From: andrick@sun.rhrk.uni-kl.de (Ulf Andrick [Biologie])
Subject: Re: Re: Science&Politics
Reply-To: andrick@sun.rhrk.uni-kl.de (Ulf Andrick [Biologie])
Organization: University of Kaiserslautern (Germany)
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 18:48:42 GMT

In article <1619.178.uupcb@wugate.wustl.edu>,
carl.camurca%travel@wugate.wustl.edu (Carl Camurca)  writes:
> Hi!
> 
> UA[>> On the other hand, esp. as a biologist, I'm disturbed by a
sentence utter
> UA[>> by some nazi funtionnaire that `national socialism is politically
> UA[>> applied biology'. Though your reference to the commandment is not
> UA[>> really a good example for your view, you're certainly right if you
> UA[>> want to express that `human' sentiments might be more important than
> UA[>> all science in moral questions. The KZ wardens were instructed not
> UA[>> to follow their feelings but to what the nazis claimed to be rational.
> UA[>>
> 
> UA[>I feel urged to add that I do not mean to say that national socialism
> UA[>was a necessary consequence of the science of that time (...)
> 
> But the other way round.

Difficult to say (see below).

> 
> UA[>The idea that there was a competition of peoples and races and that a
> UA[>race had to keep its genome pure arose from the scientific discussion
> UA[>of those days and were propagated by many biologists.
> 
> Why?
>

Therefore. (Sorry, don't know what to do with the `why?')
 
> UA[>But those biologists and anthropologists intermingled their science and
> UA[>ideology so much that it is difficult to tell where the one ended
> UA[>and the other began.
> 
> Especially as a German, be careful with "Those"! It could have been you,
> if you hadn't had "die Gnade der spaeten Geburt"! (the grace of the
> later birth). 

In the next sentence I referred to `all scientists'.

>Can you separate your ideology from the science? I can't.
>

When reading some paper how someone has gathered what data, then
I can't see any political ideology in it, and that was what I
thought of.
 
> UA[>That should be a warning to all scientists and those who refer to
> UA[>their authority: Be careful to distinguish between science and the
> UA[>political opinions of scientists. (Here I consider science as a
> UA[>knowledge of facts independent from culture and politics; I am
> UA[>convinced that such a concept does make sense.)
> 
> AAAAAAAAARRRRGHHH!!! I *STRONGLY* disagree!!!
> Science is NEVER EVER independent from the society, where it is
> developped! There are zillions of examples.

I didn't mean to say that the practice of science is independent of
society, but that there is something at the bottom of it which directs
it by setting boundary conditions, and that is the real world.
(I don't know, of course, if the real world exists, but I am certain
that its representation exists in my mind; further discussion cf.
Kant: ,Kritik der reinen Vernunft'.) It may depend of society
what data you collect, but the data themselves do not.

Our knowledge about the real world is growing, as recognition 
(Erkenntnis)  is irreversible; and this has its impact on society. 
E. g., the more we know about the world, the less religious we are
(see also Freud: ,Die Zukunft einer Illusion'). The interaction
between science and society is no one-way street. What is the hen
here, what the egg, and what was there first? 

> Why didn't the ancient greeks use the steam power they discovered? No
> need, they had slaves. Same for ancient Romans.
> Why didn't the native Americans develop machines? Not, because they had
> less intelligence than the Europeans. They did not have the sentence in
> the bible "and RULE the Earth". The list goes on and on.

One might also argue that the native Americans had no machines and
therefore had to personalise and adore nature to create some
delusion of not being exposed to nature without any power.
I do not possess an intimate knowledge of American religions
and I suppose that there is a spectrum of these religions;
my point here is that it is probably not so easy to fix what is
the cause and what the consequence.

Now to see an example of independence of science look at physics under 
national socialism: It took severe damage
because many physicists had to emigrate, but `German physics' was not 
broadly accepted by those who remained. Against all NS ideology the 
relativity theory and quantum mechanics continued to be valid in 
Germany.

Waldsterben, ozone hole, greenhouse effect; these things come through
science to people's minds. Or think of the American cholesterol hysteria,
then you can see that people hear what science says, though they 
might not react properly.

> Please, read "Die Physiker" of Friedrich Duerrenmatt. He has very good
> thoughts about the scientists and their responsability towards the
> community. And look at the biography of Oppenheimer.
> There are no insults intended with this posting, and excuse for the
> shouting. I spend a considerable amount of my time in bringing the idea
> of scientific responsability and the *dependance* of science of the
> society, where it is developped.

If science only depends of society, then why should there be a special
responsibility of scientists?

I think we should distinguish two roles of a scientist:

1. the scientist as experimenter (collector and modeller of real world data) 
2. the scientist as expert (interpreter and mediator of knowledge to 
   society)

Of course, this is only for the sake of analysis (dividing the whole
into fragments to understand the internal structure) and I didn't
say that it is easy to differentiate.  

> 
> UA>Ulf R. Andrick
> 
> Gruss, Carl (hiding from the off-topic flames of The Moderator)
> 
>  * OLX 2.1 TD * ... Immanuel Kant but Ghengis Khan!
>                  



Ulf R. Andrick                                  andrick@rhrk.uni-kl.de
Tierphysiologie
FB Biologie
Universitaet
D-W 6750 Kaiserslautern