Science and human rights

This is one of the best articles I have every read, it is not merely good, it is magnificent. Excerpts below, however please read the whole thing.

...As Alan Cromer put it in his book Uncommon Sense: the Heretical Nature of Science: "All nonscientific systems of thought accept intuition, or personal insight, as a valid source of ultimate knowledge. Indeed, the egocentric belief that we can have direct, intuitive knowledge of the external world is inherent in the human condition. Science, on the other hand, is the rejection of this belief, and its replacement with the idea that knowledge of the external world can only come from objective investigation - that is, by methods accessible to all."

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What truly set Greece apart from other cultures was the respect granted the debater. Argumentative and logical skills were put on the same footing as courage and bravery in battle, and this factor stood out among ancient societies. "A debate is a competition of minds, in which contestants must counter one another with arguments designed to persuade their peers. The key words are competition, argument, persuasion, peers - all aspects of what we mean by objectivity, and, ultimately, science."(Cromer)

In science, as in debate, dissent must be met by beginning on common ground and carefully leading the critic step by step to a different conclusion - and being willing to do the same thing oneself. We're not searching for a final higher Authority above humanity, but a provisional common Consensus among equals. As Daniel Dennet might say, we're building cranes, not seeking skyhooks.

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Under the theory of authority, rights are seen as privileges or benefits granted from a greater power to a lesser, and they're secured by an ultimate promise of force. It begins with the given that it's the right of the ruler to rule, and the duty of the inferior to obey. ...

The second way to ground an understanding of human rights is to build it up from the bottom, from a rational analysis which engenders a broad negotiated consent. ... Philosophers such as John Locke changed the way we thought, by reasoning from authority to agreement as the basis for law and obligation.

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Science and democracy are interdependent, in that they both rely on many of the same assumptions about values and people - and thus entail the same kind of ethics. ...

First and foremost is the "habit of truth." From this comes a commitment to avoid self-deception as much as possible, and a sensitivity to how very easy it is to fool ourselves. We need checks and balances; we cannot test what is true by consulting no one but ourselves, and nothing but our own personal experiences and interpretations. Thus, a society of assumed equals is formed, bound to each other by a mutual obligation - or social contract -- to tell the truth. Peer review is not an afterthought of science, but indispensable.

As John Dewey once pointed out, science and democracy spring from the same soil. They both require open inquiry, diversity, respect for logic and evidence, and an awareness of the tentative nature of all knowledge. Both allow the empowerment and participation of ordinary people within a disciplined process; both test results by consequences, and allow for self-correction. Both rely on arguments capable of convincing their public. And both science and democracy assume a common ground of equality between their members.

Neither system can hold an authority or dogma as "sacred." Therefore, they value originality - which is a departure from most of human history, where originality was not seen as growth or improvement, but a sign of decay, or disobedience from an original perfection. Progress is a relatively new ideal. So is tolerance. Above all, both science and democracy are social systems that respect - and require -- dissent.

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Contrary to some of the modern apologists, then, it doesn't seem to me that a real foundation for human rights can be firmly grounded in any belief system ultimately based on mysticism. Benevolence and fairness - certainly - love and kindness - sure - but a system that relies on hierarchal and elitist claims of connection to a sacred authority will end up being closed and divisive as soon as it meets with dissent. It can't place and meet its critics on an even ground, because it's modeled on higher and lower, Enlightened and Unenlightened, parent and child, king and subject, God and Man. And where there is the authority of certainty, there is no need for - or possibility of -- debate.

Chris Comer's Fight vs Creationism in Texas

Only in Texas could the state science director be fired for insisting on teaching only good science.

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TCS

Texas Citizens for Science was formed in January, 2003, to promote the use of accurate and reliable science in Texas public education, government, and institutions.
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Fourth, Republican Governor Rick Perry, Republicans in the Texas Legislature, and Republicans on the State Board of Education are currently attempting to completely reform the character of Texas public education in far-reaching ways. Teacher qualifications have already been weakened so that new teachers are no longer required to have the usual Education School pedagogical training. Abstinence-only sex education was recently mandated in health textbooks. School financing will be significantly changed, perhaps in ways that inhibit communities from raising property taxes to adequately support their local schools, and some districts may not sufficiently funded as in the past. More ominously, Republicans hope to add vouchers for religious and private schools, and hope to create virtual charter schools to support home-schooling at state expense. These new state-funded vouchers and virtual schools would not be subject to the same curriculum and instructional requirements as the public schools. Since religious schools and home schools almost all intentionally use curricula that distort modern science in favor of non-scientific religious beliefs such as creationism, intelligent design, flood geology, and a young Earth, some of these proposals will greatly damage reliable science education in Texas. Since many thousands of Texas students--who now receive an adequate if not exemplary science education--would find themselves subject to inferior faith-based pseudoscientific instruction under the new Republican plan for Texas public schools, this issue must be taken up by Texas Citizens for Science. (Note added, Jan. 2005: TCS is still working on this one!)

TEA Director of Science Forced to Resign

A Report of Texas Citizens for Science
by Steven Schafersman

November 29, 2007

True Reason for the Forced Resignation
Thus, it is easy to conclude that Chris was forced to resign because someone wanted her out of the TEA--not because she violated a formal written policy, but because she DID violate the preposterous and unethical verbal policy of neutrality to Creationism. I doubt that this policy is written anywhere, but I hope another FOIA request will reveal its official existence. Reporters should interview Associate Commissioner Susan Barnes about her September address to TEA staff. She may still have her notes available (unless she has shredded them, which has been the official TEA policy since...September). A reporter should read back to her what Monica Martinez wrote, and ask Associate Commissioner Barnes to explain why violating a policy that the TEA "must remain neutral" on--not publicizing or seeming to "endorse" a group that "opposes teaching creationism"--is the same as "you are not to communicate in writing or otherwise with anyone outside the agency in any way that might compromise the transparency and/or integrity of the upcoming TEKS development and revision process." I, for one, can't see that these are the same thing, but apparently Monica Martinez and Susan Barnes think they are.

Bush War on Science Continues

GW Bush has vetoed a bill that would give NIH an additional $1 billion per year, raising the budget from $29 billion to $30 billion; saying that Congress is on a "spending spree." Yet he continues to fund a war of idiocy to the tune a over a billion a week.

The bill, which was passed by Congress last week, sought to increase NIH funding by about $1 billion from a 2007 budget of about $29 billion to a 2008 budget of about $30 billion.
In a statement released by the White House after Bush vetoed the bill, the president decried the Democrat-led Congress for engaging in what he called a "spending spree," and said that the legislative majority was "acting like a teenager with a new credit card."
The bill, H.R.3043, also sought to bolster the budgets of the departments of Labor and Education, and carried a request for a total of $150.7 billion. Since its introduction in July, Bush has said he would veto the bill because it overshot his own budget recommendations.
"We were hoping that [Bush's veto] wouldn't be the case," Carrie Wolinetz, Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) spokesperson, told The Scientist. "But the threat had been there."
The NIH budget has been stagnant over the past few years, with government funding increasing by only about $1.4 billion between 2003 and 2006.
The vetoed bill also included a provision requiring
NIH-funded researchers to post the full text of their research papers on the National Library of Medicine's publicly accessible PubMed Central website within a year of publication. This provision survived an attack by Republican Senator James Inhofe in October to remain intact in the final version of the bill sent to the president.
The bill cleared the House of Representatives only three votes shy of the two-thirds majority it would have needed to avoid Bush's veto. As H.R.3043 returns to Capitol Hill, where legislators will hold a veto override vote, Wolinetz said that FASEB will continue encouraging its 80,000-strong membership to urge their legislators to support the bill and overturn the presidential veto.

The Republican War on Science

Science has never been more crucial to deciding the political issues facing the country. Yet science and scientists have less influence with the federal government than at any time since the Eisenhower administration.
In the White House and Congress today, findings are reported in a politicized manner; spun or distorted to fit the speaker’s agenda; or, when they’re too inconvenient, ignored entirely. On a broad array of issues—stem cell research, climate change, abstinence education, mercury pollution, and many others—the Bush administration’s positions fly in the face of overwhelming scientific consensus.

US Government is Threatening to shut Down Arecibo Observatory

I just can't belive how bad our government is; From Pharyngula:

Where could we possibly find $4 million?

Category: Politics • Science

Posted on: September 23, 2007 4:00 AM, by PZ Myers

Hmmm. Estimates of the cost of the war in Iraq range from $4.4 to 7.1 billion per month. If I assume about $5 billion, it looks like we're throwing away about $7 million per hour in that effort; so it looks like a little bit more than a half-hours worth of bloody war costs us $4 million. So let's just stop for about 40 minutes, OK?

What was the point of that calculation? The government is threatening to shut down the Arecibo Observatory unless they can cough up $4 million dollars for its operating budget for the next three years. Wow.

The National Science Foundation, which has long funded the dish, has told the Cornell University-operated facility that it will have to close if it cannot find outside sources for half of its already reduced $8 million budget in the next three years — an ultimatum that has sent ripples of despair through the scientific community.

Shall we trade three years of science for less than an hour's worth of war? That sounds like a no-brainer to me. The observatory doesn't even kill anybody in normal operation. Or is that considered a strike against it?

Just adding to my labels.

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