Against Humanism

This article argues that Comte's attempt to create a religious humanism failed because we revere individuals and not the species. This is because individuals are the ones who change the way we view the world - greatness is an attribute of individuals.

There is no fixed, unalterable background map of the "familiar facts" that must survive all such shifts, and certainly no fixed schedule dividing real entities from fishy, imaginary ones. Entities like Fate and Progress and the Logic of History and the Hidden Hand of the Market come and go.

Unfortunately for the science of consciousness, Comte's materialism has yet to go:

The search for a "scientific explanation of consciousness" which goes on at the yearly conference at the Center for Consciousness Studies in Tuscon, Arizona still centres not on trying to be scientific in the sense of using suitable methods, but on making consciousness respectable by somehow bringing it within the range of physics and chemistry, mainly at present through neurobiology.

A real robust humanism would have to take the religious tendencies of people into account. Science isn't up to the task of myth-making:

It just works through old-fashioned personification. If there is no purpose and everything is impersonal, how can DNA be actively ruling our destinies? How can it feel "pitiless indifference" and make us "dance to its music"? The Cartesian drama of inert matter and active spirit is suddenly reversed here to show humans (and animals) as helpless objects – passive "lumbering robots" – stage-managed by plotting genes (and memes) that are sometimes helped by other entities such as market forces. The myth-building capacities that surround every new world-view are surely as busy here as they are in established religions. These visions perhaps offer the worst of both worlds – an ontology that is as bankrupt morally as it is scientifically. The imagery of science is used, not, as Huxley hoped, to ground a deep reverence for the natural world but to justify human alienation from it.

Science, meet Politics. Charmed, I'm sure

This was never meant to be a political blog, but what happens now will become history. And in this day and age, scientific research is intertwined with politics. So yeah. I can't think of anything witty to say.

A 29th twofer.

First, an interesting little article on a very strange research project that, strangely, seems to have produced some results. Strange ones. Basically, they are trying to map personality traits according to geography in the US.

Second, an article about the mistakes made by Einstein. This, in my opinion, is an important thing to write and read about, because it defuses the idea that science is ideology. If a physicist whose name and countenance are symbols of intelligence itself can be shown to have been wrong - well, that's only to be expected really.

All the other great scientists of the past were wrong about things, because advancing the state of the art in knowledge is like that - better theories, better data, better models - but never The Truth. Just a useful approximation. This is the power and glory of science: to recognize and correct its errors.

This is why I dislike terms such as "Darwinism" and "evolutionism" so intensely. They attempt to crystallize the ever changing ideas of how species originate into an ideology that, if somehow shown to be false, can then be defeated. It surely must be comforting for opponents of science and knowledge to think that this could possibly work. However, they are just as wrong about this as they are about so many other things.

Beauty's Truth

Find here an old but very interesting essay about what makes a scientific theory beautiful. Essentially, the author argues that the beauty of a theory comes from its truth, and not the other way around. That is, having preconceived notions of what a beautiful theory is can prevent scientists from accepting one that may describe reality better.

Especially interesting given the recent news about the Large Hadron Supercollider. Let's see what happens - maybe we will live to see new theories emerge. This is a historic time.

Some thoughts about psychology.

Cracked.com recently had an article about "Psychological experiments that prove humanity is doomed." It's one of those cases where the humor comes mainly from the sensation of truth attempting to flank the rational mind. In this case, uncomfortable truth.
Psychology doesn't always get a lot of respect, which is a shame, because we tend to discover interesting things about whatever we study with the scientific method. Human personality and behavior is no different. Science can shatter the myths we hold about ourselves and our own mental independence just as well as it can demolish literal interpretations of mythology.
I have even heard people go so far as to say that psychology isn't a science. This attitude is usually based on a definition of science that focuses on the subject matter instead of the method. There is no reason for such a distinction when it is easier to say that science is when people study something scientifically.