US Attacks 'contributed to mistrust of science'

Telegraph.co.uk ^ | 9/15/02 | David Derbyshire and Roger Highfield

[BfloGuy]

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Sunday 15 September 2002

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US attacks 'contributed to mistrust of science'
By David Derbyshire and Roger Highfield
(Filed: 09/09/2002)

The terrorist attacks of September 11 have helped to fuel anti-intellectual sentiment and mistrust of science, the president of the British Association of Science will say today.

In an address to the largest science conference in Britain, Prof Sir Howard Newby, the chief executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, will warn that the ideals of the Enlightenment are increasingly under attack.

"The terrorist attacks of September 11 have brought into sharp focus in a very pertinent way how the dream of reason can indeed bring forth monsters," he will tell the Leicester meeting.

"Now, more than ever, it appears difficult to argue the case for the Enlightenment - that the growth of knowledge results in social progress. Instead, in recent years, anti-Enlightenment sentiments appear to have been on the increase.

"If anything, we have succumbed to a lack of faith in the notion of social progress and a suspicion amounting to an assertion that the growth of knowledge does not guarantee human happiness - rather the reverse.

"An increasing proportion of the population seems to distrust rational inquiry to establish both the facts and the uncertainties; rather they prefer their instincts or even to celebrate anti-intellectualism."

His comments reflect concerns of the scientific establishment that the public has lost faith in science. People are less deferential, and less willing to accept the views of "experts" without question, he believes.

The opposition to genetic modified crops on health grounds, and the row over the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine despite the lack of hard scientific evidence reflect this suspicion.

Sir Howard, a sociologist and the former vice-chancellor of the University of Southampton, will argue that the increasing fragmentation of knowledge is hindering the public's understanding of science, and scientists' understanding of the public.

Scientific knowledge is growing so quickly that no society can adapt quickly enough to keep pace.

"It has been estimated that the sum total of scientific understanding in the past 50 years has been greater than that in all previous history. Yet for all that we seem to know, the world appears to be an increasingly uncertain place," he will say.

The scientific community has retreated from engagement with society, just as society at large has been excluded from the real world of scientific method.

"The scientific community is mystified by the idea that morals should direct its research, while those who seek to make science more publicly accountable are equally baffled by the logic and methods of science.

"The public now feels that it is reduced to the role of a hapless bystander or, at best, the recipient of scientific advance and technological innovation which the scientific community believes it ought to want."

Too often, scientists appear remote and intimidating and appear to treat the public with condescension or as a threat.

"The scientific community is beginning to engage more with society at large as it comes to recognise the potential consequences of failing to do so. Equally, the public understanding of what science can, but more importantly, cannot deliver has a long way to go."

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[BfloGuy]

"If anything, we have succumbed to a lack of faith in the notion of social progress and a suspicion amounting to an assertion that the growth of knowledge does not guarantee human happiness - rather the reverse."

Hmmm, sounds like the theme of that UN jamboree down in South Africa a couple weeks ago.

[SouthernFreebird]

I'm just a simple southerner, someone help me......WTF was all that?

[Bogey78O]

It's not our fault all the intellectual leftists died and their successors have just enough intelligence to quote commercials and soundbites.

[Arkinsaw]

It could have something to do with the creation of glowing green mice, growing human ears on the backs of rats, abortion pills, pig testicle transplants. The scientists today make Dr. Mengele look like Marcus Welby.

Throw on top of that a thousand contradictory studies about everything under the sun and scientists don't seem to know what the hell they are talking about.

And finally toss in the fact that scientists these days are about as narrow-minded as you can get, dismissing anything that does not fit into their preconceived notions of the universe and their problem is not surprising.

It has nothing to do with Sept. 11

[LibKill]

The B.S. is hip-deep.

I happen to work for and with some real scientists.

Most of them don't know anything that is going on in the real world. Not a slap at them, they are very focused on research. Pushing forward the boundaries of human knowledge and all that.

When some (expletive deleted) claims to be a 'scientist' and then makes a lot of political pronouncements, watch his lips.

If they move, he's lying.

And he is no 'scientist.'

[BfloGuy]

Well, the responses to this article are certainly not what I expected.

This is a pretty clear indictment, in my opinion, of the Islamists and their hatred of western progress -- as well as the reaction of the anti-western-lefto-pacifists who support them.

Oh well, it's Saturday night. I suppose anyone with a life is living it.

[RLK]

Sir Howard, a sociologist and the former vice-chancellor of the University of Southampton,

------------------------

What does sociology have to do with science?

[gcruse]

What does sociology have to do with science?

This thread is hereby closed.   Reason =
The cat has been let out of the bag.

[fourdeuce82d]

The terrorist attacks of September 11 have helped to fuel anti-intellectual sentiment and mistrust of science,

I don't think the quote is saying the terrorist attacks were the anti-intellectual, it would appear he thinks our *responses* are anti-intellectual...

Although we certainly have some luddites on our side of the fence, as witnessed by the poster who was exercised by glowing mice, etc.

Okay to trap 'em, (the mice, not the luddites) but let's not alter their "Precious Bodily Fluids" - we will anger the Sky God, and he shall blight us...

[infowarrior]

What does sciology have to do with science?

Nothing, sociology isn't linked to science, but to Scientology!

the infowarrior

[keithtoo]

I've read here before that if it starts with SOCIO or PSYHCO then ITS NOT REALLY A SCIENCE!!

Its more like a blind stab or wishfull thinking, or a W.A.G.

[Arthur McGowan]

One does not have to be Luddite to believe that technical progress does not guarantee social or moral progress. One need only be a Jew or Christian, and believe in Original Sin.

[Nick Danger]

I don't understand what any of this has to do with the attacks on 9/11. I see three fundamental things that are causing people to lose faith in science, or rather in the "scientific community" as currently constituted. Only one of them can potentially be reduced.

The worst of the three, and the only one that's fixable, is the growing tendency of political ideologues with credentials to produce "science" that advances a political agenda at the expense of truth. Eventually they do get found out, and all of science pays when they do. If one has lived long enough, one can remember any number of crusades advanced by credentialed scientists which turned out to be bogus, and in hindsight an attempt to effect the political process by introducing spurious information into it. The "population bomb" crusade, the "we'll run out of oil by 1990" crusade -- these were political movements advanced by prominent scientists and "experts," and people who remember them are understandably inclined to be skeptical of the ones coming around now, with similar claims also tied to political agendas, such as the "global warming" science offered to pollute the debate concerning economic development.

A second, and unfixable problem, is that science is now advancing so rapidly that what seemed to be settled truth yesterday is discovered wrong tomorrow. "Eat this, you'll live longer. No don't eat that, that kills you. Eat this other thing instead. Surprise! The other thing causes cancer." You can only hear so much of this in one lifetime before you conclude that you'll listen to them when they're done. Which means never. In the meantime, there's pizza and beer.

The third problem, also unfixable, is that we have advanced to the point that science can now meddle with things that sound either creepy, or beyond what humans ought to be messing with, given our known intellectual and moral limitations. Much of this is in the biotechnology area, where The Borg is currently under development whether they want to face it themselves or not. Still more comes from physics, like the attempt to create a singularity in a laboratory. A mistake there could take out a whole corner of the galaxy.

A lot of this would be wonderful stuff in the hands of a species that was free of evil intent and which never made bone-headed everyday mistakes.

Almost every Unix administrator learns early that typing just three little letters, rm*, can make a whole system go away. Everyone knows this. But people do it anyway. They do it at 3:00 in the morning when their brain is fried and they do dumb stuff. What happens when an equivalent brain-fart occurs in the middle of producing millions of little microbes designed to cure cancer? What gets made instead? Does anyone even know? The public understands intutitively that these kinds of things are going to happen, and so they distrust these areas of endeavor that mess with fundamental things like life itself, and the fabric of space-time. The fears are not at all unreasonable.

There is a fourth thing, which I suspect will not last much longer, but which is a factor today. There really is an anti-science contingent on what I would call the philosophical left of radical feminism. These are the professors who tell their students that the scientific method itself is bogus, that it is "linear, male thinking," that it amounts to a "rape of Nature," and that there are alternative, intutitive "women's ways of knowing" which not only lead to different conclusions, but superior ones. These ideas have generated enough horror and ridicule in the academic community that they are not likely to grow much, but there are still students coming out of universities infected with this stuff, and they are the natural prey of political Luddites.

[Diogenesis]

Somebody is nuts or eating too many Bufo toads.

The 911 Atrocities were Islamic Arab attacks.

They led to mistrust of Arabs and Islamic states
which were bent on terrorism (e.g. NOT Turkey, etc.)

Science? It is gonna give rise to better bombs,
detectors, and means to exterminate these vermin.

Math? Its the key to the universe.

[VOA]

The terrorist attacks of September 11 have helped to fuel anti-intellectual sentiment
and mistrust of science, the president of the British Association of Science will say today.

Translation:
One of the members of the secular priesthood known as "academic science" thinks
he's stumbled onto a talking point that might protect, if not increase science research funding
in the U.K.

As Churchill (and probably others) said: "An idea so silly, only an intellectual would
consider it."

If anything, 9-11 has INCREASED Americans' faith in technology by an order of magnitude.
We trust laser-guided bombs to conduct a war in Afghanistan in which
"friendly-fire" casualties lead the headlines...because so few of our own troops
are killed by the enemy.
We trust computers to help track down terrorists by their tracks on the internet,
as well as keeping them off airliners.

If there is a lesson on technology from 9-11, it is:
"Keep advancing technology so those guys in turbans can't have a prayer".

[VOA]

The opposition to genetic modified crops on health grounds, and the row over
the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine despite the lack of hard scientific evidence
reflect this suspicion.

Where has Sir Howard Newby been for the past freakin' decade?

This has been going on for AT LEAST five years.
It's the reason that the field that I work in (plant molecular biology) has
stagnated.

And why Africans sit starving while their governments keep the FREE American grain shipped
to their starving masses...because they are concerned "about genetically-
engineered grain" that might get into their fields.

You'd think the African leaders would at least just pound the stuff into flour.

But they'd rather increase their power by invoking the boogey-man of western science
and technology.
The more of their citizens they starve, the bigger the slice of pie left
for them to cart off to their numbered accounts in Geneva.

[VOA]

Somebody is nuts or eating too many Bufo toads.

Thanks...my initial response was "this guy has had a bad acid trip!".

I was just too polite to say it out loud!

[Cicero]

Well, as a matter of fact, the Enlightenment is losing ground among the Postmodernists. But that has zero to do with Arabs, terror, airplanes, or anything related to 9/11. Postmodernists were idiots long before 2001. I'd be more inclined to blame Nietzsche than bin Ladin.

[okie01]

A very thoughtful response, Nick.

Written with a better understanding of reality, and the particular phenomenon at hand, than the sociology professor who raised the issue.

More coherently written and presented, as well, I might add.

It's stuff like this that makes Free Republic such a marvelous place -- a forum for not just politics and information, but intellectual engagement.

[DB]

Well in a way it does. The people who perpetrated 9-11 are anti technology. They want to turn the clock back 700 years and return everything to Allah's will. If you die of strep well it was Allah's will...