Problem with science

The following post is a response to the following texts:
Taming Nature  and Monocultures of the Mind
After reading the 2 texts, I have a main takeaway. That is, nature is very complicated science, and mankind’s understanding of nature is insufficient and coupled with capitalism, resulted in homogeneity on a global scale today.

The moment we start growing crops, cultivation is happening, alienation and domination of nature is happening. We alienate as we separate from nature, by cultivating crops which we choose to consume. We dominate as we choose what stays in the ecosystem and what does not to a certain extent. Artificial selection is replaced by natural selection, and resulted in the following changes 

Today	In the past
Little species (homogeneity)	Many species (diversity)
Very vulnerable to changes in ecosystem	Less vulnerable to changes in the ecosystem
Faith in science	Faith in religion
Mostly democratic	Different types of governing systems
Dependent on nature for economic activities	Dependent on nature for survival

Nature is complex science and by cultivating we are simplifying it and reducing it to something of a much smaller value. James Scott mentioned the benefits of polyculture which people did not see in the past. “The garden was a vegetable garden, an orchard, a medicinal garden, a dump heap, a compost heap and a beeyard.” It was a sustainable orchard garden which an economist would have seen as inefficient use of resources, failure to specialise and trade… As such, polycultures, which essentially is a ‘mini rainforest’, would be a better way of life compared to monocultures as it has higher flexibility, lower vulnerability and social values. Rather than developing and conforming to western values, the indigenous locals could have been better off if they stuck to their original way of life. However they could be seen as ‘poor people’ who needs help from the rest of the ‘richer population’. Maybe we should stop enforcing values on people who are different from us, thinking that is the best for them.

On Monday, Prof Jerome mentioned how breaking away of colonization and spreading the system of democracy was in fact increasing homogeneity, because the westerners believed that democracy was the best system and should be adopted all over the world and the act of removing other systems itself is a communist one, the same goes to how traditional knowledge systems are replaced by science.

Unlike other knowledge systems are usually intertwined with religious beliefs, science is the closest thing we ever had to the truth. However, many fail to realise that science could still be very well far away from reality. This is because scientific experiments involve keeping other variable constant except the variable that is in the hypothesis. The problem with science is that it is derived from keeping all else constant but nothing is constant in reality. If you happen to miss out any one factor or thing and not conduct experiments on it, that is where unintended consequences happens. I was having dinner with another Tembusian yesterday and a friend of mine, who is a political science student, was saying ‘why do we have to science the shit out of everything?’ If science isn’t even that credible, why are we not more careful when it comes to new technological advancements such as genetic engineering? 

Biofuels

This post is a response to the following readings: 

Are biofuels pro-poor? Assessing the evidence

Prospects of biodiesel from Jatropha in Malaysia

The readings seem to be skeptical about the sustainability of biofuels as an alternative source of energy. For instance, the conclusion of the article talking about Japtropha in Malaysia mentioned “Japtropha is claimed: not to compete with food…” and the article about biofuels being anti-poor even stated that biofuel policies is ‘a crime against humanity’

The idea of biofuels being carbon neutral, being a renewable source of energy, even its name make it seem like a promising solution to energy security issues in the light of climate problems we are facing today.

However biofuels cause problems such as food security (first generation biofuels) and worsening of environmental problems (second generation biofuels) which are difficult to address. Thus the question is: Is this trade-off worth it?

If we take this question to a global scale where fossil fuels are depleting rapidly, the trade-off would be worth it as food security is not undermined. Moreover, biofuels are relatively more environmentally-friendly compared to fossil fuels. Today, we produce more than enough food for everyone in the world – the problems lies in food distribution. Hence, allocating some food crops to biofuels can in fact reduce food wastage. I admit this is a very naïve idea but I believe if detailed analysis was done and policies are put in place, there will be minimal price spikes in the agricultural markets. Idealistically, an effective system that collects wasted food to be used as biofuels would make the world go round.

However if we were to take it to a national scale, biofuels may not be the answer to countries with poor food security and limited arable land. Nations that lack food security usually are underdeveloped (and are reliant on primary sectors) hence may be more encouraged to dive into this new prospective market without proper policies in place to ensure food security and minimize environmental degradation.

Even with sound policies in place, there are still risks in biofuels investments as these biofuels would mainly be exported out for energy consumption in developed countries, who are pumping capital to fund research efforts to deal with the energy crisis. Technology such as fracking or third generation biofuels could be seen as a better alternative to the conventional biofuels which have a shorter lifespan.

Biofuels has been around for a long time and yet it has never gained popularity. Albeit there has been technological improvements (second generation and the upcoming third generation), biofuels are still not as sustainable as it claims to be and it is closely linked to food markets, which is an important yet volatile market by nature. Hence, biofuels should not be the answer to our impending energy crisis as there are many other alternatives we can turn to.