Morals and Evil Felines

Yay! A glorious weekend in which to slave away at blog posts! Question number 1:

At the beginning of the semester, the class, in general, expressed a great deal of disdain for NASA. NASA is the societal level technology driver for the US and arguably the world. What has lead to this disdain and mistrust? What would it take for NASA to regain your respect?

I am fascinated by almost everything (probably because I'm just dumb), so I'm ok with NASA taking my tax dollars simply for the sake of accumulating knowledge. But also, if we continue to use the earth as if it's disposable, we're going to need the information NASA collects for our survival. We're going to need it anyway when the sun dies (the Nahuas were right all along!), because it will fry the earth to a crisp when it expands.
I think the reason we don't have a lot of interest in NASA anymore is because we no longer have an enemy to compete with. When the U.S. and the Soviets were escalating the space race, the government and people were all for exploration and discovery, although it wasn't really about these things. So, as soon as we didn't have that excuse anymore, we wondered why we were so interested in the first place. Plus the whole thing about insane astronauts driving 900 miles wearing a diaper to kill a romantic rival really looks bad.

Next question:

No one has answered Adam's question fitfully - not even Adam. Do technics that are designed and created for the soul intention of doing something immoral inherently immoral themselves? Does form follow function? If the function is immoral, is the form as well? Can you come up with any other or "better" examples than a radar detector?

I don't think that objects created for an evil purpose are inherently evil. I think that humans are the only things capable of good and evil, and we sometimes try to project our human traits to other things. I have a cat and I often say that she is an evil little monster, but the cat isn't really bad. Humans tend to think of things in human terms, so when my cat leaps onto my face in the middle of the night, I might say she's mean, sadistic, and psychotic. However, the cat certainly doesn't think in terms of morals, so her evilness exists only in my own mind (at least I think so . . . ). I think it's the same kind of thing with radar detectors and nuclear bombs. We think of them in human terms, so our reaction is to call them evil or immoral, but these objects probably think in terms of good and evil even less than my cat.

If you're brave enough to gaze upon that pure, incarnated evil, here she is. . . .


Strikes fear into your heart, doesn't she? I really hope she never reads this. . . .

On to the next question:

How would you make an argument for sexual abstinence before marriage and faithful monogamy after marriage in the context of a natural law ethicist who argues from the viewpoint of evolutionary biology that man is driven to have sex with as many females as he can in order to propigate the species and that women perform similarly in order to propigate the species. Wouldn't abstinence and faithful monogamy lead to a contradiction of the natural right/need to procreate?

I think that if propagation of the species was all that was necessary, sexual promiscuity would certainly be acceptable. However, I think that the dimension of mental and emotional health are often overlooked. Yes, people are driven to propagate the species, but they (I exclude myself because I detest children and babies) are also driven to raise healthy young. So, yes, abstinence and monogamy go against the need to procreate as many children as possible, but they promote the social and mental well-being of the next generation. So from an evolutionary standpoint, it is better to produce few, healthy offspring than to produce many offspring who may have social or mental problems.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to make a phone call. The Bundle of Fur from Hades gets angry and accuses me of having a second cat if I don't talk to her at least once a day. . . .

Sleepy Scientific Thoughts

(This is way too late for my poor little insomniac self who hasn't had a good night's sleep in four days. But I'll have a go anyway!)


2. Is the scientific process fundamentally flawed?

Certainly. At best science is flawed because humans are a part of the scientific process and humans are fallible. We make assumptions we shouldn't make, we are often blinded by bias, our very presence may disrupt the experiment, and even when we're at our best, we still make errors. At worst, we can't trust science at all because how do we really know that our senses are reliable? Or if reality even exists and can be studied?

4. Is science controllable? Should it be? If so, by whom?

No, science is not controllable. We like to think it is, but it is not. We can't control what other people do with science and we can't control what influences science (like personal bias and politics, for example). Ideally, I think we could control science, but the world is not an ideal place. If someone were to decide that there are certain things which people just shouldn't know or use, there would always be someone else who would break the rules and do it anyway. And that puts the rule-followers at a great disadvantage.

7. It used to be that being a scientist was a big deal! People respected scientists. People valued a scientist's opinion and input. There were few professions more noble than dedicating your life to the advancement of science - not even being a medical doctor was more important! Our modern perception of a scientist is a pasty colored white male with thick glasses, a pocket protector, and no social skills. No one wants their opinion, let alone respects their opinion. Even you, as a class, expressed distrust of NASA - the US's leading science machine - and doubt in the value of the science being conducted by the organization. What changed? Can you point to a specific era in time? Why do we listen more to Al Gore than we do to leading scientist in climatology, biology and environmental science?

I once heard a quote from a naturalist named Gerald Durrell regarding his reluctance to be educated which went something like ". . . I liked being half-educated; you were so much more surprised at everything when you were ignorant." I think that once people knew more of the natural world, they were less impressed with new discoveries. Once we no longer valued knowledge for the sake of knowledge and were more concerned with the practical, we began to view scientists differently. As to our willingness to pay more attention to Al Gore than to proper scientists, I think the reason is simply that people are stupid. We are simply more inclined to pay attention to people who are famous (or beautiful).

Well, the meds are kicking in, so I'm off to bed. Goodnight.