Here is a piece from an essay that relates the experience of a scientist within the industrial scientific complex. Science has evolved to a tool that is isolated from society to have value only to large scale private industrial institutions. Its funding comes from public taxation and "humanitarian" organizations, but its product is funneled to private industry. This is an example of how those from above load the burden of their cost to further develop their machines of exploitation, on those from below who are ultimately the objects of exploitation.
If we were to talk about physics, science, the informational database from which we have to rely for understanding our "environment" (which within our sphere of thought includes life and lifeless parts of the physical environment, the natural surroundings and the social dynamics) we need to define what parts of science is "our science" and what science is their science. This issue also relates to the issue of who we are and who they are (as the Zapatistas have clearly helped us understand the distinction of the two). In a practical sense of understanding and utility, to those who are putting the foundations to their community's autonomy, very little if any scientific knowledge produced in the past 60-70 years is of any good use. In that period the industrial military complex abducted scientific research institutions and have held them hostage and exploited. Hostages do not talk, those outside do not listen, voices from outside are not heard, society is unaware, the military industrial complex is arming itself with technology from their hostage industry. The universities are occupied by corporations and more specifically the military and energy industries.
This claim we make, that current scientific research is absolutely useless to humanity, it is outright dangerous for the future of the planet and the life on it, would need an enormous amount of detailed research to support. As we learn and built on our own collective and communal needs for scientific knowledge we believe the claim will gain more support. Since we choose to ignore the academy and its practices we could not justify to waste valuable time to engage in any dialog with them. But not all members of the academy are soldiers to the industrial army and not all of their critique of their own institutions is hostile to us. Rarely a few bright minds escape from their prison cells and barracks to talk of what it is like to be held hostage by industry within university walls.
Andrew Pickering has contributed a significant critique of modern scientific practice and his book "The Mangle of Practice" (2008) is a good place to start such an inquiry of the treacherous world of modern science.
"Beyond Criticism"
… eliminating from the discourse the role of the body detaches the knowledge from the human activity that produced it and achieves the appearance of matters of fact as given; it places the knowledge beyond criticism.
This is from an essay “The Docile Body of the Scientist” by Yiannis Koutalos in the book The Mangle of Practice eds. Andrew Pickering and Keith Guzik (2008):
… Salamanders are easy to kill. They are about eight inches long and one to two inches wide; they are slippery, but other than that they are easy to grab and hold. they have no teeth or nails, and their only means of resistance are to try to slip away or to flap their tail. I have killed thousands of them over the years. My colleagues and I use a sharp knife or a small guillotine to swiftly cut off their head and then we destroy the brain and the spinal cord with a long needle. We kill salamanders for their eyes — specifically for the light-sensitive cells of their eyes. Salamanders have tiny eyes, about two millimeters in diameter, but their light-sensitive cells are huge, about ten times the size of those of a human or other mammals. The large size of the salamander cells makes them easy to work with. After killing the animal we remove the eyes, cut them open, and excise the retina, the part of the eye that contains the light-sensitive cells. Then we use a razor blade to chop the retina into small pieces to free the light-sensitive cells. We do everything, including the killing, under dim red or infrared light so that the light-sensitive cells are not affected. In order to see under infrared light we use infrared image converters — devices that have sensors to convert the infrared light to a dim green, giving us a green and white view of the surroundings.
There are different types of light-sensitive cells, some of which are very sensitive to light and others much less so. At one point we decided to study the less-sensitive cells, the cones, which are responsible for color vision. To do so we used ground squirrels because their eyes have cone-rich retinas. Ground squirrels have sharp teeth and nails, are much more aggressive, dangerous, and difficult to handle than salamanders, especially under infrared light, so we constructed a special cage to use for experiments. The cage was designed to allow us to push the animal into a corner and immobilize it. In our standard preparation for an experiment we put the squirrel in the cage under regular room light, and keep it in a dark cabinet for a few hours. We then switch off the room light, bring the cage out under infrared light, using image converters to see, and then push and immobilize the squirrel in the cage. Through a small hole in the cage, we inject a paralytic drug into the animal’s leg. After a minute or so we take the paralyzed animal out, kill it with an overdose of an anesthetic, and subsequently excise the eyes.
One day I was struck by the image we presented in performing this activity. My colleague and I enter the dark room in our white coats, armed with the image converters and the syringes filled with drugs. We take out the cage with the squirrel. I see the animal in the greenish image of the converter: it is sniffing around, unable to see, and running around in fear. Our technological gadgets — the cage, the converter, and the syringes with the drugs — will soon take away its life. I begin to get the impression that the animal is the only living creature in the room.
Simply put, I do not like killing animals. Although I have had this aversion for years, during my work with animals I never took any specific action to deal with it in a direct fashion. Instead, whenever possible I have tried to avoid being the one to kill the animal.
Nevertheless:
… When a new idea comes about, I am overtaken by the excitement of it; I am anxious to kill the animal, obtain the cells, and do the experiment associated with carrying out the research activity.
… Although the emphasis on hypothesis-driven research is quite widespread in the biomedical field, the main point appears to be an emphasis on research that will provide information regardless of the actual — and unpredictable — experimental outcome. For a grant proposal to be successful, it has to ensure at the outset that information will be obtained and that this information will be deemed interesting and important. This kind of emphasis shapes the kind of research that is funded and promotes a view of knowledge as answers to properly asked questions. For research projects to be funded, they have to contribute to the stock of knowledge.
… [This] discourages a view of experimental activity as an open-ended process of search and exploration through which humans and the world they live in are mutually transformed.
… Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer have linked the disappearance of the body from scientific discourse to the attempts by the founders of modern science to claim a special status for scientific knowledge. As they argue, eliminating from the discourse the role of the body detaches the knowledge from the human activity that produced it and achieves the appearance of matters of fact as given; it places the knowledge beyond criticism.
3 comments:
Despite of the very interesting issues and criticisms this book brings to light, it does so in a fashion of reformism. The whistle blowers from inside the system (specifically academic research institutions and who sometimes do not fare well) show the laywoman/man outside what it is like inside, and this implies the need for change. Whether this change will come from organization from inside or pressure built from outside is not clear, nor is there any implication of how would change come about. It is a presentation of how things work "in there" and why society has been alienated from the process of decision on what should be like "in there".
Dare we ask the editors the big question: "OK, we believe you, what can be done to change all this?"? If we did we would put ourselves in a hierarchical position to follow them as the leaders of change. We shall never ask such questions. It is pointless and we must escape from such thinking. It is such kind of questions from the organized left that has lead us in the mess we are in.
Dare we organize to pursue change in science and academy alone, neglecting to include people such as the editors as equals amongst us? And what if this struggle to pursue change was to be successful, the struggle would end there. Would society and the system we live in really change? No, it would be a dead end struggle and political cause to its own internal success.
Only if we were to built a whole new world from scratch and from below would science and research fit in that world to meet our needs, would real change occur. And the Zapatistas do not bother with change but with creation of their own. I believe they are right.
To give credit back to the effort of bringing this publication to our eyes as it provides additional support to the thesis this world is rotten and it can not be improved. It is better that this book came from insiders than if the same things were told as stories from outsiders. They would not be as believable or credible, and political responsibility credit for such claims must be paid to the courageous ones that dare.
The extent that participation within the beneficiaries of academia leads to mental and emotional stress, even though they are on top of the exploitation chain (quantitatively as those academics usually are), could form what Marxists would call a false class consciousness. This stress can be relieved by extracurricular activities as a join venture to publish such a book. The system therefore creates safety valves to allow the release of steam even from its own beneficiaries. It does so in a fashion that the steam could not possibly harm the boiler. We, on the outside, must utilize such release ports and collect this steam and utilize it for our own purpose and benefit.
So, do not expect much direct participation and help for building our world from those inside the other one, act on your own behalf as who you are. Maintain a careful eye on the walls of the boiler for such release valves and connect your apparatus to trap the pressure and steam. If unable to do so, fill the valve exit up so steam can not escape from the safety valve.
A steam engineer from below listening for the sound of your world crumbling, or should I say your steam tank rupturing. Listening to the sounds of our world emerging by making as little sound as possible.
KoZRustNeverSleeps
Ohh no, not this reformist vs revolutionary debate here. Raising awareness of your surroundings as a scientist and as a non-scientist may not necessarily classify in a certain doctrine. Especially if it is done so "from below", as we don't believe any of the editors of the book belong to a certain political group/party or are self identifying with a certain "class" and act as members.
If NASA provides us with data on sea surface temperature variations and to us this affects the decision on where to go fishing, that doesn't mean they are either lying or trying to control us. Science produces a huge amount of information that can not really be readily utilized or interpreted by anyone in specific. Can we find a way to clarify what we need and what we can use for our benefit? Or do we put a blind fold to data that comes from sources we do not "like". Even the CIA factbooks on countries can be good information, the UN and WorldBank reports as well. It was the World Bank's research team that first alerted on the dangers of desertification of rain forests in the Amazon. They still funded the destruction of the rain forest and fired the "whistle blower", after they had published the report!
There will never be a good and bad reality, it is what it is. How we understand it and utilize the information about it is what really matters. How we, collectively, can engage in discussion and find ways to decide on a course of action. As equals among equals it is central we engage in such a practice. The more we can decide on our own lives the less "they" can decide for us.
Whether we like it or not "they" are organized and act collectively. "They" meet and decide at various levels. As individuals we are powerless to affect their decisions pertaining to our lives.
And the editors of this book by no means can be part of "them". This by default does not mean they necessarily are part of "us".
This discussion may have been derailed from the object of the forum/blog/institute to areas of philosophical/theoretical inquiry. What scientists do within this system may not be directly of interest but what they produce collectively may be of interest to us collectively.
Can anyone summarize the scientific knowledge of each and every scientific research area/specialty? Only they (the specialists) may be able to decode and transform this knowledge to be utilized in a cross-disciplinary manner. They will never do this, even if someone was to pay them to do it. And even if they did, what percentage would be of interest to us? I would expect a small amount. What usually happens is that private interests employ scientists to summarize this information and somehow they resell this information as products or services.
So what we need to do is identify areas of interest in an organized manner and see what our needs for scientific information is. Then deal with the problem of finding it if it exists or try to create research questions.
An institute's member, a student!
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