[MD] Transhumanism

[david buchanan]

Krimel said:
There were numerous oblique references to the conservative assault on the academy, the Bush administration war of science, and the corporatization of the universities. Among the most overt was an MIT researcher [who]...pointed out the logical inconsistency of the government abandoning efforts at pure research in favor of practical research. As he noted if research can have practical impact it is likely to be funded by private interests as it should be. Pure research on the other hand isn't funded privately because it isn't aimed at practical functionality so much as at the expansion of human knowledge. Since almost all practical research is derived from pure research it seems like a waste of taxpayer money to starve the later while feeding the former.


dmb says:

Well, that's a real life example of social and intellectual values in conflict. To fund science on the basis of its potential for commercial applications, according to the MOQ, is immoral. It puts money over truth and that's the definition of selling out. And that's why we cringe at James's phrase, "cash value". In James's Victorian time, Pirsig says, the distinction between social and intellectual were monstrously confused. They thought myths were just bad science and primitive philosophy, for example. Is that arrogant and ignorant at the same time or what? That's how the word "myth" came to mean "untrue". It's the same kind of literalism we find in fundamentalism, where they take their myths as facts. (And in those strident atheists, who are usually former fundamentalist.) 		 	   		  
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