bourgeois science

[danyboy27]

do you think such things really exist?

the soviet and union seemed to consider during several years some science has bourgeois one, and therebefore nefast.

i cant remember all the place where i saw the term, but i got a nice wiki page about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressed_research_in_the_Soviet_Union

i also remember that i saw on a marxist website a paragraph about how plastic surgery was considered has a pseudo science.

personally i think science is science, and it should never be politicized.

[Invincible Summer]

do you think such things really exist?

the soviet and union seemed to consider during several years some science has bourgeois one, and therebefore nefast.

i cant remember all the place where i saw the term, but i got a nice wiki page about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressed_research_in_the_Soviet_Union

i also remember that i saw on a marxist website a paragraph about how plastic surgery was considered has a pseudo science.

personally i think science is science, and it should never be politicized.

Science is supposed to be objective, but it is definitely politicized in today's society. Hell, biotech and pharmaceutical companies are making tons of money off of science.

But yeah, I think that science should just be science. There is no such thing as 'bourgeois' science. Of course, science is utilized by/developed by whomever wishes to/has the power to utilize/develop it (which, in today's society, would most likely be the ruling class), so in a way, science can be somewhat biased, but it is not inherently so.

[RGacky3]

There is no such thing as bourgeois science, 'bourgeois' is a term that describes the class of business owners. Its a socio-economic term to describe a class.

There is no such thing as bourgeois science, the same way there is no such thing as monarchist science, or patriach science, its rediculous to put social terms on things like science.

[CommieCat]

There's no dispute that science, probably more than anything, is influenced and shaped by the society in which it is made, and likewise influences that society. In capitalism, the application of technology to the production process is a prime example.

On the point of plastic surgery being a pseudo science, I don't see how someone could make that claim. Firstly, pseudo science is typically aimed at sciences which claim the special epistemic virtue of science for that purpose alone when the science simply doesn't merit that status. Just because a science is false, doesn't mean its a pseudo-science (if that was the case, most science would be called pseudo-science, but it isn't).

Yet 'plastic surgery' (and I take it to mean prior to the actual plastic-like substance was used) is hundreds, if not thousands of years old; going back to sculpting people new noses after they were cut off, or lost to diseases (syphilis, I think). Even back then it had results (even in the face of being banned by the Vatican). The advances during and after WW1 were remarkable in the context. The actual plastic surgery wasn't so good, since it tended to melt and move around the face, yet for the most part facial reconstructive surgery rested on okay science (for example, in Russia they used a system which linked skin to skin-grafts, so the grafts would remain alive, instead of dying off). Of course, the advances since then make former practices and results seem amateur. But 'plastic surgery' is certainly part of the medical sciences, and I think people who would label it otherwise do so out of spite of (one) of its branches, aesthetic surgery, which stems from puritanical dislike versus a real look at the discipline.

And yes, there is such a thing as bourgeoisie "science" (!) ; they call it 'economics.'

[Bud Struggle]

Bourgeois science is like having a bourgeois times table of a bourgeois square root.

Science is unpolitical--it makes atomic bombs as easily as it makes cures for AIDS.


And yes, there is such a thing as bourgeoisie "science" (!) ; they call it 'economics.'I believe it's the Marxist always running around calling Communist theory a "science". I don't remember Capitalists ever doing so.

[CommieCat]

Bourgeois science is like having a bourgeois times table of a bourgeois square root.

Funny that you mention that.

Do you know where the word 'calculus' derives from?

In ancient Greek (or Latin) the word meant 'pebble' or 'stone' since that was the means for counting.

Do you know where the word geometry comes from?

It also comes from a Greek word 'geodesic' roughly meaning to 'measure earth'; the original point of geometry was to measure land plots, in a (guess what!) land-owing society!

Likewise, algebra was used for commercial purposes and land transactions.

So yeah, looks like your 'unbiased' mathematics is just as based in class society as anything else.

But please, hold by your Platonic, idealist assumptions, it makes you look as absurd as you already are.


Science is unpolitical--it makes atomic bombs as easily as it makes cures for AIDS.

It made atomic bombs which were used in imperialist wars and put two nations on the verge of MAD for decades. How objective and unpolitical science is!

And cure for AIDS? Are you even aware of the political/social economic issues revolving around antiretrovirals, that the expense of them results in less than a third of people with AIDS in Africa receiving treatment?

Oh dear, social conditions matter all of a sudden.


I believe it's the Marxist always running around calling Communist theory a "science". I don't remember Capitalists ever doing so.

Then you clearly haven't read any economics text book where they proudly proclaim their objectiveness and they differentiate THEIR science from the so-called normative disciplines.

Then they go on to argue that the market is king and that trade unions are evil.

[danyboy27]

, it makes you look as absurd as you already are.

Then you clearly haven't read any economics text book .

beside those two insulting and patronizing sentences, your post is great to read.

the OI section isnt just some kind of funny punching bag where you can go and laugh at other people beccause they think different from you.

i wish one day hardcore commie like you would understand that.

this is that kind of shit that turn into flamewar.

[JimmyJazz]

personally i think science is science, and it should never be politicized.

The way I would read it, this is exactly the idea behind a phrase like "bourgeois science."

Science should be used for human welfare and progress. That's common sense: you start with that. So if they start using it to create riot control devices and world-dominating military hardware, who exactly is guilty of politicizing science? Them, or the people who then coin the phrase "bourgeois science" to describe these uses?

I would agree that you can't blanket include things like plastic surgery; even that can be used to repair cleft lips, reconstruct car accident victims, etc. But when you make healthcare a commodity such that more doctors and 'scientists' are performing elective plastic surgeries on rich people than are working on a malaria cure or something, then yeah, the phrase "bourgeois science" is perfectly appropriate.

Bourgeois science is scientific research commissioned by members of the bourgeoisie because it promises to turn a profit. Makes perfect sense.

It doesn't mean that nothing good can come out of it, obviously. It just means that the rich own the means of discovery like they own the means of production, distribution, exchange, communication, transportation, entertainment...and that just as with all those other things, they put the means of discovery to work in ways that will profit them personally.


It made atomic bombs which were used in imperialist wars and put two nations on the verge of MAD for decades. How objective and unpolitical science is!

Right. And scientists didn't just make atomic weapons out of the blue, they were commissioned to make them by a capitalist state, a state which intended to use them on an already defeated enemy as a dick-waving display of strength for the sake of the communist countries.

If Soviet scientists had made the first atomic bomb, somehow I don't think TomK would be objecting to the phrase "communist science" with "that's impossible, science is apolitical!" He'd be out in the streets exposing and decrying the grave new threat that Communist Science poses to free society! :lol:

Tom, I have gone pretty far in my education, and the more familiar I have gotten with scientific research (cognitive science/psychology, if you're curious), the more it has struck me how "bourgeois" most of it is. 99% of it has no conceivable application for the vast majority of humanity. Much of it has its most direct application in subjugating the vast majority of humanity--the federal gov't funds most science in this country, and a massive chunk of that is for military purposes.

[Forward Union]

Science is A-political but it's financial sources aren't.

[Kenshiro]

It made atomic bombs which were used in imperialist wars and put two nations on the verge of MAD for decades. How objective and unpolitical science is!

And cure for AIDS? Are you even aware of the political/social economic issues revolving around antiretrovirals, that the expense of them results in less than a third of people with AIDS in Africa receiving treatment?

Oh dear, social conditions matter all of a sudden.


i didnt know atom bombs were sentient beings that chose cities to bomb.

damn, AIDS cures dont want to cure Africa. so racist. science doesnt get any more subjective than that.

[CommieCat]

i didnt know atom bombs were sentient beings that chose cities to bomb.

This is laughable coming from a primitivist who has a personal grudge against anything as technical as a toaster.

Go back, re-read my post (with your evil computer screen no less!). I clearly stated that science comes from the society in which it is made, hence is born with the birthmarks of that society. I have no moral qualms with technology, unlike you, but I think its bizarre that people claim that science is objective and exists in a historical or social vacuum.


damn, AIDS cures dont want to cure Africa. so racist. science doesnt get any more subjective than that.

Protip: there's no such thing as an 'AIDS cure.'

There's a saying that it's better to shut up, then open your mouth and betray your ignorance. You should take that advice.

[mikelepore]

Science is unpolitical--it makes atomic bombs as easily as it makes cures for AIDS.

Most writers in this topic are jumping back and forth between talking about "science" in the sense of how nature works and talking about the projects that the practitioners work on. The fact that gamma rays will be emitted if you split a uranium atom, that's how nature works. Learning about that fact is learning about nature. Deciding to use that knowledge to make a bomb is political.

[JimmyJazz]

Most writers in this topic are jumping back and forth between talking about "science" in the sense of how nature works and talking about the projects that the practitioners work on. The fact that gamma rays will be emitted if you split a uranium atom, that's how nature works. Learning about that fact is learning about nature. Deciding to use that knowledge to make a bomb is political.

Well, "pure" science is apolitical, but applied science is not. And the latter constitutes most science.

[Bud Struggle]

Most writers in this topic are jumping back and forth between talking about "science" in the sense of how nature works and talking about the projects that the practitioners work on. The fact that gamma rays will be emitted if you split a uranium atom, that's how nature works. Learning about that fact is learning about nature. Deciding to use that knowledge to make a bomb is political.

Of course, if you read the question posed by the OP you see he asked about "science" not the applications of science, which is something completely different.

For someone to say that science itself has a political agenda is an
anthropomorphization of something quite natural in the universe. Calling something the "calculus" in English makes no more mark on the actual computations than calling it anything else.

The act of "naming" a science doesn't change the facts of the science.

[More Fire for the People]

Science can have two definitions: an objective inquiry into the natural and social world; and a technique or art used at the discretion of a trained individual.

The consequences of the first usually arise from a failure of a scientist reach the right conclusions or the use of incorrect data.

The second has deadly and unjust consequences--IQ testing -> racial discrimination, atomic weaponry -> bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, genetically modified plants -> impoverishment of peasants, etc.

[JimmyJazz]

For someone to say that science itself has a political agenda is an anthropomorphization of something quite natural in the universe.

The process of experimentation, publication, and replication is quite natural to the universe? :confused:

[Bud Struggle]

The process of experimentation, publication, and replication is quite natural to the universe? :confused:

The uncovering of the facts of the universe are universal. The same experimentation works the same way and gives the same results no matter if a black guy a white guy a tall guy or a short woman do it.

The way humans find and understand the laws of nature are universal that's why all the results are the same.

[synthesis]

I think there were certain reasons that the USSR considered certain fields to be "bourgeois pseudoscience" that are understandable if not justifiable. For example, when they labeled genetics as bourgeois, it wasn't just because they promoted the idea of acquired characteristics; it was also because of the scientific racism of their day that purported to use genetics to justify inequality.

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

I think it's most unfortunate how we spend massive amounts of money on cosmetics and hair restoration science and all that bullshit. But at the same time, I am grateful I will be able to get a hard-on for the rest of my life.

And yeah Kun Fana I agree, it can't be that hard to understand why they did so considering the Nazi ideology.

[danyboy27]

I think there were certain reasons that the USSR considered certain fields to be "bourgeois pseudoscience" that are understandable if not justifiable. For example, when they labeled genetics as bourgeois, it wasn't just because they promoted the idea of acquired characteristics; it was also because of the scientific racism of their day that purported to use genetics to justify inequality.

it didnt stop stalin to start a project of creating a supersoldier with the help of a genetician. it failed, but seriously, mixing human and monkey tyo create an obedient supersoldier wasnt necessarly the best idea he had.

[Janine Melnitz]

Someone mentioned "scientific racism" -- wiki that phrase. For a shorter read, wiki "drapetomania" and/or "dysaethesia aethiopica". Then come back and insist that modern bourgeois society has progressed beyond such monstrous ideological distortions, that we now live in a golden era of enlightenment just like every generation since the 14th century has claimed to.

[MMIKEYJ]

Bourgeois science is like having a bourgeois times table of a bourgeois square root.

Science is unpolitical--it makes atomic bombs as easily as it makes cures for AIDS.

I believe it's the Marxist always running around calling Communist theory a "science". I don't remember Capitalists ever doing so.

Thanks for explaining that.. I thought for a minute I was losing my mind.

[Yazman]

Bourgeois science is like having a bourgeois times table of a bourgeois square root.

Science is unpolitical--it makes atomic bombs as easily as it makes cures for AIDS.

I believe it's the Marxist always running around calling Communist theory a "science". I don't remember Capitalists ever doing so.

TomK, please don't label all marxists in that manner. There are lots of us who would never think to call our political theory a "science", its generally the idiots who think dialectics is useful that do it.

[diome]

Science as such should stay objective. But scientists always have a view of the world (as all humans have, and scientists are only humans, not machines, and thus there can't be 100% objective science). And their view of the world affects what they see worth researching, etc. In social sciences and humanities especially it also affects on how those scientists say things. How and what they write.

I think we should however follow the rule of basic human liberties, and respecting freedom of speach there should be no restrictions (unless the research work includes unethical procedures).

Plastic surgery can also help a lot of people who are for instance badly burnt or have some other severe injury. But what comes to plastic surgery done to become more beautiful, that's of course different. I see it as a part of the consumerist society, where people are modifying and branding themselves to represent some ideals. That happiness can be bought at the same time as better pay and higher social prestige.

Those who don't want to or can't afford to take part in this all, will remain lower social prestige and called society dropouts.

[RGacky3]

But what comes to plastic surgery done to become more beautiful, that's of course different. I see it as a part of the consumerist society, where people are modifying and branding themselves to represent some ideals. That happiness can be bought at the same time as better pay and higher social prestige.

Science, unfortunately, like everything else, such as health care, is tied in with Capitalism, money always drives Science, does'nt mean its not the quest for truth, only the quest for the truth that the money wants to find out. (Not 100% of the time, I know I'll get many examples of phanthropic scientific endevours, just generally speaking).