Science’s power to control nature depends on a deliberately restricted view of reality

Evidence

The third assumption, context independence, goes back to Plato’s insight that only quantities and context-independent entities can be submitted to mathematical modeling. To the extent that the changing imperfect world of everyday life partakes of the ideal world, it can be described, predicted, and controlled by science just as the physical machine can be controlled by its human operator. Science depends on a rigid, limited, and restrictive structural reality. This limited view of reality is nevertheless very powerful, inasmuch as it allows for the possibility of control whenever phenomena are predictable, regular, and subject to rules and laws. The assumption of order is thus fundamental to the concept of power, and both are integral to the modern scientific world view. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 862

Categorization

• XREF: Sharp pedagogical hook against eco-justice: the ‘objectivity’ that enables environmental management is a narrowed frame that must erase context. — connects to: Realism’s function is to preserve consciousness from doubt, not to copy reality — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on…, 475; Some critics framed science’s language as exploitative toward nature. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 254

Broader Connections

• Realism’s function is to preserve consciousness from doubt, not to copy reality #complicates (0.72) — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 475