[X] My Assistant

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

Yes DDAVIS.

The antiscience movement, as you explains, has real historical causes, starting from the hazard of atomic weapons, biology, etc. The increase of ecology awareness, of social and political awareness, the rise of alternative ways of life (former hippies, New Age, etc...) led many people look at science (and at politics) with a more critical eye.

But rejecting atom bombs makes sense, when rejecting knowledge at a whole is stupid. So where is the mistake?

What I think is that the majority of people is still "square thinking" or "exclusively yes or no" without any nuances. This way of thinking lead many people to blindly accept or completelly reject things, when in reality there are nearby alway nuances. For instance science led to many useful discoveries, not only to the fabrication of atom bombs. So we could accept science, but an ethical (or at least controlled) science which works for the good.

So what happens when people realize that science allowed bad discoveries? Square thinking, they clip out the whole thing and deem science as being globally bad. This is in a way unavoidable, so long as there is no more clever thinking than square thinking. When people will learn more clever and efficient ways of thinking, they will still reject atom bombs but not Apollo. When they will do this is a matter of education, of correct work by the medias, governments, etc.

In an extreme way, square-thinking leads to fundamentalism. Religious fundamentalism, we think, but atheist fundamentalism too, you just have to look at former Soviet Union, China, etc. Both kinds of fundamentalism being an equal threat.

The idea of an anti-science revolution is not an empty figure of style. It already happened several times. Remember that the ideas of atoms, democracy, abolition of slavery, mechanical calculators, do not date back from only the 18th or 19th centuries, but from antic Greece, two millenia earlier. But in the 4th to 6th centuries the catholics fundamentalists burned the Alexandria Library, the archives of the Roman empire, and nearby all the cultural artifacts of antiquity. Science-minded people had to flee to Persia and India, only to be caugh later by muslim fundamentalists, in the 7th and 11th centuries. All this was the most tremendous setback from all the history of mankind, and in certain domains we still not recovered of it today, 15 centuries later. Would such a thing happen today, I could not imagine the consequences, it could start a nuclear war, huge famine, or left us defenceless in front of cosmic-sized ecological catastrophes.

I am personally very sympathetic with movement such as ecology or New Age, which can bring many to our lifes and societies. but I am also aware that if square-thinking appropriates these movements, there is a terrible danger of fundamentalism here too. It is not at random if the hoaxers target these movements in priority. And, if technocracy continues with so much arrogance to destroy nature, the MAJORITY of people could prefer the havoc of an anti-science revolution.


So this is why the anti-apollo hoax does not make me laugh.

[paxdan]

BBC Article 'The struggle over science'

[Bob Shaw]

Article from New scientist regarding Hubble's recent Lunar images:

http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/dn7880

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

BBC Article 'The struggle over science'

Paxdan,
I cannot resist to excerpt a quote here of your article:
"How radically we have moved away from regulation based on professional analysis of scientific data ...to regulation controlled by the White House and driven by political considerations."

As far as I know, Mr Bush is not New Age, thus he may be easiy followed by the majority. As in the 6th Century...

Or in a way, the two extremes join their efforts to produce the same result, as always in square-thinking.

[ljk4-1]

Ever read the novel A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller?

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/science_fi...n/canticle.html

Every scrap of knowledge we can add to the benefit of human civilization against the darkness of ignorance is not just important, it is vital.

[David]

But in the 4th to 6th centuries the catholics fundamentalists burned the Alexandria Library, the archives of the Roman empire, and nearby all the cultural artifacts of antiquity.

It's true that the complex that had housed the Library was destroyed at the end of the 4th century -- because it contained a major pagan temple, the Serapaeum -- but much of the collection had probably been destroyed earlier, as the crowded site of Alexandria was very susceptible to earthquakes and fires, and a large fire is known to have ravaged the area of the library as early as 48 B.C.E.
What really deprived the Middle Ages of the knowledge of the ancient world, however, was not the accidental or purposeful destruction of central repositories; that would not have mattered much as long as copies of the works contained there were available and continued to be copied. But in the last centuries of the Roman Empire, the amount of copying of religious texts increases, and the proportion of secular texts decreases. Demand for scientific or even literary works of the past had shrunk; public opinion was drawing a line between the Christian present and the pagan past by disregarding the latter. The catastrophic economic collapse of the ancient Mediterranean world, from about the middle of the sixth century, also made the funds for maintaining scriptoria scarce. Consequently there was little room for the copying of luxury books, and copyists concentrated on books that were deemed necessary: psalters, prayer-books, and bibles. The non-Christian or pre-Christian material that survives is a combination of "best-sellers" -- the works that were, for one reason or another, very famous (like Homer , Vergil, Aristotle and Ptolemy); and a number of other works that survived by accident or whim.
The general lesson is that science suffers, not so much when fanatics set out to destroy it, as when people simply cease to care about it. Apathy is a more dangerous weapon than fire.

[ljk4-1]

It's true that the complex that had housed the Library was destroyed at the end of the 4th century -- because it contained a major pagan temple, the Serapaeum -- but much of the collection had probably been destroyed earlier, as the crowded site of Alexandria was very susceptible to earthquakes and fires, and a large fire is known to have ravaged the area of the library as early as 48 B.C.E.
      What really deprived the Middle Ages of the knowledge of the ancient world, however, was not the accidental or purposeful destruction of central repositories; that would not have mattered much as long as copies of the works contained there were available and continued to be copied.  But in the last centuries of the Roman Empire, the amount of copying of religious texts increases, and the proportion of secular texts decreases.  Demand for scientific or even literary works of the past had shrunk; public opinion was drawing a line between the Christian present and the pagan past by disregarding the latter.  The catastrophic economic collapse of the ancient Mediterranean world, from about the middle of the sixth century, also made the funds for maintaining scriptoria scarce.  Consequently there was little room for the copying of luxury books, and copyists concentrated on books that were deemed necessary: psalters, prayer-books, and bibles.  The non-Christian or pre-Christian material that survives is a combination of "best-sellers" -- the works that were, for one reason or another, very famous (like Homer , Vergil, Aristotle and Ptolemy); and a number of other works that survived by accident or whim.
    The general lesson is that science suffers, not so much when fanatics set out to destroy it, as when people simply cease to care about it.  Apathy is a more dangerous weapon than fire.

One has to wonder what course the world would have taken if Christianity had not gotten a foothold?

Televised gladiator fights, anyone?

[dvandorn]

Probably not. The Roman (and before it, the Greek) set of world-view paradigms did not allow for many avenues of scientific inquiry. Especially in the area of physics. While the Romans and the Greeks before them accomplished great things in terms of practical engineering, they developed them as outgrowths of hands-on materials experience, not from any actual understanding of how the materials are put together.

Therefore, the Romans never developed technology beyond a certain level, even though they had the time and energy and resources to do so. Without the massive shift in world-view paradigms that occurred in Europe during the late Middle Ages and into the beginning of the Renaissance, there would never have been an Industrial Revolution.

The same thing happened in China, where the very foundation of their world-view did not allow modeling of physical systems, because the Chinese believed that every system has a spiritual element that cannot be modeled. If you believe it is not possible, or not ever useful, to construct a model of a system we see in the real world, you'll never go down the path of the sciences.

So, while Christianity may have subdued some forms of art and literature, and the Roman way of looking at technology, it did not stop Roman techological development. Romans did that themselves -- their technology was as mature as they were ever going to make it prior to the Christianization of the Roman Empire.

-the other Doug

[David]

Probably not.  The Roman (and before it, the Greek) set of world-view paradigms did not allow for many avenues of scientific inquiry.  Especially in the area of physics.  While the Romans and the Greeks before them accomplished great things in terms of practical engineering, they developed them as outgrowths of hands-on materials experience, not from any actual understanding of how the materials are put together.

[...]

  Romans did that themselves -- their technology was as mature as they were ever going to make it prior to the Christianization of the Roman Empire.

-the other Doug

I think you're right that there was a gap between theoretical and practical sciences, which was generally unbridged except by the occasional genius (like Archimedes). Otherwise the two had little to do with each other, practical sciences proceeding by a combination of tradition with trial and error.

In the theoretical sciences, the whole concept of a theoretical science was pretty much lost in the Latin West (because with the decline of learning, the Greek originals were inaccessible even to the literate), and became not much more than repetition in the Greek East; it was left for the Arabs, who conquered much of the Hellenic world in the 7th century, to build upon Greek theoretical ideas. These ideas eventually reentered the Latin West through Spain later in the Middle Ages.

The progress of the practical sciences was fitful and depended upon local economic prosperity. In some areas, such as architecture and certain forms of military technology, it continued to advance, though slowly. The Byzantine Empire never regressed beyond the Roman level, though the area of its influence was much more limited. In Western Europe, some of the useful arts which required an empire-sized economic unit to uphold them fell into disuse.

But by the 10th or 11th century, Western Europe had come to behave as an integrated economic unit despite being divided into many small states (and the existence of an international - mostly clerical - intelligentsia did much to bring this about) and conditions began to progress beyond the Roman level once again. This, even though the concept of theoretical science was not reintroduced to Western Europe until the 12th century, and did not get much beyond Aristotle -- who was taken as an absolute authority -- until the end of the 16th century, when experimental science reemerges.

[dvandorn]

Exactly. What you'll note here is that spiritual beliefs (i.e., beliefs that must be taken on faith, that do not stand the scrutiny of scientific investigation) are what have, historically, kept civilizations from developing what we know as the scientific method. And, indeed, there is a discontinuity between a method that requires you to discard beliefs when they are disproven, and a set of beliefs that require you to *never* require proof of them.

And while my own spiritual beliefs tend toward the pagan, I am first and foremost a scientific rationalist. Which means that my spiritual beliefs are a subset of my world-view, not the whole set.

I'm a strong believer in spirituality. But I'm a stronger believer in scientific rationalism. And, as someone who chooses to learn from history (and not just ignore it when it conflicts with my preferred world-view), it seems clear to me that when non-rational world-views (i.e., most faith-based systems) are encouraged to take over your entire world-view, you lose the ability to question beliefs that are at best incorrect and at worst devastating dead-ends when it comes to developing useful technology.

Is it any wonder why this growing popular anti-science movement, based as it is on a backlash from those who want to dismiss science because it doesn't fit their faith-based world views, seems so threatening to me? And seeing what Richard has written, I'm not the only one with serious concerns.

-the other Doug

[Guest_Myran_*]

I cant stop myself, since the thread caught my interest. And I must agree with several here that it was a set of unusual circumstances in Europe that made possible the technological revolution. Not christianity itself, but a set of small competing city states where the close and intense competition became the engine for rapid developement, so yes, I think thats why we had a 'false start' on this kind of developement in ancient Greece.

The knowledge and thinking of the Greek philosophers were almost forgotten but by 'borrowing' it back in a refined form from the Arab world who had made some refinement to the astronomy, bookkeeping and calculus. With banking and bookeeping from Genua, we got on the path of creating plants for manufacture mostly weapons and armor at first.
We tend to forget that factorys and mass production of things (like cloth and in sawmills, shipyards are another example) all this existed long before there were any advanced machinery, and it was comptition that had the early industry looking for more efficient means to compete.
Overall I dont think religion helped all this along the slightest, its often stated that it provided 'a common cause for protecting Europe' against the marauding Arab Jihad and Viking warriors. But overloking the fact that those people were mostly into trade, and only as much part time pirates as beforementioned fleets from Genua. Well the bottom line are that I think all this only can have happened in Europe with all the small competing city states, and nowhere else.

[ljk4-1]

Three Apollo programs on The History Channel this weekend:

Saturday, August 27 at 8 p.m. ET - "Save Our History -- Apollo: The Race Against Time"

What remains of the spacecraft designed to propel American astronauts to the
moon? How are they being saved for future generations?


Sunday, August 28 at 9 p.m. - "Beyond the Moon: Failure is not an Option 2"

This two-hour sequel to "Failure Is Not an Option" tells the story of America's
post-Apollo space program, from the point of view of the engineers of Mission Control.

Through their experiences, we get a firsthand look at life inside Mission Control, as
these driven engineers continue to push the boundaries of space flight from 1972 into the new century.


Apollo 13 on Saturday at 9 pm and Sunday at 6 and 11 pm ET

Film based on the true story of the ill-fated Apollo 13 moon mission. Since America had already achieved its lunar goal of landing on the moon, little interest existed in 1970 when Apollo 13 launched--until these words shook the national psyche: "Houston, we have a problem."

Stranded 205,000 miles from Earth, astronauts Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks), Fred Haise (Bill Paxton), and Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon) battle to survive. Directed by Ron Howard, with Gary Sinise and Ed Harris. (1995) TVPG cc


http://www.historychannel.com/

[ljk4-1]

Perhaps some day if the human race grows up enough, we will have a "religion" and spiritual attitude like the one Carl Sagan described here:

"In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, "This is better than we thought! The universe is much bigger than out prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed"? Instead they say, "No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way."

"A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge."

- Pale Blue Dot, Random House, New York, 1994, page 52

http://members.aol.com/pantheism0/atheists.htm


And there is some fascinating discussion on his Cosmist views here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Carl_Sagan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ann_Druyan

[Bob Shaw]

other Doug:

The answer is to carefully read the Holy Words of the Blessed Pratchett, and seek out one's own Small Gods.

Oook?

Bob Shaw

[helvick]

Oook?

Bob Shaw

Amen, Brutha.