Icarus or the Future of Science Revisited

Icarus or the Future of Science Revisited

The purpose of science should be to promote human happiness. At least that is what we expect of it. But, does science in reality serve this utopian purpose? Or is it currently being developed only for the advantage of a small, privileged group? Why does it tend to make the social differences greater?

In an exercise of memory and comparison, I will in the next few lines analyze the 1924 Bertrand Russell’s article: “Icarus or the Future of Science” and bring it up to date with today’s technological advances and our geo-socio-economic-political situation (whoa! such a big word).

In his 1924 article, Russell states that anthropological sciences (human physiology, psychology, anthropology, history, sociology, and economics) have not made the effects expected from them in terms of a social point of view. In this regard, there have been some economical theories, basically: communism and capitalism. Today almost every country pursues a capitalist economic model; we can say that Cuba is the only country in the world today that follows the communist model in their state. Even China used the capitalistic theory to achieve the economic development that it has nowadays. First, China manufactured cheap products in great quantities but during the past years, it has changed to a more technologically developed manufacture, in other words, China’s products have only increased in quality and intrinsic value.

We have seen that, from the example of countries like the United States, China, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom, for a country to progress and accumulate wealth, capitalism is the most feasible way to achieve those objectives. (Note here that I am not talking about the distribution of the fore mentioned wealth among the country’s population, but pure economic power). In the capitalism system, the prices of goods and services are controlled largely by supply and demand. The “goods” that are more important in the present economy are basically information (Information technologies) and biotechnology. This goods share the characteristic that their value lies in the knowledge they represent. As the saying goes, knowledge is power.

This instance can be verified by looking at the countries that are reaching economic levels of developed countries, like Brasil, China, India. These countries are focused in developing new technologies of value to their countries, so that they can achieve a somewhat less dependent economy.

In the article: “The Emergence of Modern Biotechnology in China” by Dr. Shaheen E Lakhan, he reveals China’s relation with modern science through history. Especially during the communist years 1949-1976 there was no development in these areas. “Genetics in the Soviet Union and Communist China was governed by ideology rather than systematic research and experimentation. Simply put, science was relegated to being a tool of dogma.” (Lakhan) Since 1976 political leaders implemented modernization and attempted the renewal of scientific thought. “Despite skepticism about the ability of a developing country to effectively participate in the HGP, China joined the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium in 1998 to work alongside France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, and the United States.” (Lakhan) This shows that a developing country like China can do science side-by-side with countries more developed and with a more significant history making science.

The second topic of Russell’s article is named: “Effects of the Physical Sciences”. Here he discusses what physical sciences have achieved in making changes to our social lives. In his second paragraph, he states that there are many parts to be industrialized, especially Russia, India, China, and South America. There is an incredible difference between the world of Russell in 1924 and our world in 2010. China is one of the most industrialized countries, India hosts another Silicon Valley in Bangalore and many cities of South America and Russia have large industries. China is actually buying lands and natural resources from other countries, particularly in Africa. In the article: “China Buys its future from Africa”, Tim Webb and Nick Mathiason from UK’s The Observer, brings us a new view in China’s expanding economy and their insatiable need of mineral resources for their industry.

The one effect that the author did not think of is the toll that the world’s industrialization would take on our planet. Researchers have agreed on the role of industrialization in climate change, mainly the burn of fossil fuels and the deforestation. Now we have to work out ways to impact less our environment, and find ways of helping our world and our society using IT’s and biotechnology.

References:

Icarus, or the Future of Science. Russell, Bertrand. 1924.

http://cnx.org/content/m14424/latest/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/feb/10/mining.china

http://www.csm.ornl.gov/PR/NS-10-25-03.html

A Reality through the Pinhole

On august 26, 2010, Emma Cecilia García Krinsky, gave a conference at Monterrey Tech titled in Spanish: “La utopía de las causas, a través de la imagen fotográfica. Homenaje a Carlos Monsiváis”. The utopia in causes, through the photographic image. A tribute to Carlos Monsiváis.

As her title tells us, the main purpose of her speech was to enlist a number of causes from twentieth century Mexico, try to interpret the iconic pictures of each cause and their relation to their utopian cause. The causes she chose are focused mainly on the causes and consequences of the Mexican Revolution. The pictures form part of the tribute art gallery to Carlos Monsiváis.

The first cause she talked about was: the anti-porfirism. Porfirio Díaz is most often considered as a tyrant, as one of the worst presidents in Mexican history but it is a petty point of view. This is caused chiefly by the education given in this country, which is an inheritance of the 70 years of the PRI political party in the presidency. The actual perfect (almost perfect) dictatorship as stated by Mario Vargas Llosa, the way he called PRI, is as such the result of the Mexican revolution, the nonsense continuum of rebellions, wars, and massacres perpetrated by the “caudillos” that supposedly wanted better living conditions for their fellow citizens. This party would put in line all the caudillos who wanted to have power in a “legitimate” way; it actually was a very clever idea from Plutarco Elías Calles and should be admired. In this way PRI, a product of the revolution, would obviously want to praise the great accomplishment that the revolution meant for Mexico and did so by implementing the “caudillo” ideas to public education; thus promoting a deformed idea of patriotism that still continues to haunt our society affecting above all civil rights and the economy.

The principal way to justify the control PRI had over the country was to make everyone believe President Díaz was the worst that ever happened to the nation. This was easily accomplished by creating a dichotomy between the good guys (members of the official party) and President Díaz. It is almost always overlooked Díaz’s accomplishments in matters of economy, infrastructure development and national security, sure it came with a cost but anything of value isn’t free. Nobody is perfect and no one should be judged by that standard, good or evil. If we did get ourselves in other people shoes, and think what we would have done in their present situations, there’ll be more tolerance and less partial judgment.

In this case, as the speaker García said: photography is really a portion of reality (the vision of the photographer). Anyways, it is actually a witness of history, it leaves a record; a subjective yet valuable record of history.

Photography is not only used as a veritable witness of things past, it is also used as a medium of propaganda; a very good example is the Cold War. Mexico was not the exception, and since the revolution of 1910, it was an effective mean to create a national identity. And I mean my words, it is a created identity; not necessarily a desired, popular debated or reached by consensus.

As everyone knows, a photograph is the capturing of a moment, normally a 60^th of a second; that as García states, it is the frontier between reality and imagination. Each one of the pictures presented here tried to establish a utopia, each with its different background, idiosyncrasy, and purpose.

There is not enough space to rant about the 6 causes that the speaker talked about, maybe in another time it can be done.