right questions and work out how to get good answers (ie more "truthful" ones) when confronted with problems. WHich is more a social cultural issue than a scientific one.

Oddly enough, that used to be a problem here in the UK, but is much less so nowadays. Not only because of increased irreverance of professionals, but also because it is clear to Drs and patients that such behaviour is not good for the patients, and as it is the Drs job to try and heal the patient, they need to improve their bedside manner. Which again is more a socio-cultural problem rather than one strictly scientific.

 

Sort of. When you can decide upon a universally acceptable way of measuring truth, value, quality etc, like you can measure the length of the room you are sitting in, then science will be interested in such things. But at the moment, possibly always, they are not susceptable to scientific processes, therefore they are ignored.

Feeling, view interpretation is fine. Perhaps you want to argue with gravity? Or 20,000 volts three phase electricity? I am afraid that people like Ophiolite and myself from physical science backgrounds dont really understand where you are coming from. However if you want to slag off "social" sciences, then we might join in.
Policing? Your still posting arent you? This is one of the laxest forums I have ever seen.
And yes, I suppose we all like to be right, its a fun feeling.
But anyhoo, what are you going to do without evidence? If you have no evidence for anything, how are you going to do anything about it, or indeed show other people that you are not hallucinating?

 

this is where science in its materialistic
mode is harmful. cause it goes places it isseverely limited in.
let us repeat again----you admit you/science cannot measure value, quality, 'sirit' right? so why then how do you K N O W people ARE 'hallucinating' when they claim different experiences and worldviews about reality?

 

It is important to remember that most people who tell others they are hallucinating are suffering greatly because of it. I get the impression duendy that your experience with psychadelics may have been a positive one, however most people who suffer hallucinations as a result of schizophrenia or psychosis find it very upsetting and terrifying.

Hold on a sec - assuming that you've tried psychadelics duendy, how is it that you can deny the existence of an illness whereby people hallucinate NATURALLY - without any drug???

If its possible to bring about through the use of psychadelics, then it is fair to assume that people may experience the same naturally, without psychadelics - right?

I think it is irresponsble for adults to assert that there is no such thing as a mental illness, or people who "suffer" from hallucinations.
That's not to say some people don't enjoy them, i'm sure some do - but if someone comes to me upset, and complains of hearing voices which obviously aren't there, then I'm going to try and help them - not by locking them up or poking and prodding them, but by referring them to a psychiatrist.

I guess its easy to see why some people hate psychiatrists isn't it?
"F.... you man, my fairies are real!!"