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From: edwardsg@cc4.crl.aecl.ca
Subject: RE: Why scientists popularize premature speculations?
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Date: Wed, 30 Nov 1994 20:29:44 GMT
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		Women cries "Elvis kidnapped my baby!"

		Aliens havign secret meetings with Clinton!

		Small mass for electron-neutrino measured!

		Penrose proves machines incapable of thought!

		Historians prove Special Relativity a hoax!

Will reading this newspaper really contribute to the education of the 
John and Jane Q. Public? Would *you* spend 20% of your tax dollars towards
the support of this research?

Is Science merely a matter of opinion?  Are all theories equally valid?
There is a distinct trend amoung science historians along these lines.  
Science is presented as simply a structure of rationalizations supporting the
biases of the group in power.  James Burke, for example, writes ...

From 'The Day the Universe Changed', p334-337

"Myths provide structures which give cause-and-effect reaons for the existence
of phenomena.  So does science."

"[Science] is not objective and impartial, since every observation
 it makes of nature is impregnated with theory."

"...since 'theory' creates facts, and facts prove the theory, the argument of
science is circular."

"... science can only answer contemporary questions about a reality defined
in contemporary terms and investigated with contemporary tools."

And so on for a whole sickening chapter.  (The rest of the book is quite
enjoyable -- Burke writes well).

This attack is quite serious.  In the face of it, I think it is unethical for
scientists to hurt the whole body of science for personal gain by publishing
wild speculations as if they were important new breakthroughs.  Science is
helping to cut its own throat.

Geoff
