It is said that Lao Zi wrote down his “Tao Te Ching” just as an act of kindness for a border guard. He was a true philosopher, a lover of knowledge for the sake of it, and uninterested in worldly things such as money. These virtues, unfortunately, have been lost by modern scientists.
Congrats Ugo! (btw Tom Murphy is still a great resource.)
Resisted for years calling myself a 'real scientist', but have to own up to doing some applied science years ago in UK ‘govt. science’. Early on I was keen on the public service ethos and the concept of science as an 'open' collaborative human endeavour; part of a wider requirement for an 'educated mind'. OK, Britain was not adjusted to losing the Empire, and I was acquainted with 'University politics' and our similar departmental stuff, and inevitable human failings, but self-respect and respect for others could at least co-exist with these aspects of the institutional environment. For example, I was lucky enough to have a short visitor spell in Canada in the very early days of mol. biol. when there was a brief call for a moratorium in order to consider the risks of genetic engineering. I was not in the race, but learned a lot from high-morale people. Can’t help feeling it had to do with the petroleum trajectory, but by 1981 science making financial profit became the big deal, and in the UK severely cut down the worth of public service science, even in areas that had been considered 'strategic'. It came in explicitly with Thatcher. The 1980s in the UK was a time of lamentable failures in 'Risk Assessment'. I came to realise few scientists could do risk analysis / assessment, and of those who could, even fewer, if any, could deal with the machine wherein they were cogs.
A case can be made for the intellectual poverty of science conducted without explicitly understanding the limits imposed by context and social environment. I have got round to reading an attractive and systematic expert approach to modelling 'realities', i.e. thinking about thinking; Erica Thompson’s ‘Escape from Model Land’, recently in ppbk. Ihttps://twitter.com/H4wkm0th
The West has devolved into a money worshipping cult, with few inhibitions on how we get it...The President of Stanford, a famous Alzheimers researcher, was forced to resign when it became clear that his research was fraudulent, and he rewarded researchers under him for producing the right fraudulent results...In the words of one researcher, this guy set back Alzheimers research 10 years...It's everywhere...
On another note, we spent a number of days in Florence a few years ago, and absolutely loved the city and the surrounding farmland...I would often have lunch in a little outdoor cafe where students and professors would gather in the afternoon...beautiful!
My point of view is this: science and engineering types are not the right people to be making decisions about how, or if, some particular discovery or technology should be adopted, or in extreme cases what should even be explored. We are equipped with intelligence, and determination to the point of absurdity, but lack wisdom and are generally underdeveloped in terms of social graces, empathy and understanding what ordinary people want out of life. Sure we get resentful when others place constraints of time, money, or general decency around our curiosity and ambition, but looking at the past century of unrestrained science and technology, and the ultimate end of it in stagnation and bureaucracy that you talk about here, I see the wisdom in restraint. Just because we think we can do something, or want to know something, doesn't mean we should.
Not sure I agree with the unsympathetic description of scientists and engineers as "generally underdeveloped in terms of social graces, empathy, and understanding of what ordinary people want out of life." They have some offsetting compensations, not the least of which is sufficient knowledge of the subject matter to know the limits of the possible, something that seems in shorter supply with laymen.
So who ARE the right people to be making the decisions? Two things to keep in mind as we attempt to answer: 1) There is virtually nothing science can discover that cannot be subverted to evil or destructive ends. 2) Those who control most of the resources have a greater than average incentive to perpetuate the system that got them into that position.
So sorry to read about Tom Murphy packing it in. I just tried loading one of his web pages yesterday (an amazing coincidence that you are writing about him today), and his pages would not load. Now I see why--they are tied to the UCSD server (Univ of Cal San Diego), and probably got taken down when he left. I'm glad I got his book while the pages were still up ("Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet").
Overall this is a rather sad piece, and yet I cannot deny that I have sensed it myself, especially in the last few years.
Re: unsympathetic view, it is what it is. We all have our talents and shortcomings. Disagreeableness, the willingness to question accepted wisdom and common sense, and to pursue truth and innovation even when it might be disruptive or harmful - these are useful attributes in science and engineering, but you don't get to turn them on and off at will.
I'm more on the engineer side but I have a few friends on the science side. They're all great people on a personal level, just don't really connect with the average-guy perspective. There's an inherent narcissism / like-me fallacy we possess that it took a long time for me to understand, which leads us to think we know better than others what's best for them based on frankly superficial analysis of their situation and needs. Linux/OSS pushers are a particularly funny microcosm of this. I'd elaborate but I'm on a phone at the moment.
Learning about the limits to growth and ecological overshoot really knocks your confidence in pretty much everything. I really feel for the guy because it is painful to be discover you are serving a system that is destroying the planet.
You'd expect science to be something that can help us but instead is mostly hell-bent on maintaining the existing system. Science has given us so much in terms of understanding our place in the universe, preventing disease, extending our lives and improving living conditions for millions. Right at the point we need it most science has deteriorated. Facts are valued but wisdom and understanding are mostly absent.
Congrats Ugo! (btw Tom Murphy is still a great resource.)
Resisted for years calling myself a 'real scientist', but have to own up to doing some applied science years ago in UK ‘govt. science’. Early on I was keen on the public service ethos and the concept of science as an 'open' collaborative human endeavour; part of a wider requirement for an 'educated mind'. OK, Britain was not adjusted to losing the Empire, and I was acquainted with 'University politics' and our similar departmental stuff, and inevitable human failings, but self-respect and respect for others could at least co-exist with these aspects of the institutional environment. For example, I was lucky enough to have a short visitor spell in Canada in the very early days of mol. biol. when there was a brief call for a moratorium in order to consider the risks of genetic engineering. I was not in the race, but learned a lot from high-morale people. Can’t help feeling it had to do with the petroleum trajectory, but by 1981 science making financial profit became the big deal, and in the UK severely cut down the worth of public service science, even in areas that had been considered 'strategic'. It came in explicitly with Thatcher. The 1980s in the UK was a time of lamentable failures in 'Risk Assessment'. I came to realise few scientists could do risk analysis / assessment, and of those who could, even fewer, if any, could deal with the machine wherein they were cogs.
A case can be made for the intellectual poverty of science conducted without explicitly understanding the limits imposed by context and social environment. I have got round to reading an attractive and systematic expert approach to modelling 'realities', i.e. thinking about thinking; Erica Thompson’s ‘Escape from Model Land’, recently in ppbk. Ihttps://twitter.com/H4wkm0th
Thanks, Phil!
The West has devolved into a money worshipping cult, with few inhibitions on how we get it...The President of Stanford, a famous Alzheimers researcher, was forced to resign when it became clear that his research was fraudulent, and he rewarded researchers under him for producing the right fraudulent results...In the words of one researcher, this guy set back Alzheimers research 10 years...It's everywhere...
On another note, we spent a number of days in Florence a few years ago, and absolutely loved the city and the surrounding farmland...I would often have lunch in a little outdoor cafe where students and professors would gather in the afternoon...beautiful!
My point of view is this: science and engineering types are not the right people to be making decisions about how, or if, some particular discovery or technology should be adopted, or in extreme cases what should even be explored. We are equipped with intelligence, and determination to the point of absurdity, but lack wisdom and are generally underdeveloped in terms of social graces, empathy and understanding what ordinary people want out of life. Sure we get resentful when others place constraints of time, money, or general decency around our curiosity and ambition, but looking at the past century of unrestrained science and technology, and the ultimate end of it in stagnation and bureaucracy that you talk about here, I see the wisdom in restraint. Just because we think we can do something, or want to know something, doesn't mean we should.
Not sure I agree with the unsympathetic description of scientists and engineers as "generally underdeveloped in terms of social graces, empathy, and understanding of what ordinary people want out of life." They have some offsetting compensations, not the least of which is sufficient knowledge of the subject matter to know the limits of the possible, something that seems in shorter supply with laymen.
So who ARE the right people to be making the decisions? Two things to keep in mind as we attempt to answer: 1) There is virtually nothing science can discover that cannot be subverted to evil or destructive ends. 2) Those who control most of the resources have a greater than average incentive to perpetuate the system that got them into that position.
So sorry to read about Tom Murphy packing it in. I just tried loading one of his web pages yesterday (an amazing coincidence that you are writing about him today), and his pages would not load. Now I see why--they are tied to the UCSD server (Univ of Cal San Diego), and probably got taken down when he left. I'm glad I got his book while the pages were still up ("Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet").
Overall this is a rather sad piece, and yet I cannot deny that I have sensed it myself, especially in the last few years.
Re: unsympathetic view, it is what it is. We all have our talents and shortcomings. Disagreeableness, the willingness to question accepted wisdom and common sense, and to pursue truth and innovation even when it might be disruptive or harmful - these are useful attributes in science and engineering, but you don't get to turn them on and off at will.
My impression is that scientists are very nice and emphatic people. They are just not equipped to understand what happens outside science.
I'm more on the engineer side but I have a few friends on the science side. They're all great people on a personal level, just don't really connect with the average-guy perspective. There's an inherent narcissism / like-me fallacy we possess that it took a long time for me to understand, which leads us to think we know better than others what's best for them based on frankly superficial analysis of their situation and needs. Linux/OSS pushers are a particularly funny microcosm of this. I'd elaborate but I'm on a phone at the moment.
Indeed. You can use the term Narcissism to describe scientists.
Tom Murphy made some very silly Peak Oiler comments back in the day. Draped in his "I'm an NPR (breathy voice) Scientist (capital S)" bullshit.
Learning about the limits to growth and ecological overshoot really knocks your confidence in pretty much everything. I really feel for the guy because it is painful to be discover you are serving a system that is destroying the planet.
You'd expect science to be something that can help us but instead is mostly hell-bent on maintaining the existing system. Science has given us so much in terms of understanding our place in the universe, preventing disease, extending our lives and improving living conditions for millions. Right at the point we need it most science has deteriorated. Facts are valued but wisdom and understanding are mostly absent.
Hello Ugo,
Could I repost your article on Resilience?
Thanks!
Bart Anderson
Of course!
DONE!
Thank you