Bayla Singer wrote: >No, John, I must continue to respectfully disagree. The 'discovery' of >'facts' is very much influenced by social factors. What to look for, and >what to call it when you've found it, are pretty basic, and that's what >I'm talking about. Even whether to believe what you've found, or dismiss >it. You make it sound as if all scientific data is fantasy. You have also chosen to discuss areas of scientific inquiry which are notoriously subject to personal prejudice. The physical sciences are less prone to the whims and desires of human beings: sodium, a metal which reacts violently upon exposure to oxygen, and chlorine, a gas, are the components of table salt; plants use carbon dioxide, water, and light to form glucose and oxygen; the principles of fluid dynamics are used to construct airplanes. I could obviously go on forever here. The important point to make is that "pure" science allows for all possible conjectures, but only accepts those that can be supported. Science is self-regulating and looks for consistency, i.e. - a single researcher with a single set of results doesn't automatically make it science "fact." The scientist's results are open to scrutiny by the scientific community, and if the results are achievable by other scientists then they are accepted as "science fact." The results have an even more solid basis if they are consistently achievable by scientists in multiple disciplines. No one should ever claim that the results of scientific inquiry are perfect and unchanging, because we are only human and can only use current scientific theory and explanation. You can't simply dismiss scientific "fact" just because you don't believe it, or because it doesn't sound right, or because it doesn't fit in with your own theories. If you disagree with science "fact," then use the tools of science to prove it. You also can not claim that science is "political." Airplanes >do< fly, whether you believe they do or not, and whether they are flown by Republicans, Democrats, members of the Moral Majority, members of the upper class, the Radical Faeries, feminists, anti-abortionists, etc., and they do so via the principles of fluid dynamics. All of the "evidence" used to support the hypothesis that science is political and subject to the whims of its practioners and supporters have really been discussing everything >but< science. History is full of biased, petty-minded people, bad scientists, blinded by ambition, greed, and hatred, power-hungry, aggressive governments, who all >use< what they call "science" to further their own careers, or to support their own philosophies or national goals. Much of the time this "science" is loaded with mistakes, data that have been incorrectly measured, suppressed, and manipulated, and methodologies that are completely inappropriate. In short, this is "science" that will not stand the test of repeated scrutiny and analysis, and in the end, will >not< accepted as "science fact." Everyone of the cases cited has been subjected to this test and has not passed. I find it strange that people use science to dismiss data collected by Agassiz as an example of "bad science," but then turn right around and say that science is subject to cultural and social prejudices. If science is subject to such flaws and so full of bias, you can not possibly know and never hope to prove that Agassiz's data are bad. Because science is conducted by humans, all data collected and all observations made are subject to cultural, social, and historical prejudice. However, through the methods of "pure" science, the vast majority of these prejudices are rooted out. To ask that every single scientific endeavor be flawless, is like asking for -1 degree Kelvin. ___ Christopher Maines, Conservation Scientist Freer and Sackler Galleries Tel: (202) 357-4880 x289 Smithsonian Institution, MRC 707 Fax: (202) 633-9474 1150 Independence Ave. SW Internet: [log in to unmask] Washington DC 20560 Bitnet: mainesc@simsc