Natural Science “don allow no meaning in here”!
Natural science clears the land before it builds its structures. NATURAL SCIENCE IS BULLDOZIER might be a useful linguistic metaphor for comprehending how the natural sciences function.
The first thing that a Normal Science (as defined by Thomas Kuhn) does is create a paradigm, which is to say that the bulldozer comes in and clears the land of all obstructions and establishes a foundation upon the solid rock of “measurement by standards”. If it cannot be properly measured in accordance to an established paradigm it does not exist. Since emotion, feeling, and meaning cannot be so measured then such things must be removed.
Only the measurable and the commodified are meaningful in the land of the natural and economic sciences.
This habit of removing all the things that do not fit the science has allowed the natural and economic sciences to be very productive in the human competition with Mother Nature. But I claim that this success, obtained by eliminating considerations based upon human meaning, comes at a heavy price.
The science of economics has emulated the natural sciences and has reaped great successes as a result; if one does not take into consideration the human, social, and ecological costs of such sciences one can be deluded into bulldozing aside all considerations of human meaning as we construct our high tech society.
In his book The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time Karl Polanyi argues that a self-regulating market economy requires “that human beings and the natural environment be turned into pure commodities, which assures the destruction of both society and the natural environment…the definition of a commodity is something that has been produce for sale on a market…land, labor, and money are fictitious commodities because they were not produced for sale on a market…Modern economics starts by pretending that these fictitious commodities will behave in the same way as real commodities…economic theorizing is based on a lie, and this lie places human society at risk.”
Natural science clears the land before it builds its structures. NATURAL SCIENCE IS BULLDOZIER might be a useful linguistic metaphor for comprehending how the natural sciences function.
The first thing that a Normal Science (as defined by Thomas Kuhn) does is create a paradigm, which is to say that the bulldozer comes in and clears the land of all obstructions and establishes a foundation upon the solid rock of “measurement by standards”. If it cannot be properly measured in accordance to an established paradigm it does not exist. Since emotion, feeling, and meaning cannot be so measured then such things must be removed.
Only the measurable and the commodified are meaningful in the land of the natural and economic sciences.
This habit of removing all the things that do not fit the science has allowed the natural and economic sciences to be very productive in the human competition with Mother Nature. But I claim that this success, obtained by eliminating considerations based upon human meaning, comes at a heavy price.
The science of economics has emulated the natural sciences and has reaped great successes as a result; if one does not take into consideration the human, social, and ecological costs of such sciences one can be deluded into bulldozing aside all considerations of human meaning as we construct our high tech society.
In his book The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time Karl Polanyi argues that a self-regulating market economy requires “that human beings and the natural environment be turned into pure commodities, which assures the destruction of both society and the natural environment…the definition of a commodity is something that has been produce for sale on a market…land, labor, and money are fictitious commodities because they were not produced for sale on a market…Modern economics starts by pretending that these fictitious commodities will behave in the same way as real commodities…economic theorizing is based on a lie, and this lie places human society at risk.”
