Nicholas,
Just a small point, science and technology are not neutral. It is all very well to blame universities for the lack of wisdom but it is a bit like saying all swans are white...Any nomic universal is invalidated by one exception, eg the black swans in Australia. We have in fact many university departments creating deeply insightful organised knowledge on why our social and technical systems are so dysfunctional and what could and must be done to alter our current trajectory. But some would argue that we already have enough collective knowledge and understanding to create far more sustainable societies. Others might lay the blame at Christian ideology and the notion that nature was there to be commanded and not obeyed....and the bloody colonialism which followed when foreign non-Christian people could be treated as objects.
But if all our universities were suddenly filled with wisdom and understanding; our administrative staff became less numerous than lecturers and more zealous about making a difference instead of generating epicycles of processes designed to measure our failures: not much would change. We would still be in the position of the poor wretches on the streets of Cairo tonight demanding revolution facing down with sticks and stones, an aged autocrat with control over the nations lethal forces determined to say no.....
Last weekend we had the founder of modern peace research, Prof Johan Galtung here in Leeds giving the Olaf Palme lecture on diplomacy after Wikileaks. His take was that it was not universities that were the major change agents or problem, but the acute evidence reinforced by Wikkileaks that the West's diplomats were just not up to the job. He predicts the imminent collapse of the US economic system....and then, well you can see it here:
http://www.leedsmet.ac.uk/news/index_peace_lecture_jan2011.htm
In the face of tidal waves of change, we end up contemplating a similar set of challenges to the microcosm that is Egypt tonight...the old regime must be chucked out but what is waiting in the mists to become the new centre of organisation? Probably something none of us have really imagined. We are living through revolutionary times and alas power relationships are more likely to determine collective fates than those based on knowledge and wisdom. But I agree with you that it would be a fine thing if there were a lot more of it about but we would be fools to assume that universities are the sole repositaries of such commodities. Meanwhile as Galtung says China will take the long view but will not necessarily be interested in taking America's place if and when the worlds financial centre of gravity shifts to Shanghai. Maybe John Lennon said the wisest thing regarding crises:
Life is what happens when you are making other plans.....
Steve
________________________________________
From: Discussion list for the Crisis Forum [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Nicholas Maxwell [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 30 January 2011 14:13
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: New opinion poll on climate change
Dear Brian,
Thank you for your response. There is, in my view, a
perfectly straightforward sense in which the irrationality of academic
inquiry is the cause of our current global problems - global warming,
population growth, destruction of natural habitats and rapid extinction of
species, pollution of earth, sea and air, the lethal character of modern
warfare, vast inequalities of wealth and power around the world, even the
aids epidemic (aids being spread by modern travel). It is not just
humanities departments, nor departments of social science - although these
are perhaps the worst. It is natural and technological science as well:
above all, the whole enterprise, and the way it is related to the rest of
the world.
If our concern is the long-term future of humanity, then the
single most important thing to do is bring about a revolution in
universities world-wide so that they come to be rationally organized and
devoted to helping humanity realize what is of value in life, and make
progress towards as good a world as possible. See
http://www.nick-maxwell.demon.co.uk/Essays.htm#abstract .
It may be objected that it is not science that is the cause of our
global problems but rather the things that we do, made possible by science
and technology. This is obviously correct. But it is also correct to say
that scientific and technological progress is the cause. The meaning of
"cause" is ambiguous. By "the cause" of event E we may mean something like
"the most obvious observable events preceding E that figure in the common
sense explanation for the occurrence of E". In this sense, human actions
(made possible by science) are the cause of such things as people being
killed in war, destruction of tropical rain forests. On the other hand, by
the "cause" of E we may mean "that prior change in the environment of E
which led to the occurrence of E, and without which E would not have
occurred". If we put our times into the context of human history, then it
is entirely correct to say that, in this sense, scientific-and-technological
progress is the cause of our distinctive current global disasters: what has
changed, what is new, is scientific knowledge, not human nature. (Give a
group of chimpanzees rifles and teach them how to use them and in one sense,
of course, the cause of the subsequent demise of the group would be the
actions of the chimpanzees. But in another obvious sense, the cause would
be the sudden availability and use of rifles - the new, lethal technology.)
Yet again, from the standpoint of theoretical physics, "the cause" of E
might be interpreted to mean something like "the physical state of affairs
prior to E, throughout a sufficiently large spatial region surrounding the
place where E occurs". In this third sense, the sun continuing to shine is
as much a part of the cause of war and pollution as human action or human
science and technology.
Before modern science and technological know-how, lack of wisdom
didn't matter too much: we lacked the power to do too much damage to
ourselves or the planet (although we did some). Now that we possess modern
science, and the power it bequeaths, lack of wisdom has become lethal. It
really is a matter of supreme urgency that we develop institutions of
learning rationally designed to help us acquire a bit more wisdom in life
before it is too late.
Best wishes,
Nick
www.nick-maxwell.demon.co.uk
> Some twenty years ago the Government Chief Scientist persuaded the
> government to accept that the
> basic rationale for government funding of research was that this research
> would lead to "wealth creation".
> It was 'conceded' at the same time that a limited proportion of funding
> available for research could be
> spent on research that would lead to improving the nation's quality of
> life.
>
> It is virtually axiomatic that a 'civilised' way of life provides a
> higher quality of life once a reasonable
> standard of material needs are met. I'm not aware of much research into
> the question of what constitutes
> a civilised way of life or what interventions the government may make
> beyond up-holding the law and
> ensuring the work-force can compete in world markets at all levels to
> help ensure a civilised way of life.
>
> Clearly the 'humanities' departments in our universities are 'ticking
> away' reasonably comfortably? but to
> what avail is rather beyond me as this is not my province.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Brian Orr
>
> On 29 Jan 2011, at 15:22, Nicholas Maxwell wrote:
>
>> Our problem is the disastrous way in which universities betray both
>> reason and humanity. The proper basic task of academic inquiry is to
>> help us realise what is of value in life, for ourselves and others -
>> help us make progress towards as good a world as possible. This would
>> require universities to devote themselves to promoting public education
>> about what our problems of living are, and what we need to do about
>> them, by means of discussion and debate. Instead of doing this,
>> academic inquiry has long been devoted to acquiring knowledge and
>> technological know. These enable (some of) us vastly to increase our
>> power to act, via the development of modern industry, agriculture,
>> weaponry and so on, all of which, without enhanced wisdom, leads to as
>> much harm as good. It leads to all our current global problems,
>> including of course climate change. As I have been arguing for over 30
>> years now, there is scarcely any more urgent and important task
>> confronting us, as far as the long term interests of humanity are
>> concerned, than to bring about a long overdue revolution in our
>> universities so that (in addition to the pursuit of knowledge and
>> technological know-how) they take up their proper task of helping us
>> create a better, wiser world: see www.nick-maxwell.demon.co.uk for
>> details.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Nick Maxwell
>> ---------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: New
>> opinion poll on climate change
>>
>>
>> What planet are you on?
>>
>> Tom,
>>
>> Just can't believe your contention that there is no medium for
>> educating the public.
>>
>> Okay the media peddles a lot of misinformation and peddles a lot of
>> useless/dangerous
>> information e.g. how to go about catching your ideal partner.
>>
>> "No FT: no comment."
>>
>> Where have these large numbers of people who have a passable grip on
>> the basics of climate
>> change got their information from? The New Scientist?
>>
>> Brian
>>
>> On 28 Jan 2011, at 19:26, Barker, Tom wrote:
>>
>>> Well that's promising. Before Christmas the BBC did a survey that
>>> recorded the most common response to the question, 'What is
>>> biodiversity?' as: A washing powder.
>>> I sometimes wonder if the frequent whinge about scientists not
>>> communicating to the public properly has got hold of the wrong end
>>> of the stick. The press is not there to educate; it is there to sell
>>> a product (papers, and hence adverts), and that is all. There is no
>>> medium for educating the general public. We just have to be thankful
>>> that some people manage to coax air-time and column space out of
>>> editors for the purpose of science.
>>> Tom
>>>
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: Discussion list for the Crisis Forum [[log in to unmask]
>>> ] On Behalf Of Bob Ward [[log in to unmask]]
>>> Sent: 28 January 2011 18:59
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: New opinion poll on climate change
>>>
>>> The Department for Transport has just published the results of an
>>> interesting opinion poll from August last year:
>>> http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/trsnstatsatt
>>> /climatejan2011report
>>>
>>> Predictably, the Daily Mail has focused on the small but detectable
>>> change in the proportion of people saying that they are very convinced
>>> or fairly convinced that the climate is changing, from 83% in August
>>> 2009 (ie before Climategate etc) to 74% in August 2010. But given the
>>> amount of misleading nonsense in the mainstream media and blogosphere
>>> over that 12-month period, it is perhaps more remarkable that
>>> three-quarters of the population still agree that the climate is
>>> changing - it shows that the self-proclaimed 'sceptics' are not really
>>> having much success with their campaigns of misinformation.
>>>
>>> Unfortunately, the poll did not include a question on whether climate
>>> change is being mainly driven by human activities, although it did
>>> include a question about the types of things that contribute to
>>> climate
>>> change, to which only 5% answered that they don't believe in climate
>>> change and only 15% answered 'natural causes' (which is technically
>>> correct anyway). However, it also shows a relatively low level of
>>> public
>>> awareness of the specific human contributors to climate change (for
>>> instance only 59% think that emissions from road transport
>>> contribute).
>>>
>>> The proportion of people who report that they are very concerned or
>>> fairly concerned about climate change only fell from 76% to 71%
>>> between
>>> August 2009 and August 2010. And 72% say that they strongly agree or
>>> tend to agree that they would be prepared to change their behaviour to
>>> limit climate change, compared with 73% in August 2009.
>>>
>>> So I would say that these results show that Climategate etc has had a
>>> measurable but relatively small effect on people's acceptance of the
>>> reality that the climate is changing, it has had an even smaller
>>> effect
>>> on whether they are concerned and almost no effect on whether they
>>> would
>>> be prepared to act. But there remains relatively low awareness of
>>> exactly which human activities are driving climate change.
>>>
>>> Bob Ward
>>>
>>> Policy and Communications Director
>>> Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment
>>> London School of Economics and Political Science
>>> Houghton Street
>>> London WC2A 2AE
>>>
>>> http://www.lse.ac.uk/grantham
>>>
>>> Tel. +44 (0) 20 7106 1236
>>> Mob. +44 (0) 7811 320346
>>>
>>>
>>> Please access the attached hyperlink for an important electronic
>>> communications disclaimer: http://lse.ac.uk/emailDisclaimer
>
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