A torturous question about social science [UPDATED]

Short form: It's not science anymore if you pretend you didn't learn something because you don't like what you learned.

I can see in the review sidebar paralleling your blog Dan, "Sharp but informal commentary..." from the New Republic. I agree- and that's why you informally bring up a sharp issue.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it was Hume who raised the is/should be paradox. Karl Popper reformulated it as normative vs positivist (correct me here), and it is what logicians call the naturalist fallacy.

So whether or not there is "empirical" proof for torture - is absolutely pointless, unless we want to embrace a fallacy.

Empirically there is room to go around it. I'd venture that total costs, must be weighed in research on torture. And I am sure that one can empirically prove, that the total costs of torture far outweigh its immediate intelligence gain.

Used as an intelligence gathering device, we have something approaching empirical proof from the French in Algeria, that torture works. But to argue this, you have to argue from "intelligence gathering techiques" which implies a context of double-checking the information gained using network analysis. For empirical research you begin by asking "how can torture be used as an intelligence gathering device". In otherwords, you need context.

Then, to weigh total costs of torture- you begin by saying "what is the benefit of restraint on torture?" Here, again, you will need context. The context is one of climate, of trust, of legitimacy. You cannot slam Iran (I repeat this in my posts, Gonzales argued for torture using examples of Iran!), the Nazis, the USSR, North Korea on torture, not to mention the Inquisition(!), if you're going to then justify the very same techniques! You've just undermined whatever good-will the world may have had for you. You've done so publicly ,and unequivocally. So to empiricallly study the benefit of restraint from torture - you need to quantify the value of trust, legitimacy, etc.

Your link to Putnam, Dan, is ideal. Putnam demonstrates that with all the blah-blah on multiculturalism, civic engagement requires trust. Diversity, empirically, destroys trust, and leads to a fall in civic engagement. Putnam then spent hours posting all kind of nonsense on his website, about how diversity is absolutely good for society - but in the long-run. Not one of those works were anywhere near as empirical as his own research. Putnam is both a good example of empiricism, and cowardice. Multiculturalism, like torture, doesn't work in the larger context. (ok, that's a kind of joke on my part)

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America has suffered enormous harm in this torture episode. Contextually, the worst damage did not come from the torture itself - but from the idiots on the right who stood up for it, and for the lackeys on the left, who don't have the balls to call for a formal commission. That's where the damage is coming from. Believe me, when you act with impunity, and expose yourself as a hypocrite, you have thrown off the mask. Those who support torture, are exposed as a kind of neo-nazi mentality of goons. The evangelicals, it turns out, really are not far from Germans of the 30s. They are too stupid, to decide on their own, if torture even took place. They read pundits, and preachers, who decide for them.

Our worst fears, have been proven true.

For science to be valuable and constructive it must be unbiased in moral and ethical considerations. Scientists are not equipped to make political policy regardless of its morality. The previous administration abandoned funding for scientific endeavors such as global warming research for this very reason that they did not want to know the results, which the scientific community agrees was a mistake.

If you move the discussion off the moral issue to the practical, you've already debased yourself. Cheney has alluded to "at least two" CIA memos that would confirm his belief that extreme interrogation methods produced actionable results that saved American lives. I'd sure like to see these memos but am dead certain that we never will, because they probably don't say anything like what he thinks they say.

dreamking11,

"The previous administration abandoned funding for scientific endeavors such as global warming research..."

Funding for global warming research actually went up during the Bush administration.

Now, almost nobody was pleased by their response to the research, which was basically, "well, yes there's a problem and it could get big and we're going to do something big--eventually."

But that's a whole different thing.

Many profess disgust for torture, but we still engage in many activities just as bad which we hardly question.

With regard to the Putnam study I wrote "Be grateful diversity reduces trust".