{"id":24332,"date":"2024-11-25T09:12:07","date_gmt":"2024-11-25T07:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/?p=24332"},"modified":"2024-11-25T19:08:30","modified_gmt":"2024-11-25T17:08:30","slug":"science-serving-national-glory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/sciencesurf\/2024\/11\/science-serving-national-glory\/","title":{"rendered":"Science serving national glory"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Serving the Reich: The Struggle for the Soul of Physics under Hitler<\/a>” by Philip Ball is a fascinating read – recommended to me recently<\/a>. From the introduction:<\/p>\n

Scientists are only human, to be sure, but science … is above our petty preoccupations \u2013 it occupies a nobler plane, and what it reveals is pristine and abstract … science is \u2018disembodied, pure know\u00adledge\u2019. There are scientists and science advocates who consider that historians, philosophers and sociologists, by contrast, can offer little more than compromised, contingent half-truths; that theologians spin webs out of vapour, politicians are venal and penny-pinching vote chasers, and literary theorists are brazen clowns and charlatans. Even the historians, philosophers and sociologists who study science itself are often regarded with suspicion if not outright hostility by practising scientists … It is a commonplace to say that scientists once served God, or at other times industry, or national glory. … But assaults from religious and political fundamentalists, posturing cultural relativists and medical quacks have understandably left many scientists feeling embattled.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

10 years later I couldn’t say it better – here a German translation<\/p>\n

Wissenschaftler sind zweifellos auch nur Menschen, aber die Wissenschaft \u2026 steht doch \u00fcber unserem kleinlichen Denken \u2013 sie bewegt sich auf einer h\u00f6heren Sph\u00e4re, und das, was sie offenbart, ist doch rein und abstrakt \u2026 Wissenschaft als \u201ek\u00f6rperloses, reines Wissen\u201c.
\nEs gibt WissenschaftlerInnen und Wissenschaftspolitiker die meinen, dass Historiker, Philosophen und Soziologen im Vergleich dazu kaum mehr als limitierte Halbwahrheiten anbieten k\u00f6nnen; Theologen nur Netze aus dem Nichts spinnen, Politiker k\u00e4ufliche und kleingeistige W\u00e4hlerstimmensammler sind und die Literaturtheoretiker Clowns und Quatschk\u00f6pfe.
\nSelbst Historiker, Philosophen und Soziologen, die Wissenschaft an sich untersuchen, werden von den “echten” arbeitenden Wissenschaftlern misstrauisch oder sogar direkt feindselig betrachtet \u2026 Dabei ist es eine Binsenweisheit, dass Wissenschaftler einst Gott dienten; zu anderen Zeiten der Industrie oder dann auch mal dem nationalen Ruhm. \u2026
\nDoch Angriffe von religi\u00f6sen und politischen Fundamentalisten, eitlen Kulturschaffenden und medizinischen Quacksalbern haben verst\u00e4ndlicherweise nun dazu gef\u00fchrt, dass sich viele Wissenschaftler in die Defensive gedr\u00e4ngt f\u00fchlen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

 <\/p>\n

\n CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 13.07.2026<\/span>\n <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Serving the Reich: The Struggle for the Soul of Physics under Hitler” by Philip Ball is a fascinating read – recommended to me recently. From the introduction: Scientists are only human, to be sure, but science … is above our petty preoccupations \u2013 it occupies a nobler plane, and what it reveals is pristine and … Continue reading Science serving national glory<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[4237,1275,304,4951,218],"class_list":["post-24332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-note-worthy","tag-ns","tag-germany","tag-history","tag-physics","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24332"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24338,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24332\/revisions\/24338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}