Nov 26, 2019 03:32 AM
(This post was last modified: Nov 26, 2019 03:32 AM by C C.)
Jeffrey Epstein and the Decadence of Science
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cro...f-science/
EXCERPT (John Horgan): As World War I wound down, the gloomy German scholar (is there any other kind?) Oswald Spengler argued in The Decline of the West that civilizations, like organisms, pass through a natural life cycle. [...] Spengler prophesied that western science would enter this phase toward the end of the 20th century.
I’ve been brooding over Spengler’s prophecy lately, because science, I fear, has entered its decadent phase. Signs of decline abound. First, as I have pointed out, the productivity of applied science has slumped over the past few decades. [...] Then there is the replication crisis ... The health-care industry may be especially prone to corruption, because the financial incentives are so enormous. ... As genuine progress has stalled, hype has surged...
The so-called pure sciences aren’t so pure either. Prominent physicists persist in promoting glitzy but unconfirmable ideas ... In mind-science, theorists advocate models--based on quantum mechanics and information theory...
As warnings about global warming become more dire, scientists retreat into escapist fantasies. They envision establishing colonies on Mars. They preach the imminence of the Singularity, in which we become superhuman cyborgs or download our psyches into cyberspace, where we can live forever. Some pundits propose that we are already living in cyberspace, a computer simulation constructed by God-like aliens. A few decades ago, these science fictions were fun. But now, as temperatures and sea levels climb, they strike me as, well, decadent. There is a whiff of end times in the air.
The rotten cherry atop this mess is the scandal involving Jeffrey Epstein ... Epstein cozied up to leading universities and scientists, who welcomed his attention. They took his cash, rode on his jet and flocked to his parties and conferences, even after his 2008 conviction for having sex with underage girls.
The Epstein scandal is just a symptom of a deeper ethical sickness. Is accepting gifts from a sex offender really worse than taking money from the Pentagon? Or the Koch brothers, who thwarted efforts to combat climate change? Or the Sacklers, whose firm, Purdue Pharma, catalyzed the opioid epidemic? In our hyper-capitalist world, careerism, ambition and greed trump ethics and the idealistic pursuit of truth for its own sake—or for the benefit of others.
Perhaps even more than Spengler, an earlier German prophet foresaw these dismal trends. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx (and Engels) acknowledged that capitalism had brought about extraordinary advances in the arts and sciences. But Marx prophesied that capitalism, by devaluing everything except profits, would inevitably self-destruct, dragging the rest of bourgeois culture down with it. But unlike Marx and Spengler, I don’t think we’re doomed. In fact, science, in spite of its troubles, can help save us... (MORE - details)
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cro...f-science/
EXCERPT (John Horgan): As World War I wound down, the gloomy German scholar (is there any other kind?) Oswald Spengler argued in The Decline of the West that civilizations, like organisms, pass through a natural life cycle. [...] Spengler prophesied that western science would enter this phase toward the end of the 20th century.
I’ve been brooding over Spengler’s prophecy lately, because science, I fear, has entered its decadent phase. Signs of decline abound. First, as I have pointed out, the productivity of applied science has slumped over the past few decades. [...] Then there is the replication crisis ... The health-care industry may be especially prone to corruption, because the financial incentives are so enormous. ... As genuine progress has stalled, hype has surged...
The so-called pure sciences aren’t so pure either. Prominent physicists persist in promoting glitzy but unconfirmable ideas ... In mind-science, theorists advocate models--based on quantum mechanics and information theory...
As warnings about global warming become more dire, scientists retreat into escapist fantasies. They envision establishing colonies on Mars. They preach the imminence of the Singularity, in which we become superhuman cyborgs or download our psyches into cyberspace, where we can live forever. Some pundits propose that we are already living in cyberspace, a computer simulation constructed by God-like aliens. A few decades ago, these science fictions were fun. But now, as temperatures and sea levels climb, they strike me as, well, decadent. There is a whiff of end times in the air.
The rotten cherry atop this mess is the scandal involving Jeffrey Epstein ... Epstein cozied up to leading universities and scientists, who welcomed his attention. They took his cash, rode on his jet and flocked to his parties and conferences, even after his 2008 conviction for having sex with underage girls.
The Epstein scandal is just a symptom of a deeper ethical sickness. Is accepting gifts from a sex offender really worse than taking money from the Pentagon? Or the Koch brothers, who thwarted efforts to combat climate change? Or the Sacklers, whose firm, Purdue Pharma, catalyzed the opioid epidemic? In our hyper-capitalist world, careerism, ambition and greed trump ethics and the idealistic pursuit of truth for its own sake—or for the benefit of others.
Perhaps even more than Spengler, an earlier German prophet foresaw these dismal trends. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx (and Engels) acknowledged that capitalism had brought about extraordinary advances in the arts and sciences. But Marx prophesied that capitalism, by devaluing everything except profits, would inevitably self-destruct, dragging the rest of bourgeois culture down with it. But unlike Marx and Spengler, I don’t think we’re doomed. In fact, science, in spite of its troubles, can help save us... (MORE - details)