Posted on 06/18/2008 1:28:24 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
The philosopher Alvin Gouldner entitled Chapter 13 of his classic study The Two Marxisms, "Nightmare Marxism," observing that every discourse contains within it alternatives that suborn its expressed intent -- its nightmare side. For Marxism, there were two nightmares: the first that Marx's theory was, despite its claim to scientific legitimacy, just another utopian project; the second that, despite his theoretical analysis, it would turn out that the bourgeoisie were right all along, and that private property was, indeed, the basis of civilization. Should these nightmares be right, Marxism would not be the path to an enlightened future, but to despotism -- as, in fact, it was in practice.
What, then, are the nightmares of the scientific discourse or, more precisely, the environmental science discourse? Surely a major one is that, despite the claim of the scientific discourse to primacy in creating a valid understanding of the world, the reality is that the postmodernist critique is right, and science is no more than another normative discourse, of no greater ontological value than any other.
Evaluating the potential for this nightmare science scenario is tricky, but a few observations are possible. To begin with, it is useful to recall perhaps the principal way science distinguishes itself from other discourses: the reliance on discovery of facts through observation, and validation of theory through test and falsification - in short, the scientific method. This procedure evolved in Western Europe in contrast to the medieval mechanism for establishing truth, which was reference to authority, in the form of the Church Fathers, Aristotle, or other accepted texts. The seismic shift in worldview that a change from authority to observation as source of truth induces is difficult to appreciate in hindsight, but there is little question that it was a seminal step in the rise of the West and the creation of modernity.
But it is precisely the strength of this core characteristic of the scientific discourse that creates the potential for nightmare science. The nightmare arises in this way. We have, as scientists, established the validity of science through adoption of a process that institutionalizes observation, and thus grants us privileged access to truth, at least within the domains of physical reality. In doing so, we have destroyed authority as the source of privileged knowledge -- and, concomitantly, assumed much of the power that used to reside in the old elite (e.g., the Church).
But now suppose that scientists become increasingly concerned with certain environmental phenomenon -- say, loss of biodiversity, or climate change. They thus not only report the results of the practice of the scientific method, but, in part doubting the ability of the public to recognize the potential severity of the issues as scientists see them, become active as scientists in crafting and demanding particular responses, such as the Kyoto Treaty. These responses, notably, extend significantly beyond the purely environmental domain, into policies involving economic development, technology deployment, quality of life in many countries, and the like.
In short, the elite that has been created by practice of the scientific method uses the concomitant power not just to express the results of particular research initiatives, but to create, support, and implement policy responses affecting many non-scientific communities and intellectual domains in myriad ways. In doing so, they are not exercising expertise in these non-scientific domains, but rather transforming their privilege in the scientific domains into authority in non-scientific domains. Science is, in other words, segueing back into a structure where once again authority, not observation, is the basis of the exercise of power and establishment of truth by the elite. But the authority in this new model is not derived from sacred texts; rather it is derived from legitimate practice of scientific method in the scientific domain, extended into non-scientific domains. Note that this does not imply that scientists cannot, or should not, as individuals participate in public debate; only that if they do so cloaked in the privilege that the scientific discourse gives them they raise from the dead the specter of authority as truth.
Why is this nightmare science? Precisely because it raises an internal contradiction with which science cannot cope. In an age defined by the scientific worldview, which is the source of the primacy of the scientific discourse, science cannot demand privilege outside its domain based not on method, but on authority, for in doing so it undermines the zeitgeist that gives it validity. When demanding the Kyoto Treaty as scientists, it is themselves, not their opponents, that they attack.
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Brad Allenby is professor of civil and environmental engineering at Arizona State University, a fellow at the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business, and previously was AT&T's vice president of environment, health, and safety.
What qualifies climate scientists to make global economic and environmental policy, other than the authority of their positions as scientists.
They are the New Inquisitors.
bttt
My old, distinguished professor was known for his position that it is the job of science to elucidate facts while it is the job of society to figure out what to do with them.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower (Farewell Address, January 17, 1961)
Unfortunately, it appears we are slowly moving back to “Authority as Truth”, led by three distinct, but similar, forces: Socialism, Evironmentalism, and Islam.
Private property!!
The federal government owns vast percentages of land west of the Rocky Mountains.
Notice how much of that federal land has tightened private use. Conservation areas, endangered species areas, no vehicle areas.
And, then when the feds decide some land is necessary for civilization (private ownership), the buyers must procure other private land abuting federal land and swap it for or give it to the feds.
In the meantime, environmental communists are buying up private land and taking it off the market or turning it over to public management/administration.
yitbos
I had a discussion with my cousin about 18 years ago; I simply commented then that the scientists had become the new priests.
An excellent article.
Not only have some climate scientists granted themselves authority outside their area of expertise, politicians with a socialist agenda have backed this self-authority by claiming “concensus”.
A “consensus” has nothing to do with the scientific method (but it has everything to do with politics). A scientist who accepts concensus as support for a theory, or agrees that “the science is settled” has ceased to be a scientist.
Still, there may be hope for him, if he realizes that "the authority in this new model" is derived from sacred texts -- namely, the documents generated by the illegitimate practice of flagrantly un-scientific method. IPCC report, anyone?
An expert on physics is not automatically an expert on metaphysics. (Think Einstein.)
Experts in psychology shouldn’t be mandating actual legal standards of sanity (APA with transgenderism and homosexuality).
Yes, indeed it was--and is.
It requires a brutal dictatorship or oligarchy for its implementation and maintanence.
It inevitably destroys the economy.
And it has killed more people than any other ideology ever devised, including Naziism.
Any honest person with an IQ above 70 can easily understand and predict this.
However, millions of people are convinced that it will work--if just tried enough times.
The U.S. Democrat Party is Marxist. It's committed to Marxism. At its most reasonable, it is socialist. Obama and the rest of the Radical Left are stalinist!
INTREP
Civil engineers work in the real world, building highways, railroads, bridges, tunnels, dams, and sewers (referred to collectively by certain other government employees as "targets"). If the CEs don't do their sums properly, they'll know it soon enough... as will we all.
There's substantially more wiggle room for the corporate lords of the EHS domain, who deal as much in politics as they do in real environmental, health, or safety problems.
But there's all of the great outdoors for academics, who rarely if ever actually do anything, and even less rarely are called to account for it.
So Prof. Allenby is understandably conflicted, having begun his career in one of the most practical disciplines and segued to one of the fluffiest fields.
On the one hand, he incorrectly and unscientifically assumes that "loss of biodiversity" and "climate change" are real problems that demand attention, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Asking a question that contains its own answer (and that often assumes facts not in evidence) is called "begging the question," and the classic example is "When did you stop beating your wife?"
On the other hand, Allenby very properly points out that unscientific findings -- presented as "consensus" or "settled debate," when in fact they're nothing of the kind -- are being used to advance political agendas, and that the people floating those agendas are prepared to underwrite, very generously, "studies" that support predetermined conclusions... kind of like plinking randomly at the broad side of a barn and then painting perfectly centered bull's-eyes around each bullet-hole. This is precisely what happened with the report by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose executive summary was written before the first temperature probe was unpacked.
The pencil-whipped results of cherry-picked studies are presented as authoritative, precluding any questioning or debate. In short, the heart of the scientific method -- the ongoing loop of hypothesis, testing, observation, challenge, and refined hypothesis that has driven Western technology for the last 400 years -- has been subordinated ("hijacked" wouldn't be too strong a word) to a particular purpose, to the point that blatantly un-scientific techniques, cloaked in a pretense of scientific objectivity, are now in the service of purely political ends.
If Prof. Allenby can unsnarl his contradictions, he might come up with even more worthwhile observations.
J'ai dit. Ça va?
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