Silver Demon: In the Name of Science

This past week, the curiosity mars rover landed on the surface of the red planet. A proud moment in science to be sure. Given that this was also at the height of the Chick-Fil-A madness, a meme quickly followed that went like this:

Dear Religion,
While you were busy debating which chicken sandwiches were okay to eat, I landed a rover on mars.
Sincerely,
Your pal science.

This got a chuckle from me. However, perhaps this also is a good time as any to point out that science is not always a pure light into the darkness.

Hubertus Strughold is considered to by the father of space medicine and went to work for NASA following WWII. Dr. Strughold also once held a post at the NAZI Concentration Camp of Dachue. The experiments that Dr. Strughold were connected to involved placing concentration camp inmates in low pressure chambers, forced consumption of seawater, exposure to extremely low temperatures and submersion in freezing waters. These experiments are believed to have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of prisoners.

Dear Religion,
I shot for the moon by murdering the weak. Your Spanish Inquisition was nothing. Envious yet?
Sincerely,
Your Pal Science.

Following World War II, Operation Paperclip went into effect. In a desperate bid to stay ahead of the Soviets during the Cold War, the United States aided numerous German and Japanese scientists in obtaining clemency and U.S. citizenship in exchange for the knowledge they had obtained from experiments that could easily be classified as war crimes. Or as it might also be said, crimes against humanity.

Dear Religion,
While you were busy persecuting those of different faiths, I exploited that bigotry for cannon fodder.
Thank you,
Your Pal Science.

A full accounting of the horrors of the medical experimentation that was conducted during The Shoah would be impossible. The NAZI's did tests to discover the effects of frostbite, hypothermia, malaria, mustard gas, dehydration, the transplantation of tissues, and more.

Under the NAZI regime, gay men and women were also persecuted and imprisoned in concentration camps. Experiments on gay men imprisoned at Buchenwald, undertaken by Dr. Carl Peter Vaernet, were attempted in order to find out if it was possible to use hormones to make gay men straight. If he were alive today, one wonders how readily Dr. Vaernet would fit in with the ex-gay movement.

While castration was only rumored to have been done to the pink triangle prisoners, the British actually went ahead and chemically castrated Alan Turing, who was instrumental in the defeat of the NAZI's, for the grand old crime of being gay. As a result of this hormone treatment, Alan Turing committed suicide by eating a poisoned apple.

Alan Turing, in addition to helping defeat the NAZI's during WWII, is considered the father of modern computer science and the person whom you should be thanking for the computer you are reading this article on.

Dear Religion,
While you were busy persucuting the homos, I've been busy developing the tools that let you do so.
You're welcome,
Your Pal Science.

The history of medical experimentation in the United States has been as equally horrific as that which occured in NAZI Germany. Children, the disabled, the poor, the homeless, prisoners, and military personnel have been among the most commonly used subjects. Prior to the Civil War, expirementation on slaves was a widely accepted practice.

History is easily forgotten and when it comes to queer history, our community has been faced with a particularly virulent purge of anything that could possibly be construed as rainbow tinted.

This has been one of the main reasons I have been motivated to do the work that I have done on my novel Silver Demon. The subject of medical experimentation, particularly the tests that were conducted during The Holocaust, is one that will feature heavily.

Nobody wants to remember the dirty and grimy parts of history, only the roles we played as heroes. I cannot count myself as an exception to this. Frequently, I find myself wanting to bury my head in the sand, only to discover that there is no sand, only the ashes of the innocent.

Social Constructs and The Natural Order: Part 1: Introduction

Note: the following is the first in a series of planned philosophical essays that I shall be writing regarding what can be called the Natural Order. First, allow me some pretension in assuming that I am capable of doing what I intend to do. I make no claim that what I am about to argue here is anything more then the ravings of an individual who thinks he understands "How The Universe All Fits Together".

Social Constructs and The Natural Order

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: The Evolution and Survival of Systems
Part 3: Free Will, Choice, and Self Determinism Within Social Constructs
Part 4: The Role of Science and Religion
Part 5: Social Constructions Involving Race, Ethnicity and Culture
Part 6: Social Constructions Involving Gender and Sexuality
Part 7: Thoughts on Creating more Ethical Systems


To begin, let us consider some history. The universe was created in a bang, either by some grand God saying "let their be light", a flying spaghetti monster waving a noodly appendage, or through physical forces we don't yet fully understand. Whatever. At some point, galexies formed out of gasuous nebulas, then a solar systems came next, one which happened to have star we call the Sun at it's center around which would revolve our planet earth. Then upon this earth came a series of increasingly complex organisms which would separate and evolve out into different species. Over time at least one of these species would develop what can be called rational consciousness.

Now let's stop right here because this development is key to everything else I'm going to talk about. Why? Because up until now, everything that happened in the universe followed certain hard rules, what we might call "the natural order", that is "the rules governing the way the universe is". Organisms follow the rules of evolution, which is grounded in the rules of chemistry and physics and influenced by the geological environment. In general, scientists study these rules in an attempt to know them. Most importantly, these rules must be followed. If a rule or law science has decreed to be a part of the natural order is broken, then science was wrong about that rule. It is important to note, that there is no proof that we humans are capable of knowing the natural order in it's entirety.

So why is the development of of rational consciousness so important? Because with the development of self awareness, we humans were capable of developing new rules and systems. Specifically, we developed what could be labelled most generally as social constructs. Now by "social construct" I am of course referring to any rule or system that is dependent upon the faith of rational beings in order to exist. This makes social constructs very different from the natural order, which does not depend upon faith in order to exist.

In distinguishing between the natural order and social constructs, I must distinguish between two different kinds of beliefs. Beliefs about the natural order can be either right. For example, if I believe that there exists an all powerful god who sends good people to heaven and bad people to hell, then I can be either right or wrong depending on if there actually exists an all powerful god who sends good people to heaven and bad people to hell depending upon their faith in that God. Technically, I could also be considered to be partially right if there actually exists an all powerful god who sends people to heaven or hell depending on the number of snickerdoodles they consumed during their lifetime.

Beliefs about social constructs though are different, since social constructs are dependent upon belief in order to exist in the first place. Therefore, beliefs that are solely regarding social constructs technically cannot be "wrong". They can be called misguided, they can have devastating consequences for those who believe in them and for others, but they cannot be incorrect. If people believe in governments, economies, languages, then these things exist and the beliefs of the faithful legitimize and give power to those constructs.

Another important point needs to be made though, while social constructs are catagorically distinct from the natural order, they are also constrained by the natural order and cannot break it. It is however possible for false beliefs of conscious beings in the natural order to be created or develop within social constructs. It is also possible for social constructs to develop that ignore or are ignorant of the realities of the natural order.

Summary
-Social constructs need to be believed in order for them to exist and therefore are categorically distinct from the natural order which needs no rational conscience being to justify it.
-Social constructs are constrained by the natural order but false beliefs are still possible within them and to be generated by them.

(I imagine this introduction is going to seem silly to people, but bear with me, I plan to start covering more interesting and complicated ideas in future instalments)

Coming Soon: Part 2: The Evolution and Survival of Systems