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mmoa_writes at 01:14am on 16/04/2008
mmoa_writes at 01:14am on 16/04/2008Watched Newsnight's programme about our 'Unsustainable world' - basically concerning the increasing food shortage - and found myself becoming incredibly pissed off every time they began to talk of a debate between 'science' and, well, anti-science with regards to agricultural methods. I hate it when people who ought to know better start using such outdated, misleading and just plain stupid jargon: in this case, there is no 'anti-science' merely different ideologies arising as a result of scientific data. Organic farming is as scientific and technologically advanced as inorganic farming, it just uses different methods. Of course technology and science will have a say in how our farming progresses, you dolts - that's pretty much all farming ever was.
Why can't people just think? What's wrong with a little clarity? Stop using these words to mean something they don't, or to convey an idea that you don't actually have. It's just come to the point where it's really beginning to annoy me, because these are quite important issues and unless we keep a firm grip over this disease we call language, we just slide into the worst sort of chaos.
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Science has been a main tool for corporate agribusiness for over 100 years, but can just as easily serve other goals. Gasp - even democratic, egalitarian, social and environmental justice goals! Thank goodness it's beginning to, as we're looking frighteningly close to running out of options.
(You said it so much better. Yayy you!)
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This is, going onto another note, why I get so annoyed with Prof. Dawkins. I mean, I know debating about the way we talk about science isn't as exciting or controversial as anti-theism, or fighting the dark forces of creationism across the pond, but you are the Simonyi chair of public understanding of science in the UK, ffs, and as such you have a real duty to pure science and the way it is perceived and reported on in the real world, not in the ignorant margins of society (and one that isn't even ours (ie British), that's the worst thing!). Argh! Get back over here and do your damn job!
*breathes* But that's another matter. As you said, science is a tool, not some soulless monolithic entity looming over us demanding that we strip ourselves of all that makes us human etc etc. and I think I ought to start bitchslapping the next journalist who even attempts to suggest otherwise.
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So with you on this. I work across several disciplines, including sciences and humanities both, and I feel quite comfortable criticizing either - but for reason! Not simply to recount rumors, shudder at myths, or stir up fights.
At the same time, trying to be on both sides of that badly-overdrawn "Two Cultures" thing (ha! let's blame C.P.Snow) without being forced to "take sides" and sling mud at one, whilst fatuously worshipping the other, is hard. Annoyingly so, when it's in academia, supposedly all objective-investigative-open-minded etc., that the peer pressure comes down on one to toe the party line of whichever party's doing the screaming at the moment.
And Dawkins, yes. Prime example. I'm on the SftP (Science for the People) list-serve and even most of the alpha male scientists on it who enjoy their little flame wars are a bit lukewarm on his constant public high-tempered debates. Amusing to read a Brit wondering when he's going to settle down and do some work at home! Please, do call him back home. :D Maybe do some basic research for a change. His theories are lots of fun, but in place of concrete evidence there too often seem to be a lot of question-begging loops and undefined variables.
er... what's "ffs" mean?
And... have you ever read Debora Tannen's "The Argument Culture"? Good indictment of journalism, politics, in particular for over-selling binary opposition as the sole kind of thinking, talking -- and selling papers (or platforms). Easy fast read. My Discourse Analysis class just finished it and oh, did I sigh, when after 10 weeks of graduate study prior to that on language effects and, especially, cross-cultural differences in them, a number of students got halfway through Tannen and said, "But isn't fighting 'natural'? At least for anyone who isn't some kind of
gay pansyloser? Because everyone always wants to win! There's (only) two sides to every issue, so you have to fight to get at the Truth."QED on Tannen's point! But not hopeful for those students. :D
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Hm, the ol' Two Cultures nonsense. I'd have the man exhumed and burnt or something, but I don't think it'd make much difference... I hate it too. I hate having to explaint o humanities students that actually, attempting to explain literature or language etc from a materialistic, scientific perspective, no more 'reduces' the subject, nor is it impossible. In fact, it should... well, can lend to a greater appreciation for complexity. Indeed, the reverse is also true: I've forgotten who said it, but I quite agree with the scientist who said that scienstists should reclaim words like 'God', if only to wrestle it away from the mere supernatural understanding, in order to talk about the Multiverse and all wherein because such unscientific, metaphorical language can explain so much more than the overly complex pedanticism of the scientific Journal.
I could get worked up about Dawkins for yonks but, suffice to say, I think people have been (understandably) distracted by his religious writings to so great an extent that if I say I have an issue with Dawkins, people immediately assume I mean with his religious views, which is far from the truth (though I find a lot of his opinions outdated and equally delusional, and some of the logic he employs is a tad skewed). Indeed, my biggest problem is the fact that he has simply abandoned the post which he has yet to resign from (as he's clearly not interested in it and if he is, then shame on him): he has done very little to aid the public understanding of science, at a time when such an understanding is of critical importance (when medical/science scares can be whipped up by even the most even handed Guardian writer).
It also amuses me that he spends so much time battling and arguing about things like creationism which, in this day and age, is not really a matter of religion, but actually a problem concerning the understanding of the scientific process. In fact, it is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself (personally, I see very little difference between the creationist and the average person on the street who technically thinks evolution is 'true' but displays such an ignorance about the theory and the processes and the 'why', that they may as well be a jabbering fundamentalist) and instead of tackling the real problem, he has gone after the superficial symptom, like a gardener pulling up dandelions instead of spraying the roots.
The bits of his research that I read about were truly fascinating, and I just wish he'd reapply that stunning cleverness to science proper. It seems a shame to have lost yet another mind to the snares of religion...
ffs=for fuck's sake: a handy shortening that saves on my profanity quota!
I haven't read that book, actually, but I think I ought to. It's interesting the difference that culture can make - I was reading an article ages ago about the different understandings of evolution (for example) amongst Western and Eastern scientists and the conflicts that thus arose. In short, Japanese students would have probably been more likely to say that the Truth will reveal itself if it's important enough in response to the conflict driven Western view.