[Peace-discuss] Undemocratic science

[Chas. 'Mark' Bee]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>
To: "Peace Discuss" <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2007 12:14 AM
Subject: [Peace-discuss] Undemocratic science


>    Wednesday, May 30, 2007
>    Regression on the Left
>    David F. Noble
>
> Sometimes the Left is its own worst enemy, particularly when it uses its 
> enemy’s tactics to silence internal dissent. In response to recent 
> challenges to the current crusade against global warming, this dogmatic 
> tendency of the left, here rooted in a naive scientism, has resurfaced 
> with a vengeance. In its resolute repudiation of corporate “deniers,” the 
> left has allied itself wholeheartedly with the “advocates,” adopting a 
> stridency intolerant of doubt or dissent. Those on the left who dare to 
> disagree are instantly denounced as deluded or, worse, deniers themselves. 
> Perhaps most importantly they are accused (by Justin Podur in his response 
> to challenges by Denis Rancourt, David Noble, and Alexander Cockburn) of 
> launching “an attack on science,” of adopting an “anti-science tone”, and 
> taking “anti-science positions.” George Monbiot, admitting his own 
> scientific incompetence, repeatedly derides Cockburn for not grounding his 
> dissenting views upon the allegedly irrefutable foundation of 
> "peer-reviewed scientific journals," for only then, he avers, could we be 
> sure "that they are worth discussing." The source of this new orthodoxy is 
> an exaggerated reverence for science, which has in fact marked socialism 
> since its inception, when supposed scientific verities served as the 
> antidote to religion and religion-based power. Among the earliest 
> socialists, for example, the followers of atheist Robert Owen, turned 
> their devotion from God to steampower: “science was heard and the savage 
> hearts of men were melted; the scabs fell from their eyes, a new life 
> thrilled through their veins, their apprehensions were enobled, and as 
> science spoke, the multitude knelt in love and obedience.” The so-called 
> “scientific socialism” of Marxism followed this furrow for over a century. 
> But such primitive faith in science has long since been powerfully 
> challenged on the left, by fifty years of sustained critical analysis of, 
> and direct confrontation with, the social construction and political 
> realities of presumedly objective scientific enterprise. It is thus indeed 
> remarkable, and alarming, how readily the left regresses into reflexive 
> reliance upon its formative substitute religion.

roflmao