Yet another pointless birthday. *sigh* whatever

I wrote this response to a paper we were assigned for my CSC-300 class. Who knows, maybe it will spark one of two interesting thoughts.

Response to “Science and Trans-Science” by Alvin M. Weingberg

One night many thousands of years ago, a cave dweller burned his finger on the first flame created by man and set off early scientific discovery. He sought to make fire more reliable and useful to himself and unknowingly became a scientist, while at the same time exposing some of the first trans-science questions, such as "Why does this hurt me?

Weinberg defines trans-science as questions of fact that can be stated in the language of science, which cannot be answered by science. An important note is that the line between science and trans-science must be taken in the context of time, in other words that line has moved throughout history. The question “Why does fire hurt?” could not be answered with the science in the time of the caveman, but in modern times we know enough about biology to give a detail description of all the neurons and bodily' sensors that goes into sensing pain. The line has obviously moved dramatically since prehistoric time. At the same time, the line is not viewed as a razor sharp divide as the definition of trans-science the Weinberg gives would lead one to believe. A stick waved in from of you looks blurry, even though the stick has well undefined boundaries, because of the movement of the stick. The line between trans-science and science is blurred in the same way and becomes more blurred the faster technology advances.

The answering of purely scientific questions not doubt falls squarely on the shoulders of scientist since they have the resources and know how to answering those questions. Joe Average of the corner of Main and 1^st street is ill suited to answer questions from the forefront of physics about black holes or hard matter. Trans-science is different in the fact that questions usually have a social aspect to them such as “How much of a certain chemical should we allow in our foods?” For such questions, the scientist brings their knowledge of how that chemical affects the environment and us but cannot tell us scientifically how much side effects we are willing to endure. Social actors, like judges, juries, politicians, and even Joe Average, tell us to what extend we are willing to endure that chemical's side effects. The ultimate goal in regards to scientific and trans-scientific questions is to answer the question as best as possible or come up with the best solution to particular problem. Weinberg identifies two ways that trans-scientific issues are dealt with: the ordinary political process and the adversary procedures. However, I think these two procedures have major flaws in them if they are meant to meet the ultimate goal stated above.

The political process is about allocating scarce resources among various uses, such as tax money for scientific matters. Politicians exert their political power to draw favor to their side of the debate on the distribution of the money. They want their side to get as much money as possible and usually do not look at the whole picture of the different efforts the money could go. This creates competition between various parties and the basic human competition instinct emerges. The adversary procedure takes the form a debate between two different points of view on a subject and brings out this competitive nature of humans. We are taught in economics class that competition is a good thing and that helps bring new and better products to the market. However, the same does not hold true for answering trans-scientific issues using either of these two methods. Take for example two hockey teams meeting on an ice rink to play a match, which brings out the same competition nature of humans. If you were to tell these players that their goal is to produce the best team, it seems like if you had the two teams complete in a game that the team who wins would be best. This, however, is not usually the case. To create the best team possible from the meeting of the two teams, would be to take the best player for each position, no matter which team they are on, and form a new team which is better than either of the two teams the players came from. A direct competition between two competing ideas does not produce the best result between it forces a choice rather than foster compromise.

Another problem with any competitive style plan for dealing with issues is keeping a fair playing field. If one side is more prepared for a debate, the lesser prepared will be at a disadvantage and the outcome will be bias in favor if the better prepared without and regard to the relative merits of either side. Take for example a debate on opening Alaska for more oil drilling, between the oil companies and five people chosen at random from the local bar. The oil companies will obviously be more prepared than five random people will and it is not hard to imagine that the oil companies are going to win this debate. Does this mean that the oil companies are right and we should do things their way? Of course not. Well then, it must mean that the people from the bar are right and we should not open Alaska for drilling. Of course not. Neither side is right nor is either side wrong. The adversarial system is flawed for answering trans-scientific questions because it has building bias to the better prepared and does not foster compromise and consensus reaching. Because the methods of dealing with trans-scientific issues have major flaws, it supports Weinberg's claim that one should answer everything question which can be answered scientifically before dealing with the trans-scientific questions. By working on the purely scientific questions first, it has a chance to push the line between science and trans-science out further and allow us to scientifically answer questions that were previously trans-scientific.

Weinberg brings up something called the Republic of Trans-Science as to describe scientists as a group of people. He says that to qualify for citizenship in the republic, you have to have scientific credentials. However, later on he says in only those with proper credentials are allowed to participate in this republic. Weinberg passes over this issue quickly and does not seem to see the contradiction in these definitions. It seems that in order to be accepted into the scientific community that you have to have the right credentials, but in order for your work to be taken seriously you have to already have those credentials. There does not seem to be a ways into this republic through these definitions. I think that acceptance in the scientific community comes from the work you do, but that the work you do should not have its credibility based on who wrote it. If the work is on sufficient quality, should it really matter who wrote it? However, the reality it that, the reputation of the author of and work or idea plays heavily on how seriously people take it. If Albert Einstein and Joe Average will to independently come up with the same theory and present identical papers, Einstein's would be taken seriously, and Joe Average's would probably be thrown in the trash. This sort of bias based on the author hurts ultimate goal of answering scientific and trans-scientific questions to the best of our abilities because people will ignore ideas for no other reason than the author does not have strong standing in the Republic of Trans-Science.

One of the last issues that Weinberg brings us is who is allowed to participate in discussion on scientific and trans-scientific issues. Weinberg believes that open and transparent discussion on all issues is a good thing because it allows for scrutiny and for, as must participation in the discussion as possible. I do agree that the more idea that you can inject into a discussion the higher quality answers that discussion can produce, but this as a side effect that Weinberg does not seem to bring up and that is the speed at which a quality answer can be arrived. If everyone in America were allowed their 15 minutes at the microphone on a discussion on oil drilling Alaska, it would take 15mins * 300 million people = over 3 million days for everyone to take their turn. Even though this would never happen, and not everyone would want to take their turn, would the millions who would take their turn really add anything to discussion and produce a better answer? If for everyone who talks, you get 50% closer to a perfect answer at some point you get an unnoticeable improvement to your answer (logarithmic function). Discussion on scientific and trans-scientific issues should be transparent to the public, but participation in the discussion should be limited to those who are more informed on the subject and have the most to offer. Ironically, the question of who those people are is a trans-scientific question and therefore has no perfect answer.

Classes are finally over and I should be more excited but I am not, I am just so over it all that I don't care anymore.

Yes Yes I am actually writing a post. I am THAT bored here on New Years Eve 2006. Not really much noteable happened this year.

I turned 21 and got jelly beans for my b-day. *grumble*
I now have one year of experience to put on my resume. Now just need to get 3-4 before it actually matters on most apps.
Still single and a virgin. Suprise eh?
Willie died. Weefle died. *tear* will miss
Still in the same appartment
Still wading through the bordem and tedium that is school
Still have no real social life
Got to level 60 again in World of Warcraft
Two girls I used to liked are getting married. That just makes me feel really old.
Bought a fancy new monitor for $700.
Had fraud on my bank account, lost some money.
Playing in the jazz band again. fun stuff.
Quit Wind Orchestra. fun stuff.
Gained weight. Up to 195lbs. Need to start losing some (new years resolution?). My ideal weight for my height is more like 150ish. My BMI is 28 overweight.
Thats about all I can think of.

Overall yeah... a pretty pointless year. Now time to go to bed and get ready for another year of more of the same.

(23:23:15) Thinking Orange: and I like THIS benavides
(23:23:23) la vieja babosa: that's like the name of an ice cream at cold stone
(23:23:35) la vieja babosa: i'll have a "Love It" dream schutt please
(23:23:40) la vieja babosa: with extra sprinkles

Thank you for that wonder quote Maya. It made me fall out of my chair laughing in a good way.

Anyways, I am comming back to WC tomorrow which I am very excited about =D. My parents leave at 3pm today, so I can to rule of the house for a whole week.

Works has been really boring and dumb lately. We are near the end of a release and they keep dumping more stuff on the webteam and then tell us they are worried that we can't get our stuff done. *grumble*. Stupid Metrics. The production team got a giant break with their stuff and get to push to the next release when they SHOULD have been more on top of their stuff and got it done. oh well. I miss doing sysadm stuff. I like setting up computers and fixing computers etc... anyways maybe more later.. got to get ready for work.