Conservative pundits of a religious bent periodically criticize Enlightenment rationalism and the scientific world-view as presumptuous, inadequate, or dangerous. (Leftist believers are hardly immune from science condescension. In his new book Reason, Faith, and Revolution, Terry Eagleton opines that the Apocalypse is “far more likely to be the upshot of technology than the work of the Almighty”—a nonsensical position if one believes in divine omniscience and omnipotence.)
The current fury over government-subsidized medicine, alleged rationing, and end-of-life health care has been made possible, however, only because science has pursued a “culture of life” with patient rigor and dedication, allowing human beings to keep each other alive long past the sell-by date of decaying organs and a fragile nervous system. The parade of horribles that Enlightenment naysayers usually trot out—mostly Nazi eugenics and possible atomic warfare—is short compared to the astounding benefits that scientific skepticism and the demand for empirical proof have showered upon humanity.
I have carefully read the so-called VA End of Life brochure and found it to be rational and very helpful personally. As gov. Lamm argued years ago, when people are “past the sell-by date” they should step aside and make room for the living. My intellectual mentor, Garrett Hardin, and his wife lived that to their end.
It’s true that the Enlightenment can claim credit for much of the scientific advances of the last several centuries and the amelioration of the general condition of man. But not because it embraced a “culture of life”. If the Enlightenment can be said to have a culture, it is a “culture of efficiency.”
By making efficiency – what “works” – the highest, and perhaps only universally recognized value, the Englightenment swept away all the traditional impediments to scientific advancement and social reform. A great deal of good came from this, but we can also recognize its latent dangers. Is there a point at which holding efficiency to be the highest value becomes destructive rather than productive of the human good?
The Enlightenment turned its back on the old Greek philosophy for the sake of progress, but for some reason held on to Hippocrates. It was only a matter of time before Hippocrates was called before the bar and asked to justify himself in Enlightenment terms, which of course he can’t, as the comments from Ivan K. and Louis A. illustrate.
Granny is wrong if she doesn’t think the Enlightenment is responsible for her drugs and hip replacement, but she’s right to sense the Enlightenment is ulitmately unable to provide a reason for keeping her around so she can use them.
Regardless of the efficiency of health care rationing or the selfishness of boomers, the fact is the gov’t forced them to pay for Medicare through payroll deductions and they are in fact the generation that includes the folks who developed the awesome medical and scientific advances to treat many ailments. Naturally they would like to avail themselves of the fruit of their forced contributions and the civilization they supported. Of course some may think it better for these heretofore productive seniors to get out of the way so that the gov’t will have enough money to pay Medicaid benefits for the indigent illegals who never paid into the system nor worked to discover nor deliver our great medical technology.
Heather Mac Donald is attacking a straw man. The target of conservatives, now and historically, has been not science, but scientism; not rationality, but rationalism. I think this is generally clear from context even when the word “science” is used by conservatives, going all the way back to Maistre.
Ahem: Rationalism.
As for scientism, I’d like to know what reality you’re positing we can know about through means other than scientific inquiry.
Sorry, your question was too stupid to merit a response.
Which is your tacit acknowledgment that there is no such reality.
Science is all-inclusive. Deal with it.
You’ve got me wrong ( no surprise ). “Granny” can hang on as long as she pleases. I just want the right to painlessly go into that gentle Night, without it being illegal, and with the best medical assistance I can obtain. So, what’s your problem with that?
I guess I did misread you. I thought your concern was that the aging baby boomers would soak up all the medical resources. Euthanasia will solve that only if enough of the old folks are done away with – whether they want to go or not.
It’s not illegal to go painlessly into that good night. A doctor can give you as many drugs as you need to make your situation painless. He just can’t deliberately kill you, or help you kill yourself.
First, science isn’t an enemy to freedom — but scientism is. Read Hayek’s The Counter-Revolution of Science. As Hayek points out, scientism fused with socialism — like what we will see if any of the various thick “health care reform” proposals are enacted, is particularly dangerous.
Second, once we get to the point of balancing the social good of deliberating killing or mutilating people — eugenics and euthanasia — with the benefits to be accrued by such policies, we have already walked a long way down the road to barbarism Hayek warns us about in his work. Allowing assisted suicide for those who choose it is one thing, to adopt as policy involuntary euthanasia and eugenics is something else. Something antithetical to the traditions of liberty that have long informed the Anglo-American approach to law and government authority.
According to dictionary.com, scientism is
1. the style, assumptions, techniques, practices, etc., typifying or regarded as typifying scientists.
2. the belief that the assumptions, methods of research, etc., of the physical and biological sciences are equally appropriate and essential to all other disciplines, including the humanities and the social sciences.
Well, count me as a believer. I don’t see how this has anything to do with socialsm, Nazism, or any other nasty philosophy. It is very possible to believe in liberty, even be a libertarian, and be a fan of science. In fact, many are.
Very well John (Caledonian is also invited). Would you please demonstrate, according to the assumptions and “methods of research” used in the physical and biological sciences, that liberterianism is true? I’ll even be help you get started by typing up some old notes on the scientific method from my first undergrad biology course!
Step 0: Initial observations
-Make observations and descriptions of a phenomenon or a group of phenomenon
Step 1: Problems
-Identify problems and questions
-Collect information about the phenomena
-Form a hypothesis to explain the phenomena (hypotheses must be reasonable, testable, and repeatable)
-Make predictions based on the hypothesis
Step 2: Procedure
-Test the hypothesis
-Null hypothesis: a statement that you would like to reject based on your experiment
-Alternative hypothesis: a statement that is usually opposite to the null hypothesis and that you would like the results from your experiments to support
Design the experiment
-Test the difference between the treatment group and the control group
Control group: the control group is the baseline so that you can single out the factor your think responsible for the phenomenon under study
Step 3: Observations and Data
-Conduct the experiments and make more observations
-Assemble data and graphs
-Conduct statistical analysis if appropriate
Step 4: Conclusions
-Support or reject the hypothesis based on data and statistical tests
-Note: We can never “prove” hypotheses because of other possible reasons that could have caused the same results. We can only reject or fail to reject hypotheses
-Report and publish your results and conclusions
-If necessary or desired, the hypotheses can be modified and retested
Mike I: I never claimed or implied that libertarianism can be proven by science. I was merely pointing out that no other moral philosophy can be proven with science either (yet). When someone says, “When people trust science too much, it leads to [pick some terrible ideological movement]”, they are wrong.
Science tells us why the planets move the way they do, and why we feel bad when we are sick, which are traditional scientific questions. Science is also giving us answers to social science questions, like “How are people different and what causes those differences?”, and “What are the factors that encourage economic growth in a nation?” Science is even helping figure out artistic questions like why we think of certain sounds as beautiful or not, or why people like looking at landscapes. The fact is, if you want to know something, the best way to try to find the answer is to use the scientific method that you outlined so well above.
If we ever do find answers to questions of morality, they will come from reason and observation: AKA philosophy and science
Shouldn’t you make sure that I support that claim before asking me to demonstrate it?
Now, if you wanted me to demonstrate that self-organization in a system will occur under the right circumstances, that’s both much easier and something I agree with. Many people would confuse affirming that claim with libertarianism or even Libertarianism.
I guess I sort of fit the description of little-L, but it’s not a good fit. And I’m just not a big-L at all.