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SUPPLE_CONFUSIONS

                                             August    7, 2010
                                             September 8, 2013
   The topic(s?) at hand:
                                                   The title is from T.S.
      The history of the                           Elliot's "Gerontion"
      idea of history;                             ("After such knowledge,
                                                   what forgiveness?")
      The history of the
      idea that science                            My alternate ideas for
      should be conscious     (But there           titles were "whispering
      of public policy        isn't very           ambitions" "cunning
                              much of this         passages" and "contrived
                              in what              corridors".
                              follows...)
                                                       (There is of course,
                                                       no hope for someone
                                                       who's started quoting
                                                       Elliot.)

Frank Gavin, gave a
talk at the long now
on "Five Ways to Use    Perhaps his most valuable
History Well".          suggestion: historians may    We got nothing to fear
                        help put over the message     but fear itself, and
                        "Don't freak out".            that means we're in
                                                      deep shit.

   http://longnow.org/seminars/02010/jul/12/five-ways-use-history-well/


The phrase "Applied History"
comes up periodically:

   http://appliedhistory.co.uk/

But consider what
"applied economics" has            Though you could make the case
done for economics...              that history has always had this
                                   problem: biased by nationalisms,
Abstract disciplines seem          manipulated to support hegemonies...
useless as long as they
remain abstract, but once
applied, there's a
potential corruption there.          Even if there really
                                     is no such corruption
   When the scientist                going on, just the
   has foreknowledge of              fear that it might be
   the "correct outcome",            complicates the situation.
   there are many ways
   the experiment can be                             In the worse case,
   biased.                                           the attempt at being
                                                     relevant to policy
Our usual hope is that while each                    decisions can prevent
individual scientist may have                        any relevance.
biases (you may feel a committment
to a certain outcome because it's                    You can run into
the one you've spent your career                     the bullshit filters
predicting), in science as a whole,                  people often use
the individual biases will cancel                    rather than engaging
out, they will counterbalance each                   with the argument.
other...
                                                         TWO_LEVEL
There's a potential breakdown
in this process, a nightmare
scenario:

What if there's a bias widely
shared by the entire culture
of researchers?  It becomes          Even the appearence of a
entirely possible that with          possibility that they might
the best of intentions, they         be doing this can be used
will rig the results (whether        against them by competing
unconsciously or consciously).       propaganda machines.

        THE_GREAT_DEBATE
                                                         A_POLITICAL_SCIENCE

If you're going to rely on
different viewpoints fighting
it out, then you *need* different
viewpoints; there's a risk that         This is an interesting point
a wide-spread consensus may act         because usually I think we
as a hive mind, a self talking          would say consensus is the
to itself, debating nothing of          goal: "nearly all scientists
consequence.                            agree that--".

                                                       So... there's
                                                       a need for heretics...
When human intention corrupts
(or can corrupt) the process of                                THE_HERETIC
achieving the end... then what        UNINTENDED
do you do?

    Throwing up your hands
    isn't an option.

    In practice, we're all stuck
    trying to find a way to dance
    through these potential traps,          striving, engaged desire
    living with contradictions when
    we can't live otherwise.                         vs

    Science may get us through,             a neutral, objective
    but getting science through             professionalism
    isn't a science.




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