Science Can End Racism. Really?
Some scientists and adherents of scientism keep trying to put more on the shoulders of science than the discipline is capable managing. Now, apparently, some among the elites of science predict that it will somehow do away with racism and sexism by eradicating the emotion of disgust.
Good luck with that. Doing away with disgust would not only be supremely hubristic and interfere with an important part of our evolutionary/creative/or both intrinsic makeup, it would not necessarily do the job. Indeed, we often feel prejudiced because that attitude justifies doing with and to the weak what we, the strong, would like. And we justify such oppression through dehumanization. Just check out personhood theory to see the process in action. It can, but need not, involve disgust.
But why are such "isms" wrong in the first place? Science can't tell us. Science isn't into what is right or wrong. It is into describing and applying what is. Thus, science can certainly tell us that there are only superficial biological differences among the races. But it can't tell us that this means we should treat each other as equal members of one human family.
Human exceptionalism, however can and does do that. Human life has intrinsic value simply and merely because it is human. Science can tell us what and who are biological members of the human species. But it can't determine the value of that determination. That is a job for the humanities, e.g., philosophy, religion, etc.
The science ubber alles types would distort human reasoning and make it profoundly unbalanced. Science is important. But it is an amoral process that is incapable of forging a truly moral society.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 5:05 PM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
They want to eradicate disgust? That;s too funny! Disgust disgusts them. Isn't our sense of disgust what makes us abhor racism and racists? So you're right, not being able to feel disgust would certainly faciliate using people.
It does raise an interesting point though. Suppose there was a hormone in the womb or a gene that led to people being racist, or being otherwise disgusting. I don't agree that parents shouldn't be allowed to try to raise their child - starting in the womb - not to be racist or disgusting even though the child might have been subjected to hormones or genes or envirnment that would usually make a child disgustingly racist. Parents should be allowed to try to have kids turn out straight and sober and honest no matter how difficult it might be for them to be that way due to their physiology and psychology.
So I don't think that doctors or parents should be prevented from trying to regulate hormones or nutrition to try to control the traits of their baby. But I do think that they should be prevented from modifying the genes. People should be created equal, as the union of our mother and father.
I think we should dilineate between the medical and the social. Hormone therapy, or even gene therapy, to correct a medical malady seems fine. But using these powerful tools to enhance or promote certain social ends, are dangerous. The problems become telling one from the other and maintaining proper limits.
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