Politics vs. Science

Recently, I posted a commentary on Postmodern Thinking (http://www.postmodernthinking.blogspot.com) concerning Paul Bloom's article for the New York Times, entitled: The Duel Between Body and Soul. I addressed the philosophical problems of the epistemology of science, i.e., that science is not the be-all-end-all of thinking, insofar is it reliant on sense data, and sense data alone. See the post for more on the philosophical concerns. Here, I will address the political concerns of Bloom's article.

In short, I agree with Bloom. Politics should not reign over science to such a degree as it truncates our ability to understand and observe natural things, simply because of quasi-religious connotations.

Let's take the example of stem cell research. The bioethics involved with politics tells us (I am quoting Bloom's quotation of The President's Council on Bioethics here) "We have both corporeal and noncorporeal aspects." This becomes problematic insofar as the issues concerning the philosophical aspects of the "soul" or spirituality are taken for granted because instead of concerning ourselves with the real philosophical problems (e.g., the simple fact that we--as humans--are limited by our body), we simply feed the agenda. The agenda here being the Right-wing Conservative Christian agenda: that Christianity should reign and that Christian authorities should border the boundaries of science.

In other words, instead of focusing on the real philosophical problems, political groups are focusing on what fits their agenda. To say that this is easily remedied is absurd, however, given special interest groups reign anyway.

So what is the solution? In my opinion, the solution lies in understanding ourselves as human beings--furthermore, understanding our flaws and limitations as human beings. Instead of conquering nature and finding ways to cheat it, we might try simply attempting to understand nature, understand it's essence, it's substance, it's very being, if you will. Keeping this in mind, I think, would require us--as human beings--to ask more questions and give fewer answers. Does this solve the problem, directly? Of course not. But it does give a foundational method for approaching these problems.