[FRIAM] Ants and Bees, Oh My.

[Pamela McCorduck]

I must have missed where science was deferring to  the "comity of  
political/military defeat."  Most scientists, and for that matter,  
most professional military people, deplore this gap, though gap is  
too nice a word for blindly pursuing ideology in the face of facts.   
If you follow it at all, you know that the present administration has  
gutted scientific committees meant to advise or make scientific  
policy for the government and loaded them with politically safe  
ignoramuses.  But you find the same pattern in many significant  
areas--health care, the drug problem, education, foreign policy  
generally.

I  put it to an historian I know: when did we stop being a nation of  
Yankee pragmatists and start being a nation of ideologues?


On Jul 9, 2007, at 5:03 AM, phil henshaw wrote:

> Well, where's the gap between knowledge and it's practical use  
> then?  We're using a method in Iraq designed for certain failure  
> (because of strategies modeled on attacking a phantom enemy unlike  
> the one actually interfering with our plans)  and causing huge harm  
> in every direction.  add the 15% of our own soldiers that come bask  
> with serious permanent psycological dammage. http:// 
> content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/351/1/13 from New Eng J of Med.   
> I was looking to see if young soldiers would be more senstitive to  
> mental damage from it, as i would expect, but this article doesn't  
> break that out.   If sci defers to the 'comity of plotical/military  
> deceit' , as it would look to me is the problem, what's the point  
> of calling it science?
>
> Phil Henshaw                       ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 680 Ft. Washington Ave
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com]  
> On Behalf Of Pamela McCorduck
> Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2007 10:02 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Ants and Bees, Oh My.
>
>
> On Jul 8, 2007, at 7:31 PM, phil henshaw wrote:
>
>> Good observation, about using young mend when they are most  
>> maleable for making platoons and follow commands.    It's the  
>> opportunity for emergent structure, as well as in this case,  
>> people who wish to exploite it, that makes the difference.   I  
>> don't generally buy the evolutionary value laden self interest of  
>> genes idea for what makes systems powerful, but how the confluence  
>> of diverse factors and a catalyst actually engage a developmental  
>> process.  And it's often contradictions like the fact that these  
>> are not the men most fit for the job, but the ones dumb enough for  
>> the job, that raises the questions that reveal what's actually  
>> going on.   Older men would think more.  Bad for armies!
>
> I had no idea when I read this (a revelation to me at the time)  
> whether it was empirical observation all senior officers in armies  
> understood, or grounded  in biology.  Both, apparently, but for  
> centuries, empirical observation served well enough.
>
> As for your next two paragraphs, Phil, I do believe many in the  
> military understand the situation completely--my 80-year-old  
> cousin, who served as a member of the British SAS in WW II, yelled  
> at me on the phone last night: "A field army can never fight a  
> guerilla army."  It's no secret.  Whether the officers who  
> understand it have--or once had--the power to do anything about  it  
> I don't know, but it seems unlikely.  Those who once balked have  
> been replaced.  Our military is quite properly under the direction  
> of civilians.  I hope it will always be so, even when the civilians  
> fail as egregiously to understand things as they have failed  in  
> this instance.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> "One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack  
> religion, because religion makes men virtuous.  So I am told; I  
> have not noticed it."
>
> Bertrand Russell
>
>
> ============================================================
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"One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion,  
because religion makes men virtuous.  So I am told; I have not  
noticed it."

				Bertrand Russell


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