Great Quote!

[Guest guest]

> > This

> > hit me like a lightbulb today as I realized this " punished by

> > rewards " idea is the answer to why scientists are some of the most

> > awful, venomous, and difficult to talk with when it comes to

> > alternative views.

>

> Actually, this is mostly true where there's lots and lots of money

> involved. Sure, sometimes there's venom and heated argument in

> physics (and to be fair sometimes big money is at stake there too) but

> the field is much more civil than medicine and nutrition tend to be.

> It's not universities per se that are the root of the problem so much

> as the co-opting of universities by big business. Though people will

> defend their prestige quite vigorously too... but again, the more

> legitimate the threat, the more vigorous and violent the defense. The

> only major exception I can think of to this relationship is genuine

> moral antipathy, and I'm not even sure that qualifies, because it only

> becomes aroused to violence (figurative and otherwise) when acts and

> beliefs which are believed to be deeply wrong are widespread and

> threaten to gain ascendence.

>

>

> -

Actually, I think intellectual vested interests play the predominant

role in keeping the status quo rather than continual open minded

testing when it comes to the physical sciences, and that sort of

vesting occurs in *all* the disciplines, while perhaps more pronounced

in some over others, and certainly is exacerbated by money. The

implications of that, and the idealized version of science that under

girds it, are far and deep, but probably best left for another thread.

On the other hand, this tendency gets really messy in the social

sciences, because of the *obvious* infusion of emotions, value

judgements and political ideologies into the scientific process. In

happens in the physical sciences but, in theory at least, is not so

obvious and can be more easily rooted out.

--

" Don't let anybody make you think that God chose America as his divine

messianic force, to be a sort of policeman of the whole world... "

- Luther King Jr.

" The individual who can do something that the world wants will, in the

end, make his way regardless of race. "

- Booker T. Washington (1856–1915)