Over at Anthropology.net Emanuel Lusca has a post, Science As A Human Practice. I sniped a little in the comments, to which Emanuel responded:
My intention was not to refine, clarify, or elevate science. My intention was to point out that science should not be put on a pedestal, that it is like any other human practice, e.g. religious practice. In my mind science and religion are equally valuable and insightful. And of course, you and many others will criticize me for that, but that’s okay.
Photo Credit: Kim Fulton-Bennett 2005 MBARI
This is the sort of problematizing which makes cultural anthropology a joke. At least philosophers are very precise when they say something; agree or disagree, they’re saying something, and you know what they’re saying. I agree that science is a human endeavor. I agree it is biased. I agree it is fraught with politics. In fact, most of science is wrong. It is a very noisy process. It is a culturally embedded one. All the critiques you can make toward other institutions you can make toward science.
But science is qualitatively different from other domains of scholarship. It is not like “any other human practice.” And to say that “science and religion are equally valuable and insightful” is a vacuous assertion. I think that defecation and playing the violin are equally valuable and insightful. I think eating a peanut and deriving a proof are equally valuable and insightful. I’m saying something, but you probably don’t really know what I’m talking about.
I can see how someone could perceive a witch doctor putting a hex on someone is as insightful and valuable as a heart surgeon performing a bypass on someone who is likely to die otherwise. The words “insightful” and “valuable” are loaded with normative presuppositions. But throwing around these equivalences totally elides the very real distinctions between the predictive power of modern science and other human cultural productions. I won’t say that science is more important than religion or art or the taste of good & wine or the company of family. But you are mixing categories here; when religion faces science on its own ground it fails. Attempts to turn religion into science, whether it be by Muslim, Christian or Hindu fundamentalists, are laughable. Granted, those who wish to turn science into a religion also fail. But that does not mean science and religion are equivalent in any way across the scope of human experience, au contraire!
The Galileo Project used a gravity assist “slingshot” with a fulcrum around Venus and Earth twice. The average distance between Earth & the Sun is 778,000,000 km. That’s 5.2 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun! Now that’s precision. Certainly religion has inspired greatness, art and acts beyond compare. But consider that science, and specifically science forwarded by a young man in England in the late 17th century, allows man to create artifice which allows him to span the heavens themselves with such incredible powers of precision!
Let me quote Emanuel’s last paragraph in his comment:
Second, such problematizing is not only fun, but also important. Science and technology are integral parts of daily life for many people in today’s world. Understanding how science effects the objects in our world is extremely important. Take for e.g. the following: Not to long ago, many people beleived that atoms were these round tiny balls that were electrically charged. This idea was “supported” by evidence obtained through the use of various technological devices. Today, many people deny this, and say that atoms are more like clouds, with electrically charged particles popping in and out of existence. Now, to me understanding how science can get it wrong, and right, and wrong again, is extremely important- because after all, science is about “describing” how the world we live in “really” is.
Let’s put to the “side” whether “Emanuel’s” “description” “really” “fits” well “with” how quantum “informed” chemists “conceive” of the “atom.” This response of mine has put me in a strange mood. I think that mood will be familiar to readers. From Talk Origins:
Q 10 Theories have been proven wrong in the past, why not evolution?
When Einstein proposed general relativity, he revolutionized physics. The theory replaced most of Newton’s laws of physics. General relativity, though, still incorporates Newton’s laws. This is due to the enormous number of observations and tests that Newton’s laws had passed, so any new theory would have to account for them also.
Similarly, if another theory replaces evolution, the new theory must somehow explain why the current theory passed all the tests. So any new theory that replaces evolution would have to explain why it works so well. Creationism, then, is not a possible replacement.
At this point words fail me, and I feel I can’t even whistle it….
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