From: Robin Hanson (rhanson@gmu.edu)
Date: Sat Jun 14 2003 - 07:12:54 MDT
On 6/14/2003, Dehede011@aol.com wrote:
>hal@finney.org writes:
> >On this list we claim to be willing to explore novel technologies.
> >Yet we engage in exactly the same styles of pointless rhetorical
> battling that
> >you can find in any other forum on the net. What is Extropian about how we
> >handle political disagreements? Nothing. We just yell at each other.
>
> We seem to get so oriented toward the hard sciences that we forget
>there is a whole world of philosophy, political science, theology and
>goodness
>knows what else out in the real world that is derived and discussed in a
>rational and reason based way. Science can lay claim to much but not to
>being the
>only reason based field is not a claim science can sustain.
> We fall for every con artist that comes along with three shells and a
>pea once we get outside the field of hard science. We truly need a broader e
>ducation for our scientists -- a scientist has to fill many roles besides
>scientist.
Let me suggest the main problem is that people don't realize that there really
are such things as social sciences, which can be just as "scientific" as other
"sciences", but are far less deferred to. The public can read that a
physicist says some weird thing or another and the usual reaction is "how
fascinating, I didn't know that", even if they have little idea what it means,
but if a social scientist says some well established thing that goes against
popular wishes, such as that a minimum wage raises unemployment, the reaction
will be a quick dismissal. Alas, one of the myths of democracy is that there
should be no social experts, so that every thought that occurs to anyone on
social issues is as valid as anything any "expert" says. It's just not so.
> Eventually I pursued an MBA at the University of Chicago. I was sick
>of seeing engineers, chemists, & phycists in manufacturing companies stuck in
>a corner while people with half their intelligence made the important
>decisions. (Oh, I forgot the occasional biologist)
People within the physical sciences people tend to believe that there are few
smart people outside them, and that if physical scientists would just take a
little time to study other subjects, they could quickly straighten things out.
It's really just simple arrogance.
>
Robin Hanson rhanson@gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu
Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323
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