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From: jah@philabs.UUCP (Julie Harazduk)
Newsgroups: net.religion,net.flame
Subject: Re: A Conversation With Sir John Eccles
Message-ID: <207@philabs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 9-Jan-85 13:30:06 EST
Article-I.D.: philabs.207
Posted: Wed Jan  9 13:30:06 1985
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I don't read net.flame so anyone who wants me to read their responses to
this must submit to net.religion

>> [ME]
>>There definitely is something to it.  It's not necessarily limited to what
>>Eccles and Popper have said, either.  A responsible position must be taken by
>>all scientists because, in many ways, science has gained the confidence of
>>the masses in the way that religion once had it.  Any (and I mean ANY) group
>>with that kind of influence must be monitored and must be held responsible 
>>for the possible results of their influence (discoveries and announcements).

Paul Shindman comments:
> Yikes!!!  So whom do you propose will be encumbered with the responsibility
> of monitoring the scientists??? 

You and me.  People.  Other scientists, religious leaders, politicians,
engineers, businessmen, housewives, children...(and when we learn to
communicate with Dolphins, whales or Porpoises (sp?) them too!).

Paul asks:
> What will be the penalties if those 
> "...results of their influence" are used for not-so-nice purposes (and
> who decides what ain't-so-nice???)???

How about debate? In some instances efforts will be stopped or hastened.
We're talking about alot of people with alot of opinions...everybody
voicing his in some way...I'm not talking about a system of judgement
but, rather, a system whereby scientists report what they are working
on and discuss the possible implications.  What people decide to do
with this is left as an exercise in reasoning (for the reader:-).

Paul imagines:
> It would have been really interesting
> to see a jury of humans sentence Einstein and dozens of other physicists
> to {life in prison|silence|death} for their work in relativistic and
> quantum physics since it all resulted in the A and H bombs.

You've totally gotten away from what I was trying to say.  Actually there
already exists a group of scientists (who worked on the Manhattan Project)
that take responsibility such as I have suggested.  They tried to meet
with Regan (you know, the Pres.) and he gave them a big 5 minutes to say
their piece on their impressions of the current research.  They're just
trying to educate people.  If it's good enough for them (those who made
the mistake in the first place), it's good enough for me.
 
Paul deliberates and jumps to conclusions:
> Yes, it would be really nice to keep a nice, rational, reasonable eye on
> the goings on in several thousand fields of research, but it can't (and
> should never) be done.  The inevitable result would be that you would have
> the world's largest bureaucracy ever created, and thousands of Galileo's
> locked behind bars. 

Actually, the U. S. of A. is a large enough bureaucracy, coupled with
the rest of the free world and maybe a few voices from the not-so-free
world, we'd have a pretty good jury.  Mankind in general has to be the
jury.  Judgement must be reserved for the particular situation.

Paul exclaims and jumps to conclusions:
> Egads, if you are going to make ginourmous sweeping
> statements, Julie, at least back them up with something!
> Remember that it was the Church that locked Galileo's mind away (and
> do you remember why???)

You've allowed your own concepts of what "monitoring" means into your
debate.  Firstly, in Galileo's time there was one authority, now there
are many diverging opinions and philosophies each of them authoritative
in some way (weighting all votes equally, anyway).  Our own government
is based on the very thing I'm talking about--checks and balances.  You
can't trust any one group to make decisions that may affect the fate of
the world.  You couldn't do it in Galileo's time (then it was the church)
and I don't believe you can do it now (substitute church for scientific
community).  People are people--fallible, unthinking, selfish and often
just plain old irresponsible.  Sure, we all have alot of good qualities
too, but the more personal something becomes the more we tend to exhibit
the negative qualities that we have, in defense of that thing, often against
our better judgement (stubborness...).  Just read net.religion or net.flame
to see what I mean.  All logic gets lost and people just brow beat each
other in the hope that their point will be taken more seriously.

I don't trust myself either.  Plenty of times I made an evaluation only
to find that I had to re-evaluate and change my mind.  It's very common.
In the area of science, a wrong evaluation has much stronger implications
and affects many more people.  Let the people affected have a say too.
That's all I'm saying.  What are you saying?

All in favor of the Democratic way say "Aye".  All opposed? The "Aye"'s
have it.

Julie Harazduk
philabs!jah

ps. Sorry, Paul, about not responding to your last two letters (one
about Christianity the fullfillment of Judaism and the other a question
about the forthcoming response).  I forgot all about it and I intend to
get back to you very soon on that.  Again, I'm sorry.