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[Lushy]

Show Notes
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Miranda
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[Dani]

excellent show!

i love the big damn test kitchen! I am so going to try the curry hot chocolate.

and you chnged the airing order! Badgers world is nearly always near the end! Anyway, andother brilliant show.

Thanks guys.
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keep flying, stay shiny, and lets get that gorram trilogy!

[Companion Kate]

[Dani]

seriously?
wowctually noticed it untill now you know. The audio dramas always seemed be be nearer the end of the show.

huh, well i need to brush up on observational and memory skills me thinks

[lhoward]

[laoshi]

Hey Guys, another great show. I had a few issues with the article Jill wrote on Science vs. Ideology. It's all consturctive criticism so please take it in the spirit in which it was intended. Also these are just notes I made while listening so I apologise if it's not as coherent as it could be.
You begin by talking about River and her experiences in the Academy. You say that this is the result of a perversion of science which happens when Ideology wins over scientific values. While I agree that what happens to River is morally perverse, I don't think that the evil of River's situation can be couched in terms of Science vs. Ideology. The people behind project Oracle have the laudable scientific goal of increasing their understanding of the human mind. Yes they want to develop telepaths, but this end is in and of itself not evil. The great crime of the Scientists of Project Oracle in particular and the Parliament in general is not allowing ideology to interfer with science. They are simply indifferent, they have their goal and they just don't care what River and the other test subjects have to go through to achieve it.
You say that the Alliance has taken scientific facts and twisted them to fit in with preconceived notions. But isn't that what all scientists do? If you subscribe to the ideas of Thomas S. Kuhn, you believe all scientific facts are theory laden. We view all facts through the lense of scientific theory. Is this not also true of Ideology. Even the ideas that Science should be as objective as possible and conducted without inteference from political or economic spheres are beliefs. No beliefs exist in isolation, hence they are part of a system, part of an ideology.
Scientific research is a human activity and you cannot just carve it out of all other human activities to set it above them. Yes, allowing economic and political concerns to intefere with scientific research is a bad idea . Yes, falsifying scientific results for political or economic reasons is counterproductive. But their is at least as much danger in trying to set Science above all ideological considerations. In doing so aren't you really setting science above moral concerns? I'm in no way suggesting you would support anything of this sort, but isn't the logical endpoint of trying to separate science and ideology Nazi scientists experimenting on people in concentration camps, a situational analagous to River and the Academy.
The pursuit of knowledge is a noble goal, but it must be balanced with other social goods and they only way to do this is to have an ideological debate. To make science the only value will lead to a situation in which you can justify sacrificing other in the pusuit of greater knowledge.
To go back to your examples of science being unduly influenced by political or economic considerations, I would agree that most of the time it is a bad idea. However I do think you are being a little unfair on the Chinese. At the beginning of the 1400's the Chinese had constructed the worlds greates navy and had initiated diplomatic and trade realtions with many countries in Asia and Africa. However it is incorrect to view the decision to disband the fleet and isolate China cannot be put in terms of conflict between ideological considerations and scientific advancement. FOr starters the Chinese never developed the cult of reason we have in the West, science was a practical matter for them which should be made to serve the greater needs of society. The fleet represented a great engineering feet and its leader Zheng He deserves as much recongition as Columbus, but it was also ruinously expensive. The Mandarins responsible for the change in policy sort to correct what they saw as the out pouring over tremendous amounts of wealth for very little return. Yes, in hindsight this robbed China of the chance of becoming the preeminent global super power for the next few centuries but at the time it was arguably the right decision. Also China has many large Rivers [including the Yangtse or Chang Jiang as it is more commonly refered to in China, meaning the Great or Long River] and an extensive coast line. Ships continued to be used both on rivers and near to the coast throughout this period and navel technology continued to develop. If you are interested in the subject you could wade through the definitive work in English: Science and Civilization in China by Joseph Needham. For more info on Zheng He check out 1421: The Year China discovered the World by Gavin Menzies.
Perhaps Naval technology is a bad example. Take Human Cloning and Genetic Engineering. Debates about research into these subjects are much more complex than a simple clash between Science and Ideology. To have an opinion on these subjects, to have an opinion on any subject is to subscribe to an ideology, at least as you seem to be using the term.
I do think you overstate your case when you say that their is no true science in the verse. Really this is nonsense. The Alliance has made advances in many different fields over our present levels of technology and this can only be the result of true science. I know it can be easy to forget sometimes just how utopian the Alliance is. Josh himself says and demonstrates throughout the show that the Alliance has many admirable qualities. To take the first example we come across in the pilot: Mal uses the concern for people in a fictitious personnel carrier to get the Alliance cruiser to leave Serenity alone. There are many good, decent people who believe in the Alliance and work to support it. This must include many scientists who are working for the genuine betterment of mankind.
Just one final thought. You criticise the Alliance scientists for being paid to achieve a result even if they do not know this is possible. But isn't this a situation perfeclty respectable researchers find themselves in all the time? Suppose I'm a billionaire and I hire a bunch of scientists to find a cure for cancer. They are being paid to achieve a result, when neither they nor I know if it is possible or not. I just don't understand how you can criticise them on these grounds.
Anyway, as I'm sure you can tell this article really got me thinking. Thank you very much for writing it Jill!
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Alliance, n. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.