Science

Weighing in at a mere 257 pages, you'd think Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent would be a quick read. Well, it wasn't quick but it was good. I'm sure the English majors out there can expound on many themes but the one that caught my attention was the focus on science.

Bear with me for a quick philosophical diversion.

The qualitative research methods class I'm taking now is taught by a philosopher. On the first day he threw out Aristotle's five modes of knowledge:

1. techne - artistic/technical knowledge
2. episteme - scientific knowledge
3. phronesis - practical wisdom
4. sophia - philosophic wisdom
5. nous - intuitive reason

He went on to explain that episteme has come to be the only truly accepted mode of knowledge; quantitative data, statistics, and measurement have come to dominate research and business. As an engineer I can say confidently that the "art" of "old-time" construction has been replaced by a rigorous understanding of the behavior of materials and statisical models give us expeced loads on structures. My professor's argument was that people are sensitive; we exist in a qualitative world full of experiences better described with words than numbers. Thus, qualitative methods are necessary for understanding the world.

Back to Conrad.

Mr. Vladimir, the official at the embassy, recognizes this dominance of science and recommends that the anarchist agent, Mr. Verloc, direct his hosilities toward science itself. He says that attacking heads of state or churches is expected and that an attack on an observatory at the prime meridian will stir things up. Anyway, reading the book for the first time while hearing this philosophical angle was interesting.

Furthermore, while we're discussing science as god, I had another interesting experience today. As you may know, this weekend is the first ever Green Festival in Seattle. We went to hear Amory Lovins, the founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute speak this afternoon. I'd rank him up there with the smartest people that I've ever encountered but I left his lecture with some questions. He is all about sustainability and sustainable capitalism; as I understand it, he believes that the America's energy/security woes can be solved by the practical application of science and R&D, by the private sector. While he makes an incredibly strong argument for this case, backed up graphs, dollar amounts, and prestige, I was left wondering about everything else. By this I mean that, sure, a safe, lighter car that gets incredible gas mileage is great but that doesn't solve the problems urban sprawl and traffic congestion; the fact that Wal-Mart is pushing the trucking industry to use fuel-efficient trucks is good but it fails to address the fact that unchecked consumption of goods made in sweatshops isn't so good. Maybe I'm overanalyzing it but I saw this faith in science that seemed to be ignoring the qualitative elements like quality of life or social justice.

Anyway, that gets me through book number nine.