I found this old post I never published, so here it is. To be anti science is to be pro ignorance, and I get upset by how many women are proud of it.
..........
I was annoyed a little while ago by a newspaper article scorning a cult based on some obscure science fiction books about Gor, where women were submissive and wore collars and the usual BDSM stuff.
Not because I am in favour (though they were all consenting adults) but because they were scorned not for being sexist but for being sci fi fans and therefore
male
sad
incapable of getting a girlfriend
and so on
er well actually lots of women read sci fi. Lots of women write it. Lots of men and women use it to explore alternative societies with differerent sexual and social customs.
Marge Piercy Joanna Russ Theodore Sturgeon Samuel Delaney to just get started.
Yes I am pro science, in the sense of "knowing". The reviewer labelled the Gor books as "Politically Incorrect". My most despised phrase, used by people who either can't be bothered to think, or have an easy way to slag off all lefties/liberals. That's us scientists, we like accurate language.
No they are not "Politically Incorrect". They are Sexist, ie they share a coherent worldview that women are different and inferior. This is not the same as Misogyny, sadly lots of theoretically anti sexist men end up distrusting and resenting women because of being sneered at for not being beautiful and macho.
"To be anti-science is to be pro ignorance" - is a very strange comment. I suggest you need to be much more precise about what you mean by science. Science as commonly practised today is very much to be "anti" about.
We currently privilege science as a way of knowing, and this science has a colonising approach to other ways of knowing. Your statement reflects this by denying dissenting voices.
We have a science that knows things in rational, abstract, dispassionate and disconnected ways. Perhaps even in sado-masochistic ways.
I know there is a whole new way of doing science today that is holistic, but I think the dominant science is still reductionist, male centric and manipulative. Science has a bad case history! Oh, sure, there have been benefits, but look back at the major catastrophes of the last 100 years, and you'll see "science" behind of alot of them.
We need to develop alternate ways of knowing, based on feelings, emotions and intuition, if we are to fully know ourselves and our world. This way of knowing is metaphoric and symbolic, and creates a new way of thinking and feeling.
We are living through an impoverished story of our place in the world, mainly through the stories of reductionist scientific rationalism, and technocratic dreams of control and mastery. We have become entranced with wires, wheels and widgets.
Science has been partly responsible for the removal of the heart and aliveness of matter and nature, and reduced it to a backdrop and resource for the everyday world of business and busy-ness.
In this reduced story, humanity seems to have no idea of its how to find a grander purpose and meaning beyond the artificially constructed consumerist drive, and its narcissistic tendencies.
Posted by: Peter | Thursday, August 27, 2009 at 10:01 PM
Peter, I agree with a lot of what you say, but would still say I'm pro science in the basic sense, of knowing, wanting to know. I just saw a comparison of UK government funded research and development -
24,000,000,000 for the military
6,000,000,000 for health
and the figure for renewable energy is so small I can't really estimate it from the graph, perhaps 10,000,000
But lots of scientists are environmentalists, nature lovers, most will have started out as children with sense of wonder at nature to fuel their interest in science.
So where you see science I probably see it's paymasters, and I don't think this is the same thing.
And I honestly wasn't trying to silence any dissenters (except those who insist on categorising me as a man who can't get a girlfriend :-)
Posted by: medusa | Friday, August 28, 2009 at 04:32 PM