Re: [xmca] Disgrace: How a giant of science was brought low | Focus | The Observer

E.
Please see responses below your questions.

On Oct 21, 2007, at 7:53 AM, E. Knutsson wrote:

> David P,
>
>
> 1) How would you define the dividing line between politics and
> science (“this
> is politics, not science”)?

Science is not the kind of activity people make to produce statements
like: "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not
true". That´s not the way hypotheses are tested and refuted.

>
>
> 2) How would you define free speech? You are criticizing scholars
> "trying to
> sell us the idea that opposing these remarks is an attack on free
> speech (in a
> similar manner the neoconservatives think that criticism of the
> government is
> unpatriotic)." It seems to me that these are incommensurable cases:
> the latter
> having actively tried to reduce free speech, the former having
> tried to extend
> it.
>
These are not incommensurable cases: both use the same rhetoric
strategy. They try to invoke universal values to patronize us. The
issue is not free speech: the issue is how they build a poisonous
argument. In one case, they use free speech (as they understand it)
to defend their intent to impose a conservative agenda, which is
based on pseudo-science; in the other case, there is an appellation
to national values to defend particular interests. In both cases, the
acts of speech are not based in the search for mutual understanding
but on the denial of the other. I would love to have time to connect
this with Habermas' take on communication.

>
> 3) Do we need “closets” (“he just went out of the closet as regards
> his
> political views”)? Are rigorous moral taboos desirable among
> scientists?

No taboos here: I think scientists are citizens as well and they have
to respond for their acts. That reminds me of famous Yale professor
(ex master of a residential college) which a few years ago was
caught in sexual misconduct with a child of New Haven he mentored
(plus storing of pornography in his lab computer). Some colleagues
said his contributions to science where so important that it would be
a great loss for society to put him in jail.

>
>
> 4) You consider “a mob reaction” as “the adequate response to
> prejudice.” Since
> every human being possesses prejudices to some extent and of some
> kind, it
> could be interesting to know what and whose prejudices deserve (or
> do not
> deserve) “a mob reaction.”
>

I consider that a reaction to prejudice is not only necessary but
also a healthy thing. I wish Nazi-scientists would have received a
strong civic reaction during those ominous times when they misused
genetics to denigrate humanity.

>
> 5) Are you advocating the view that there is only one, monolithic
> Truth (“We
> are not talking here about a guy that is defending a scientific
> truth, such as
> Galileo, Coppernicus, Bruno or many other real heroes”)?
>
I don´t think that Watson´s statements are comparable to a
heliocentric cosmology. The latter is, indeed, truth. Watson´s
statements have been refuted by a long list of scientists which have
been already referred in this thread.

>
> 6) Guilt by association: Should we stop reading Vygotsky due to the
> fact that
> the Marxist ideology he to some extent advocated or supported gave
> rise to one
> of the most brutal regimes in recorded history (“we are talking
> about a guy
> that is lending his scientific credentials to a way of thinking
> that supported
> appartheid and many other abhorrent policies in the US and
> elsewhere")?
>
I don´t understand the analogy, Eirik. As a good marxist, Vygotsky
was indeed a victim of stalinism himself and, indeed, he didn't allow
his scientific credentials to be used to denigrate others.
>
David
> Eirik.
>
> On 2007-10-21, at 03:37, David Preiss wrote:
>> It was not Watson´s first time:
>>
>> http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,2195980,00.html
>>
>> For those who want to skip the link, the essential paragraphs written
>> by Robin McKie in London and Paul Harris in New York say:
>> "Watson is renowned for his controversial views. He sees himself as a
>> free-thinker, though it must be admitted his ideas often simply seem
>> eccentric. In 1997, he suggested it would be acceptable to terminate
>> a foetus if it carried a gene that might mean the adult that grows
>> from it was gay. He has also suggested a link between sunlight and
>> libido. 'That is why you have Latin lovers. You've never heard of an
>> English lover,' he said. And Watson has also proposed that a foetus
>> destined to be 'stupid' should be aborted.
>>
>> Such maverick remarks led the journal Science to conclude, in 1990,
>> that 'to many in the scientific community, Watson has long been
>> something of a wild man, and his colleagues tend to hold their
>> collective breath whenever he veers from the script'. This track
>> record explains one intriguing feature of the Watson affair. Although
>> the Sunday Times carried the interview in which the scientist
>> outlined his disparaging views about black people, the paper kept his
>> remarks buried in its colour magazine.
>>
>> A story was offered to the Sunday Times newsdesk by magazine staff,
>> but was declined on the grounds that Watson had said such things in
>> the past, as indeed he had. Thus it was left to Simon Kelner, editor
>> of the Independent, to take Watson's claims and to run them as its
>> lead story on Wednesday, under the banner: 'Africans are less
>> intelligent that Westerners, says DNA pioneer'. In this way, Watson's
>> fate was sealed."
>>
>> More contextual info in the above link and in this one (which
>> includes more similar insensitive statements):
>>
>> http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/article3078966.ece
>>
>> There is a track of remarks he has made that show, beyond reasonable
>> doubt, he has a political agenda disguised as science.
>>
>> I am sure we will hear in the next few days of some (not necessarily
>> representative of their fields) evolutionary psychologists and
>> behavioral geneticists... trying to sell us the idea that opposing
>> these remarks is an attack on free speech (in a similar manner the
>> neoconservatives think that criticism of the government is
>> unpatriotic). Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio...
>>
>> David Preiss, Ph.D.
>> Subdirector de Extensión y Comunicaciones
>> Escuela de Psicología
>> Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile
>> Av Vicuña Mackenna 4860
>> Macul, Santiago
>> Chile
>>
>> Fono: 3544605
>> Fax: 3544844
>> e-mail: davidpreiss@uc.cl
>> web personal: http://web.mac.com/ddpreiss/
>> web institucional: http://www.epuc.cl/profesores/dpreiss
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>
> _______________________________________________
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David Preiss, Ph.D.
Subdirector de Extensión y Comunicaciones
Escuela de Psicología
Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile
Av Vicuña Mackenna 4860
Macul, Santiago
Chile

Fono: 3544605
Fax: 3544844
e-mail: davidpreiss@uc.cl
web personal: http://web.mac.com/ddpreiss/
web institucional: http://www.epuc.cl/profesores/dpreiss

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Received on Sun Oct 21 18:59 PDT 2007