Why

Conversations about science get complicated since the word refers to distinct yet connected things. For example, physics is a science (a field of specialized studies) that is not always scientific (according to the above definition), since quantum physics moves away from the distinction between observer and observed that is fundamental to experimentation.

This is not true. Quantum mechanics are perfectly observable, they follow perfectly distributed statistical patterns. That is, their random distribution is always within a predictable margin of error. Indeed, were it not for quantum predictability, it would usher in a need for a "super-natural" explanation, and science would fall into a sort of mysticism. We can set up any number of quantum tests, and run and rerun them and get the same results, this is the basis for science.

If anything quantum physics states that one cannot make two distinct tests on a given particle; to me this is no different than Godel's Incompleteness, which states that math cannot contain the axioms necessary to express itself. This does not mean that is sometimes math but other times isn't. It means that reality and truth have their limits. If we can know and prove that there are problems that cannot be solved, we have essentially solved them. By proving that all information of quantum particles cannot be known, we no longer have to attempt to know all of the information of a quantum particle and that bit of the puzzle has been solved. The same goes with math. Had Godel not proved it we may still today think that math can express the whole of its parts within its own axioms.

However, to the extent that physicists reject the implications of that moving away, physics continues in the trajectory that science (as a way of thinking) has established.

I don't know that physicists reject the implications of quantum physics, in fact, I would argue that they embrace them wholeheartedly. By understanding quantum mechanics one can create things as magnificent as the quantum computer, which has potential to open up vast levels of computing power. They can create quantum cryptography which is proved to be completely secure. For something which you find to go beyond the control of science, it sure has its uses, and we sure have our grasp of it, no?

Physics continues because people have interest in it, and so far it has shown that it is capable of some really interesting and useful things. The ability to consciously create predictions of natural interactions is remarkable to me. I believe that humans are innately curious, which is where this gift comes from.

Science must be critiqued as the modern problem-solving technique. Science is so widely accepted that for many people it has in fact become synonymous with problem solving.

Science hasn't become this way because of some establishment. Various systems grew spontaneously in various cultures. We're talking societies which were separated by vast oceans creating very similar systems and methods, all following the basic concepts of science. Granted, they were all statist in some form or another, but the basic idea is that science doesn't get established, it establishes itself, and indeed, may even help those with the understanding of science (or control over those who did) to exploit others and build empires. On a tangent, I have always wondered why the Shaman- the leader of primitivst groups- has always been revered, I came to the conclusion that it was probably science; the Shaman's ability to heal and send his tribes people on a trance was his specialization. By keeping the methods to themselves and surrounding the methods with mysticism, I believe it created an implicit control structure. The beginning of statism, perhaps? If only science had in it the ability to share itself, rather than be used by people.

Science *is* synonymous with problem solving. What you seem to be saying here is that perhaps some of the problems that science solves are not problems at all. This may in fact be true. However, science isn't about solving "good" or "bad" problems, it's about understanding the world around us. The problems that capitalists solve by using science tend to be kept secret, thus removing them from the realm of science and into that of propritarianism. Which I will get to in a minute.

Even people who are critical of most other aspects of the culture we live in, find themselves reverting to science when pushed to defend their ideas, e.g. anti-civilization anarchists who refer to biology when attempting to convince about an optimal diet, or to anthropology to prove the superiority of their blue print for future societies.

Yes, it serves as a useful tactic, since scientific fact tends to be a very difficult thing to refute. One must create an alternative theory and then prove that theory. But generally, what most people refer to when they refer to science isn't science at all. Consider the global warming debate, something which, in peer reviewed scientific journals is not in doubt at all, yet in non-scientific circles is "heatly contested." I've never actually come across a primitivst who has made these arguments, though, and I would genuinely be impressed were I to read such an argument, since, for it to be scientific, it would have to be fully sourced, and published in a peer reviewed journal. ;)

And then the premise would fall short simply on the basis that people are not primitivst from a lifestyle POV, nor could they be without severe psychological retraining.

Of the various ways to critique science, the most fundamental addresses the scientific method, which emphasizes a) reproducibility, b) causality (that a thing or event causes another thing or event), and c) the relevance of things (material reality) over all else (more accurately, it emphasizes a specific perspective on material reality, the only perspective that science recognizes as valid).

Agreed, but I don't see how the following sentence genuinely critiques these aspects of science, each characteristic is a natural consequence of the next. I could show this quite easily, however, I doubt I could show this and prove that the statement itself fits within the proof! :)

One problem with the scientific model is how it maintains and relies on a perspective of the world as a frozen (static) place.

Not true. The calculus was specifically designed to understand the world as dynamic. It introduced the concept of infinitesimal slices of time, so that we could understand the fundamentals of motion. It might be interesting to note that your post is an attempt at science, although from a philosophical standpoint; you are positing "truths" which you hold to be self evident, and I am showing "counter truths" which can easily be backed up by a search (if you didn't know what calculus was). Fluid dynamics and even protein folding all require the understanding that the universe is utterly dynamic.

What you may be trying to say here is that science relies on itself being "infallible," that is, that all elements remain the same, that all behaviors are always the same, and so on. I don't think this is necessarily true, and I think this is one of the greatest misconceptions of science. If an experiment can be done that can change our understanding of a given aspect of science, then conversely science will change its view on that thing. This means that even the process of discovery itself is dynamic. Indeed, I would say that science is the most dynamic field one may ever enter into, one which is filled with not just insight, but also the irresistible mystery.

Also problematic is the idea that everything can be broken down into discrete, quantifiable parts, that the whole is never more than the sum of its parts. Underlying both of these perspectives are the premises that the best or only way to know the world is to distance ourselves from it, to be outside of it; that this distance allows us to use the world; that utility is, in fact, the appropriate relationship to have to the world.

Ahh, utility. I'm having a hard time creating the connection here. Perhaps it is the misguided belief that science is static. But I cannot see making this connection even if that were true. Science is not necessarily a tool, though it can be used as a tool. Science is an abstract concept, one that is very resilient, which, because of its self-improving aspects, is a universal construct of the universe. Or at least we think so! Like math, science is a way to understand things. Whether or not people find value in that is another question, and whether or not they should is yet another. But to argue either you would have to employee the scientific method in some way. Indeed, by making statements about science, you are invoking, in a sense, the method. By saying it forces utility, or encourages utility, and publicly publishing this assertion, you are allowing others to review the assertion, form their own opinion, and respond. Were you to respond with your own data you will have unwittingly completed the circle! Not to dissuade you from responding, of course (this is, after all, more about western philosophy than it is science, but they are quite connected to one another)! :)

What you are critiquing however, is not science. It is capitalism and its use of science!

On a practical level there is the understanding that scientists are operating within a system that is based as much (if not more) on hierarchy and funding as it is on paying attention to what is actually going on around us.

Sure, in a sense. But do you think that Galileo genuinely cared about the interests of the Royal Navy when he sold them telescopes? His discovery of the invention of the telescope required funding so that he could continue his true studies of the heavens. This, to me, is an innate human curiosity, it is not a "problem" in the sense that our society has created us this way. Science and mathematics have proved themselves. Indeed, historians say that Galileo had to really sell his telescopes to the navy, and that they did not understand at first the strategic implications of being able to see further on the horizon!

The circumference of the earth was calculated by a librarian who questioned whether or not the shadow of the sun was invisible on a particular day in two different places. Because the earth is round, "noon" or "high sun" is not the same in two different places from a latitudinal point of view. His calculation was correct with an accuracy that rivals the calculations we can make today. And it was done 250 BC. The same person also calculated the distance of the sun, to within 1%. History has its way of destroying documents, though, so it is unknown how he came to this assessment. The point is that these discoveries were not made out of "utility." They weren't made because of a system that was based on "hierarchy and funding." They were made because of curiosity. In spite of the systems that were in place or being increasingly put into place in those times. Certainly a librarian has nothing on their mind but the acquisition of knowledge and information. And in the case of Alexandria, it was a given that all knowledge be copied and shared, no matter how trivial it might be.

There are multiple accounts (even from conventional sources) showing that who is funding a study has a substantive impact on what the study discovers, from tobacco’s impact on health to the possibility of restricting the spread of genetically modified organisms, but these examples are merely the most obvious.

Hah! Those aren't studies! Those are hearsay! They are not peer reviewed. They are not published in trusted journals. They are jokes. Sick twisted jokes. How many times has someone "published" an article about global warming (a topic that sometimes I am very passionate about), "debunking" the "myth" of global warming by "citing" scientific journals? One of my most favorite examples is the case of interior Antarctic ice growing being used as "evidence" that global warming "isn't happening." Yes, it is a fact that the interior of Antarctica is cooling and that there is more ice in there. However, the very article that was cited noted that this was a predicted event due to global warming. The ice shelves melt, the water evaporates, clouds form, it snows. This is what the models predicted, and the very paper which talks about it is used, by capitalists, to "debunk" the science. This is not science. Science is public, peer reviewed, and published in very trust worthy journals. This is the absolute most important aspect of science, that a given conclusion or a given observation is not only reproducible, but the data is open, and others can reproduce it. Science isn't GM foods with questionable modifications, and patents. Science isn't false data using skewed studies of health risks. Science isn't propritarianism!

I'm having a cigarette as I type this, btw, I hope one day for a peer reviewed paper talking about the good aspects of smoking, I truly do! Then I can stop telling myself to quit. :P

I should expound on this. Science begets science. Science is the accumulation of knowledge. There is a distinct difference between propritarianism and science, because the former dissuades the accumulation of knowledge, indeed, it explicitly denies it! When an oil company figures out a new polymer, it is not practicing science, merely propritarianism (show me the paper please). But when scientists synthesize polymers from biomass and publish said information in a peer reviewed journal (Synthesis, Characterization and in Vitro Degradation of Poly(DL-Lactide)/Poly(DL-Lactide-co-Glycolide) Films Turk J Chem 23 (1999) 153-161), it is the total personification of science. When companies patent technology, and they use governments to keep that technology from being used, it is not science. Science is about expanding our knowledge, and if a given technology may not be experimented with (or the resulting experiments published without infringing a patent or being required to pay into that system), then the science is lost. Those who enjoy science are required, by the system, to only enjoy it under the systems rules. They are not allowed, because of the system, to freely experiment and share those experiments with the world. Indeed, they are themselves compelled, by the system, to take their results, and bind them up with the system so that they may profit just as those before them. But this isn't science. Science has historically been done in schools, and generally students have been dissuaded from experimenting with things that have already been published for two reasons 1) it doesn't show original experimentation, and 2) there is no profitability in the long run because someone else's line of work is being patented and otherwise used for their own benefit. PLA, a substance I have worked on and synthesized myself (organic plastic, how couldn't I), has had only a few papers written on it, and is hardly being used by industry. I will refrain from going on about its usefulness, but is it very surprising how capitalism dissuades real science? That is, the accumulation of knowledge?

"Western education predisposes us to think of knowledge in terms of factual information, information that can be structured and passed on through books, lectures and programmed courses. Knowledge is something that can be acquired and accumulated, rather like stocks and bonds. By contrast, within the Indigenous world the act of coming to know something involves a personal transformation. The knower and the known are indissolubly linked and changed in a fundamental way. Coming to know Indigenous [ways of knowing] can never be reduced to a catalog of facts or a data base in a supercomputer, for it is a dynamical and living process, an aspect of the ever-changing, ever-renewing processes of nature."

I know you didn't write this part, I'm just not "getting" the conclusion. I'm to believe that Eratosthenes concluding the circumference of the planet did not involve a personal transformation? The earth was proved to be round! Round! The earth is not flat, it is freaking round! I can not even begin to imagine how that must have felt. It makes me shake to think of it. "Shadows are different at different places on the planet, how can that be?" A few moments of thought, "Ahh! The Earth must be round!" Science itself is ever-changing, and ever-renewing. Just consider how recently it was discovered that neutrons have mass. I never knew it was the 80s when this happened, because I simply grew up with that scientific knowledge. But for those who discovered it? It must've been remarkable. One man, he built a subterranean tub full of chlorine, and successfully extracted 3 atoms of argon out of tens of thousands of gallons of liquid. His experiment was, for years, thought to be wrong. However, it was proved right and he got the Nobel prize for Physics in '03 or '04. I should state the converse of what your author states here: Coming to know a neutron physicists way of knowing can never be reduced to mystical shamanism, earth worship, the daily drudgery hunting for food, for it is a process which requires great determination, thought, and a lifetime of energy and study.

And on a philosophical level, knowledge is created from foundations that limit and construct it in specific ways. While on one hand science is a response to the superstition and hierarchy associated with religion, it also continues Christianity’s theme of a pure abstract and universal truth, separate from the sludge of everyday life, with scientists and doctors in the position of clergy, that is, people who know more about us than we do.

Oh, indeed. Thus most normal people shouldn't even concern themselves with science, only those who feel compelled to by their curiosity. But what we have is capitalism dumbing it down to this point that makes us think what we are seeing is science, but it in fact is not. How often have you read about various technologies (my recent favorite, OLEDs), been given a relatively simple explanation (ooh, organic thingies that glow!), and then sent on your way? This isn't science, this is just an advertisement. Like those fallacial advertisements that "debunk" global warming in 30 seconds, always ending with "Carbon. They call it pollution, we call it life." But this is not science, and you must not mistake it for science, no one should. By buying into this watered down version, people do a great disservice to those who are actually doing science. The fact is, most people don't do science, and even a greater number do not even understand it. One cannot blame those who practice serious science, though, because why? Did they hire the PR people to explain the things that they have done, the technologies they have created, or the results that they have discovered? Hardly. In the case of the weather scientists, and global warming, they in fact are almost invariably misquoted and their positions conflated. How dare capitalism destroy science! Science is a response, something people are attracted to, because people do understand its true power, they simply play into the games that capitalism creates, rather than seeing for themselves what science is.

The problem isn't that "they" know more than we do, "we" can know quite a bit (indeed, my science handbook covers all of non-organic science, save chemistry, and I can solve anything you throw at me simply by referencing it, and I do not consider myself exceptionally smart, having but a 5th grade education, the rest self taught). The problem is that "we" think we know more than we do. And it is all because capitalism tells us we do. It's about feeling good, and being happy, and having shiny things.

Some people believe in science (as something they don’t understand that can solve their problems) in ways similar to how others believe in god. Some people cite scientific references the way that other people cite scripture.

Sure, but do you think that these things are the result of science itself, or the system in which it inhabits? It is beneficial for capitalists that people not question science. To believe in it as a god. Those who do question it are summarily silenced (consider all the times over all the ages that those who believe in science have been persecuted; indeed, to this day we are still debating global warming and evolution as if they're fantasy!). Capitalism doesn't want us thinking for ourselves, not science. Science encourages experimentation, experiencing your world, your environment. It encourages asking questions, and looking for answers. But oh, no, capitalism has the answers! And it uses a pseudo-science to back it up. Hear about how SUVs pollute a lot? Well it's okay, it's not really true, global warming doesn't exist. Ever have a twitch in your leg when you sleep? Here have a pill, it'll fix it! It's restless leg syndrome, you know. And it's a syndrome, only smart scientists could determine what a syndrome is and invent a pill to fix it!

(The mystification of this awesome observer is only magnified, not ameliorated, by the addition of peer review, in which a body of knowledgeable colleagues examine the experiments and data to verify their validity)

I totally disagree. This isn't science that is magnified, but this convoluted conception of science that those in power, statists and capitalists, use to perpetuate their power. You won't find most of the things in capitalism actually being peer reviewed. Peer review tends to be within physics and mathematics, and natural earth organic studies. For drugs, some review is indeed done, but it generally gets a pass as long as people aren't dropping dead, and tends to be within the same circles of those who directly benefit from them getting through. Which is why any given year you will find a drug is recalled that has caused people to eat in their sleep or have heart attacks and so on. The last time drug peer review occurred was when the birth control pill was invented, as far as I'm concerned, because it was invented by non-profits, and the results were freely available after a time. The real problem here is that drugs tend to require a crapload of science to make, so people automatically assume that they are necessary or good or the answer to whatever problem they have or think they have. But this all goes back to capitalism using science to profit, not an intrinsic aspect of science itself.

Science exemplifies this culture’s tendency to specialize, and consequently to create experts, people who know every little thing about specific bits, but not how those bits interact with other things—clearly a result of thinking that is thing-based (vs. for example, relationship-based).

Capitalism creates these "experts" because it needs them. If industry is broken up enough then profitability is insured. Rather than owning the assets for a given technology, they borrow the assets, and stop if they cannot attain profitability. So what you'll have is one manufacturer doing one thing, and another doing something else. The two, their combined effort, creates the whole of a technology, and if any one of them fails to produce, they can go on to another producer. This is the easiest way to put it, but in practice that is how it works. I would be taking upon myself huge risk if I were to build the facilities and hire the workers to produce a given product, when someone else is already making it for me and it fits within the technology I am making.

Science, that is, the study of science, the scientific method, does not require experts, as such. It does use them mightily, as is said, all things in science stand on the backs of others; but one person could still reproduce the results that we currently have with science. The main problem is that most of science has required new ways of thinking to move to the next step. Basic algebra and geometry needed to exist before the calculus could be created. One person probably couldn't come up with this on their own without guidance, but they certainly could (and certainly do) understand this with a simple book at their disposal. Capitalism requires an active force of experts, whereas science merely requires someone do something at some period of time before and pass that knowledge on. That is the distinction here. As long as the knowledge doesn't die, science can continue to reach new levels, and more knowledge can be acquired. So I don't ascertain "expertise" to "scientists" because to me, capitalism is more reliant on it than science is. With science we are fully capable of creating a society that does not rely on "expertise" at all, which doesn't use the types of methods that capitalism uses to produce things. Science needs to go back to that thing people do when they wish to fulfill their curiosity, not some thing that capitalism uses to profit. I have a good friend who wanted to do some experiments with some space related stuff, and they jumped through a lot of hoops, and finally, not surprisingly, a capitalist took the designs and ran off with them. I know this person quite well and there was no profit motive in it for them at all. That is science, and it is a damn shame that capitalism has convoluted and twisted and destroyed the very idea of science.

So for instance, practitioners of allopathic medicine prescribe multiple medications to people, frequently without having any idea about how these specific drugs will interact with each other, much less any idea about how a person’s feelings are related to their physical health.

Capitalism. It is well known that proper hygiene is the single most important way to maintain ones health. Three meals a day, no overeating, regular exercise, just, living like a normal human being. But capitalism takes people, sits them in front of their computers or TVs, provides them with ample food, and they become fat unhealthy slobs. Then, on TV, it gives them this conception of what kind of lifestyle is correct, and they seek out the next diet pill to fix it.

This is not science any more than my smelly feet is science!

In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt uses the word scientism to express the logical extension of scientific thinking, which makes otherwise impossible moral or ethical questions (such as, “Can someone be worthless? And if so, can that person be euthanized?”) easily resolvable. In other words, the inhuman aspects of totalitarian states are related to the reliance of those states on science as the ultimate arbiter of value: indeed, the idea that everything must be of value is part of the scientific paradigm.

Science is the reason for the holocaust? I've truly never heard that one before. It couldn't possibly be power, corruption, capitalism, could it? I mean, DNA wasn't even perfected at that point, our understanding of human genetics was horribly inadequate. I think it would be highly scientifically irresponsible to go and say "Well, these certain people are the perfect people." The "Aryan Race" was completely and totally subjective, and an scientist of the day knew it, too. All they knew is that certain people who bred made certain eye colors, same with hair and other genetic traits that pass on from the parents, but this was known for thousands of years. So some asshole comes along and says, "Make me a nice blond haired blue eyed race of people, because they look attractive," and unsurprisingly has the power to do it. There was absolutely no scientific basis for any of this, nor could there be. Science isn't moral or ethical. It is about what is true and what is not true, and moral and ethics are subjective quantities which cannot fit within such a boolean process. Science says "There is global warming." Science doesn't say "Stop polluting" or "polluting is okay." Yet capitalists, those in power, statists, they use science in their sick twisted way, and convolute it until it no longer sees the light of day. Until the masses are nothing but drones who cannot understand what science really is, or at least different science from the pseudo kind. But can you blame them? People are animals, after all. Easily manipulated.

I have no response for the "anthropology" part of your article, though I do disagree with certain parts. I think human societies are perfectly predictable, indeed, if they weren't, capitalism wouldn't have such an easy time submitting the world to its will. I think I could make persuasive (and objective) arguments about society and how an anarchist revolution might realistically materialize. But I should refrain in this particularly long post.

In conclusion, I think this "science is capital" stuff is just as much rubbish as the "technology is capital" stuff that the primitivists spit out. Replace both terms with "capitalist pseudo-science" and "capitalist technology" and then you might be actually verging on a more accurate critique of the two things. In the end they are both mired in propritarianism, and no effort is actually made by anarchists to move away from that in its various forms. Specialization, for example, is intrinsically related to capitalist technology, it is not, however, related to technology itself, because one can easily show examples of non-specialized technologies that exist (such as open source software), and invoking a bit of that evil science, can even show how industry could still readily exist without specialization. Ahh, current civilization, even! But another time perhaps.

How would science work in anarchism? Pretty simple. Don't teach it, let those who live in anarchism seek it out. I assure you they would.

dot

i appreciate your considered reply.
we are clearly talking in two different directions, making it of limited use for us to try to engage with each other. a kind of limited discussion that is the specialty of the internet.
for the others who might read this, however, i will post the following thoughts.

your definition of science is idiosyncratic. while the original paper could be accused of defining science as everything bad (although i disagree with that accusation), you seem to define science as everything good - you posit a shining brave pedestal that science sits upon while capitalism slobbers at its base.

science is not the same as problem-solving. prayer can solve problems. re-defining the situation can solve problems. killing can solve problems.
an argument that there are what you call scientific aspects to non-scientific practices is part of your umbrella usage of the word.

the article attempts to make the point that the way that science encourages people to think about problems is part of what we don't like in this culture - that science has been part of creating where we are now. of course that is not separable from capitalism. whether one sees a connection between science and capitalism depends on how you define science and capitalism. the connection that the article draws didn't work for you, which is understandable. but the closest that your response gets to refuting that connection is to say a) that science is problem solving so it must be good, and b) that many cultures have developed this style of problem solving (although yes, they were all statist)...

re: the quotation on "western knowledge" and eratosthenes:
of course information has personal impact on people. that isn't the point.
if knowledge is seen as personal, a part of a relationship that a specific person has with the world, not as valuable only to the extent that it can be generalized, then we get a very different relationship to information and to ourselves. to use an example (that is limited by the exact perspective that the article is trying to critique), when you smoke a cigarette it does specific things to your body based on who you are, your mood, your health, the specifics of the cigarette, your associations with smoking, etc.
studies that show the effects of components of cigarettes on large groups of people are creating a sense of what is real that doesn't address your own personal experience. your experience is seen to be relevant only to the extent that it either proves or is anomalous to the mass. what is seen as important is entirely external to you - what others understand about the effects on you as one of a group.
the more refined that capitalism gets, the more specific (or individual) the science gets, but it is always operating on you - understanding you as passive object in the world.

that said, the sentence you end with implies a definition of science (as personal problem-solving technique)... may not be particularly useful for understanding where we are now, but otherwise seems quite benign.

Why

I really appreciate your response, I was wondering if you would respond or not, and am very glad you did. I'd like to thank AnarchyMag for putting issues and content online, I don't generally subscribe to such publications, but I may have to check it (the paper version) out. ;)

I admit that I have given science a really nice review, but I do suggest that science could be a very powerful weapon of the state, people using science to control and otherwise manipulate people (and you don't seem to disagree with this). The reason I disagree with your definition of science, is from a scientific point of view it would be impossible for those connections to actually happen. The process is simply individuals or groups doing their own experimentation and publishing said experimentation, at least in theory. In my mind this is absolutely no different from people writing music and publishing it! People are free to ascribe to certain genres of music more than others, just as they are free to ascribe to "eastern" or "western" philosophy. In the end I wish to come off as suggesting science is neutral, but highly exploited by capitalism.

And to be fair, I didn't say that science was the exact same thing as all problem solving, in the context of the science, all questions that that we have of the world are problems, which must be solved. Of course science cannot solve all problems (as admitted by the quantum physics discussion). But I still don't think, and I think I can make a persuasive argument, that capitalism treats science anything more than propritarianism, because of this distinction I think we can move away from using science to create problems which must then be "solved.' (Which is what I think the meat of your argument is implying.)

When science concludes that smoking is unhealthy, it is not saying that all people will get sick from smoking, it is saying that there is a likelihood that one will get sick from smoking, and this is persuasive enough to make me wish to stop smoking, despite how much I enjoy it. Since I am a relatively new smoker, an x-ray of my lungs would probably not result in any dire prospect, but eventually science can show how a given activity over time has affected me personally.

In the end, I believe science is quite valuable toward achieving an anarchist society. If anything "is capital" I would say that "work" and all of its various incarnations are inseparable from capitalism. Everything else that society has can be seen as passive, that is, not explicitly required by those existing within it. Both science and technology fall under this category; indeed, I believe both began as personal solutions to personal problems, it wasn't until capitalism took hold of these things that they became mired in statism.

dot

you being nice is... nice.

however you seem to be reiterating the same arguments that i thought i addressed. so apparently we are not hearing each other.

Science *is* synonymous with problem solving.
that blanket statement is what engendered my blanket responding statement. i appreciate your clarification.

where you took the smoking example doesn't address the point i was making.

to say more would just be repeating myself, and i don't find that entertaining.
i look forward to more of your thoughts.

Jordan Thomas Gibbons !!!

Science *is* synonymous with problem solving. What you seem to be saying here is that perhaps some of the problems that science solves are not problems at all. This may in fact be true. However, science isn't about solving "good" or "bad" problems, it's about understanding the world around us. The problems that capitalists solve by using science tend to be kept secret, thus removing them from the realm of science and into that of propritarianism. Which I will get to in a minute.

This seems to me, to be a very unscientific statement at best. To say that science *is* synonomous with problem solving is to suggest that science generally solves problems. Not only are some of the problems science attempts to solve not problems, some of these attempts create problems, and science, as it seems to me, tends to create more problems than it solves. Perhaps one can say "Science is synonmous with a specific method of attempting to solve problems." To try to learn things about the world around us, i think, is a noble cause, but one that can only be carried so far without technologies which can only be obtained through forced labor, and hence can only be beneficial to those not performing the labor. To watch an apple falling and to make some assumptions about why and how the apple fell is one thing, to send atoms whirling around in a partical accelerator so that they smash into eachother so scientist can attempt to observe a graviton is another thing altogether, one that would be frankly impossible without "all of this", which is to say, not capitalism per se, but rather all systems of domination which make things like forced labor a possibility to begin with.
I hope i didn't veer off topic too much, my time in front of a computer is short so this was rather rushed. Perhaps I will edit it and elaborate on it later, unless i'm missing the point entirely, in which case i apologize.
peace.

Why

Jordan Thomas Gibbons !!!,

To say that science *is* synonomous with problem solving is to suggest that science generally solves problems.

The statement wasn't meant to say that science solves *all* problems (though I feel it can solve quite a many useful problems). Just that in the context of science, all things are problems. If I want to know how fast an object falls on Earth, I must then create some conjecture (which would be a problem) and prove it somehow (solve it).

I agree wholeheartedly that science can lead to the creation of new problems, however.

Not only are some of the problems science attempts to solve not problems, some of these attempts create problems, and science, as it seems to me, tends to create more problems than it solves.

I agree that science can create problems, but as far as I can tell those problems have been created by selfish capitalists and power mongering statists. I don't really see problems caused by science that are inherent to science as a whole (and I believe you would be hard pressed to find such problems given how statism has had a monopoly on society for so long).

Perhaps one can say "Science is synonmous with a specific method of attempting to solve problems."

Perhaps it would've been better to say "All things in science are problems that need to be solved." Understanding the chemical basis of various extreme thermophiles only fullfills the curiosity of a biologist, however, such biologist might be compelled to express their findings to a pharmacutical so that they may receive more grant money. The pharmacutical in turn inventing (through the use of other scientists) some new cream that can keep you from getting burnt or reduce the pain and swelling from a burn.

The point is, to a scientist, all research is a problem which wants to be solved, whatever motivations that one has after that point are beside the point. Capitalism will create interesting problems because of science, of course, but in the end such moral problems have no meaning, they are subjective. Children watching too much TV (a problem to some) has no bearing on phospher and cathode ray tube science (both originally and ongoing problems in their own right), though the latter may have been motivated by the "capitalist spirit for profit." (But I think someone would've discovered it sooner or later.)

To try to learn things about the world around us, i think, is a noble cause, but one that can only be carried so far without technologies which can only be obtained through forced labor, and hence can only be beneficial to those not performing the labor.

This to me seems like an extroidinary statement. To say that there exist no scientifically useful technologies in the world that do not rely on forced labor (specialization, the division of labor, and most importantly capitalist property) is hard for me to comprehend or accept. Consider the "3 atoms of argon" experiment I was talking to dot about. The experiment did probably utilize industrial chlorine (probably came from some swimming pool or water purifying industry). But there is nothing preventing the creator of the experiment from going and making the chlorine himself utilizing non-industrial methods that didn't employ forced labor.

The history of science, in fact, hardly ever had forced labor (the notable examples being Alexendria and slave labor really; but I question really how much science benefitted from that). It has been only in the last couple of centuries where industrialism and ardent capitalism has taken hold where science has found it beneficial to its own self-preservation to adapt and be part of the propritarian fold. It wasn't always like that.

In any case, if we did live in a world without forced labor why wouldn't science try to find a way to manage? And how couldn't it? If it tried subjacting labor on the people, they would revolt. It would invariably *have* to adapt. If it took 10x as long to build a particle accelerator without forced labor, that's just how long it would have to take (or perhaps these scientists in this other world would manage to create technologies that worked without forced labor and made building such large structures possible in a shorter period of time).

The key is that I think science is very strong, I think it's something buried deep inside our psyche as part of an inate curiosity, which is *why* science has adapted. It's why people publish papers talking about the "usefulness" of a given thing they're studying (despite their feelings on whether or not it's useful). It's why freaking Galileo sold telescopes to the Royal Navy. If something is so dear to you that you will compromise to have it, is it so bad, though?

[Building large projects like particle accelerators] would be frankly impossible without "all of this", which is to say, not capitalism per se, but rather all systems of domination which make things like forced labor a possibility to begin with.

Dare I say you do not have a very active imagination! Think about it. We're in a magical anarchist world and we want to build another higher energy particle accelerator. We cannot promise that it would be useful, but we really want to do it because we're a curious bunch. There are maybe a few tens of thousands of people in the world who want to build it. Can they not do it themselves? They're the ones who are curious, are they not? Would they be denied the resources? I don't see why not. Heck, they could recycle the old particle accelerator if need be. I'm sure the other people running it wouldn't mind too much. And what is to say they wouldn't devise a way to produce it without as much labor? Instead of designing it with capitalist production in mind (lots of specialized labor, lots of workers, old production methods that utilize archaic building practices, and so on), why can't they design it with maybe some neat automated process?

The beautiful thing about this is that in capitalism, it's very difficult to get the society as a whole to sign off on such projects. It's not profitable. It cannot reasonably hope to show us anything useful from a marketing perspective. It is essentially a waste of money. There are lots of things in science that are seen this way. Scientists have to fudge their discoveries to make them seem like something useful. I was fond of the biologist paper that talked about using a new discovery of some bottom dwelling life as fiber optic cabling if they could get the funding. I'm sure that they got plenty of funding after that. Jokes on the capitalists, though, hah! Look at the various biology people in the field, studying wildlife and trying to mitigate our effect on them. Capitalism finds such people completely assinine, unless they report on excessive population levels of a given animal species which might result in more hunting licensing (and ammo, and guns) being sold one year.

Anarchism would be awesome for building projects like that. There is no profit motive. I think we'd do things just to freaking do them. Just for the heck of it!

I hope i didn't veer off topic too much, my time in front of a computer is short so this was rather rushed. Perhaps I will edit it and elaborate on it later, unless i'm missing the point entirely, in which case i apologize.

I hope I didn't take too long to respond. I saw your response only a few days after you posted it (funnily since I hadn't checked this site in awhile before that). I think that most problems people have with science and technology are really rooted in capitalism. But then, I don't really have a moralist philosophy about things very much. While I might consider it "immoral" for one to be forced to work on a labor line to continue existing, the condemnation really comes from a more objective evolutionary perspective. We weren't evolved to be that way. Why start now?

Take care, and be safe.

pnagle

I know that traditional anthropology can be really ethnocentric, but I feel like this article is a little stuck in the past of the field.
For instance, anthropologists of science do work that undermines the ostensibly universal nature of Western science by exposing the fundamental worldview embedded in scientific practice. Other ethnologists/anthropologists of laboratory studies, such as Bruno Latour, look at the way that science produces new forms of political power.

While the argument made some important criticisms of modern Western science, I don't feel that anthropology really fits as neatly into "science" as do those fields such as Chemistry, Microbiology, Physics, etc. which are traditionally considered scientific. In fact, the anthropology of science has exposed the biases, presumptions, and ideologies embedded in modern Western science's history and practice.
If anyone is interested, I'm going to post an academic (and rather dry, I'm afraid) essay I wrote on the question: Is science political? If the essay proves uninteresting, the bibliography is at least a good place to start for some different criticisms of science.

Science: The Continuation of Politics by Other Means
by Patrick Nagle

The question of science's political content/context is a contentious one because it flies in the face of the traditional narrative of science as a rational method which is, at its best, free of societal influence. Examples of overtly political influence on science—for example, the Lysenko affair in the U.S.S.R.—are roundly condemned, but the political nature of normal science is hardly discussed in the popular media. However, as practitioners of STS [Science and Technology Studies, or, alternately, Science, Technology, and Society] have shown, science is a source of new political power, encodes political ideals in its worldview, and serves as a source of authority for expressly political aims; in these ways, science is fundamentally inseparable from the political.
Bruno Latour, in his essay "Give Me a Laboratory and I Will Raise the World," uses Louis Pasteur as an example to demonstrate how the lab creates and depends on certain forms of power. Pasteur's first move is to set up a laboratory in the field, "translating each item of veterinary science into their own terms so that working on their terms is also working on the field" (Latour, 260). This translation allows Pasteur to construct reasons for farmers to be interested in his work later. Next, Pasteur moves from the field to the laboratory, where he can reverse the hierarchy of natural forces by breeding the anthrax bacillus in an environment without competition. In doing this, he is creating a form of anthrax that has never existed anywhere before—anthrax colonies so large that they can be seen with the naked eye; with this new power to see the anthrax, he can tell the farmers, "If you wish to solve your anthrax problem you have to pass through my laboratory first." (260) Another translation occurs when Pasteur inoculates cows with the bacillus, thereby establishing a controlled environment in which to study the epizootics of the disease. Once Pasteur masters how to vary the strength of the anthrax bacillus, he can emulate in the small scale of the laboratory the variation of virulence found in nature; this translation is enthralling not only for farmers but for epidemiologists and hygienists, who are struggling to explain in society at large the variations that Pasteur can create in a controlled setting. Because he has captured so much interest, Pasteur can convince farmers to extend the conditions of the lab—sterilization, timing the inoculations—to ensure that his results work "outside" the lab. Therefore, "in his very scientific work, in the depth of his laboratory, Pasteur actively modifies the society of his time and he does so directly—not indirectly—by displacing some of its most important actors." (267) This power is political in that society, if it wishes to stop the problems caused by microbes, has to appeal to Pasteur. This political power is so new, Latour argues, that it is unrecognizable as such.
Sandra Harding illuminates two other unrecognized sources of the political in science: externalist concerns and what she calls science's "political unconscious," borrowing Jameson's phrase. External political concerns in science focus on the formation of the questions that scientists study, the effects of scientific research, and the distribution of the benefits of scientific development. For example, Harding notes, "The problems that have gotten to count as scientific are those for which expansionist Europe needed solutions." (Harding, 43) Therefore, studies are made on how to "identify the economically useful minerals, plants, and animals of other parts of the world," (44) but little attention is paid to the costs to the native environments or to the effects on the native population. Another externalist criticism is that "the expanded opportunities" that Western sciences "make possible have been distributed predominantly to small minorities of already privileged people in the West an around the globe." (46) For instance, in development policies geared toward impoverished nations, governments are encouraged to industrialize, letting their resources come under control of multinational corporations, which benefits a small Western investing class.
Beyond the external choices that science makes, its own ideology of unity carries antidemocratic political implications which extend to the sciences' "internal cognitive, technical cores." (115) The Unity of Science thesis states that "there is one world, one and only one possible true account of it, and one unique science that can capture that one truth most accurately reflecting nature's own order." Harding adds that this model carries another, hidden assumption, that "there is just one group of humans, one cultural model of the ideal human, to whom nature's true order could become evident." (121) This thesis devalues other cultures' knowledge traditions and the people who use them, and "insists that science speak in a monologue, thereby elevating authoritarianism to a social ideal." (123) The unity ideal in science carries ethnocentric and authoritarian implications that extend to the structuring components of scientific practice and justification. Science also excludes "resources for critically analyzing the social and political relations that have shaped the goals, processes, and effects of Western modern sciences and technologies." (126) This willful ignorance on the part of scientists, justified by appeals to the autonomy of science and a disregard of the societal implications of scientific practices, creates a self-perpetuating system wherein science ignores the prejudices of its cognitive model because of that model's inability to explain them.
Because science has so effectively dissimulated its political content, it is often used to justify political ends because it is thought to offer an unmediated representation of nature. Londa Schiebinger, in her historical study of Enlightenment science, comments that "if social inequalities were to be justified within the framework of Enlightenment thought, scientific evidence would have to show that human nature is not uniform, but differs according to age, race, and sex." (Schiebinger, 144) Scientists of the period, through a series of "radical misreadings of the human body," (144) accomplished just that, ensuring the continued subjugation of people of color. Scientific accounts were heavily influenced by the idea of a "great chain of being" (145) that organized species hierarchically. Scientists of the period tried to construct a similar chain for race, using craniology and bone structure to put Africans closer to orangutans (considered the highest primates) and Europeans closer to the "ideal," which was taken from European cultural productions, such as the Venus de Medici or the Pythian Apollo. (152) Even if their intentions were not to create a hierarchy of value among human races, Enlightenment scientists created images "that could easily be used to produce unfavorable comparisons," (152) such as Petrus Camper's study of facial angles, presented as "a hierarchy of skulls passing progressively from lowliest ape and Negro to loftiest Greek." (150) These scientific studies were used to reinforce the racism that, as is well known, was the basis for the exclusion of people of color in European governments and continued European colonialism around the world.
These critiques demonstrate that science is never apolitical because it produces new forms of political power, formulates its research and practices to coincide with culturally and politically specific interests, contains political values in its technical core, and effaces these myriad political relations by declaring them outside the realm of science, further increasing its ability to bolster political claims because of its perceived objectivity. Science carries a power that is all the more dangerous because it remains largely uninterrogated.

Works Cited

Harding, Sandra. Science and Social Inequality: Feminist and Postcolonial Issues. Chicago: The University of Illinois Press, 2006.

Latour, Bruno. "Give Me A Laboratory and I Will Raise the World." The Science Studies Reader, ed. Mario Biagioli. New York: Routledge. pp. 276-289.

Schiebinger, Londa. Nature's Body: Gender in the Making of Modern Science. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2006.

These and many more observations have been made by people who identify as anthropologists, yet explicitly reject dogmatic empiricism and universal truth. I think that there is a certain kind of anthropology that is guilty of projecting behavior onto the Other, but honestly, anthropology has considered and is considering those issues quite seriously, and it seems a shame to write off its ability to contribute to anarchist thought, just as it would be a shame to write off all of Western science (whose origins are actually more diverse than traditional histories imply).

If anyone is interested, I can explain some of the concepts better--the paper was skewed more toward people with a background in Science Studies, so I know that my evidence is pretty minimal.
Sandra Harding's writing is especially applicable, I think, to anarchist concerns because part of her project is theorizing how to democratize science (and not in the liberal capitalist sense of democracy).