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
 
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