[Mind's Eye] Re: Why defend corrupt democracy?

I found the complete Bronowski article last night- it's compared to
Whitehead and Russell. It's part of a collection from KU/Lawrence-
Heritage of Western Civilization. I didn't make it to weeks 23 &24.

I read some other books back then- Ward's "The Rich Nations and the
Poor Nations" and Carson's "The Silent Spring" so there were "voices"
drown out by social breakdowns and war. Follow the money...

On Jul 2, 10:34 pm, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Modern science has been regarded as both a model of democratic self-
> governance and an activity requiring and facilitating democratic
> practices in its supporting social context (Popper 1950, Bronowski
> 1956). The only non-arbitrary way to defend judgments concerning
> research agendas in the absence of absolute standards is through
> democratic means of establishing collective preferences. Kitcher
> (1993: 2001), thus, attempts to spell out procedures by which
> decisions concerning what research directions to pursue can be made in
> a democratic manner. The result, which he calls well-ordered science,
> is a system in which the decisions actually made track the decisions
> that would be a made by a suitably constituted representative body
> collectively deliberating with the assistance of relevant information
> (concerning, e.g., cost and feasibility) supplied by experts.
>
> I have never seen science as anything to do with democracy - democracy
> is a form of government I despise and which I see as totally corrupt.
> Democracy is based on presentation ahead of content and gives votes to
> ignorance (originally race) and the means to glean votes to points of
> control based on money.  Any defenders of 'democracy' here?  Other
> than it just being better than worse forms of authoritarian control?
>
> Bronowski, Jacob. 1956. Science and Human Values. New York: Harper and
> Bros.
> Kitcher, Phillip. 1993. The Advancement of Science: Science Without
> Legend, Objectivity Without Illusions.Oxford: Oxford University Press.
> –––. 2001. Science, Truth, and Democracy. New York, NY: Oxford
> University Press.
> Popper, Karl. 1950. The Open Society and its enemies. Princeton, NJ:
> Princeton University Press.