Science is no ground for social change

[Laurentius]

Marx claimed to employ scientific arguments for the revolution and new social organization. Communist societies experienced so many failures that it seems now obvious that their functioning defied science in more ways than Marx could have imagined.


My opinion is that social change isn't brought about through scientific reasoning.


Nowadays most states are either monarchies or republics. People's choice for either form of government isn't based on scientific fact but on tradition, history, national interest, etc.

Similarly, some countries accept poligamy, some don't. Whether or not science may show that monogamy/poligamy allows for superior social success makes no difference - people use different criteria when making decisions on social institutions.

My feeling is that social institutions cannot be altered on the basis of scientific findings. I was reading (in one of this forum threads) that in some people's opinion a certain investigation made a strong scientific argument for the society to accept child adoption by homosexual people. Well, I believe that neither the family nor any other social institution can be "revolutionized" by means of scientific judgement.

[post tenebras lux]

Depends what you call 'social institutions'. In Britain communial showers/baths after team sports used to be a social institution and were held to build team spirit.

Then 'science' found that it increased the transmission of diseases (especially of blood-based ones), so the authorities banned them.

Were they wrong?

[Musing Man]

Scientific discoveries and reasonings have long time influenced social change, both directly and indirectly, so your presumption bites the dust.
The unavoidable lag between the time of a scientific idea/discovery/breakthrough and the time of its impact over human society keeps shortening, thanks to either technological advances (that are also behind science), or more direct and open communication.

Can you look at me with a straight face and tell me that the computer (and the network that it spawned) had no effect in social change? Or the latest astronomical discoveries? Einstein's work? The meager iPod?

Social institutions can be and are being altered by scientific findings, take a good look around you, Laurentiule! ;)

[MeinGeist]

Marx claimed to employ scientific arguments for the revolution and new social organization. Communist societies experienced so many failures that it seems now obvious that their functioning defied science in more ways than Marx could have imagined.
The Marxist claim is/was that KM had developed a scientific theory of history, society and economics. The final classless, communist society was to follow as a scientific/historical necessity.

I don't think that his ideas would in any way live up to our current understanding of science, so this may not be the best example.

My feeling is that social institutions cannot be altered on the basis of scientific findings. I was reading (in one of this forum threads) that in some people's opinion a certain investigation made a strong scientific argument for the society to accept child adoption by homosexual people. Well, I believe that neither the family nor any other social institution can be "revolutionized" by means of scientific judgement.
Someone once said: 'Some use statistics like a drunk uses a lamp-post. For holding on to, rather than enlightenment.'

It is a very basic fact that is hammered home to social science students that science can never tell you what to want but, at best, what to do to achieve it.
If someone believes that it is their divinely ordained duty to make homosexuals' life miserable then no data whatsoever is going to persuade them to allow adoptions.
OTOH someone who believes that adoptions must be performed in such a way as to maximise the benefit of the child will be swayed by data showing how that can be achieved. Of course, quantifying benefit is ultimately a value judgement.

Social revolutions generally involve changes in value judgement. Insofar I agree that science does not bring them about.
However, today in the western world, human rights seem to enjoy the status of ultimately accepted "value benchmark". Operating under such a "humanistic hegemony", scientific data provides the ultimate argument for legal change and -in the long run as old dogs don't learn new tricks- for social change.

[dancer_rnb]

Well, we don't throw our crap out into the streets anymore,
and we are picky about our sources of water.

[Laurentius]

Then 'science' found that it increased the transmission of diseases (especially of blood-based ones), so the authorities banned them.

I am well aware of countless examples showing the same pattern:
Well, we don't throw our crap out into the streets anymore,
and we are picky about our sources of water.
Fact is I'm fond of science and I'd love to see a society at least attempting to fix its problems through scientific means. I used to be an utopian but not any more.

So, communial showers used to be a social institution. There must have been at least some scientists seeing the danger of such practice long before the government did anything about it. Perhaps they didn't even think of warning people on the situation because they knew it too well that scientific arguments never change social institutions. However, catastrophic events do. And fear. And authority. But not science. Science, I think, can only help in selecting the right change.

[Laurentius]

Can you look at me with a straight face and tell me that the computer (and the network that it spawned) had no effect in social change? Or the latest astronomical discoveries? Einstein's work? The meager iPod?

Science can only indirectly bring about social change. Through technology, for example. They're not the same thing. ;)

MeinGeist seems to support my view to a certain extent. :)

[Preno]

Marx claimed to employ scientific arguments for the revolution and new social organization. Communist societies experienced so many failures that it seems now obvious that their functioning defied science in more ways than Marx could have imagined.


My opinion is that social change isn't brought about through scientific reasoning.As far as I my perception of Marx's ideas is accurate, he would have agreed with you (unless, of course, you mean that new scientific knowledge cannot cause radical social change, which I think you don't). Marx claimed that class antagonisms and modes of production are the motors of social change.

[Edit]I don't quite understand what you mean when you say that "their functioning defied science", though. What do you mean by "defying science"?

I agree that insofar as a theory is revolutionary (in the sense of advocating a revolution), it cannot be scientific and vice versa, because advocating rather than describing social change is normative. That's one of the reasons why I'm skeptical of "scientific Marxism".

[Laurentius]

[Edit]I don't quite understand what you mean when you say that "their functioning defied science", though. What do you mean by "defying science"?

I put it quite metaphorically, indeed. Although Communist regimes (in Eastern Europe at least) claimed to scientifically plan the development of the nation, actually people were undernourished; land, water, and air quality was destroyed; patients with mental or physical disabilities were hidden without getting proper treatment; etc.

[Laurentius]

Never has science exerted as much influence as it does today. And yet science alone cannot be used to alter social institutions. In fact, no social change will stem from mere scientific facts employed as arguments. To make you see my point, I would ask you to pick any of the serious problems we face around the world today such as city overcrowding, epidemy threats, hunger, water shortage, poverty, global warming, racism, cult suicide, you name it, and think whether or not solutions are difficult to find/implement due to lack of scientific contributions. My opinion is you will realize there are other reasons preventing people from tackling the situation.

[JamesBannon]

I put it quite metaphorically, indeed. Although Communist regimes (in Eastern Europe at least) claimed to scientifically plan the development of the nation, actually people were undernourished; land, water, and air quality was destroyed; patients with mental or physical disabilities were hidden without getting proper treatment; etc.
There are loads of reasons why planning didn't work, mostly because people were too busy "toadying" to Stalin. However, there is a more fundamental problem that utopian planners of whatever stripe miss: people simply don't (or won't) work in the way the planners say they ought to work. This was recognised by Aristotle in his critique of Plato but it is a critique many, if not most, utopian planners seem unwilling to take on board. I tried for years to make the utopians see this when I was a member of the Labour party but I failed miserably.

Applying science to social policy needs to be done extremely carefully!

P.S. I might add, just in case people mistake me for some right wing libertarian, that I am an old-fashioned socialist in the French Revolutionary tradition.

[Chuck Rightmire]

You could say that the failure of communism as a social science project once again proves that science works in that it is self correcting and the ideas of the western world proved to be a more correct social science. And having been born shortly after radio became popular and before television, the jet plane and computers, I would suggest that science has significantly changed society and culture over the last century and a half in ways that are such that most of us in our culture have difficulty comprehending. Life is better in some ways and worse in others. Science has, for instance, also had a big impact in increasing the number of people in the world by a rather significant factor. And that has had and will have significant impact on our cultures. And the advent of worldwide mass communications has played a significant impact on today's world and may have a direct bearing on the current state of world affairs.

[DietCoke]

Marx claimed to employ scientific arguments for the revolution and new social organization. Communist societies experienced so many failures that it seems now obvious that their functioning defied science in more ways than Marx could have imagined.

I don't think this is obvious at all. Your argument is, essentially, this:

1. Communism is based upon science.
2. Communism has failed many times.
3. Therefore, governments based on science will fail, and governments must be based upon other things (like tradition) in order to survive


My response:

1. I disagree with the first premise because I think your definition of "science" is incorrect (or, at least, unclear).

2 There are other possible explanations (besides their being based upon "science") for the failures of communist societies, which you have left out.

3. Only part of the conclusion (somewhat) follows from the premises, the part that merely repeats the premises. Even here, though, I disagree, because past failures do not necessarily mean future failures are assured. The significant part of your conclusion (that goverments must be based upon things like tradition in order to survive) is not supported by your premises.

[Musing Man]

1. I disagree with the first premise because I think your definition of "science" is incorrect (or, at least, unclear).

2 There are other possible explanations (besides their being based upon "science") for the failures of communist societies, which you have left out.

3. Only part of the conclusion (somewhat) follows from the premises, the part that merely repeats the premises. Even here, though, I disagree, because past failures do not necessarily mean future failures are assured. The significant part of your conclusion (that goverments must be based upon things like tradition in order to survive) is not supported by your premises.

You were spot on!
And welcome to IIDB!

Laurentius, please either try to suppress your poetic/Eminescian side in this, or be more specific in your claims...
There are many, too many social factors to count and use in a scientific social design that works. Such designs do exist, but they're proven to be wildly inefficient for as long as one "small" element will exist: individuality.
If you are to rule out individuality, then you can do some highly efficient social science.
Is that what you want?

[premjan]

Marx simply mistook ideology for science. I suppose the Nazis favored existentialism but still ended up ideologically driven rather than scientific in their mindset. This stems from a basic confusion of is and ought.

[Laurentius]

1.
The idea I'm supporting in this discussion is that science is never the determinant factor in altering social institutions. Whether or not science brings about social change is a broader issue, but it seems to me that it cannot be avoided.

2.
Arguments for the idea I'm supporting here can only be extracted from history. History is not the mere recording of past happenings. Historians aim to identify patterns in the succession of events (one of the most wellknown theories is that history unfolds itself in cycles). History repeats itself may seem a trivial truism, but it points out the predictable nature of historical events which stems from their repetability.

3.
Like any other discipline, history builds its theories through an inductive effort. Similar developments form distinct categories. For example, there are numerous cases of invasion in history, which could form, say, the class of territorial occupation events. Nationalist surges comprises another wide range of historical facts. It has been noticed that territorial occupation events always trigger nationalist surge events This example emphasizes the fact that the course of history shows patterns of in the succession of events, which fall in distinct classes and between which constant relations can be observed.

4.
I want to make it clear that my intention is by no means to turn this discussion into a political one. I may have referred to Marx and Communism so that I might stir the cat against the pigeons but one must see I come from the former Communist Block and it is only natural that I should come up with examples from what I have been going through.

5.
The example in my original post does not point to a singular event. Communism has not been the only ideology claiming the superiority of its social model through a demonstration employing rational/scientific arguments. Nazism has done it - arianism was promoted through a "scientific" discourse. Capitalism does it too. I have picked the example of the former Communist states in Eastern Europe because it seems to me highly ironical that the society meant by definition to be revolutionized entirely on scientific grounds has failed to alter social institutions by means of science.

6.
The church, monarcy, polygamy, cannibalism, etc. Since ancient times, such social institutions have gone various changes but the determinant factor in these transformations has never been reason/science. Adjustment to new circumstances, community needs and aspirations, mass hysteria, political struggle and control, etc. are examples of causes leading to modifications in the way social institutions function. Science is sometimes honestly invoked, while sometimes it is nothing but demagogery. Actually it makes littel difference whether or not arguments for change are scientific ones, whether or not they are employed with noble intentions. Rational/scientific arguments do occur in Voltaire's, Napoleon's, or Lenin's discourses, but what has really altered the social institutions of the time is in fact community needs and aspirations, political struggle and control, mass hysteria, adjustment to new circumstances, etc.

7.
History textbooks and especially the way history is taught makes a lot of people believe that science rests at the core of the Scientific Revolution and the social changes that have followed. Nothing further from the truth. On the one hand, countless discoveries and inventions had long existed in other societies, such as China or the Arab world, without fostering the transformations we see in Europe. On the other hand, the engine to the social changes in the Western world was not science itself but more likely the struggle for political power and emancipation of various categories and communities. Science can only be an ingredient (and an important one) for social change, but not a prompter.

8.
Science may advance, but if the population does not live in a society where education is wide spread and access to mass media is free, no social change will occur. Similarly, if the creation of technology starting from the scientific developments accumulated is not encouraged, nothing essential in the society will ever change. Moreover, it needs a mentality accepting that tradition is not infallible and progress is achievable for scientific arguments to play a role in social debate. But even so, it is ultimately the need for change that actually drives change, and this comes from disaster, war, acute community needs, political struggle, and so on.

9.
Never has science exerted as much influence as it does today. And yet science alone cannot be used to alter social institutions. In fact, no social change will stem from mere scientific facts employed as arguments. To make you see my point, I would ask you to pick any of the serious problems we face around the world today such as city overcrowding, epidemy threats, hunger, water shortage, poverty, global warming, racism, cult suicide, you name it, and think whether or not solutions are difficult to find/implement due to lack of scientific contributions. My opinion is you will realize there are other reasons preventing people from tackling the situation.

[premjan]

Science is a way of seeing, measuring etc. not a way of doing - anything. This is the is vs. ought fallacy.

[Laurentius]

Applying science to social policy needs to be done extremely carefully!

This is actually performed by members of the executive. It is the success of their actions that ultemately counts. If the population is satisfied with the solutions to the problems, social change will be a durable one. It happens that sometimes the change defies science, but people agree with it, whereas sometimes change grounds on science, but people dislike the outcome. Science alone does not seem decisive to me in this case.

[Laurentius]

Science is a way of seeing, measuring etc. not a way of doing - anything. This is the is vs. ought fallacy.

Obviously. Science does not trigger anything in itself.

[Laurentius]

You could say that the failure of communism as a social science project once again proves that science works in that it is self correcting and the ideas of the western world proved to be a more correct social science. And having been born shortly after radio became popular and before television, the jet plane and computers, I would suggest that science has significantly changed society and culture over the last century and a half in ways that are such that most of us in our culture have difficulty comprehending. Life is better in some ways and worse in others. Science has, for instance, also had a big impact in increasing the number of people in the world by a rather significant factor. And that has had and will have significant impact on our cultures. And the advent of worldwide mass communications has played a significant impact on today's world and may have a direct bearing on the current state of world affairs.

Paragraphs 7 and 8 in my (too long) post above address this take. Science has had an impact on the evolution of things, of course, but it has not been the driving force of social change.

[Laurentius]

I don't think this is obvious at all. Your argument is, essentially, this:
1. Communism is based upon science.
2. Communism has failed many times.
3. Therefore, governments based on science will fail, and governments must be based upon other things (like tradition) in order to survive.

No, my argument is not the one you present. Communism has claimed to be based on science.

I disagree because past failures do not necessarily mean future failures are assured.

The first three paragraphs of my long exposition above shows how past events can be relevant to this discussion.

[Laurentius]

There are many, too many social factors to count and use in a scientific social design that works. Such designs do exist, but they're proven to be wildly inefficient for as long as one "small" element will exist: individuality.
If you are to rule out individuality, then you can do some highly efficient social science.
Is that what you want?

What? :huh:

[Corona688]

No, my argument is not the one you present. Communism has claimed to be based on science. Which doesn't mean that communism actually does have anything to do with science. What does it have to do with your argument then?

[Underseer]

Marx claimed to employ scientific arguments for the revolution and new social organization. Communist societies experienced so many failures that it seems now obvious that their functioning defied science in more ways than Marx could have imagined.


My opinion is that social change isn't brought about through scientific reasoning.


Nowadays most states are either monarchies or republics. People's choice for either form of government isn't based on scientific fact but on tradition, history, national interest, etc.

Similarly, some countries accept poligamy, some don't. Whether or not science may show that monogamy/poligamy allows for superior social success makes no difference - people use different criteria when making decisions on social institutions.

My feeling is that social institutions cannot be altered on the basis of scientific findings. I was reading (in one of this forum threads) that in some people's opinion a certain investigation made a strong scientific argument for the society to accept child adoption by homosexual people. Well, I believe that neither the family nor any other social institution can be "revolutionized" by means of scientific judgement.

I doubt Marx's claim that his ideology was based on science. His "scientific history" certainly didn't play out the way he said it would.

His criticisms of capitalism -- particularly as it was practiced in his day -- was indeed based on scientific analysis and is depressingly accurate, however I don't see any science in his proposed solutions.

[premjan]

Marx's proposed solutions were based on speculation about human nature, that proved to be either ahead of its time, or not too accurate. Nazism's derivation of its ideology from existentialism proved to be barbaric and literal-minded and confused is (Darwinism) with ought (social Darwinism).

[ashaktur]

1.
The idea I'm supporting in this discussion is that science is never the determinant factor in altering social institutions. Whether or not science brings about social change is a broader issue, but it seems to me that it cannot be avoided.

2.
Arguments for the idea I'm supporting here can only be extracted from history. History is not the mere recording of past happenings. Historians aim to identify patterns in the succession of events (one of the most wellknown theories is that history unfolds itself in cycles). History repeats itself may seem a trivial truism, but it points out the predictable nature of historical events which stems from their repetability.

3.
Like any other discipline, history builds its theories through an inductive effort. Similar developments form distinct categories. For example, there are numerous cases of invasion in history, which could form, say, the class of territorial occupation events. Nationalist surges comprises another wide range of historical facts. It has been noticed that territorial occupation events always trigger nationalist surge events This example emphasizes the fact that the course of history shows patterns of in the succession of events, which fall in distinct classes and between which constant relations can be observed.

4.
I want to make it clear that my intention is by no means to turn this discussion into a political one. I may have referred to Marx and Communism so that I might stir the cat against the pigeons but one must see I come from the former Communist Block and it is only natural that I should come up with examples from what I have been going through.

5.
The example in my original post does not point to a singular event. Communism has not been the only ideology claiming the superiority of its social model through a demonstration employing rational/scientific arguments. Nazism has done it - arianism was promoted through a "scientific" discourse. Capitalism does it too. I have picked the example of the former Communist states in Eastern Europe because it seems to me highly ironical that the society meant by definition to be revolutionized entirely on scientific grounds has failed to alter social institutions by means of science.

6.
The church, monarcy, polygamy, cannibalism, etc. Since ancient times, such social institutions have gone various changes but the determinant factor in these transformations has never been reason/science. Adjustment to new circumstances, community needs and aspirations, mass hysteria, political struggle and control, etc. are examples of causes leading to modifications in the way social institutions function. Science is sometimes honestly invoked, while sometimes it is nothing but demagogery. Actually it makes littel difference whether or not arguments for change are scientific ones, whether or not they are employed with noble intentions. Rational/scientific arguments do occur in Voltaire's, Napoleon's, or Lenin's discourses, but what has really altered the social institutions of the time is in fact community needs and aspirations, political struggle and control, mass hysteria, adjustment to new circumstances, etc.

7.
History textbooks and especially the way history is taught makes a lot of people believe that science rests at the core of the Scientific Revolution and the social changes that have followed. Nothing further from the truth. On the one hand, countless discoveries and inventions had long existed in other societies, such as China or the Arab world, without fostering the transformations we see in Europe. On the other hand, the engine to the social changes in the Western world was not science itself but more likely the struggle for political power and emancipation of various categories and communities. Science can only be an ingredient (and an important one) for social change, but not a prompter.

8.
Science may advance, but if the population does not live in a society where education is wide spread and access to mass media is free, no social change will occur. Similarly, if the creation of technology starting from the scientific developments accumulated is not encouraged, nothing essential in the society will ever change. Moreover, it needs a mentality accepting that tradition is not infallible and progress is achievable for scientific arguments to play a role in social debate. But even so, it is ultimately the need for change that actually drives change, and this comes from disaster, war, acute community needs, political struggle, and so on.

9.
Never has science exerted as much influence as it does today. And yet science alone cannot be used to alter social institutions. In fact, no social change will stem from mere scientific facts employed as arguments. To make you see my point, I would ask you to pick any of the serious problems we face around the world today such as city overcrowding, epidemy threats, hunger, water shortage, poverty, global warming, racism, cult suicide, you name it, and think whether or not solutions are difficult to find/implement due to lack of scientific contributions. My opinion is you will realize there are other reasons preventing people from tackling the situation.

I can put all of this more simply. Human desires drive social change, ideas merely facilitate.

[Odin2006]

I put it quite metaphorically, indeed. Although Communist regimes (in Eastern Europe at least) claimed to scientifically plan the development of the nation, actually people were undernourished; land, water, and air quality was destroyed; patients with mental or physical disabilities were hidden without getting proper treatment; etc.
There are loads of reasons why planning didn't work, mostly because people were too busy "toadying" to Stalin. However, there is a more fundamental problem that utopian planners of whatever stripe miss: people simply don't (or won't) work in the way the planners say they ought to work. This was recognised by Aristotle in his critique of Plato but it is a critique many, if not most, utopian planners seem unwilling to take on board. I tried for years to make the utopians see this when I was a member of the Labour party but I failed miserably.

Applying science to social policy needs to be done extremely carefully!

P.S. I might add, just in case people mistake me for some right wing libertarian, that I am an old-fashioned socialist in the French Revolutionary tradition.

Karl Popper made a good argument against large-scale social engineering in his famous work The Open Society and It's Enemies. Popper's thesis is that revolutionary regimes that try to create a utopia will always become closed and repressive because any constructive criticism against the utopian goal is declared to be treasonous. Not only that, but the notion that only large scale engineering/revolution can fix society is unscientific and based on a BS notion of history he calls "Historicism."

Oh, and I am also and "old-fashioned" non-Marxist socialist. :wave: