Wez
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‘If there are any specific philosophical criticisms of science that Wez would like to raise I’d be interested to hear them.’
Are you familiar with Paul Feyerabend’s philosophical work? The above quote is from a Wikipedian summary of his perspective. Of all of the philosophers of science he is the most challenging. His book ‘Against Method’ is thought provoking and provocative and I highly recommend it. I don’t agree with everything in it but I do like his iconoclastic destruction of some of the myths that surround the discipline of science.
TM – I must admit that comrade Shannon’s style is rather combative and perhaps this has influenced my responses to him. I call for a truce.
‘I’m surprised by your naïve belief in the ‘international scientific community’ which you seem to have elevated into a religion.’
How is that an insult? It is an impression. I found this quote which summarizes some of the ideas of Paul Feyerabend who I admire as a philosopher of science:
‘ Feyerabend challenges what he sees in his view as some modern myths about science, e.g., he believes that the statement ‘science is successful’ is a myth. He argues that some very basic assumptions about science are simply false and that substantial parts of scientific ideology were created on the basis of superficial generalizations that led to absurd misconceptions about the nature of human life. He claims that far from solving the pressing problems of our age, scientific theorizing glorifies ephemeral generalities at the cost of confronting the real particulars that make life meaningful.’I simply urge us not to put aside our usual skepticism for this particular issue. Again I’m surprised by your naïve belief in the ‘international scientific community’ which you seem to have elevated into a religion. Do you really believe that scientists are not subject to the same ideological and financial pressures as the rest of us? Most do not get their information from such rarified scientific sources. You almost seem to be stating that science is perfect and exists outside of the capitalist context – well that’s ok then, we’ll leave the revolution to them. I admire science as much as you do and I’m no antivaxer but experience tells me we should always be skeptical in all areas of information within this political context and science is no exception. Our case depends on a critical assessment of everything and anything in the knowledge that the profit motive always lurks somewhere in the background. I hope you will respond to this in a comradely way and do not insult me again.
‘that capitalism was a progressive social system’
I can agree with that if you emphasise the word ‘was’ – it certainly isn’t today.
‘I’m against truculent denigrations and blanket dismissals.’
How can you possibly characterise my position like that? I simply asked you if you denied the existence of a scientific establishment and if you trusted information within a capitalist context. Who am I denigrating or dismissing? I think it is very dangerous for us to suddenly put aside our skepticism. It wasn’t that long ago that scientists were assuring us that ‘mad cow disease’ could not be passed on to humans.
‘So science = establishment does it?
And capitalism corrupts everything, does it?’
Of course – hasn’t that been our case for 100 years? ‘Nuanced analysis’ is an argument our opponents have always used against, for instance, our view of the class struggle. Do you deny the existence of a scientific establishment or that capitalism effects all aspects of life? I don’t doubt that great scientific work is being done but often this is despite capitalism rather than because of it. Would you say that our sources of information are always reliable within a capitalist context?
‘None of the above statement is true.’
Perhaps I’ve been misinformed by the BBC again? My contention is that it’s entirely understandable why many have doubts about the efficacy of the vaccine. Our sources of information are the pharmaceutical companies and their scientists, the tory government and their scientists and the NHS. The first two have little credibility and the NHS is in its usual chaos. I find it surprising that a comrade is so ready to accept the establishment’s word on anything since our whole case is that capitalism corrupts everything.
‘The entire reason for such a hurry was and is people dying by the thousands.’
I very much doubt that. Suddenly we’re to trust the motivation of big pharma? Anyway we now know that some of it is useless for combating the new variants and for the over 65s.‘Having said this, there is an element of experiment in the UK programme — not giving the second jab within the recommended three-months. They have extended the time limit to 12 weeks without knowing what effect this will have. It probably won’t have any adverse effect but they don’t know and are in effect carrying out an experiment to see if this is the case.’
It goes a bit deeper than that. Those with my condition (autoimmune disease) were excluded from trials of the vaccine to get it legitimised in such haste with the result that I still don’t know if it is safe for me to take. Knowing the system as we do it would be hard to refute that part of the reason for such a hurry was driven by competition and profit.
‘The military might back down or they might crack down. It’s up to them.’
It depends on, like the socialist revolution scenario you described earlier, what level of political awareness the members of the military possess. Of course, in the long term, we are in the business of prediction as this is the only way to empirically test our model of historical development. The interface between long and short term predictions based on historical models is interesting – where is the boundary?
‘But in the longer term they will have to bow to the popular will. We will have to see what happens as nothing can be predicted.’
ALB – having made a prediction in the first sentence you deny the efficacy of doing so in the second sentence. Which is it?TM – I suppose it varies according to period and what school of art. Personally I always shudder when I see a cathedral – inhuman monuments to a dark perverse superstition. I remember whilst studying at art school we went on a visit to a museum and I came across a tiny paleolithic carving of a bison in stone. It took my breathe away. Both of these reactions are emotional and aesthetic and both inspired me to learn more about medieval cathedrals and stone age art – for profoundly antithetical reasons.
‘So enjoying Wagner would convert a socialist to racism, and enjoying medieval art would make him go and get baptised Catholic?’
How is it possible to have a rational debate with someone who comes up with such nonsense? I must simply repeat that an exclusively emotional/aesthetic response to art is superficial and tells you nothing about what has informed/conditioned our perception of what is beautiful and how this effects political and moral values etc. I am amused by the idea that anything produced by the Frankfurt school could be compared to anything ‘right wing’ – not that socialists recognise the efficacy of such a right/left perspective anyway.
‘Except when you destroy and soil the art of the past you also insult and destroy the memory of the workers and artisans who created it. Socialism is to be the maturing of humanity, not the iconoclasm of angry lefties.’
Another irrational tirade against a non existing enemy. We should all be allowed to stand back from our emotional/aesthetic response to art and examine it critically. It’s easy to love the beautiful and that’s why it can be so manipulative and destructive.
