送交者: apate 于 2005-1-13, 15:37:26:
回答: "要看到科学的未来",我不认为这是一种科学的态度。. 由 fagus 于 2005-1-13, 14:34:29:
in Mr. Fang's latest article, he also similarly appeals to the *future* possiblity of human being's fully understanding some natural phenomena. this is probably logically sound and hopefully true, but it is a rather weak argument when it comes to *realistic* concerns of environmental issues and public problems that have to be resolved not in the scientific "future" but in the current state of affairs - current level of scientific knowledge and current level of human capability. as i said in an earlier thread, many types of destruction is irreversible or if reversible at all is beyond the patience of waiting social members. in other words, science does its boundaries, even though it has always been challenging these boundaries ever since the earliest speculators of the natural world, like Thales and Hippocrates. also, as i said earlier, Prof. He's vauge use of "scientism" betrays his own ignorance about what is really at stake in this debate. the use of scientific knowledge always needs human mediation and human agency, and issues revoling around such mediation (e.g., individual scientists) and agency (e.g., decision-makers) can never be resolved solely by scientific methods or experiments.
but, of course, if you define science as to include not only natural science but also social science (e.g., socilogy and political science), then it is a rather different matter in dispute.