CP : Needed Secrecy

Visit our sponsor: Vitamins, Supplements, Nootropics

Home

News

Join the revolution!

Convergence08 1 2 3 Next >

Amazon.com Widgets

CP

Needed Secrecy

Science can be compromised by openness and there needs to be a way around this without directly compromising freedom of expression. This idea was brought to a head for me by musing on the possibility of recovering neandertal DNA and the inevitable possibility of clonng them and the equally inevitable wailing and whining by religious leaders, "ethicists," and the sociopolitical left who won't oppose it so much as exploit the results with much public display. Somewhat the same happened with so-called "test tube babies," whose rights were worried over and whom religious authorities claimed would be "born without souls." No, they are normal individuals. Clones, once the technology is mastered, will be normal individuals even if the twins of persons older, even much older, than themselves and not "soulless" humanoids committing all manner of perversions. Since neandertals would likely appear sufficiently different from us as do blacks to whites and whites to blacks and either to yellows, certainly some social problems will be invented involving them, especially if they are generally less intelligent than humans.

Which brings me to my point, that science and research need to be carried on with a moderate amount of secrecy to keep it slightly beyond the reach of neurotics, professional malcontents, scandalmongers, and political agents. As I see it this will help protect unmistakeably beneficial advances such as in vitro fertilization and genetic engineering until they can be applied effecively.

The use of an artificial language for scientific papers, Esperanto or, better, lojban, would help. Latin was once the language used by Western scientists and scholars since it was known throughout Europe by educated persons. An artificial language (as opposed to a natural language which would be accessible to at least fairly sizeable populations) could serve the purpose of scientific privacy. Nobody would be prevented from learning the language outside scientific fields, but few people would take the trouble. There might be legislation in different countries for the purpose of protecting science from interference by the media and the aforementioned undesirables. Ultimately, all research must be required to be revealed openly.

There should be contracts but not external laws requiring a certain amount of secrecy, with violators losing funding and employment or pensions.

Again, there will not be total secrecy as in some spy agencies, and this wouldn't serve too well. No doubt much urban legend and folklore will then surround science -- but such is the case anyway.

Published Saturday, July 22, 2006 2:53 AM by CP

Comment Notification

Join or sign in to track comments

Comments

	Mr. Farlops wrote on July 22, 2006 11:09 AM Secrecy runs counter to all scientific ideals and rarely buys you more than a few fleeting years of advantage--didn't we learn anything from the Cold War? And I'll state it bluntly: We are neanderthals. There is so little difference that even experts will have a hard time distinguishing us genetically or physiologically.
	CP wrote on July 22, 2006 3:48 PM The secrecy criticism is valid, though I doubt, as in the Cold War, there will be cadres of spies willing to risk death to find out what scientists are up to. Science will be open to people who know the language and after a while developments will be open to everyone. Say 10 years, once financing can't be cut off by religious extremists or advocates of this or that insane cause. The politically correct and needless defense of neandertals doesn't belong here. That was just my starting point. We really don't know precisely what they looked like or how smart they were or weren't. That would be one reason to clone them if it becomes possible. You've illustrated my point in a couple of ways. One is by springing to their defense against what I admit are speculations about them much as I imagine you'd launch into a long lecture on the evils of racism if someone said "Who's Joe Blow" and I said "He's the black guy over there" when everyone else is white because it's the most convenient identifier. Another is by insisting that they would be/were indistinguishable from moderns even though this is pure speculation (despite the fact that even in the 19th century anatomists could distinguish their skeletons from those of their contemporary "moderns." My point is to avoid the effects of this kind of ideological pigeonholing of unknown entities rather than seeking to find out what they actually are. That's exactly the same thing as the 1950s movies that assumed all aliens would be evil and all prehistoric creatures would be voracious and incredibly strong. I'd like to clone them and then see what their needs and abilities are rather than involving a bunch of Jesse Jackson type hucksters beforehand who will distort understanding of them. That's why journalists of every stripe need to be kept in the dark till the deed is done, assuming it is tried, just as the do till a number of parents have had kids with profound musical or mathematical abilities, incredible good looks, and so forth.
	EschewObfuscation wrote on July 22, 2006 10:38 PM <i>Nobody would be prevented from learning the language outside scientific fields, but few people would take the trouble.</i> One organization would, and would then publish translations of everything, don't you think? <i>There might be legislation in different countries for the purpose of protecting science from interference by the media and the aforementioned undesirables.</i> Like preventing the above problem? Don't you think that's a ridiculous degree of speech restriction?
	CP wrote on July 23, 2006 9:55 AM It's possible some outfit would do just that, seeing a fortune in more or less having cornered the market. I don't see it as a ridiculous degree of speech restriction, since basically only Western countries ever have free expression. It wouldn't be PC or in accord with "diversity" to expect others to. Besides, I don't advocate repressing information in the US or other civilized countries so much as making access difficult. An alternative would be to encourage the creation of more useless celebrities and the media that report on them. In fact, besides entertaining neurotic girls and pandering to envy in general part of such cheap nonsense is to divert people from real matters (although people who care if "Brangolina" had their baby upside down under water attended only by African midwives with AIDS probably wouldn't grasp most of the matters we'd be concerned with anyhow). Possibly a group of artists and writers can concoct such material on a slightly higher level that would divert more people. But I don't want so much to repress scientific information, which will be available to the general public when something useful is devised, as to delay it's defilement by pundits and politicos till benefits are able to override nonsense like the previously mentioned assertion that "test tube babies" would not have "souls." Not to mention the knee-jerk PC defense of possible resurrected hominids who may or may not be able to deal with moderns before that (if it can be done) is achieved.