Answer to Question #252970 in English for Theo

Question

Scientific paradigms: How would the validity of the claim of human exceptionalism be researched within different scientific paradigms? (In other words, what research questions would Popper, Kuhn & Latour respectively probably have asked if they had to address this issue?). Write a paragraph of not more than 300 words on each scientific paradigm.

Answer 1

When ecology is under attack by Republican conservatives in the United States, Tory conservatives in Britain, and advocators for corporate interests everywhere, I wish to repeat my emphatic support for all conservationist affinities that seek to reserve biotic diversity, clean air and water, chemically unpolluted foods, and wilderness areas. Much of my life some forty years as a writer, lecturer, and activist in various movements has been and remains persistently committed to these environmental goals. I find it necessary to make this statement to the reader because some years ago, a leading light in the deep ecology tendency scandalously accused me in The Progressive of capitulating to reactionaries in the United States after I criticized his Eco mystical views as deleterious to the environmental movement. Nor is he the only one who has done so over the years in one way or another.( Joffe, A. R., Bara, M., Anton, N., & Nobis, N. (2016). The ethics of animal research: a survey of the public and scientists in North America. BMC Medical Ethics, 17(1), 1-12.)

I have encountered such distrustful behavior only once before in my lifetime for example, during the 1930s, when devotees of Stalin’s version of Communism designated all of their critics as ‘fascists’ and worse for daring to challenge their policies. Such behavior should be severely reproved as cynical and demagogic if environmentalists are not to surrender the moral integrity that they claim for themselves and their ideas. What is at stake in such rhetorical charges is whether dissenting views within the ecology movement are even possible or whether criticisms that concern the welfare of that movement can be intelligently explored on their own terms.

Having expressed this concern, it would be foolhardy to ignore the tendency of ant humanism to feed into the politically charged social Darwinism that is very much abroad today. Thus in debates in the US Congress on reducing welfare benefits to the needy, a legislator from Florida who opposes such aid is reported to have held up a sign that said ‘Do Not Feed the Alligators’ and noted, ‘We post these warnings because unnatural [sic!] feeding and artificial care creates dependency’. A legislator from Wyoming is reported to have drawn ‘a similar parallel with wolves’ (Robin Toner, Resolved: no more bleeding hearts, New York Times, ‘Week in Review’ section, July 16, 1995).

Reference

Joffe, A. R., Bara, M., Anton, N., & Nobis, N. (2016). The ethics of animal research: a survey of the public and scientists in North America. BMC Medical Ethics, 17(1), 1-12.

Robin Toner, Resolved: no more bleeding hearts, New York Times, ‘Week in Review’ section, July 16, 1995