What is HARMFUL ?

Doc, I think you do not quite see my point here. Forgive me for being direct.

You say that 'trust is what makes technology possible', implying that it plays no part in science. Could you explain us how we could do science if trust was not established between people prior to their engaging in that activity ? And, regarding the FAA, do you really think it plays an central role in airline safety ? It seems that you genuinely do and that is worrisome because you stand at a great risk of being disappointed. And disappointment is dangerous. It does harm to the person that feels it, but it can also turn him into a danger to other people.

Civilization is a very fragile thing. It is not natural, and can easily break down (history shows that it already did many times in the past). After illness and old age, civilization malfunction or collapse is undoubtedly, by far, the bigggest source of suffering for the human race. So do not tinker with the foundations on which it rests unless you have an absolutely compelling reason to do so. At this point, you are probably thinking I am beating the bushes. This is because there are two important connections that you do not see. One is the relationship of trust with organized human life and the other is how Logical Positivism might harm it.

Let us start with the second one. Like many other ideologies born in a world that is already secure and affluent, Logical Positivism starts off with a lot of overconfidence if the resilience of the social fabric. Moreover, how could it do harm as its intentions are so good and so pure ? Well, intentions are not enough. In your last comment, you adequately describe how Logical Positivism (and other forms of scientism) intend to build credibility. First, there is science. Its purpose is to establish knowledge and it would be negligent to base knowledge on trust. Then, there is technology, that uses knowledge by taking it on trust from science. At first blush, this just seems to place trust in a subordinate place to a higher good : knowledge. But look more closely at how Positivism says knowledge is established. Relying on Hume, we have 'knowledge cannot be accepted solely on the report of others. You have to check by yourself'. Now imagine a concrete situation where there is an already established climate of trust. If you say something along the lines of the above, you offend people and you make a serious dent in the trusting climate. If you do not say it but still do the checks and people realize it accidentally, the effect on trust will be even worse.

When you establish a hierarchy of value, as you do by putting science/knowledge above technology/trust, you are bound to have people trying to reach for the 'higher good', if you are successful in persuading them, even if this was not your original goal. A person who sincerely adheres to the form of scientism you describe is unlikely to accept to remain on the lower technological plane forever. At some point, he will want to do science himself, so that he can know. Then, applying Hume's principle, he will start to question everything he previously held on trust. First, he will reject the traditions and habits acquired through his upbringing, then he will doubt technology, because who knows what unexpected harm it may cause. Lastly, he will question science itself and, having thoroughly destroyed all the supporting relationships on which he could have relied to conduct his life, he will retreat to the wild and/or commit some violent act. This is not a fantasy, it is the life of the Unabomber, and his trend of thought is clearly exposed in his manifesto.

Of course, not everyone exposed to scientism ends up like the Unabomber. Nonetheless, he is not an isolated case and, more importantly, one cannot help thinking that his behaviour is a logical consequence of such a pattrern of thought. When you establish the "science, technology" hierarchy, you implicitly award science a monopoly of trust and this objective is then, for example, translated in concrete terms by Logical Positivism's attempt to outlaw metaphysics. This might not be bad if science could play that role, but it cannot, as the regressive process outlined above shows. Science is a calculated use of mistrust for the purpose of establishing reliable theories. That does not make it less valuable, but it does make it unsuitable as an universal basis for human civilized life. Scientists play the game of mistrust between them saying 'you say that ? well I will check it' all the time. The very fact that their community does not blow up immediatly and that they can go on playing the mistrust game shows that they rely on something else to bind them together.

Now, what is this thing ? Sociology of science and philosophical epistemology have been trying to answer that question for the past twenty years, as it became an increasingly popular area of study. They invariably come up with trust, and the many elaborate and complicated routines humans go through to build it. Let us come back to the airplane boarding problem. Before starting the engines, one of the pilots will go down on the tarmac to do a routine tour of inspection around the aircraft. Does it really increase security ? Porbably by to modest extent, but, as airplane accidents invariably show, danger lies in deeply buried technical issues, utterly inacessible to visual inpection. So why do pilots perform the visual checking themselves, instead of delegating it and using the time more valuably by doing additional technical checks using the cockpit instruments ? I guess it is a form of ritual which plays an important role in reminding everybody that the pilot is in charge and that the burden of trust rests on him. It reassures the passengers to see the pilot, who invariably looks like someone you can trust, making his round of inspection. It is probably not very difficult to show that the white starched shirt the pilot wears plays a bigger role in deteminig people to make the decision to board the plane than the thought that a distant administrative body has done an inspection of the airlines maintenance procedures at some point in the past. Mind my words; I am not trying to poke fun at us poor humans here. My point is that it is a good thing that many people accept to board planes because, otherwise, flying would be so prohibitively expensive that we would be prevented form getting the benefits of this life-changing technology. If we are serious about this, it is our duty to try to discover what will actually ensure that. If rituals play a central part, so be it.

I understand that all this talk about white shirts may seem ridiculous and that it must be very difficult for anyone who finds solace and a sense of security in the various forms of scientism, to let go of this exclusive trust in science that makes it apparently so clear and attractive. But still, I feel compelled to try to show how this view may be mistaken and potentially harmful. If you wish, we may go through other individual cases (Gödel, Wittgenstein, the killer of Moritz schlik, and there are others) and I may show you how I think they support this line of analysis.