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This is a fascinating article, and stands on its own merits. Go read it. The point I'd like to make though is that sometimes we use science to justify intolera
by moomin 12y ago
This is a fascinating article, and stands on its own merits. Go read it.
The point I'd like to make though is that sometimes we use science to justify intolerance, and time and again the science has caught up with what people have reported as their own life experience.
- Alex3917 12y ago> time and again the science has caught up with what people have reported as their own life experience. The problem is that most people's life experiences seemingly justify intolerance, in the sense that most people's experiences of most things are fairly typical. It's a serious epistemological problem with science, and is one of the major reasons why using science alone to create legislation is problematic.
- jklinger410 12y ago>sometimes we use science to justify intolerance, and time and again the science has caught up with what people have reported as their own life experience. Do you have any examples of this?
- Jtsummers 12y agobennetfeely in a cousin post has a good Wikipedia link on it. At different times in history racism has been justified by religious and (then current) scientific thinking on biology and (possibly) evolution. It's been used to justify slavery and genocide or the general subjugation of nations of people.
- haberman 12y ago> The point I'd like to make though is that sometimes we use science to justify intolerance What? How can discovering the natural laws of the universe be a justification for intolerance?
- bennettfeely 12y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism
- haberman 12y agoI see that there is a history. But science, by its nature, is descriptive, not prescriptive. It describes how the world is, not how it ought to be. Pretend for a second that science discovered convincing/rigorous evidence that white people were less intelligent genetically than other races. That isn't justification for intolerance against white people. We get to choose our values as a society, independently of the reality of the world around us. Science is a poor justification for intolerance, no matter what arguments people may attempt to make.
- Jtsummers 12y agoPeople have used what they believe to be true from either actual scientific evidence or a particularly bizarre/inept interpretation of scientific evidence to justify their actions. Science is descriptive, but people turn it into a prescription for how to do or deal with X. Whatever X may be. People read the scientific report saying that a glass of red wine has some heart health benefits and they start drinking (or justifying the drinking they already did). That's at least a benign (assuming they don't go overboard on the drinking) example. At points in history, and those points are described in the linked article, people believed numerous things about the various "races". They based this on scientific or pseudo-scientific findings of the time, that often fit their pre-conceived notions. They used this to justify their prescribed solutions. Whether it was slavery, subjugation or genocide. It is a poor justification for intolerance, and that's part of what the original poster was pointing out. But just because it's a poor justification doesn't mean it hasn't been done. People (as a collective) are not inherently rational or logical. They're easily led by the nose by charismatic speakers and those skilled in rhetoric. They want to believe they're special or that someone else is to blame and when someone presents something that helps them believe that they lap it up. It's happened throughout history, and it'll continue through the future. The best we can hope for is that our understanding of the universe and nature casts light on more things so those that would abuse it have fewer shadows to hide in.
- blueflow 12y agoScience is just a tool for gaining data. How you interpret this data is a totally different world.
- jcromartie 12y agoWe should not use science to justify intolerance of minority sexual identities. But we should also not use it to justify intolerance of people who express things in terms of the normal (in the statistical sense) gender distribution of male and female. For example, this criticism of a woman expressing thoughts on her own experiences: http://jezebel.com/kirsten-dunst-thinks-ladies-in-relationships-should-wif-1557845533 http://jezebel.com/kirsten-dunst-thinks-ladies-in-relationsh...