From: James West <jdwest at u.washington.edu>
To: Dennis Paulson <dpaulson at ups.edu>
Cc: Tweeters Bird Forum <tweeters at u.washington.edu>

The science section of today's New York Times (6/6/95, pp.B5-B9) contains
two articles addressing issues that have been discussed recently on
TWEETERS. One is "Scientists Deplore Flight From Reason" (B5), which deals
with the growing sense among the scientific (in the broadest sense)
community that knowledge arrived at by thinking rationally about facts is
under serious attack these days.

=======

Wisdom may yet prevail!

Not being a scientist my thinking is a) not necessarily rational, b)
often intuitive, and c) sympathetic to the beauty and wonder of the
natural world bereft of science in any sense.

It is not that science as a methodology of learning is wrong or bad. The
knowledge arrived at by thinking rationally about facts is one set of
knowledge. The problem that I percieve is the claim of the scientific
community that it is the only knowledge with credence.

With this we have lost the knowledge and wisdom that was everywhere
around us and known to us in different cultures and environs. The
indigenious understanding of medicinal powers of medicine, the
connectivity of the electric centers of nerves to health, the many
kinds of snows in the Artic and the ability to travel without
compass over vast regions.

Science is under attack for reasons similiar to medicine being under
attack. In my opinion, and there is nothing scientific about its
basis, the people are realizing the impacts of science at the alter
not being satisfying to the soul, just as they question giving their
lives savings and their childrens inheritance to sustain a life for
another 2 weeks or days. Science and the technology it has praised
as the saviour of society is clearly not.

I gringe each time an environmentalist yells for science as the
basis for decisions. Too often the science that wins is that bought
and paid for by the developers or corporations. And so the
forest is lost, the fish gone, the birds depleted while the
scientific knowledge is debated by those with the resources to
fund the research.

Wasn't it science that brought us the green revolution of the 60's
allowing the world population to double in decades? Isn't it science
that creates the toxics that promote cancer (of course other science
happily takes large grants to find cures)? Isn't it science that
rejects homepathic medicine and the healing power of "faith" - a
mental state of health?

This concept of thinking rationally about facts is likened to early
computer scientists discussions about artificial intelligence (which
these folks clearly demonstrated). With a leap of rational logic
that was never questioned they went from the concept that the ability
to accumulate massive amounts of data and develop statistical and
neural modelling would lead to a knowledge base unparalleled in
history. Independent, self learning machines that rivaled man in
thinking. The concept of wisdom never entered the discussion. It
still doesn't, but one doesn't read much about the artificial systems
any more. Seems the biological mechanisms are a hundred fold more
efficient at storage of and retrieval of information and capable of
concieving of it in patterns not represented by rational thinking of
facts - sort of a right brain exercise.

Kind of like enjoying the butterflies and flowers while listening to
the birds sing and not giving a damn if its a Wilson's Warbler or
a White Crowned Sparrow, it's pretty.

Steve Hallstrom