Val Dusek writes:

>Science must be unsullied by biases, power, or human intention.  Ruffini apparently thinks
>that, because I mention political connections of von Neumann, claims about
>the influence of Weimar culture on quantum mechanics, etc., that I must think
>that science is nothing but a social construction, a mere figment of the
>imagination, or a pawn of power-plays.  However, to admit that ideologies,
>social pressures and politics influence scientific theories or positions is
>not to claim that science does not sometimes grasp the real world or that the
>real world does not exist.

I do not see the need to apologise for holding the position that science is a social construction, if by that is meant that it is created by man. Science is man-made. Without man, gravity would still operate in the universe, though Newton's law would not be there to describe how it is observed by man. I would have thought that by this time we would have accepted the fact that science doesn't deal in absolutes. Whatever we regard as the "reality" described by science, there is no justification for regarding this as the "true reality" in an absolute sense. Science, in this respect, is no different from art, which is also an attempt to establish observable truths about the reality we inhabit.

Ptolemy's beautiful system for the heavenly spheres was constructed in accordance with, and as a reflection of,  the hierarchial society at that time. Copernicus lived at a time when society had developed sufficiently for this system to be challenged. I believe it is no accident that the early part of this century saw intellectual thought move into the quantum realm and, at the end of the century - having established a fairly consistent theory of the components of matter down to the apparently inpenetrable level of quarks, that it is returning to the area of cosmology and specifically to ideas related to the fabric of space and time. We may well be entering another hectic phase of intellectual activity with new satellite mapping of the universe leading to speculation on the topology and possible anisotropy of space-time. Is it the real world? I don't know. But it is the world we live in - and the way we describe it is through the imagination of scientists and artists.

Terry Boyce

p.s. I want to echo what Stephen Miles Sacks said about not wishing to see discussion limited by (and this is my addition) those who think they can judge what is or is not acceptable to others. Tolerance is more than a virtue, it is a necessity for becoming human. As Oliver Cromwell said in his letter to the Church of Scotland..."think it possible you may be mistaken." I believe we should always have that phrase lurking at the back of our mind.