What should the role of science be in government?

Message 90What holmes is saying (I hope!) is that, if we don't admit to some knowledge about the world, then we are forced to have an "ad-hoc nation", one where anything goes. Holmes seems to wants to use epistemic knowledge to put constraints on what beliefs are allowed and what beliefs are not.For example, (my emphasis)I agree, BUT we have to answer these questions:1. What matters are in the realm of "espstemic knowledge" ? Is it only the truth value of simple biological statements such as "little humans wrapped up inside sperm cells?" Or does it NECESSARILY extend to knowledge about "what it is to be a person."2. Who determines what is "epistemically known" ?3. What exactly is the role of that epistemic knowledge in government?Holmes, please correct me if I'm wrong in my interpretation of you. Admins... if this sounds formulated well enough... Coffee House I guess.This message has been edited by Ben, Sunday, 2005/09/11 07:09 AMThis message has been edited by Ben, Sunday, 2005/09/11 09:12 AM

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

Sorry for the late reply. This is close enough that its not worth arguing. I'd change "admit" since we did have problems about that term earlier, and just say "agree", and perhaps not so much "knowledge" as a "system for evaluating knowledge". Well to be nit picking, epistemology is the pursuit of knowledge and so may or may not have anything to do with metaphysical truths. That is we can have a system which allows us to say we know X, with full knowledge the system does not entail X being true. Hopefully it is, but we may not know that we know.Simple biological statements would fall under the scope of this. Of course the answer may be that we do not know. For example until Leeuwenhoek we could not actually have answered whether the 'humunculus' theory of sperm was valid or not in terms of knowledge. At this point, as long as one accepts modern scientific methodology as worthy of epistemic rulings, then we can say we do "know" that the humunculus theory is wrong."Personhood" is not an objective statement, but an agreed upon term with criteria. Although one can use our epistemology to answer whether criteria are met, the criteria themselves might change. Thus we may say that humunculus or not, a person is anything that is living tissue. Well as long as rules are agreed upon, and evidence is agreed upon, then anyone should be able to make that determination. Can people "cheat"? Yep. I would think its a good idea to have a group of people knowledgeable within any specific area to present the best state of knowledge in that specific area, for politicians to use.I believe there should be a separate branch of gov't called the informative branch, which provides the data for lawmakers and enforcers to use, as well as disseminate knowledge to the public. This would hamper the politically biased nature of intel gathering and dissemination as it is currently practiced.It would also allow people to actually call politicians on their BS. It is the basis for all sound decisions which require objective quantifications and qualifications. Not all decisions will require such knowledge, but most will.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Isn't that dangerous?Whoever controls the information controls the nation.

Interesting question. The fact is that I am not suggesting something that does not already exist. Right now information is collected and disseminated by various orgs, but all under control by either the executive or legislative branches.I am suggesting that that is a much more dangerous situation from having a separate branch of gov't which cannot be controlled directly and so influenced to support partisan policies, which collects and disseminates information.I am not suggesting that it be outside of the control of the populace, or that it be in charge of public thought. It is simply another check in the system, and one that has the freedom to review without threat of direct manipulation by politicians.One can even create it with a built in peer review process.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant by "information". I would have thought that a lot of the information used by a lawmaker comes from the media or from an investigation by the lawmaker's staff.

A good look at the Senate Commitee's report on Iraq intelligence failures will give an indication of how "information" is obtained and used by the gov't.Of course any member may initiate their own investigation using their own staff. However the collected "information" used by both legislative and executive bodies are from various fed orgs which are not wholly independent of those bodies.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

holmes,I had to really think to articulate this post. Take your time in replying. I don't worry about timing issues, so you don't need to either.Here's a brief summary of your position: Here's my issue: I think this is good. In #2 it's on our shoulders to really pin down what "simple biological statements" are (and really working out what is considered "simple" and what is not), but I think that can be done.On the other hand, as you identified, knowledge of "simple biological facts" is only going to get you so far. Many issues (including the one that led to this discussion) are outside of the realm of "simple biological facts." For example, Pulling from your post here and your posts in the abortion thread, I think you're saying that we can base a definition of "personhood" on "simple biological statements," and thus make "personhood" verifiable. The set of "simple biological statements" that constitute "personhood" can change, but the method of defining and verifying "personhood" would remain the same.I think it's a great suggestion, and I like how you made things very concrete. However, I believe the underlying problem of your suggestion is the same underlying problem that we saw in the abortion thread. How do we come up with a set of "simple biological facts" that we say constitutes personhood? I think we're back to the same problem we were at in the abortion thread--we're forced back to compromise. We have no objective, shared facts that address "personhood."
If we did, they would reside within the realm of #1. So, creation of the conditions for "personhood" fall back into compromise.Furthermore, I think this shows that any issue deemed outside of #1 (outside the realm of "simple biological statements") does not have objective, shared facts available. Thus, it consists in us, as a group of people with differing world views, creating definitions of the critical terms within these issues. In other words, I think we're back to simple compromise.Finally, I'd suggest that the majority of the higher-level concepts that we argue over cannot be addressed by "simple biological statements." Thus, even though I think you give a very good suggestion, I think it shows that science can only have a very limited role in government, because the sets of things we can really know thorough science are very limited.For me, this is the most important issue, so I'll focus on this one for now. I think your suggestions for #2 and #3 fall in line nicely with your #1, so even though I harbor unsure feelings about it (similar to nwr's thoughts), I'll think more and, if we get beyond this issue in #1, address it at another time.BenP.S. I found it embarrassing to be called "Farva/Ben". I'm changing my name back prematurely. This message has been edited by Ben, Wednesday, 2005/09/07 07:59 PM

Whatever you want me to call you I will call you. Name changes always confuse me as to what to do (or differences between screen name and sig). This sounds correct. I agree that definitions of personhood will end up being a case of compromise, but it is a wholly different one (to my mind) than compromising on the whether a fertilized egg has a soul and so is the equivalent of a grown person and killing it is murder.This latter compromise is a practical discussion of how we want to define personhood for ourself, in a consistent way that we can measure, and so apply rules.To this end I think RAZDs thread was fantastic. If you have not read it, I heartily recommend it. He argued that we could use our common criteria for defining living from dead persons, to generate consistent criteria to be applied to gestating organisms. That made quite a bit of sense.Some mistook that as defining the gestational organism as dead if it isn't a person, but that is not correct. It was simply looking at how we conceive of the end of personhood, in order to measure the presence or "beginning" of personhood, in organisms that are growing (rather than decaying). I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say very limited role. No science will give us a conclusion on what to do, that's for sure. But it can help us set choices and make consistent decisions. I don't think most gov't decisions are on such lofty concepts and so science will help generate useful material for discussion, perhaps the majority of discussion.The recent massive failures in intel, I believe show how much vital decisions rely on good information, and good science being the key to getting quality info... rather than relying on faith.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Oh... I think I must have been unclear about my position. I was trying to say that, like you, the actual beliefs of groups of people is NOT the important issue. It's coming to the table with differing needs. The compromise, just as you have outlined, is practical in nature. It has nothing to do with compromising beliefs or the such.So, I think we're basically in agreement then.Yet... I'm not sure this is the "right" direction to go in compromise. I think it's too close to "compromising" beliefs. There's no reason to think that people who are not basing their beliefs about truth on science would be willing to accept a compromise based in ... logic and science. In fact, because it's so close to compromising beliefs, I think they'd reject it basically out of hand.I'd rather see a compromise that is not set in changing understanding of "what a person is", but rather is involved soley in setting practical criteria of what a person is. I think having an underlying "understanding" or "reason" for the compromised terms is ... frankly, in practical terms, a problem. Because I think it hits too close to compromising beliefs, and that's something people will refuse to do. If there's no underlying "understanding" specified in the compromise, if you simply basically hold an auction on the indiviual terms of personhood, I think you're more apt to actually find a compromise than hit a deadlock.Not sure if that made sense. I'm not seeing it. If I'm right about being unable to use science within compromise, then, as only able to limit the scope of who we compromise with. All higher-level issues--abortion, death penalty, homosexual marriage--go to the table for compromise with essentially NO forced input from science. People come to the table with whatever understanding they have, and they need not change their understanding.And really, I don't think science has a place in compromise. Science is a method for collecting data and developing models of the world. It's not a tool for bartering truth; there is no such tool. That's why it's important to stay away from anything that resembles compromising belief.Ben

My first question would be if you read RAZD's thread. I don't see how what he suggested would force anyone to compromise their beliefs. It seems to hinge on accepting many varied beliefs. It certainly did not seem to be based on, or forcing logic and science.The question to fundie, atheist, and buddhist alike is what criteria they would use to define/separate a living person from a dead person. They can keep all their hidden background beliefs about whatever, unless of course they cannot define dead from living people. That possibility seems a bit absurd, even from a theoretical standpoint.Dead people do not count as "persons" with rights. Thus a connection can be made to an entity with the same characteristics (or lack thereof) which define dead people, and as long as a gestational being fits those criteria, be considered to have the same level of rights as a dead person... a person no longer with rights. Or one could say the difference between a person and a nonperson.There may be some dispute in vague boundary cases, like schiavo, but we can certainly take clear cases and work backwards from there. There are facts, there are theoretical models, and there are beliefs. Science deals with the collection of the first to build the second, and people may generate the third from there.In making decisions the gov'ts should use the facts, and acknowledge the models, while building their possible solutions. They may use their beliefs to choose between the solutions, and that is it. If everyone must begin to compromise facts and the validity of models in order to allow a solution based on someone else's beliefs, then the system is shot.Sure the best solution will allow the most number of people to continue practicing their beliefs, but to say fact X must not be considered since some group believes Y must be true, is not to compromise at all. It is saying that the group's belief in Y is such that all other beliefs, including knowledge, are subservient.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Well, in this particular government, science plays no role whatsoever.They have shown time and time again that observation, data, prediction are all discarded out of hand for the more important factor of "who's giving us money".Bush: "No one predicted the breech of the levees".
What Bush means: "No one except scientists predicted the breech of the levees."Bush: "There is no global warming"
What Bush means: "Despite clear evidence that the world is getting warmer, that fossil fuel use is the problem, that sea temp is warming and that sea levels are rising, I intend to do nothing, since the vast majority of my personal holdings come from oil revenue and donations from people involved in oil revenue."I think we shouldn't be asking - "What is the role of science in government?" I think we should be asking - "Should government be allowed to make decisions which go against science?"

Nuggin, Sorry, the title of this thread didn't accurately reflect the actual subject of the thread. I've updated it to a title that is more reflective of the actual contents of the thread. So.. if I can try to summarize your examples such that they address the question of the thread directly (now that I've changed the title under you, sorry again for that), I think you're saying that when it comes to empirical claims about the state of the world today, you think a scientific approach to addressing the questions is the most appropriate way to answer.I think that's practical. So, sounds good to me.There are other questions here as well. What about questions that are not emprical, and thus outside the scope of scientific investigation? (See the OP and talk with holmes for examples; maybe post 10?)

Is it possible that we're asking the wrong question.It seems that there might be several questions here.One is "What does scientific evidence show?"Another might be "What is technologically possible?"A third might be "What should be done with the knowledge or technology?"

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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I think your 3 questions are essentially the same as the 3 that I'm asking. Maybe my 3 questions in the OP aren't clear enough?