Fuji Lozada's Fieldnotes

Anthropologist at Davidson College

More on Science Fiction, Chinese style

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http://schoolgirlmilkycrisis.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/china-future.jpg
From Schoolgirl Milky Crisis
In my class on Science, Policy, and Society, I always include a section on science fiction – not only because I am a closet Treker and scifi addict, but also because I contend that science fiction is the theology of the contemporary world and that science fiction provides the narratives of the wider public discourse of science. As a teacher in a liberal arts college, I of course have not had the time to write the definitive essay on this, but think of the terms that we use to debate science. Biotechnology and GM food activists talk about “Frankenfoods” (such as AquaBounty’s salmon that is being evaluted for human consumption by the FDA).

larb-feidaoI’ve written a piece on Chinese science fiction, and recently others have reflected on the impact of Chinese science fiction (also see io9’s commentary). The March 2013 issue of Science Fiction Studies is a special issue on Chinese science fiction. The Los Angeles Review of Books features an interview with Chinese science fiction author Fei Dao. Fei says:

So at that time science fiction was a very serious thing to do in China that could allow ordinary people to get closer to modern scientific knowledge, and serve as a tool for transforming traditional culture into modern culture. It played a very important role, and had a serious mission to accomplish. Today, there is a commercial publishing market for sci fi, and people don’t have such weighty expectations of literature, yet authors are still discussing serious topics.

I would further assert that sci-fi authors worldwide, from space operas to steampunk, are working on serious topics – obviously, some more deeply and successfully than others. Science fiction as the mythology of the contemporary world (argued by James McGrath) offers possibilities of the future that are shaped by the visions of today. It also does so in a way that is accessible to a wider audience. For example, here’s a relevant koan: why is there no chaplain about the USS Enterprise? Or maybe why is there a character like Guinan (played by Whoopi Goldberg) instead of a chaplain?

In class, we watched the Carl Sagan movie Contact, and read articles by McGrath, Harriet Whitehead, and articles from Star Trek and Sacred Ground: Explorations of Star Trek, Religion and American Culture.

Thanks Lincoln for the LA Review of Books article.

YWW: Overview

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In my class Science, Policy, and Society, we encountered the “big blue marble” effect in our reading of Paul N. Edwards’ book on climatology A Vast Machine. We also talked about the intersections of science and religion through Ian Barbour, Steven J. Gould, and many others who we have read throughout the term.

The above excerpt (a kickstarter project for the whole documentary) shows this intersection, for those who directly viewed the earth as a big blue marble and some who viewed it indirectly through live video; think of it as the science-based deep ecology approach.

Thanks for pointing out this video, Guven Witteveen

YWW: what most schools don’t teach: code.org

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In Science, Policy, and Society class today, we talked about parameters and tuning in climate modeling, from Paul N. Edwards’ A Vast Machine. I did a rant about the three books that essentially created environmental studies as a recognizable academic discipline, a policy issue, and an element of popular culture: Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, The Club of Rome’s The Limits to Growth, and the Brundtland Commission’s Our Common Future.

Edwards’ whole book is essentially about climate simulation models – especially how models have come to dominate the world that we live in today. One thing that mystifies understanding modeling, however, is that our students largely do not know how to code. At a liberal arts college, many faculty are coming to believe that technological literacy, like our traditional writing requirement, should be incorporated into our college curriculum. Here’s a nice video that argues the point more coherently – thanks Vanessa W.!

YWW: Selective Attention Test

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In class today, we talked about issues of objectivity (again!), but this time from the perspective of numbers (Porter and Rotman articles). We started off class with a question about the following quote:

“…science enshrines objectivity, meaning (here) not truth to nature, but impersonality, standardization – reducing subjectivity to a minimum” (Porter 1999:402)

But even when the issue of subjectivity is parceled out, there are still limits to the idea of aperspectival objectivity – limits created by human perception. We clearly understand, from our reading of the excerpt from Gould’s Mismeasure of Man (optional for the STS class, but required in intro) that the GIGO (“garbage in, garbage out”) rule is in full effect in science. In the absence of cultural causal factors like racism, however, humans still have limits in their observational skills. Here’s a classic experiment that demonstrates these limits.

In other words, what we’re thinking about — what we’re focused on — filters the world around us so aggressively that it literally shapes what we see. (NPR)

Here’s a link to an NPR article that brought this issue back up: Why even radiologists can miss a gorilla hiding in plain sight.

More on scientific rationality

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In class today, we talked about Sir Edward Tylor’s progressive development model, as it addresses the issue of science vs. magic, especially where magic is understood as “survivals” based on the principle of “association of ideas” (Tambiah 1990:45). From our discussion in class, I asked everyone to think about this conclusion: “though magic may be a false technical act it is a true social act (i.e., it acts upon the human actors rather than upon nature)” (Tambiah 1990:82). This quote comes from Tambiah’s discussion of Kenneth Burke, who sees magic as “primitive rhetoric.”

As we read ethnographies of scientists and laboratories, think about the issue of scientific methodologies as rhetoric. Here’s an example that may help you understand what I mean by this.

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