Lugnasa Hiroshima Moon
Woollies met for our first Monday restaurant meal at an Indian restaurant near Wayzata. So-so food, but great conversation.
The prime topic of the night was an epistemological one. Mark said he reserved judgement on the facticity of the Curiosity project. More than once he said he wanted to check other sources, see if they agreed. This comes in part from a deep disillusionment with the government during the Vietnam war as well as an incident involving his father. (Which I didn’t hear. It was noisy.) It also comes, I suspect, from his creative personality which prizes openness, non-foreclosure. It comes, too, from a knowledge of the world of science gained while creating exhibits for the Minnesota Science Museum.
At any rate Tom, Bill and I had no question about the Curiosity landing, at least not as to its occurrence. We went back and forth for a hour or so over what constitutes evidence, the possible reasons for deception, the notion that some biases can be inherent to the observer (sexism, mechanistic as opposed to vitalistic understandings–well, we didn’t really discuss this, but we could’ve, if I’d thought about it then, accepting rather than skeptical bents).
It is not my usual experience to find someone being more skeptical than I am and I had to consider my own gullibility factor. It may be that I’m too quick to accept the work of physicists, astronomers, NASA engineers but I see no reason to believe that right now. I proposed a continuum of science from the realm of physics, astronomy, chemistry–the hard sciences, with a mid-point perhaps being biology and extending on to experimental psychology and economics, for example. I have less skepticism about the hard sciences and the work in them than I do about the biological sciences and I’m definitely show me when it comes to the softer end of this continuum.
This was an intense, even impassioned, but calm and deliberate conversation. The kind I hope I can have more and more despite my tendency to jump in with both feet.
Thanks, guys.
