RE: Aliens, dinosaurs and ape men

[Roberto Calvo Macias <rcalvom@ctv.es>]

-----Mensaje original-----
De:	Gary Kern 
Enviado el:	miércoles 25 de marzo de 1998 11:09
Para:	ernst-juenger-l@maillist.ox.ac.uk
Asunto:	Re: Aliens, dinosaurs and ape men

Gerd Groenewold wrote:
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> Gary Kern wrote:
> > More and more I am noticing that scientists are not scientific, prone to
> > prejudice and cliche-ridden.  The alien is only one example of their
> > failure to remain impartial, critically minded and dedicated to the
> > scientific method.  The dinosaur is another.
> >
> 
> I agree entirely.  I understand that there is currently a debate going
> on about Darwin based not on the scientific merits of his theories, but
> based on his theories being possibly racist, and therefore contrary to
> prevailing agendas.  In _Aladdin's Problem_, there is a section where
> Baroh is describing academia and says some thing like "History is
> politicised and the sciences encoded."  (I am paraphrasing from memory,
> please forgive innaccuracies) I think that science is also politicised
> these days.
> 
> GERD
***************************
A few people have asked what I meant about the dinosaurs.  What I meant
was that, being extinct and rather mysterious, they can serve various
political purposes.  The nemesis theory of their extinction (i.e., a
comet hit earth and sent up a dust storm obliterating vegetation) was
originally linked with the theory of nuclear winter (i.e., a nuclear war
would produce a cloud of radiation and debris that would obliterate all
life on earth).  Sagan & Co. could not resist the metaphor:  if mankind
persists in Cold War policies it will be the next dinosaur.

In the last decade or two the theory of nuclear winter has been dropped,
but the nemesis theory has found confirming strata of comet material, so
it is riding high.  This gives scientists the opportunity to claim that
only by a fluke did the mammals beat out the dinosaurs--they were small
and nocturnal, less dependent on daytime vegetive growth. 
Environmentally speaking, say scientists like Stephen Jay Gould, we are
no better than the dinosaurs--in fact, they lived longer and we have yet
to prove ourselves.  And so forth and so on:  the dinosaur becomes a
springboard for pronouncements on the worth of man or a particular
political system.

Regarding Darwin, that's another kettle of fish.  The reality is that
the various scenarios of natural selection are no more than scientific
myths:  they are invented after the fact of an animal's development and
cannot be tested or proven.  So with the dinosaurs:  there are dozens of
theories not only on their demise, but also on how they lived, whether
they were warm-blooded, made migrations in herds, safeguarded their
young, etc.  All of this is valid speculation, but the invocations of
natural selection (i.e., survival of the fittest through successful
variation in a particular niche) is, to my mind, always just invention.
Unfortunately, the Creationists (Bible-thumpers who believe that God
created all the animals, and that's that) have entered the picture to
muddy up the waters, so that it is hard to attack Darwinism without
being misunderstood and mischaracterized.  I think Darwin was entirely
right about evolution occurring, but doubt that natural selection (even
with modern adjustments) can explain how it occurred.

Just one example:  the extra-large fangs of the sabre-toothed tiger. 
Were they used to kill, to impress other males, to impress females, to
scare wolves, etc.  Did they become an encumberment to survival?  It is
interesting to read the various scenarios that have appeared over the
years, all of them posing as scientific theory, but really just
scientific mythmaking.  When you turn from the sabre-toothed tigers to
early man, then you see how the mythmaking can serve various
world-views--for example, ferocious little carniverous man killed off
big sweet lovable vegetarian man, and so on.

GK

[Roberto Calvo Macias]  Thanks Gary, now I´ve catched it.
I have never thought about it- it really surprising me while I was thinking about it, its a new perspective- to say in a J style: a new facet of the Diamond, but I agree with you,. But, this take us to a new discussion, what is reality? what is scientific and what mythmaking? To me, myths are the most profound reality, the reality itself, but, am I not mythmaking the myths?


Best wishes
roberto

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