Genetic Variation (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Saturday, September 25, 2010, 20:37 (5172 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

I don't think science is evil. I said I think scientist are sloppy. Science is inanimate, unthinking, inert, a method, an idea, a tool. A gun is not evil, ignorant, or sloppy, the person making it or the person using it is. An ink pen can kill, that doesn't make the pen evil. 
> -Right; and I'm saying that scientists aren't sloppy--that they're focused on their goal and their project(s). Ideally bringing together people of vastly different disciplines can fix alot of error; again in Software QA, best practice is that all artifacts are tested by someone from a different department. (QA, in this case.) You make an unfounded assumption; that maybe by poking and prodding a little more, they would have figured out the issue with the bees. This isn't the case. -And to me, stalling or stopping a research project purely on the grounds that its long-term consequences are unknown directly translates to a safe, bland, and coddled society where innovation stops. We could all learn to live with a little more danger, my friend! -
> Ultimately, time, money, and the human factor are the biggest causes of scientific error. I still stand by the statement that just because we CAN doesn't mean we SHOULD. As has been pointed out, that is a problem for philosophers, not scientist.-It's a normative question. And I still say (firmly) that we won't learn anything by deciding not to act on the "CANs." Because we can, we must. Else how will progress be made? How can you "control" science when the long-term outcomes are unknown? Science should work unhindered, with society directing the use of its tools and findings; which really--is exactly what we have today, just with a strangling level of regulations.-What do you really think we could do differently? What you define as "sloppy" I define as men and women working on the cutting edge, where they themselves don't even know what the future brings. It is not the job of the scientists to think about the implications of their work; THAT is what philosophers are for.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"