Science for Communists?

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

Actually Bertrand Russell did also write some really succint and clear introductory books about philosophy, and they're now all in the public domain. I recomend a look, even if our censor of the proletariat disagrees…

And still you continue to avoid 'Science for Communists'.Be my guest, anyone. Go and read Betrand Russell.DJP can't answer my questions about his views of politics and science, the title of this thread, and so slanders me as a 'censor'.Derailer. Ignorant derailer. Slanderous, ignorant derailer. Secretive, slanderous, ignorant derailer.Is DJP really the best that the SPGB can offer a thread with this title? Don't you have anyone in the party who can engage?This is becoming a very public disgrace.The only comrade who seems to be really interested is SocialistPunk, who I believe has left the party? It's beginning to seem a wise decision.

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

Why not start a thread of your own, titled 'Science for Socialists', where you can discuss individuals and their truth, and forget all this nonsense I keep blathering on about, regarding classes, social knowledge, social subject, critical realism?

Yes socialists are scientists, yes there are classes in society and yes knowledge is social and yes we are social beings. You add nothing to that.Why accuse me of not accepting that there are classes, that knowledge is social and human beings are social beings.?Your tactic is to attribute a belief to a forum user then shoot it down.    

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

This is becoming a very public disgrace.

It certainly is! What, with you being the only communist and 'proletarian scientist' in the world. LOLI don't suppose you come across any in the last party you left? 

[LBird]

Vin Maratty wrote:

LBird wrote:

Why not start a thread of your own, titled 'Science for Socialists', where you can discuss individuals and their truth, and forget all this nonsense I keep blathering on about, regarding classes, social knowledge, social subject, critical realism?

Yes socialists are scientists, yes there are classes in society and yes knowledge is social and yes we are social beings. You add nothing to that.Why accuse me of not accepting that there are classes, that knowledge is social and human beings are social beings.?Your tactic is to attribute a belief to a forum user then shoot it down.  

So, you do use class analysis to understand the rock in front of your face, do you?Or do you use 'your' eyes?If you really do agree that there are classes in society, knowledge is social, humans are social beings, then you'll agree that understanding the rock in front of your eyes requires society and social knowledge, and you'll reject the 'individualism' of the 'I can see the rock with my own eyes' method.Well?If you agree, I'll ask you to outline your scientific social understanding of the rock in front of your eyes, or at least the method to be employed in this process of gaining 'knowledge'.If you don't agree, I'll accuse you of paying 'lip service' to 'classes, social knowledge and humans as social beings'.

[LBird]

Vin Maratty wrote:

LBird wrote:

This is becoming a very public disgrace.

It certainly is! What, with you being the only communist and 'proletarian scientist' in the world. LOLI don't suppose you come across any in the last party you left? 

The shakespearean monkeys are on fire today, Vin.Do you copy them in their gait?

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

Why won't you declare your political position on science?Why not just say 'science is outside of politics', or 'rocks can be understood by individuals without employing an ideology', and we can start to locate your 'true' beliefs?

No I don't see how capitalist ideology affects the findings of geology or astronomy or any other science where the area of enquiry is not related to class power.If you could calmly and clearly explain why you think otherwise I might change my mind. But surely at some stage this will involve touching upon "truth" and other things…

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

Why won't you declare your political position on science?Why not just say 'science is outside of politics', or 'rocks can be understood by individuals without employing an ideology', and we can start to locate your 'true' beliefs?

No I don't see how capitalist ideology affects the findings of geology or astronomy or any other science where the area of enquiry is not related to class power.

So, which ideology states that 'knowledge' is not 'social'?Or, if 'knowledge is social', which ideology states that 'social' has nothing to do with classes?Or, if 'knowledge is social, and it is related to classes', which ideology separates out 'knowledge of the physical from knowledge of the social', and insists that 'social class knowledge only applies to the social'?Why won't you reveal your ideology?

DJP wrote:

If you could calmly and clearly explain why you think otherwise I might change my mind. But surely at some stage this will involve touching upon "truth" and other things…

This is an outright lie.You're not open to changing your mind. It's as closed as the day you first read my first contribution about 'science' over twelve months ago.I've tried academic methods, of quotes and links to everything that I said (Marx, Pannekoek, Lakatos, Schaff, to name but a few); I've tried simple non-academic explanation (chessboards and their unknown number of squares); and I've tried contempt and personal abuse, in an attempt to wake you up. But nothing at all, no method whatsoever, has had the slightest effect.I really have no idea at all what your motivation is for your continued destruction of this thread (and others) is.Have you really nothing better to do? I know I have, and I'm beginning to resent this continued waste of my time, and my wasted efforts to encourage some discussion about science and Communism.I blame SocialistPunk; perhaps they are a 'tethered goat' to keep my interest, in some perverse joke that I'm not party to.

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

Why won't you reveal your ideology?

Because you're asking an impossible question.I think by "ideology" you mean something like "web of belief"If I where to tell you my ideology was "abracadabra-ism" this wouldn't magically transfer everything I know and think or think I know from my head and into yours. It would still be left to explain everything that we have been here….Yes I think humans are social animals and knowledge and language are social products. But never the less I still don't think the transition from capitalism to socialism will affect how we observe the laws of physics.. Was the transistion from fuedalism accompanied with such changes?

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

Have you really nothing better to do? I know I have, and I'm beginning to resent this continued waste of my time, and my wasted efforts to encourage some discussion about science and Communism.

You're welcome to keep posting here but have you had better luck anywhere else? This isn't the only forum for communist types. There's libcom.org for a start…But if you keep getting the same result isn't that telling you something?

[SocialistPunk]

Something I spotted via LBird's quoting of it.

DJP wrote:

No I don't see how capitalist ideology affects the findings of geology or astronomy or any other science where the area of enquiry is not related to class power

I posted a link to an article from the Economist earlier on in this thread and it pointed out the problems in science coming from the pressures of capitalism, obviously it didn't lay blame on capitalism. What it highlighted was the distortion of many scientific findings due to economic pressure etc.So in reality the ideology of capitalism does have an effect on many scientific findings. If you "sex up" or fail to rigorously verify your findings because you are hunting for the next bit of funding or pandering to your corporate sponsor, then the ideology of money is playing its part in your scientific research. I expect that is applicable to every area of scientific enquiry in our money orientated society..

[northern light]

Damn you L Bird, don't you dare give up now ! I/We ( I assume I'm not the only one ) have stuck it out for 27 pages, in the hope of learning something new.There has been plenty of " chest thumping " " bull.roaring "  and trolling, but not much constructive commentary.We know our brains are wired up differently and that is why some of us struggle with maths, or, as in my case, spelling. Some of us make poor communicators and perhaps that is what we are witnessing here.                                                                          " Is this it Saruman? Is this all you have to offer?"

[Anonymous]

SocialistPunk wrote:

So in reality the ideology of capitalism does have an effect on many scientific findings. If you "sex up" or fail to rigorously verify your findings because you are hunting for the next bit of funding or pandering to your corporate sponsor, then the ideology of money is playing its part in your scientific research. I expect that is applicable to every area of scientific enquiry in our money orientated society.

 Research requires finance and the  capitalist media can distort the results of research.I would say that the ruling ideology  and the profit motive determines in general what research is carried out (tho' there has been some good research) and how the results are used or even interpreted but I don't think that is what LBird is saying.But I would love to be corrected.  

[DJP]

SocialistPunk wrote:

I posted a link to an article from the Economist earlier on in this thread and it pointed out the problems in science coming from the pressures of capitalism, obviously it didn't lay blame on capitalism. What it highlighted was the distortion of many scientific findings due to economic pressure etc.So in reality the ideology of capitalism does have an effect on many scientific findings. If you "sex up" or fail to rigorously verify your findings because you are hunting for the next bit of funding or pandering to your corporate sponsor, then the ideology of money is playing its part in your scientific research. I expect that is applicable to every area of scientific enquiry in our money orientated society..

Yes I'm not denying that capitalism affects *how* science is carried out but that is not quite what I was trying to get at. How do we go about sorting out the "bad" science from "good"? What kind of methods and questions do we need to use? What is it that makes one thing "true" and another "false"? I think the answer is the same regardless of what type of society we live in.

[SocialistPunk]

DJP, I know you don't deny the affect capitalism has on science, but what you said implies that science is neutral when it comes to research and findings etc.Well for starters a socialist society would rule out the bad science that was falsified, deliberately slanted etc because of money. If the article in the Economist is to be accepted at face value, there is a lot of it about.Socialism would require that science was useful, either for application or as knowledge in itself. Scientists would perhaps be able to enjoy their work more. We would see rigorous testing, verification peer review etc, all open for public scrutiny. We would own the knowledge in common. The very act of freeing up science from the constraints of capitalism would itself allow science to be more accountable.To say it would be the same whatever the society is wrong. The article points out the lowering of peer review and less and less verification is taking place. So capitalism is affecting how science functions even on that level. One example is that it's becoming unsexy to verify other experiments, by repeating the same ones over and over. Meaning often dodgy info is finding its way into the pool of knowledge. Why is this happening, because there is no prestige and little funding to carry out such vital work. The ideology of capitalism directly influencing how science is done.And I haven't even touched upon the scientists who are busy creating ever more effective ways of killing and maiming people. I wonder what their ideology could be?So like it or not"ideology" does affect science and as such is surely impossible to separate. The question to ask would be do scientists know this?So it's either science for communists or science for capitalists. Take you pick.

[DJP]

SocialistPunk wrote:

DJP, I know you don't deny the affect capitalism has on science, but what you said implies that science is neutral when it comes to research and findings etc.

If I don't deny the first how can the second be implied? It doesn't follow.

SocialistPunk wrote:

Well for starters a socialist society would rule out the bad science that was falsified, deliberately slanted etc because of money. If the article in the Economist is to be accepted at face value, there is a lot of it about.

But what exactly is it that made the science false in the first place?

SocialistPunk wrote:

To say it would be the same whatever the society is wrong.

But what is this "it" you are refering to? I'm refering to the criteria for something to be true. Of course journals can produce articles that are false, no one denies this.

SocialistPunk wrote:

So like it or not"ideology" does affect science and as such is surely impossible to separate. The question to ask would be do scientists know this?So it's either science for communists or science for capitalists. Take you pick.

So presumably a free marketeer and a communist observe water boiling at different temperatures and light travelling at different speeds?What is this "science for communists" and "science for capitalists"?Who's doing either and where are they doing it?Pannekoek was a communist and also an astronomer that worked for the Dutch state, was he doing science for communists and capitalists at the same time?You see, it doesn't appear to be that simple unfortuately. 

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