jan@orc.olivetti.com (Jan Parcel) (08/08/90)
In article <1990Aug6.004419.8001@vlsi.waterloo.edu> arun@vlsi.waterloo.edu (Arun Achyuthan) writes: >>In article <1990Aug1.022559.10131@vlsi.waterloo.edu> arun@vlsi.waterloo.edu (Arun Achyuthan) writes: >In the past, organizations like the Royal Society had exclusively stated to >masculinize science and divert it from any feminine influence. They also >had stated captivating nature and achieving an Empire of Man over nature (and >of course women). I don't think in such a situation any women could >participate in scietific activities, other creating their own realm of >activity. For a more wholistic look at the beauty of mathematics, read _CHAOS, the Making of a new Science_. (As far as I can tell, this book introduces Mandelbrot sets and fractals in a way that, as an aside, criticises the older practice of considering the small subset of problems which *can* be reduced to be the more important problems, and the "real" problems.) (My personal reaction to the book was --"Oh, wow, God really is a woman! They've shown the Universe is actually made of Paisley!" ) 1/2 :-) >>And the point is this, Science may well be reductionist, but that in >>itself is not terrible. It may well be that Nature is best explained by a few >>succinct rules. No, it's not. But those rules which *are* succinct gave us the tools to improve our lives and simultaneously begin ruining the planet. To save the situation, we will have to move forward into a realm of less-succinct rules. >How can the diversity of nature be applied by a few rules? If some aspect of >nature does not fit into any rule how do you deal with it? Create another rule, >accept it as an exception, or force it to be part of some rule? I would say The impression I got from the Chaos book and other readings is that if something didn't fit any one rule, it was considered unimportant. >that science by itself is not reductionist; the early Indian scientists and >mathematics had holistic views. It is the people who shaped the scientific >philosophy of later days who were reductionist, because by explaining the laws >of nature in a few rules, they were able to justify its subjugation, and these >people happened to be western males. They didn't need to justify its subjugation, they needed to accomplish it. And, in many ways, they did. >>[Women have the] >>biological ability to give birth. To it is attributed a supposed better >>understanding of nature. Somehow women are tied to the "Earth" (with a capital >>E) by ties of blood, and we men are dehumanized. I find all this rather >>incredible. I remember being taught in college that mothers' observations about the nature of their children were to be ignored, as mothers are untrained observers. I remember breast-feeding, noticing that my child relaxed at the breast and was very agitated when denied, and concluding that the child would gain weight better if she was fed on demand. The pediatrician told me that science "knew" that the act of sucking took too many calories, and waiting for a full breast was better. A couple of years later, TIME or NEWSWEEK reported a surprising result that "nobody" expected -- sucking at the breast relaxes a child so much that they gain weight better if allowed to do so. From this I can conclude that mothers (and La Leche League) are NOBODY to science. The ability to give birth doesn't create wisdom about the earth, but the RESPONSIBILITY to spend THOUSANDS of hours observing phenomena too complicated to reduce easily gives mothers, fishers, farmers, and other non-scientists an advantage in gaining information about complicated systems. This doesn't mean science is worthless, only that it needs to learn to listen. I realize that in Galileo's time, the task of science was to learn not to listen, and I view the Royal Society's quoted remarks as the adolescent break-away remarks of a young science that must break away from its mother before finding its own identity. But a 40-year-old man who is still mother-deaf is ridiculous, and so will science be ridiculous if it continues to reject all observations of non-scientists as completely unworthy of even investigating. So far, it looks like the whole Mandelbrot idea has scientists INTERESTED in completing the maturing process. I wish us all luck. >>I think, if tommorrow, by a lucky accident, all power (economic and >>political) was concentrated in the hands of women, the world would not be much >>different. I think they are capable of aggression, just as we are capable of >>tender feelings. If this was caused by a switch to matriarchy (unlikely!!), I suspect things *would* be different. Matriarchy theory requires women to control wombs. Patriarchy theory requires men to control wombs. This means that a matriarchy can be anything from wonderful to awful, and anything in between, while patriarchy has no choice but to be at least controlling of women, which sets a precedent for being controlling of others. Both societies are outmoded, now, anyway, so we'll just have to try for peoplearchy. >>social situations, does not make one right every time. I cannot believe that >>the evils of Science are inherently masculine or western. The evil is the >>human beings ability to become obsessed by one world view, to the detriment of >>everything else. This knows no boundaries. Yes, but when one is responsible for maintaining a complex system, it is impossible to become too reductionist. It IS possible to become paralysed by the complexity, however, which I believe Sheila Collins said is a "woman's sin," meaning that our different historical roles have led us to different kinds of faults than men have traditionally written about. And new roles will create what appears to be a new "nature" of humans. >that the masculine aim of science was to know "the ways of captivating Nature, >and making her subserve our purposes, thereby achieving the Empire of Man >Over Nature". Now, we'd best start finding out how to avoid having Nature die in captivity.