“…science has always been, and always will be, inextricable from the cultural matrix of power, prestige, and politics that is the source of its cultural authority. As such, science will always be in an important position to defend the status quo - whether it is the racial hygiene of Hitler, the Lamarckian genetics of Stalin, or the Anglo-American social Darwinism of the late nineteenth century. That doesn’t make it bad - any more than the discovery of antibiotics and microwaves makes science good. But it also doesn’t make science value neutral; rather, it makes science strongly value laden, and in ways that merit detailed examination.”

Why I am Not a Scientist: Anthropology and Modern Knowledge (p 70) by Jonathan Marks

Science is a human endeavor, and thus it cannot be devoid of morality, responsibility, meaning, value, or self-interest. The opposite idea, that science transcends the values, interests, or politics of its practitioners, is largely a self-interested image developed in the twentieth century.

(via thenoobyorker)

One thing that continues to amaze me in the liberal arts is how many political scientists, sociologists and philosophers just accept the construction of science as beyond social values rather than influenced by and a product of those values. They accept that framing then reject science as incapable of addressing questions of morality.

There is a disturbing trend for compartmentalization among academic disciplines…well…among many things in US culture, that seems to be the source of a great deal of trouble in finding effective solutions to the issues that we face as a society.

(via telegantmess)

moniquill: [Green text on black: Religion teaches children that they should be filled with shame. animated,nebula-filled ext on black: Science teaches children that they are made of stars.] soylenth: Fucking A. The above statement is true only for certain values of ‘religion’ - but yeah, those values are pretty widespread. Pretty much. Which religion? That repressed, world-denying aberration of history that got managed to infect the rest of the world with it’s ideas and worldview? But then again, which thing you call “science”?

moniquill:

[Green text on black: Religion teaches children that they should be filled with shame. animated,nebula-filled ext on black: Science teaches children that they are made of stars.]

soylenth:

Fucking A.

The above statement is true only for certain values of ‘religion’ - but yeah, those values are pretty widespread.

Pretty much. Which religion? That repressed, world-denying aberration of history that got managed to infect the rest of the world with it’s ideas and worldview?

But then again, which thing you call “science”?

neuropsy: Floating Maze Optical Illusion The image is static, your vision processing is not. If anyone attempts to actually do this, grab a barf bag. What I found interesting was that when I tried solving it, the sections I was concentrating on weren’t moving at all, while the ones in my peripheral vision were.

neuropsy:

Floating Maze Optical Illusion

The image is static, your vision processing is not.

If anyone attempts to actually do this, grab a barf bag.

What I found interesting was that when I tried solving it, the sections I was concentrating on weren’t moving at all, while the ones in my peripheral vision were.

bulhana:

youarenotyou:

emotion and opinion do not influence truth in the hard sciences

whoaaaa hold up. this isn’t true at all. “scientific truth” (and the notion that it is always objective and uninfluenced by status quo beliefs) has been used throughout history to justify racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression…

this, yeah.

And there’s a difference between “what the evidence suggests” and “what we do with the evidence”.

After all, the thing we call “science” is a collection of mental models that, yes, tries to reflect how the universe works as closely as humanly possible. The problem with that? Is that it’s a collection of mental models that run in human brains.

Run through a series of experiments that exploit gaps in human perception — the one with the basketballers is famous, as is the one about the human faces is also worth a look — and you’ll get the idea that your perception of reality is false.

“But those are cognitive illusions,” I hear some of you say. “I know my emotions and opinions; they don’t get in the way of science.”

(Please reconsider that belief)

But that’s beside the point: the reasons why I showed you those experiments was because those effects persist, even when you know those things happen. Your reality is constructed — never, for a minute, were you a perfect observer of objective reality. And if you can’t be right about even the most basic things — like, say, the existence of a person in a gorilla suit — what makes you think you’d be able to easily recognise your privilege, which is invisible to you, and is affirmed on a day-to-day, moment-to-moment basis?

(Source: thenameoftheworms)