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Curious Capitalist

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Hi, everybody. I’m new here and just learning where everything is and goes, but I just have to say that this is a treasure trove of Objectivist knowledge! I want to write a paper for a writing class about the science of Objectivism and I was hoping I could find some good resources. The usual web searches have given me a lot of information about objectivism (little “o”) in science, as opposed to subjectivism, but not much about Objectivists that are also scientists. Is there any place where I can find information on Objectivism and the natural sciences? Ideally, I would love to find and interview a physicist, biologist, astronomer, or any other scientist that could explain how their Objectivist philosophy affects their work, if at all.

Because my professor is a super leftist liberal along with just about all the students in my class, I want this paper to be focused and easily understandable for workshopping. My professor is already biased against anything I would write about Objectivism, and he rejected my first two proposals for being too opinionated. I was originally going to write about Objectivist views on environmental conservation, but then I found the idea of Objectivist scientists and the professor approved it. The research has not been that easy, though, and I was really hoping that some of you fine people point me in the right direction. Are there any good resources out there that examine Objectivist scientists? Are there any Objectivist scientists here? Thank you, in advance, for all the help! :)

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You might be interested in Dr Peikoff's lectures on Physics. I believe they're called 'Physics through Induction'. Last I heard, he was collaborating with some Objectivist Physicist to produce a book format of these lectures. Hopefully someone else could be more helpful, because I am just as interested in this subject as you are.

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Hi, everybody. I’m new here and just learning where everything is and goes, but I just have to say that this is a treasure trove of Objectivist knowledge! I want to write a paper for a writing class about the science of Objectivism and I was hoping I could find some good resources. The usual web searches have given me a lot of information about objectivism (little “o”) in science, as opposed to subjectivism, but not much about Objectivists that are also scientists. Is there any place where I can find information on Objectivism and the natural sciences? Ideally, I would love to find and interview a physicist, biologist, astronomer, or any other scientist that could explain how their Objectivist philosophy affects their work, if at all.

Because my professor is a super leftist liberal along with just about all the students in my class, I want this paper to be focused and easily understandable for workshopping. My professor is already biased against anything I would write about Objectivism, and he rejected my first two proposals for being too opinionated. I was originally going to write about Objectivist views on environmental conservation, but then I found the idea of Objectivist scientists and the professor approved it. The research has not been that easy, though, and I was really hoping that some of you fine people point me in the right direction. Are there any good resources out there that examine Objectivist scientists? Are there any Objectivist scientists here? Thank you, in advance, for all the help! :)

The most "scientific" science is physics so let us concentrate on physics. There are very few PhD physicists who identify themselves as Objectivists. However, the majority of physicists both theoretical and applied subscribe to the existence of reality independent of human will and consciousness (there are exceptions, but they are in the minority). That would make them "small oh' objectivists, not to be confused with adherents to Ayn Rand's philosophy. Most scientists, like most other people do not have a totally integrated philosophy which covers all aspects of their thinking and judgment. They are compartmentalized to one degree or another.

It is unlikely that a modern scientist of any stripe would be consistently and totally Aristolean in his thinking, particularly a physicist. While Aristotle was a philosophic giant in his era, most of his physics (as mechanics) is pretty near worthless. Aristotle denied the existence of atoms and had no notion of inertia. Aristotle's physics was totally disjoint from Newton's first Law of Motion. On the other hand, logic as codified and categorized by Aristotle is still alive and well. So any of us who use Classical Logic as the mainstay of our reasoning are Aristoteleans in that respect.

Bob Kolker

Edited by Robert J. Kolker
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Presumably what you want is someone like Travis Norsen at Marlboro College. Although linguistics is a science, it's usually slotted with humanities or (probably worse) social science so for your purposes I wouldn't be much help.
Oh, but David, we consider you our own resident Objectivist scientist! :)
You might be interested in Dr Peikoff's lectures on Physics. I believe they're called 'Physics through Induction'. Last I heard, he was collaborating with some Objectivist Physicist to produce a book format of these lectures. Hopefully someone else could be more helpful, because I am just as interested in this subject as you are.
This would be David Harriman, who I believe has an MS in physics.
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This would be David Harriman, who I believe has an MS in physics.

Thanks! This is extremely helpful. I came across a Harriman article in my research and he's the only Objectivist natural scientist I've yet to find. I'm almost hesitant to use him as an example because I cannot find any information on him that does not come from ARI or other organizations and publications affiliated with Objectivism, and this was a huge stipulation of my professor. He told me repeatedly that only academic resources could be used, and therein lies the difficulty for me on this subject, because most of the sources I'm finding would not be considered "academic."

But, Harriman is the perfect example of what I need. I read an article in which Harriman says Objectivism needs to be the philosophical foundation of physics, but the article fails to elaborate on that idea. I'm still searching, and I feel closer now than when I started. Thank everyone, for the help so far! :)

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Thanks! This is extremely helpful. I came across a Harriman article in my research and he's the only Objectivist natural scientist I've yet to find. I'm almost hesitant to use him as an example because I cannot find any information on him that does not come from ARI or other organizations and publications affiliated with Objectivism, and this was a huge stipulation of my professor. He told me repeatedly that only academic resources could be used, and therein lies the difficulty for me on this subject, because most of the sources I'm finding would not be considered "academic."

I hate to break it to you, but you could be painting yourself into a corner. Or, more accurately, your professor is painting you into a corner. What is unacademic about the ARI? Because it's not run by the government? The ARI runs The Objectivist Academic Center for crying out loud! It seems like your professor, given his liberal basis you mentioned, is trying to make it impossible for you to present the any views on science from an Objectivist perspective.

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Here's a link if you want to check out Travis Norsen (mentioned in a post above).

Thank you! From the earlier post, I didn't know he was a physicist. The two scientists mentioned seem to be focusing my thesis on physics, which will still be good for my purposes. Ideally, I wanted a survey of different sciences, but I'm glad to have these so far. As I am required to have my thesis and outline by Monday (yes, I procrastinate incessantly), I may just focus on Objectivism in physics. Does anyone have any ideas why there are so few Objectivist natural scientists? It looks like ARI is good about celebrating the ones they have, but I was really hoping I would be able to find more. The search continues...

Thanks, again! :)

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But, Harriman is the perfect example of what I need. I read an article in which Harriman says Objectivism needs to be the philosophical foundation of physics, but the article fails to elaborate on that idea.

David Harriman has a lecture called "The Crisis in Physics" which is available on the registered users section of the Ayn Rand Institute's website. Registration is free. This might be helpful in your studies.

I also believe that several of the members on the forum here work in some aspect of biological science. You might be interested in contacting them, if you do not want to limit yourself to professional Objectivists.

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You might be interested in Dr Peikoff's lectures on Physics. I believe they're called 'Physics through Induction'. Last I heard, he was collaborating with some Objectivist Physicist to produce a book format of these lectures.

The book is a collaboration with Harriman and will be titled Induction in Physics and Philosophy. It comes from this:

Peikoff OCON 2002-3 Lectures

Oh, and I misspelled Keith's last name. It's Keith Lockitch. Here are some articles of his on CapMag. He is also available at ARIBookstore...mainly ID related lectures.

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He told me repeatedly that only academic resources could be used, and therein lies the difficulty for me on this subject, because most of the sources I'm finding would not be considered "academic."
The thing is, I suspect that it will be very hard to find an "academic source" of any kind from a hard scientist on the topic of how philosophy X influenced their research. You can read Norsen's academic publications here. In fact it's not a pointless search because in his Foundations of Physics article "Against 'Realism'", he cited Rand (I'll let you find it), but the point is that if you only look at standard peer-reviewed academic publications, most of them are about nuts and bolts and few are reminisces about how a person was philosophically influenced. That's usually end-of-career behavior. I think the professor's stipulation is disfunctional, depending of course on what the point of the paper is. If you are supposed to research thephilosophical influences on some scientist and the goal is to have some standards on the "is a scientist" question and the "is evidence of influence", then the writings of the scientist would be obviously valid for the purpose. But I don't know what the actual point of the class or the paper is: what you've described sounds like an impossible standard to satisfy, for anyone.
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Thanks! This is extremely helpful. I came across a Harriman article in my research and he's the only Objectivist natural scientist I've yet to find. I'm almost hesitant to use him as an example because I cannot find any information on him that does not come from ARI or other organizations and publications affiliated with Objectivism, and this was a huge stipulation of my professor. He told me repeatedly that only academic resources could be used, and therein lies the difficulty for me on this subject, because most of the sources I'm finding would not be considered "academic."

But, Harriman is the perfect example of what I need. I read an article in which Harriman says Objectivism needs to be the philosophical foundation of physics, but the article fails to elaborate on that idea. I'm still searching, and I feel closer now than when I started. Thank everyone, for the help so far! :)

Travis Norsen and Lewis Little both are Objective-ists and both have PhD in physics.

There are no leading Objective-ist physicists who identify themselves as such anywhere in sight.

Bob Kolker

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The thing is, I suspect that it will be very hard to find an "academic source" of any kind from a hard scientist on the topic of how philosophy X influenced their research. You can read Norsen's academic publications here. In fact it's not a pointless search because in his Foundations of Physics article "Against 'Realism'", he cited Rand (I'll let you find it), but the point is that if you only look at standard peer-reviewed academic publications, most of them are about nuts and bolts and few are reminisces about how a person was philosophically influenced. That's usually end-of-career behavior. I think the professor's stipulation is disfunctional, depending of course on what the point of the paper is. If you are supposed to research thephilosophical influences on some scientist and the goal is to have some standards on the "is a scientist" question and the "is evidence of influence", then the writings of the scientist would be obviously valid for the purpose. But I don't know what the actual point of the class or the paper is: what you've described sounds like an impossible standard to satisfy, for anyone.

You know, I'm almost starting to agree with that assessment of impossibility. The actual purpose of the paper is to write about how philosophy or religion affects scientific discovery. Things that lend itself well to this topic are the Christian scientists that have railed against stem cell research, or basically any of the impediments Christianity has placed on scientific discovery over the years, or how Nazi philosophy influenced their scientific studies. I wanted to write about Objectivism, as I knew no one in the class would. Additionally, when I brought the idea up to him, after he shot down my original two ideas, he told me that it would also be impossible but if I could pull it off, fine.

Like I said, my professor has a real bias against my subject, and it only makes me want to make it better and more original than the rest. Academic sources can also include books, though he told me that I could use none of Rand's fiction. I questioned whether it was okay to use the Bible and what the difference would be, but my comparison did not persuade him. I haven't read much of Rand's philosophical work and I'm just learning about Objectivism in general. Truthfully, I figured that with emphasis on reason and man's ability to understand his existence, I would have no problems finding scientists that strongly and openly declared their Objectivist preferences. I've found a lot of good information, but I would love to find something like evolutionary biologists that are also Objectivists. I did read in this forum that Rand herself never said much about evolution, so I would love to find an Objectivist that studies it and see what they say.

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I think then you would be best off investigating Travis Norsen. The problem would be establishing direction of causation and a specific influence, but if you put together the various Norsen works, I think it would not be difficult to establish the correlation (his arXiv papers plus the Objective Science works which are what we'd call "service" papers). It's probably not possible to establish from the literature whether pre-existing Objectivist beliefs influenced his science, but you could always directly ask him (only quote with permission, btw).

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Thanks for all the help! I have been researching Norsen and Harriman and sent an email to the former about how his Objectivism has influenced his scientific ethics and goals. While physics is a significant branch of science, I still feel that finding an Objectivist in the biological sciences would be quite a boon to my paper. After all, these sciences are where many of the moral and ethical battle lines are being drawn. As always, I have a lot more research on the subject.

I did manage to find something that deals specifically with science and Objectivism, though it is not what I expected. The writer is an admirer of Rand, Peter Saint-Andre, and he has written a fair amount of articles on her and Objectivism; but in an article that may or may not be useful to me, he takes a view that seems the opposite of what I expected. Unfortunately, it’s the only article I have yet to find anywhere that deals specifically with Objectivism and how it pertains to scientific study. As I am still learning about the philosophy, and hardly think the short time I have to research will allow me to consider all the proper counters to his assertions, I was hoping maybe some educated responses to this excerpt could help.

Objectivist thinkers need to decide whether they will be part of the problem or part of the solution. Consider ethics. Part of the challenge for Objectivists is that their conception of human nature is seriously cramped and indeed inaccurate. In order to develop a true philosophy for living on earth, one would need to develop an accurate picture of human nature by integrating the large volume of work done over the last hundred or so years in anthropology, ethology, evolutionary biology, social psychology, and related disciplines. Yet the Objectivists haven't done this, because to date they seem to have been more interested in ideology than in reality. There is a great deal of work to be done in fully understanding human nature. It's not all pretty (we humans are a crafty bunch), and Randian claims such as "there are no conflicts of interest among rational men" are true only on a desiccated vision of what it means to be a rational human being. If old Aristotle were alive today you can be sure he'd be integrating the insights of anthropology and evolutionary psychology as fast as they were coming in. Those who would move forward with a philosophy for living on earth need to drop the ideology and get scientific in a humanistic way (Jacob Bronowski provided a good example of such an approach, I think, but science has come a long way since the 1960s, when Bronowski did most of his writing).

Another implication of this line of thinking is that history matters. For a history major, Rand was often depressingly a-historical. The current context of human experience involves a great deal of hard-won knowledge that is embedded in institutions, laws, practices, organizations, technologies, habits of mind, and the like. Granted, also embedded in these phenomena are misconceptions, irrationalities, and outright falsehoods. Is the modern welfare-warfare state far from the ideal form of government? Are modern mega-corporations partially inimical to human flourishing? Well, yes, but reality is messy and perfection is not an option. So we try to do the best we can with what we've got -- which is a lot. Modern gadgetry fulfills Clarke's third law of technology by bordering on magic, modern science has begun to reveal the secrets of biological nature, modern economics shows more and more the connection between prosperity and freedom, and so on.

The great challenge as I see it is to integrate all of the theoretical and practical knowledge that we as a species have been gaining, and gaining in a greatly accelerated fashion. Rand's followers exist in an ideological vacuum, even a kind of scientific deprivation experiment. They prattle on about metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and aesthetics as if philosophy were some lordly queen of the sciences who needs only to legislate and never to listen. All the while, the sciences and practical arts have made incredible progress over the last 500 years, especially over the last 100 years, and amazingly so even in the last generation.

Whether we call it phenomenography, consilience, ontography, science, or simply objective knowledge, the process of building an ever-more accurate map of reality will be hard work. One thing that makes it especially hard is that we must do justice not only to the "hard" sciences (which are relatively easy), but also what we have learned about our human selves, about social interactions, organizational forms, technological inventions, and artistic creations. Naturally the map would be drawn to a certain scale; no map provides infinite detail, else it would not be usable. The challenge is to find the right scale that will enhance our ability to navigate and explore realities both familiar and unknown, then to fill in the map with greater detail over time through an iterative process of improvement. Philosophers may not be enthusiastic about helping the new sciences emerge, since at the same time they will be working to make themselves obsolete. But I think we can safely say that, just as with the original Oort cloud (whose collapse formed the sun and planets), philosophy's contraction will be humanity's gain. Saint-Andre article

I have a million questions, but right now my only question is whether anyone thinks Saint-Andre’s argument holds any water? As always, I am eternally grateful for your responses! :o

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Those who would move forward with a philosophy for living on earth need to drop the ideology and get scientific in a humanistic way

This seems to be the major point of this guy's article - this is just another reiteration of the old, trite saying, "We don't need principles - we need practical solutions". This guy is first, creating a kind of dichotomy between science and philosophy, and secondly claiming that Objectivism, of all philosophies, is separated by Philosophy and Science's co-foundations: Reality. This guy is just another example of someone who either didn't take the time to read Ayn Rand or didn't like her, so he draws some wrong generalizations about 'what Objectivists' do, clam Objectivists do this, and then doesn't provide an inch of evidence to back this up.

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Just a couple of thoughts. Notice St. Andre doens't really give any examples of where Objectivism has misintegrated or not kept up with the facts of reality.

Re history. There is a bevy of Objectivist intellectuals who are historians, and frankly, the Objectivist perspective on history, specifically, the development of ideas in Greco-Roman, medieval, and Renaissance history are the ones that have made significantly more sense to me than anything else out there.

I'd like to see some insights and specifics before I'd even consider the argument.

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This seems to be the major point of this guy's article - this is just another reiteration of the old, trite saying, "We don't need principles - we need practical solutions". This guy is first, creating a kind of dichotomy between science and philosophy, and secondly claiming that Objectivism, of all philosophies, is separated by Philosophy and Science's co-foundations: Reality. This guy is just another example of someone who either didn't take the time to read Ayn Rand or didn't like her, so he draws some wrong generalizations about 'what Objectivists' do, clam Objectivists do this, and then doesn't provide an inch of evidence to back this up.

Sorry, it's probably my fault for not linking his other writings: Saint-Andre's Objectivist Essays

I originally found him through an Objectivist site, and I've found he adheres to many aspects of the philosophy, but also has many criticisms. I cannot claim to know as much as any of you about Objectivism, but I took his argument to mean that the ideological positions of Objectivism prevents truly objective study of science and creates a complete philosophical system out of incomplete knowledge. This was basically my professor's argument when I told him I wanted to write about Objectivism in the sciences. This is what I am trying to disprove.

I guess some of my questions are what are Objectivist stances on pre-history, biological symbiosis, the big bang, black holes, space-time, evolution (which I have learned much about from the threads), the probability of life on other planets. It is obvious that having a Christian ideology impacts a scientists stance on cloning or stem cell research, but does the Objectivist ideology have a similar impact? To me, the article says it does, in a similarly negative way, by preventing true scientific objectivity and letting ideological philosophy to influence what to investigate. An example to me would be the idea that earth is the only planet with life and that man is the highest life form in the universe. To me, reason would lead me to think that with the immense number of galaxies, suns, planetary systems, there would be life on at least one of these. The probability seems too overwhelming to ignore, considering the advances in astronomy in the last fifty years. This is where I saw sense in the article. Right now, the possibility of life on other planets is philosophy, but it can become a scientific fact if discovered. Additionally, what if we also meet an advanced intelligent civilization? Would Objectivist philosophy have to be changed to make humanity equal to this new race? Science seems to allow for uncertainty, and I guess I took this article as saying Objectivism does not. Maybe I completely misinterpreted it, but I'm inundated with information at this moment, so please forgive me. :confused:

I'm learning as I go, so thank you to everyone for being so patient and helpful. :)

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I have to go to bed, so I don't have time to respond, and I know other people will give a much better response.

I will simply say this: do not accept any part of Objectivism on faith. If you think this guy makes a good argument, then fine, he has convinced. Don't be ashamed if you're not convinced by Objectivism as an integrated system, or if you think there are legitimate objections. Just make sure you understand those objections fully, and then bring it up to question. I simply say this because it will save you a lot of hassle in the mean time, because it means you will be more honestly able to deal with criticism in the future, and maybe even answer these questions for yourself.

This is speaking from the point of view of someone who is very sensitive to criticism. :confused:

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Right now, the possibility of life on other planets is philosophy, but it can become a scientific fact if discovered.

I think the possiblity of life on other planets is still science. It has nothing to do with philosophy, and I think Objectivsm per se wouldn't comment on it anymore because it is hypothesis. The only thing that Objectivism woudl have to say about it is are the conclusions that are being drawn based upon proper logic and inference, and how would one go about establishing that fact. That is, it would evaluate the epistomoligical appropriateness of the claims.

The same is true with the other aspects of science. The evolution threads you have read and that are being discussed most recently point to the fact that Rand was hesitant to comment on it, not being an expert, but she pointed out facets of what we know today, namely man's conceptual faculty, that proper evolutionary science must explain. That's it. That's really all philsophy has to say on stuff like that.

Objectivist physicists have problems with some of today's cosmology because of its irrational basis, but that doenst'mean they have the explanation. That is, the criticism is one of method, which is the province of philsophy. I am thinking here of David Harriman's lecture The Philosophical Corruption of Physics, which is excellent.

[apologies for the spelling. I have little time right now. :confused:]

Edited by KendallJ
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