Literary Theory as Humor: Alan Sokal's Hoax
Noel Smith
The Nando Times Voices recently published the following article on
this topic by Linda Seebach:
-*--
LINDA SEEBACH: Scientist trolls for gullible academic fish
(May 14, 1996 2:30 p.m. EDT) --
Physicist Alan Sokal of New York
University meticulously observed all the
rules of the academic game when he
constructed his article on postmodern
physics and submitted it to a prestigious
journal of cultural studies called "Social
Text."
The people he cites as authorities are the
superluminaries of the field, the quotations
he uses to illustrate his argument are
strictly accurate and the text is bristling
with footnotes.
All the rules but one, that is: Sokal's article
is a parody. Under the grandiloquent title
"Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a
Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum
Gravity," it appeared in the
Spring/Summer 1996 special issue of the
magazine, one entirely devoted to "the
science wars," as the editors term the
tension between people who actually do
science and the critics who merely theorize
about it.
Many scientists believe that the emperors
of cultural studies have no clothes. But
Sokal captured the whole royal court
parading around in naked ignorance and
persuaded the palace chroniclers to
publish the portrait as a centerfold.
Once the article was safely in print, Sokal
revealed his modest experiment. "Would a
leading journal of cultural studies," he
wrote in the May/June issue of Lingua
Franca, "publish an article liberally salted
with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and
(b) it flattered the editors' ideological
preconceptions?"
Unfortunately yes, and Sokal's deliberate
nonsense is anything but subtle. Translated
into plain English from the high-flown
language he borrowed for the occasion,
his first paragraph says that scientists "cling
to the dogma" that the external world
exists and its properties are independent of
what human beings think.
But nobody believes that old stuff any
more, right? Now we all know that
physical reality is "at bottom a social and
linguistic construct."
Is there a sound when a tree falls in the
forest and no one hears it? Under the
theory of social construction, there's not
even a tree.
There are so many red flags planted
throughout the paper that even
non-scientists should have spotted at least
one and started laughing," Sokal said
Thursday. "Either this is a parody or the
author is off his rocker."
Sokal was prompted into parody by a
1994 book, "Higher Superstition: The
Academic Left and Its Quarrels with
Science," by Paul Gross and Norman
Levitt, which ruffled a lot of postmodernist
feathers.
"I'm an academic leftist and I have no
quarrel with science," Sokal said, "so the
first thing I did was go to the library and
check their references, to see whether
(Gross and Levitt) were being fair" and
they were. In fact, he found even more
examples of scientific illiteracy, some of
them even worse.
"It would be so boring to refute them,"
Sokal said. "I picked the silliest quotes
from the most prominent people, and I
made up an argument for how they were
linked together."
Was Sokal's experiment ethical? "It's true
the author doesn't believe his own
arguments," he wrote in Lingua Franca.
"But why should that matter? If the 'Social
Text' editors find my arguments
convincing, then why should they be
disconcerted simply because I don't?"
They are disconcerted, of course, and for
reasons that transcend their private
embarrassment at being taken in. Sokal's
successful spoof calls into question the
intellectual standards of the whole field.
If you're chuckling, but inclined to think it's
just professors doing their usual
angels-on-a-pinhead thing, please do think
again. Tuition and fees at the priciest
private universities run nearly $1,000 for
each week of class. Taxpayers pick up a
big chunk of the bill for public universities.
Many of those classes are being taught, it
appears, by professors who deny the
distinction between truth and falsity and
consequently can't distinguish double-talk
from rational argument.
Maybe some of the junior professors and
the graduate students do know what
they're hearing is nonsense, but think it
would be harmful to their careers to speak
out. Living with such deception, possibly
for a lifetime, is profoundly corrupting.
Honest people just get out, leaving the
field to those who don't mind deception or
don't recognize it. It's hard to say which is
worse.
But it's easy to see why Sokal's spoof was
enticing to editors desperate for the
imprimatur of a working scientist on their
critical enterprise, and he even inserted the
evidence by quoting Andrew Ross, who
edited the special issue.
The kind of science that's needed, Ross
said, is one "that will be publicly
answerable and of some service to
progressive interests."
So that's the kind of science Sokal claimed
to be writing about.
"A liberatory science cannot be complete
without a profound revision of the canon
of mathematics," he concludes. "We can
see hints of (such emancipatory
mathematics) in the multidimensional and
nonlinear logic of fuzzy systems theory but
this approach is still heavily marked by its
origins in the crisis of late-capitalist
production relations." He drags in
catastrophe theory and chaos theory, too.
There is a political point to Sokal's
demonstration, but it's not the right-wing
one he's sure will be attributed to him.
He's proud to call himself a leftist, and his
resume includes a stint teaching
mathematics at the National University of
Nicaragua under the Sandinistas.
"If you take up crazy philosophies you
undermine your ability to tackle questions
of public policy, like ecology," he said. "It
really matters whether the world is
warming up."
I don't remotely share Sokal's political
views, but I agree with him that the
corruption of clear thought and clear
language is dangerous. And corruption has
to be exposed before it can be cleaned up.
(Linda Seebach is the editorial page editor of the Valley Times
(Pleasanton) and San Ramon Valley Times (Danville). Address: P.O. Box
607, Pleasanton CA 94566 Email: Vall...@aol.com)
-*--
For another take on Sokal's article, see:
http://www2.nando.net/newsroom/ntn/health/051896/health27_4591.html
In it, Sokal wrote: "It has thus become increasingly
apparent that physical 'reality,' no less than social
'reality,' is at bottom a social and linguistic
construct; that scientific 'knowledge,' far from
being objective, reflects and encodes the dominant
ideologies and power relations of the culture that
produced it."
-*--
Andrew Ross, at http://www.designsys.com/socialtext/new.html, explains
that the editors of "Social Text" thought Sokal's article flawed all
along, but published it as an example of (benighted) scientists' take
on the Science Wars.
- Noel
David Jensen
nsm...@eskimo.com (Noel Smith) wrote:
>The Nando Times Voices recently published the following article on
>this topic by Linda Seebach:
> -*--
>LINDA SEEBACH: Scientist trolls for gullible academic fish
>(May 14, 1996 2:30 p.m. EDT) --
>Physicist Alan Sokal of New York
>University meticulously observed all the
>rules of the academic game when he
>constructed his article on postmodern
>physics and submitted it to a prestigious
>journal of cultural studies called "Social
>Text."
[snip discussion of wonderful troll]
Life is good.
>Andrew Ross, at http://www.designsys.com/socialtext/new.html, explains
>that the editors of "Social Text" thought Sokal's article flawed all
>along, but published it as an example of (benighted) scientists' take
>on the Science Wars.
Uh, sure.
David Jensen
from http://www.designsys.com/socialtext/new.html:
Why does science matter so much? Because its power, as a civil religion, as
a social and political authority, affects our daily lives and the parlous
condition of the natural world more than does any other domain of
knowledge. Does it follow that non-scientists should have some say in the
decision-making processes that define and shape the work of the
professional scientific community? Some scientists (including Sokal
presumably) would say yes, and in some countries, non-expert citizens do
indeed participate in these processes. All hell breaks loose, however,
when the following question is asked. Should non-experts have anything to
say about scientific methodology and epistemology? After centuries of
scientific racism, scientific sexism, and scientific domination of nature
one might have thought this was a pertinent question to ask.
end quote
I am sure you have no idea what science is. Science, learning about the
universe through the use of the scientific method, is inherently amoral.
The fact that some scientists have behaved badly or in a fashion that
damages others is not relevent to science, it is relevent to society.
Science is not a civil religion. It is not a social or political authority
in the sense you use it here. Without science, the six billion people of
the world would have destroyed it already.
Non-scientists have the right to become involved in the application of
science. No, I take that back, you do not have to be a professional
scientist to be a scientist, but if you refuse to understand how science
works, if you refuse to use clear logical thought in criticizing results of
science, your opinion is of no value whatsoever. You do not have any right
to complain about something that you have intentionally failed to learn
about, misrepresented or otherwise confused yourself on. You have the
right, nay the duty, to stop pseudoscientific frauds like Jeremy Rifkin.
You have the responsibility to be informed and to understand. You don't
have to understand the math at the beginning of the big bang, but youu have
to understand what is done to get to that point.
Once you understand what science is, you will know that scientific racism,
scientific sexism, and scientific domination of nature are not real. Each
is a pseudoscientific figleaf for personal opinion and behavior.
Should non-experts have anything to say about scientific methodology and
epistemology? Are you seriously talking about non-experts who still have
adequate understanding of the process (they might choose different
priorities because priorities are political), or anti-scientists who would
agree that it is bad to know too much.
What is scientific epistemology to you? Is it the scientific method, or
some other metaphysical process that is unrelated to science. From what you
wrote, I doubt it is the first. I doubt you know.
Sincerely,
David Jensen
David Swanson
Sad. Sad.
Look, this huffing and puffing is little more than that. It's a
non-debate. We know the world through human perception, we understand
it in more detail through human language. We cannot separate a piece
of language into the linguistic part and the worldly part, the
subjective and the objective; it just can't be done. We still, of
course, very much want to say that there IS a worldly part, because our
beliefs change. We don't think that the earth was flat when (and
because) people thought the earth was flat. At the same time we have
no reason to imagine our own beliefs about the earth will not be later
rejected. So, of course, we imagine the globe would go right on
existing if all humans vanished (though nobody would think of it as a
globe), just as people might have imagined that the flat earth would go
right on existing if the plague wiped out humanity. In that sense
there is a world which our beliefs do not shape. If you can produce an
example of a book or an article in a respectable journal that disputes
this, I will be shocked, and will join in your laughter. But that
there is a world we can get at without human tools and know we've
gotten final answers about: you'll have to prove that - it strikes me
as bunk.
Now is there a disagreement, and if so what is it and which side am I
on?
DS
"It is interesting to note that the death penalty for individuals is
less controversial than the mere suggestion that a few corporations may
have forfeited their right to exist. How many people does a company
have to harm before we question if it ought to exist?" Paul Hawken
Van Piercy
In article <Drou8...@eskimo.com>, Noel Smith <nsm...@eskimo.com> wrote:
>The Nando Times Voices recently published the following article on
>this topic by Linda Seebach:
>
[...]
>The people he cites as authorities are the
>superluminaries of the field, the quotations
>he uses to illustrate his argument are
>strictly accurate and the text is bristling
>with footnotes.
Well, that's a stretch. He cites Morris Berman (whose works are
underground classics) who rarely is cited in Cultural Studies, pomo or
poststructuralist flavored work. A superluminary in the field he is not.
Certainly Fritjof Capra and David Bohm are rarely cited in such work; I
don't even think Gleick could be said to be spirit frequently presiding
over much such work. The science writers help usher in the New Age,
wedding the Tao with physics and Godel with Bach and Escher, and then a
physicist, Sokal, relies on the same popular writers to pass, however
goofily, as just another scientist seeking interdisciplinary connections.
>All the rules but one, that is: Sokal's article
>is a parody. Under the grandiloquent title
>"Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a
>Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum
>Gravity," it appeared in the
>Spring/Summer 1996 special issue of the
>magazine, one entirely devoted to "the
>science wars," as the editors term the
>tension between people who actually do
>science and the critics who merely theorize
>about it.
How about between the people who get paid well (by industry and State) to
do science and the public which has no small stake in monitoring and
funding and LIVING IN the results of the people doing science.
>Many scientists believe that the emperors
>of cultural studies have no clothes. But
>Sokal captured the whole royal court
>parading around in naked ignorance and
>persuaded the palace chroniclers to
>publish the portrait as a centerfold.
He also showed his own ignorance of a lot of the work and of the field
with his own bad parody. To me, the publishing of his article in ST
looked more like a friendly gesture to someone in a distant discipline who
seemed, in his own quirky and incomprehensible way (he and Ross work at
the same university I understand), to be trying to make connections. And
then he yells, from the back of a pickup truck speeding away, "Fuck you!
It was all a joke." Well, WE knew that. We're just glad to know that you
weren't for real, even if it was at our expense.
>Once the article was safely in print, Sokal
>revealed his modest experiment. "Would a
>leading journal of cultural studies," he
>wrote in the May/June issue of Lingua
>Franca, "publish an article liberally salted
>with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and
>(b) it flattered the editors' ideological
>preconceptions?"
The same thing happens in science journals. Scientists DO fudge data and
publish it. They steal data too, a la Watson and Crick, and graduate
students in chemistry do screw up each others' results. (I know all this
because I have two chemists, an engineer and a geophysicist who've seen
first hand the evidence of human foible in "Science.")
Ultimately, anyone being allowed to report to people in distant
disciplines about the goings on in his discipline is on the honor system.
If he doesn't like or understand the conclusions of his disciplinarily
distant colleagues (What? Animus and disagreement among scholars and
scientists?!), there's little to keep him, minus, in Sokal's case, a peer
physicist on ST's review board, from splattering all the egg he wants and
mocking all cross-disciplinary work.
I suppose a source of Sokal's upset is the decreased stature of science in
our culture--so he goes after the non-science academics, who we know are
not hampered by enormous amounts of respect and corporate industry jobs
after they graduate. It's queer to worry about the public confidence in
science while science training is already largely vocational and
technical, and the scientists' run for lucrative industry jobs--pursuing
Truth for the highest bidder--has probably done more to take the shine off
the scientist-as-culture hero image as anything the "Radical Left"
"nihilist postmodernist" professors and their mighty progeny have done.
Van
Gordon Fitch
david....@mpcug.com (David Jensen):
| ...
| universe through the use of the scientific method, is inherently amoral.
Oh, it is not. Science could not function at all without a
system of morality, which centers, of course, on the belief
in, accessibility, and value of truth. Falsify some
experimental data and see where it gets you.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
David Jensen
g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) wrote:
Am I being hyperpicky about the definition. I agree with you that the
behaviors of people have to be consistent with the goals of science, but is
the behavior of scientists science?
Matthew P Wiener
In article <4nq3cl$7...@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>, vpiercy@ezinfo (Van Piercy) writes:
>In article <Drou8...@eskimo.com>, Noel Smith <nsm...@eskimo.com> wrote:
>>The Nando Times Voices recently published the following article on
>>this topic by Linda Seebach:
>>
>>LINDA SEEBACH: Scientist trolls for gullible academic fish
>>The people he cites as authorities are the superluminaries of the
>>field, the quotations he uses to illustrate his argument are
>>strictly accurate and the text is bristling with footnotes.
>Well, that's a stretch. He cites Morris Berman (whose works are
>underground classics) who rarely is cited in Cultural Studies, pomo or
>poststructuralist flavored work. A superluminary in the field he is not.
He cites Jacques Lacan.
>>All the rules but one, that is: Sokal's article is a parody. Under
>>the grandiloquent title "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a
>>Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity," it appeared in the
>>Spring/Summer 1996 special issue of the magazine, one entirely
>>devoted to "the science wars," as the editors term the tension
>>between people who actually do science and the critics who merely
>>theorize about it.
>How about between the people who get paid well (by industry and State) to
>do science and the public which has no small stake in monitoring and
>funding and LIVING IN the results of the people doing science.
According to editor Ross, that is merely a warmup. His introductory
essay claims that the Science Wars have erupted since scientists have
extended their debunking to including the fad of critical gibberish.
>>Many scientists believe that the emperors of cultural studies have
>>no clothes. But Sokal captured the whole royal court parading around
>>in naked ignorance and persuaded the palace chroniclers to publish
>>the portrait as a centerfold.
>He also showed his own ignorance of a lot of the work and of the field
>with his own bad parody.
Not that the editors noticed.
> To me, the publishing of his article in ST
>looked more like a friendly gesture to someone in a distant discipline who
>seemed, in his own quirky and incomprehensible way (he and Ross work at
>the same university I understand), to be trying to make connections.
Yeah, right.
>>Once the article was safely in print, Sokal revealed his modest
>>experiment. "Would a leading journal of cultural studies," he wrote
>>in the May/June issue of Lingua Franca, "publish an article
>>liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it
>>flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions?"
>The same thing happens in science journals. Scientists DO fudge data and
>publish it. They steal data too, a la Watson and Crick, and graduate
>students in chemistry do screw up each others' results. (I know all this
>because I have two chemists, an engineer and a geophysicist who've seen
>first hand the evidence of human foible in "Science.")
What nonsense. This is _not_ the same thing.
SCIENCE editors and reviewers have to trust, at some point, what goes on
out of sight. In contrast, nothing was hidden from SOCIAL TEXT.
>Ultimately, anyone being allowed to report to people in distant
>disciplines about the goings on in his discipline is on the honor system.
They could have asked anyone. They didn't.
It's complete laughable garbage. I've been reading the article, and
it is hysterical.
Furthermore, as Lacan suspected, there is an intimate
connection between the external structure of the phys-
ical world and its inner psychological representation
qua knot theory: this hypothesis has recently been con-
firmed by Witten's derivation of knot invariants (in
particular the Jones polynomial [Jones 1985]) from
three-dimensional Chern-Simons quantum field theory
(Witten 1989). [Sokol, TTB, p225]
It takes no intelligence to realize that "inner psychological representation"
has absolutely no meaning here.
>I suppose a source of Sokal's upset is the decreased stature of science in
>our culture--so he goes after the non-science academics, who we know are
>not hampered by enormous amounts of respect and corporate industry jobs
>after they graduate.
It's not the decreased stature so much as the brainless hostility.
> It's queer to worry about the public confidence in
>science while science training is already largely vocational and
>technical, and the scientists' run for lucrative industry jobs--pursuing
>Truth for the highest bidder--has probably done more to take the shine off
>the scientist-as-culture hero image as anything the "Radical Left"
>"nihilist postmodernist" professors and their mighty progeny have done.
A total nonissue.
--
-Matthew P Wiener (wee...@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
Patrick Juola
In article <4nq4s6$a...@panix2.panix.com> g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>david....@mpcug.com (David Jensen):
>| ...
>| I am sure you have no idea what science is. Science, learning about the
>| universe through the use of the scientific method, is inherently amoral.
>| ...
>
>Oh, it is not. Science could not function at all without a
>system of morality, which centers, of course, on the belief
>in, accessibility, and value of truth. Falsify some
>experimental data and see where it gets you.
You mean, like Cyril Burt did in his twin studies? Which have since
been discarded?
There's nothing in the scientific method to prevent Dr. Burt's (in
most scientists' opinions reprehensible) actions, but at the same
time, the reliance of science upon replicability provides a certain
amount of protection against such actions. I don't think that it's
needs to be cast as a moral issue at all.
Patrick
Russell Turpin
-*--------
>> LINDA SEEBACH: Scientist trolls for gullible academic fish
>>
>> Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity," it
>> appeared in the Spring/Summer 1996 special issue of the magazine,
>> one entirely devoted to "the science wars," as the editors term
>> the tension between people who actually do science and the
>> critics who merely theorize about it.
In article <4nq3cl$7...@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>,
Van Piercy <vpi...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote:
> How about between the people who get paid well (by industry
> and State) to do science and the public which has no small stake
> in monitoring and funding and LIVING IN the results of the
> people doing science.
Van Piercy is absolutely wrong.
The activists who become personally involved in various political
issues concerning science (a) are NOT necessarily opposing
science, and include many scientists among their number, and (b)
are not particularly enamored of cultural studies, or any of the
other parts of modern literary theory. For example, the people
who oppose industrial run-off often make great use of science to
make their points, and include no few biologists and biology
teachers.
Yes, I know. Crackpot cliques are also involved in these issues.
There are people like Jeremy Rifkin and his followers. But these
are not representative, and in any case, for Van Piercy and
others in lit crit to claim that Harding and other literary
critics of science are representing this kind of cause AGAINST
science is a tremendous and unquestioned redrawing of the
boundaries. The fight of science against its critics is NOT
aligned with the various political issues concerning science.
Indeed, one of the reasons that Sokal did what he did was
precisely to resist attempts to create the image of such
alignment, because he feared that the weak philosophy coming from
the literary crowd would weaken the political stances that
concern him.
> The same thing happens in science journals. Scientists DO fudge
> data and publish it. They steal data too, a la Watson and Crick,
> and graduate students in chemistry do screw up each others'
> results. ...
Oh, absolutely. Scientists are well capable of such things
because they have the knowledge required to make a cheat look
plausible. Let us know when a graduate student in English without
a science background manages to pull a hoax on Phys. Review D.
Russell
--
I don't care if a soldier is straight,
as long as he can shoot straight. -- Barry Goldwater
Thomas Scharle
David Swanson (dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu) wrote:
...
: beliefs change. We don't think that the earth was flat when (and
: because) people thought the earth was flat. At the same time we have
...
When it comes to a dispute between historical reporting and
uniformitarian presuppositions, we must agree with the observations
and not the theories.
--
Tom Scharle scha...@nd.edu "standard disclaimer"
Greg
g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) wrote:
>david....@mpcug.com (David Jensen):
>| ...
>| I am sure you have no idea what science is. Science, learning about the
>| universe through the use of the scientific method, is inherently amoral.
>| ...
>
>Oh, it is not. Science could not function at all without a
>system of morality, which centers, of course, on the belief
>in, accessibility, and value of truth. Falsify some
>experimental data and see where it gets you.
> }"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
You're confusing science as an institution with science as a process.
The scientific institution, as any institution, has collective moral
opinions, frauds, political bickering, etc. Science as a process is
definitely amoral. The process of discovery that led to the invention of
the atomic bomb was not affected by the idea that this could be used to
kill people. Though individual scientists were afraid of how the
knowledge might be used, and some regretted participating in the process
later, the process went on.
The belief that there is a truth is not a "moral" belief, as it does not,
in and of itself, dictate any one course of action over another.
Greg
a man of no importance
vpi...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu (Van Piercy) wrote:
>In article <Drou8...@eskimo.com>, Noel Smith <nsm...@eskimo.com> wrote:
>>The Nando Times Voices recently published the following article on
>>this topic by Linda Seebach:
>>
>
>
>Van
Hahahahahaha
I'm sorry, but that statement of "oh we knew all along that he was just
playing, and we were just being nice to him in letting the article get
published" was one of the most ridiculous-sounding ass-covering
statements I have ever heard. One word for you- bullshit!
And yes, scientists have their foibles. However, in science if you doubt
someone's data you can go try to replicate it and establish the truth
for yourself. In litcrit, pomo philosophy, etc., truth is based entirely
on personal preferences, current political opinions, etc. I have never
heard a philosopher say anything like "personally, I would love to accept
this theory because I like its implications, but there unfortunately
there is good evidence against its validity, so I must reject it."
The emperor wears no clothes.
a.m.o.n.i.
a man of no importance
dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson) wrote:
>Sad. Sad.
>
>Look, this huffing and puffing is little more than that. It's a
>non-debate. We know the world through human perception, we understand
>it in more detail through human language.
>
>
>But that
>there is a world we can get at without human tools and know we've
>gotten final answers about: you'll have to prove that - it strikes me
>as bunk.
>
>Now is there a disagreement, and if so what is it and which side am I
>on?
>
>DS
Please pardon my stupidity, but how in the hell does this "debunk"
anything? This is so damn general it could be interpreted any which way,
kinda like astrology.
Yeah yeah yeah. The sensory data entering our brain gets filtered through
our pre-conceived notions. This does not change the fact that the editors
of a serious journal published an article that was deliberately written
as nonsense, just because it masqueraded as catering to the beliefs of
the academic left.
For all the statements coming out of pomo philosophy about the equal
validity of many beliefs (no matter how stupid), they sure don't like to
admit the validity of beliefs based upon evidence and reason.
a.m.o.n.i.
Matthew P Wiener
In article <4nq6gg$8...@news.ox.ac.uk>, patrick@gryphon (Patrick Juola) writes:
>You mean, like Cyril Burt did in his twin studies? Which have since
>been discarded?
Cyril Burt's exposure as a fraud has turned out to be the real hoax.
An overzealous reporter with a political axe to grind was the real
force behind Burt debunking. Most of the initial charges have turned
out to be wrong, nonsense, lies, or unverifiable.
>There's nothing in the scientific method to prevent Dr. Burt's (in
>most scientists' opinions reprehensible) actions, but at the same
>time, the reliance of science upon replicability provides a certain
>amount of protection against such actions. I don't think that it's
>needs to be cast as a moral issue at all.
Burt's general claims have been repeated in all twin studies since.
This surprising coincidence eventually led to a careful restudy of
Burt's data, and the debunking of the debunking. There are one or
two minor points in Burt's work that were in fact mistaken. Boring
stuff like wrong calculations of deviations.
Tanju Cataltepe
In article <4nq59f$a...@news2.tds.net>,
David Jensen <david....@mpcug.com> wrote:
>[...]
>Am I being hyperpicky about the definition. I agree with you that the
>behaviors of people have to be consistent with the goals of science, but is
>the behavior of scientists science?
Are you saying that there is science
without the scientists?
-Tanju
----------------------
http://www.wakeup.org/
Silke-Maria Weineck
Greg (Gold...@utsw.swmed.edu) wrote:
: The belief that there is a truth is not a "moral" belief, as it does not,
: in and of itself, dictate any one course of action over another.
The belief that one should know the truth, however, is moral, and since
science that believes in truth doesn't stop there but also tries to get
to it --- or not?
Silke
Matthew P Wiener
In article <4nqc1h$o...@swsu65.swmed.edu>, a man of no importance <noone@nowhere writes:
>I'm sorry, but that statement of "oh we knew all along that he was just
>playing, and we were just being nice to him in letting the article get
>published" was one of the most ridiculous-sounding ass-covering
>statements I have ever heard.
It may be, but it does not seem to be what SOCIAL TEXT was claiming.
Read their URL on it.
Doug Turnbull
In article <4nq4s6$a...@panix2.panix.com>, g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
wrote:
> david....@mpcug.com (David Jensen):
> | ...
> | I am sure you have no idea what science is. Science, learning about the
> | universe through the use of the scientific method, is inherently amoral.
> | ...
>
> Oh, it is not. Science could not function at all without a
> system of morality, which centers, of course, on the belief
> in, accessibility, and value of truth. Falsify some
> experimental data and see where it gets you.
> --
I would disagree. First, I don't think a belief in the accessibility
of truth is an ethical belief. I also think it is also held as a working
assumption rather than a foundational belief.
I agree that a belief in the value of truth is a common ethical belief
of scientists. However, such a belief is not necessary to the function of
science. It's possible for a person to not care about the value of truth or
even to think truth was detrimental, and yet still carry out scientific
research.
Doug Turnbull
Russell Turpin
-*-------
In article <4nq59f$a...@news2.tds.net>,
David Jensen <david....@mpcug.com> wrote:
>> Am I being hyperpicky about the definition. I agree with you that
>> the behaviors of people have to be consistent with the goals of
>> science, but is the behavior of scientists science?
In article <4nqg3j$m...@nntpa.cb.att.com>,
Tanju Cataltepe <ta...@zoso.ho.att.com> wrote:
> Are you saying that there is science without the scientists?
I suspect that he is saying that (at least one, classical notion
of) science is defined by the investigative process and manner of
thought involved REGARDLESS OF WHO DOES IT, rather than by what
institutions and individuals are involved. I would add that in
this sense, everyone practices science to some degree, and that
something is not science merely by virtue of being done by
scientists or scientific institutions.
The failure to distinguish investigative process and manner of
thought from other kinds of individual and institutional
behavior, and to define science by the what rather than by the
whom, is one of the failures that makes some literary critics of
science appear complete dolts. Sandra Harding is an example of
this. I suspect most scientists who read her book come away
laughing.
Greg
inquiry, just like catching fish is the object of fishing. Would you say
that fishing has the "moral imperative" of catching fish? No. It is
merely the practical goal of a certain activity, with no moral
attachments.
Greg
Silke-Maria Weineck
Greg (gold...@utsw.swmed.edu) wrote:
I'm not clear on what you mean when you say "merely the object" -- I
translate that into desire; is science still science if that "mere
object" is removed? Of course, I am partially, or largely, talking the
institution of science.
Silke
Stephen F Schaffner
In article <4nqlu8$3...@netnews.upenn.edu> wein...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) writes:
>I'm not clear on what you mean when you say "merely the object" -- I
>translate that into desire; is science still science if that "mere
>object" is removed? Of course, I am partially, or largely, talking the
>institution of science.
I am, as is often the case, rather confused about what everyone
is talking about. Two comments: first, the scientists I know
(and I know quite a few scientists) certainly act, talk, and
think as though truth-telling were a moral imperative for them
_as scientists_. Whether that means science has a moral
element built into it I don't know (or care, particularly).
Second, I don't think it's simply a case of finding the truth
being the object of science. If you decide you're not interested
in finding truth, scientists may regard you as having an
inexplicable character flaw, but you haven't done anything wrong;
you're simply not a scientist. If, however, you fudge your data
a bit, you are viewed as having committed a grave sin.
Steve Schaffner s...@lns62.lns.cornell.edu
Immediate assurance is an excellent sign
of probable lack of insight into the topic.
Josiah Royce
Russell Turpin
-*------
wein...@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) wrote:
>>> The belief that one should know the truth, however, is moral,
>>> and since science that believes in truth doesn't stop there
>>> but also tries to get to it --- or not?
Greg (gold...@utsw.swmed.edu) wrote:
>> I disagree. Learning the truth is merely the object of scientific
>> inquiry, just like catching fish is the object of fishing. Would
>> you say that fishing has the "moral imperative" of catching fish?
>> No. It is merely the practical goal of a certain activity, with
>> no moral attachments.
In article <4nqlu8$3...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
Silke-Maria Weineck <wein...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
> I'm not clear on what you mean when you say "merely the object" -- I
> translate that into desire; is science still science if that "mere
> object" is removed? Of course, I am partially, or largely, talking
> the institution of science.
As I have explained in another post, it is crucial to distinguish
the logic of science from the institutions of science. How and
to what degree we should fund scientific research, what fields we
should give the most attention, and (for an individual) whether
to pursue a particular field are all political and moral
questions that science can inform but not answer. Similarly, a
fisherman may be able to tell you how best to catch marlin, but
not whether you ought to, given your circumstances and beliefs.
Now: people who practice science will have certain political and
moral biases which they will promulgate, just as do people who
fish. But one should distinguish their scientific opinions from
their political views. It is not surprising that people who head
high-energy physics labs believe that this research is
inadequately funded. It is *extremely* surprising that a
literary theorist (or anyone who has graduated college) would
view this as a scientific rather than political pronouncement.
These are fundamental, logical distinctions. Without them, it
is impossible to understand science. Or for that matter, fishing.
I will again reference Sandra Harding as an example of this.
Silke-Maria Weineck
Russell Turpin (tur...@cs.utexas.edu) wrote:
: -*------
: wein...@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) wrote:
: >>> The belief that one should know the truth, however, is moral,
: >>> and since science that believes in truth doesn't stop there
: >>> but also tries to get to it --- or not?
: Greg (gold...@utsw.swmed.edu) wrote:
: >> I disagree. Learning the truth is merely the object of scientific
: >> inquiry, just like catching fish is the object of fishing. Would
: >> you say that fishing has the "moral imperative" of catching fish?
: >> No. It is merely the practical goal of a certain activity, with
: >> no moral attachments.
: In article <4nqlu8$3...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
: Silke-Maria Weineck <wein...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
: > I'm not clear on what you mean when you say "merely the object" -- I
: > translate that into desire; is science still science if that "mere
: > object" is removed? Of course, I am partially, or largely, talking
: > the institution of science.
: As I have explained in another post, it is crucial to distinguish
: the logic of science from the institutions of science. How and
: to what degree we should fund scientific research, what fields we
: should give the most attention, and (for an individual) whether
: to pursue a particular field are all political and moral
: questions that science can inform but not answer.
That is obvious; the more interesting question is how exactly you are
able to distinguish the institution from the "logic", or, if you wish,
the dancer from the dance. Try the same thing for "politics" -- the
"institution of politics is....," vs. "the logic of politics is..." ??
Similarly, a
: fisherman may be able to tell you how best to catch marlin, but
: not whether you ought to, given your circumstances and beliefs.
: Now: people who practice science will have certain political and
: moral biases which they will promulgate, just as do people who
: fish. But one should distinguish their scientific opinions from
: their political views.
But how do we do that? I'm not talking about the individual scientist,
I'm talking about the imperative to know as moral. It's an old
Nietzschean point, and I'm sure it has been paraded back and forth here a
million times, but I'm not sure on where we are with it.
It is not surprising that people who head
: high-energy physics labs believe that this research is
: inadequately funded. It is *extremely* surprising that a
: literary theorist (or anyone who has graduated college) would
: view this as a scientific rather than political pronouncement.
: These are fundamental, logical distinctions. Without them, it
: is impossible to understand science. Or for that matter, fishing.
: I will again reference Sandra Harding as an example of this.
These are common distinctions; I just don't understand them. I cannot
distinguish between the institution of philosophy and the logic of
philosophy; the institution and the logic of psychology; the institution
and the logic of education. Why is it different for "science"? Sorry if I
make you repeat yourself.
Silke
Greg
wein...@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) wrote:
>
> SNIP SNIP SNIP
>
>These are common distinctions; I just don't understand them. I cannot
>distinguish between the institution of philosophy and the logic of
>philosophy; the institution and the logic of psychology; the institution
>and the logic of education. Why is it different for "science"? Sorry if I
>make you repeat yourself.
>
>Silke
OK, let me try to answer this. The process/logic of science can be
described as essentially being a collection of methods, all of them based
on the "ideal form" of the scientific method, which goes something like
this:
Goal: Find a conceptual structure which would explain a certain aspect of
the natural world.
1) Given a collection of facts regarding this aspect, generate a number
of possible hypotheses which a) explain these data and b) are consistent
with pre-existing data.
2) Come up with testable predictions for each hypothesis.
3) Test the predictions by experiment. Eliminate all hypotheses which did
not generate predictions which were consistent with the new data.
4) If there are still several alternative hypotheses, use these to
generate further predictions, trying to develop experiments which would
specifically distinguish between these hypotheses. Do experiments.
5) Repeat these steps until a satisfactory understanding of the process
or system you are studying has been obtained.
This is roughly what the "logic/process" of science is. Now the
institution of science consists of people with ideas and interests and
political agendas,etc. These are the people who apply the process
outlined above to various problems. Again, it's the difference between
the fishing industry (people, companies, ships, etc.) and the process of
fishing (step 1: locate area where fish of interest might exist...).
The process of science cannot be racist, sexist, etc. It is simply a
series of steps we follow in order to achieve a defined goal (an
understanding of some system). Anyone can follow this process, and the
process itself has no intrinsic interest in which hypothesis is
correct. The institutions of science are full of people with prejudices,
agendas, hatreds, passions, and so on. These people can slant their
reasoning towards to certain hypotheses, which might have racist or
sexist repercussions if these hypotheses becomes the basis of policy.
Once the people have done so, however, they are no longer truly following
the process of science.
Greg
Russell Turpin
-*-------
In article <4nqr4b$4...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
Silke-Maria Weineck <wein...@mail1.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
> ... the more interesting question is how exactly you are
> able to distinguish the institution from the "logic", ...
> These are common distinctions; I just don't understand them.
> I cannot distinguish between the institution of philosophy
> and the logic of philosophy; the institution and the logic
Really? I am surprised!
It's not hard. A logic is a set of ideas. More specifically, it
is a set of ideas about how to think about some topic or set of
problems. Thus, all of Weineck's thoughts about wreaking revenge
on ex-boyfriends are very unlikely to be a logic. But if she
distills some of them into a set of principles for thinking about
ex-boyfriend revenge, and a description of what one will achieve
by thinking in this way, then she will have created a logic of
ex-boyfriend revenge.
Institutions, on the other hand, are formed from people,
buildings, equipment, and organizations of these. If Weineck
visits parts of her campus, she can physically bump into some of
the constituent parts of the institution of science. No matter
where she goes, she will never step on an idea's foot or stumble
into its wall. They are not really hard to tell apart. I
believe that Aristotle wrote some on this.
I will write more on these distinctions and their importance for
analysis and criticism, but first I thought I would respond to
Weineck's rather surprising puzzlement.
Russell Turpin
-*------
In article <4nrbhu$7...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
Silke-Maria Weineck <wein...@mail1.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
> Your puzzlement at my puzzlement is, what a bad sentence, puzzling. ...
'Tis crystalline. Not bad at all.
> ... It may come down to differences in thinking the term
> "institution" ...
Even if one thinks of institutions as social customs and practices,
these are still different from logics, which may be produced by
institutions or whose application may be a goal of institutions, but
which are not identical to the institutions. Do we have a language
problem here? All I can say is that in English, institutions are very
different from logics, in both ordinary language and also in the
technical uses with which I am familiar. (Though there is a logic of
information in which "institutions" are a sort. Sigh.)
Regardless of how to use the word "institution," surely we can agree
that most philosophy of science is prescriptive and evaluative, and so
what scientists actually *do* may more or less meet the criteria
proposed but is not itself identical with it? Can we also agree that
scientists spend some of their time doing science, and some of their
time attending department meetings, making hiring decisions, reading
bureaucratic memos, filling out bureaucratic paperwork, planning
budgets, and many of the other non-scientific tasks that go along with
work in any organization? I can propose some other distinctions that
are very important in analyzing and criticizing science, but this is
a beginning.
> ... if my revenge weren't spontaneous anymore, it would become an
> institution. ...
A warning to prospective suitors?
David Swanson
In article <4nq3cl$7...@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>
vpi...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu (Van Piercy) writes:
> I suppose a source of Sokal's upset is the decreased stature of science in
> our culture--so he goes after the non-science academics, who we know are
> not hampered by enormous amounts of respect and corporate industry jobs
> after they graduate. It's queer to worry about the public confidence in
> science while science training is already largely vocational and
> technical, and the scientists' run for lucrative industry jobs--pursuing
> Truth for the highest bidder--has probably done more to take the shine off
> the scientist-as-culture hero image as anything the "Radical Left"
> "nihilist postmodernist" professors and their mighty progeny have done.
>
> Van
Very well said.
David
Russell Turpin
-*------
In article <4nr1k0$2...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
Silke-Maria Weineck <wein...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
> Of course it can; right there in your first step: what counts as
> a "phenomenon in the natural world"? You summary suggests that
> this is a neutral step, when, of course, it isn't. ...
While I don't agree with Greg's account (among other reasons,
because the notion of THE scientific method is quite obsolete), I
am more than puzzled by Weineck's comment. Accepting Greg's
account for the purpose of argument, perhaps Weineck would
provide an example of some phenomenon that she has observed that
she worries science would a priori exclude from its
investigations?
Silke-Maria Weineck
Greg (gold...@utsw.swmed.edu) wrote:: >
: >These are common distinctions; I just don't understand them. I cannot
: >philosophy; the institution and the logic of psychology; the institution
Of course it can; right there in your first step: what counts as a
"phenomenon in the natural world"? You summary suggests that this is a
neutral step, when, of course, it isn't. But I'm sure this point could be
refined. But your list reads like a protocol, therefore it seems to me
like an institutionalization. You aren't saying, "this is what science
is," you are saying, "this is how science should proceed," since it seems
unlikely that no scientific result has ever been reached without adhering
to the protocol.
Silke
Silke-Maria Weineck
Your puzzlement at my puzzlement is, what a bad sentence, puzzling. It
may come down to differences in thinking the term "institution" -- if
manifestations, but that may be a personal quirk.
Silke
Russell Turpin
(tur...@cs.utexas.edu)
wrote: : -*------- : In article <4nqr4b$4...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
: Silke-Maria Weineck <wein...@mail1.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
: > ... the more interesting question is how exactly you are
: > able to distinguish the institution from the "logic", ...
: > These are common distinctions; I just don't understand them.
: > I cannot distinguish between the institution of philosophy
: > and the logic of philosophy; the institution and the logic
: > of psychology; the institution and the logic of education. ...
: Really? I am surprised!
: It's not hard. A logic is a set of ideas. More specifically, it
: is a set of ideas about how to think about some topic or set of
: problems. Thus, all of Weineck's thoughts about wreaking revenge
: on ex-boyfriends are very unlikely to be a logic. But if she
: distills some of them into a set of principles for thinking about
: ex-boyfriend revenge, and a description of what one will achieve
: by thinking in this way, then she will have created a logic of
: ex-boyfriend revenge.
: Institutions, on the other hand, are formed from people,
: buildings, equipment, and organizations of these. If Weineck
: visits parts of her campus, she can physically bump into some of
: the constituent parts of the institution of science. No matter
: where she goes, she will never step on an idea's foot or stumble
: into its wall. They are not really hard to tell apart. I
: believe that Aristotle wrote some on this.
: I will write more on these distinctions and their importance for
: analysis and criticism, but first I thought I would respond to
: Weineck's rather surprising puzzlement.
: Russell
Silke-Maria Weineck
Well, no, dear Russell, since I can think of logic as a social custom and
a practice, hence, by your definition, as an institution. Is this
getting too tedious?
Silke
Russell Turpin (tur...@cs.utexas.edu) wrote: : -*------
: In article <4nrbhu$7...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
: Silke-Maria Weineck <wein...@mail1.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
: > Your puzzlement at my puzzlement is, what a bad sentence, puzzling. ...
: 'Tis crystalline. Not bad at all.
: > ... It may come down to differences in thinking the term
: > "institution" ...
: Even if one thinks of institutions as social customs and practices,
: these are still different from logics, which may be produced by
: institutions or whose application may be a goal of institutions, but
: which are not identical to the institutions. Do we have a language
: problem here? All I can say is that in English, institutions are very
: different from logics, in both ordinary language and also in the
: technical uses with which I am familiar. (Though there is a logic of
: information in which "institutions" are a sort. Sigh.)
: Regardless of how to use the word "institution," surely we can agree
: that most philosophy of science is prescriptive and evaluative, and so
: what scientists actually *do* may more or less meet the criteria
: proposed but is not itself identical with it? Can we also agree that
: scientists spend some of their time doing science, and some of their
: time attending department meetings, making hiring decisions, reading
: bureaucratic memos, filling out bureaucratic paperwork, planning
: budgets, and many of the other non-scientific tasks that go along with
: work in any organization? I can propose some other distinctions that
: are very important in analyzing and criticizing science, but this is
: a beginning.
: > ... if my revenge weren't spontaneous anymore, it would become an
: > institution. ...
: A warning to prospective suitors?
: Russell
David Swanson
In article <4nq298$a...@news2.tds.net>
david....@mpcug.com (David Jensen) writes:
> I am sure you have no idea what science is. Science, learning about the
> universe through the use of the scientific method, is inherently amoral.
> The fact that some scientists have behaved badly or in a fashion that
> damages others is not relevent to science, it is relevent to society.
Is this why anal-ytic philosphers are all the time shouting "I have as
much concern for human flourishing as anyone" when all you wanted to
ask them was what page to turn to? Is this why some guy (Richard
somethingorother I think) keeps writing to tell me things like "We can
have thought without language - just read Steven Pinker" quite
oblivious to the non sequitur, and asking me what I know about science
so that he can mold his discussion to my ignorance, though he knows
damn well he's only writing for his own sake? Is this why (to pick a
victim from the opposing camp) Heidegger thought Nazism was no big deal
insofar as the only thing that matters is Real work? Of course an
asshole can be a great scientist (or philosopher), but mediocre
scientists needn't try so hard to prove it.
Van Piercy
From: tur...@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin)
>> LINDA SEEBACH: Scientist trolls for gullible academic fish
>>
>> ... Under the grandiloquent title >"Transgressing the Boundaries:
>> Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity," it
>> appeared in the Spring/Summer 1996 special issue of the magazine,
>> one entirely devoted to "the science wars," as the editors term
>> the tension between people who actually do science and the
>> critics who merely theorize about it.
In article <4nq3cl$7...@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>,
Van Piercy <vpi...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote:
> How about between the people who get paid well (by industry
> and State) to do science and the public which has no small stake
> in monitoring and funding and LIVING IN the results of the
> people doing science.
Russ:
Van Piercy is absolutely wrong.
Van:
How could I be wrong about things I didn't claim?
Russ:
The activists who become personally involved in various political
issues concerning science (a) are NOT necessarily opposing
science,
Van:
True. And I didn't say they WERE necessarily opposing science. I
mentioned "monitoring and funding," which are hardly complete opposition.
I don't completely oppose science. I am however an activist against its
abuses and arrogance, especially in animal testing, environmental
contamination and medical practice. I made no claims about the make-up
and background of the "activists who become personally involved in various
political issues concerning science." I did mention "the public." The
activists, the scientists as well as the humanists, are drawn from the
ranks of the public, yes? And they are motivated by some sense of the
public good presumably?
Russ:
and include many scientists among their number, and (b)
are not particularly enamored of cultural studies, or any of the
other parts of modern literary theory.
Van:
There aren't many people in America, taken as a whole, "particularly
enamored of cultural studies," or even engaged in "modern literary
theory"; so I don't see your point. Its logic, as best as I can
reconstruct it, seems to be that since most activists concerned with the
use and abuse of science are NOT versed in literary theory or cultural
studies, that therefore the public isn't concerned with the use and abuse
of science. I don't think that's what you are driving at but your
initial assumption, that I'm saying all criticism of science is peopled
by literary theorists and social critics, doesn't fly.
Russ:
For example, the people who oppose industrial run-off often make great use
of science to make their points, and include no few biologists and biology
teachers.
Van:
Andrew Ross makes this very point in his introduction and, by the way,
it's an indication of the postmodern condition, or, following Ulrich Beck,
what Ross calls "reflexive modernization--where modernity today everywhere
confronts the effects of the earlier, primary modernization" (_Social
Text_, 46-7:2). Ross writes of the "social and cultural symptoms" of the
ecological consequences of industry and science, and how those symptoms
have given "birth to a social movement that deploys science against the
industrial threats generated by science" (2). He comments, in initial
agreement with you, that "This contradiction--using science against
science--speaks faithfully enough to the Janus-faced development of
technoscience in the modern period, associated as much today with
destructive as with productive forces" (2). This isn't simple
anti-scientism. Certainly I am not speaking from some completely
anti-science, Ur-Luddite, Unabomber perspective. But science isn't lilly
white and totally, in Ross's terms, "productive." It has social and
environmental costs and abuses associated with it too, and everyone has a
stake in that.
Russ:
Yes, I know. Crackpot cliques are also involved in these issues.
There are people like Jeremy Rifkin and his followers. But these
vare not representative, and in any case, for Van Piercy and
others in lit crit to claim that Harding and other literary
critics of science are representing this kind of cause AGAINST
science is a tremendous and unquestioned redrawing of the
boundaries.
Van:
I didn't mention Harding. Again, simple anti-scientism isn't the point
here.
Russ:
The fight of science against its critics is NOT
aligned with the various political issues concerning science.
Van:
Well it should be, or, it in fact already is, despite the denials.
Theoretically and in principle, I think I know what you mean, and there is
a certain pyrric irrationalism AND scientific venality that both need to
be challenged. But as a practical matter and a matter of broad public
debate and policy, the alignments are well drawn and don't need "Van
Piercy" to redraw them. Ross is as good as anyone on what these perceived
alignments are: "In the popular mind, the allegiances of many of the
sciences to elite interests--military, corporate, and state--and to the
cause of superindustrialism have underscored the perception that they are
not democratic in nature" (Ross, ibid., 2). That's why the NYT aligns
Sokal's intervention with political conservatism, even while identifying
him as a Leftist and feminist: in the broad debates, epistemological
realism is identified with science *and* with Right wing culture. The
cultural Leftists are all kooks whose criticisms or cautions about science
MUST ALL be irrationally based.
Russ:
Indeed, one of the reasons that Sokal did what he did was
precisely to resist attempts to create the image of such
alignment, because he feared that the weak philosophy coming from
the literary crowd would weaken the political stances that
concern him.
Van:
Now this is interesting and it's where I think a guy like Sokal plays into
the hands of the Right, especially on the level of broad public
perception, as even he knew he would! Guys on the Left like Roy Bhaskar
and Richard Lewontin have done more to hammer home the point among the
cultural Left for epistemological realism and for conserving scientific
rationality; Sokal's prank will endear him to neocons and Contract On
America conservatives who want to stabilize the canon and the disciplines
back to the Eisenhower era, and purge the queers, feminists, reds,
"liberals," and Nietzschean anarchists out of the Universities.
Political conservatism in the sciences is anything but rare; and
politically Left or progressive scientists (as Sokal identifies himself)
do not constitute the majority of scientists; so for the Leftist scientist
to strike out at the cultural Left in the name of buttressing the
epistemological credibility of "science" seems off the mark, especially
given that the journal editor Ross makes claims about the validity of
science as a tool for criticizing science. The cultural Left will take
some sort of hit but not for sake of responsible science. Instead it will
be for the sake of the cultural Right, whose green lights and deep pockets
to all kinds of irresponsible science (Star Wars, EPA gutting, wild
Pentagon R&D budgets) are no secret.
Van:
> The same thing happens in science journals. Scientists DO fudge
> data and publish it. They steal data too, a la Watson and Crick,
> and graduate students in chemistry do screw up each others'
> results. ...
Russ:
Oh, absolutely. Scientists are well capable of such things
because they have the knowledge required to make a cheat look
plausible. Let us know when a graduate student in English without
a science background manages to pull a hoax on Phys. Review D.
Van:
Oh, about the time a grad student in chemistry without a philosophy
background gets a major paper published in a premier journal devoted to
Kant or Hegel.
Van Piercy
In article <4nqc1h$o...@swsu65.swmed.edu>,
a man of no importance <no...@nowhere.net> wrote:
>vpi...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu (Van Piercy) wrote:
>>In article <Drou8...@eskimo.com>, Noel Smith <nsm...@eskimo.com> wrote:
>>>The Nando Times Voices recently published the following article on
>>>this topic by Linda Seebach:
>>>
>>
>> SNIP SNIP SNIP
>>
>>Van
>
>
>I'm sorry, but that statement of "oh we knew all along that he was just
>playing, and we were just being nice to him in letting the article get
>published" was one of the most ridiculous-sounding ass-covering
Bad paraphrase of what I said:
Van wrote:
>To me, the publishing of his article in ST looked more like a friendly
>gesture to someone in a distant discipline who seemed, in his own quirky
>and incomprehensible way (he and Ross work at the same university I
>understand), to be trying to make connections.
Van:
I didn't suspect it was a parody when I first glanced at it a few weeks
ago when the issue came to my house but I did take it to be crappy work
and dismissed it after trying to pry sense out of two or three paragraphs.
I'm also not saying the ST editors knew it was a parody; I'm saying that
whatever their personal opinions about the ultimate value of the work it
was published on the grounds that it looked like a physicist trying to
make sense of his field in conjunction with theirs. That's basically what
Ross says in the editorial response (www.designsys.com/socialtext).
amoni:
>And yes, scientists have their foibles. However, in science if you doubt
>someone's data you can go try to replicate it and establish the truth
>for yourself. In litcrit, pomo philosophy, etc., truth is based entirely
>on personal preferences, current political opinions, etc.
Van:
Science is guided, if less obviously, by personal greed, current political
climate (what sort of science work would have been done for the decade or
so of the "Great Space Race"--would there have been a GSR?--without the
Evil Empire goading us into Cold War fever?) and corporate notions of
what's marketable and therefore fundable science today.
And saying that science works differently than the humanities and social
sciences only goes some way to proving my point that Sokal's work couldn't
be "verified" and duplicated in the sense that one runs a chemical
experiment. (This is true of all humanities work: so is your point that
it all be ceased because it doesn't fulfill the protocols of science?)
Sokal was doing a very idiosyncratic project (even more idiosyncratic than
usual in the humanities and social sciences) and I'm not sure who could
have plausibly refereed his paper, having themselves one foot firmly in
both "cultures." Fritjof Capra or David Bohm or one of those other
cosmological (and New Agey) physicists who are always talking about "God"
or Tao or the Great Mother are the only guys I can think of off the top of
my head who could have served as perfectly symmetrical peers for a project
like the one Sokal was pushing.
>I have never
>heard a philosopher say anything like "personally, I would love to accept
>this theory because I like its implications, but there unfortunately
>there is good evidence against its validity, so I must reject it."
>
>The emperor wears no clothes.
Tell yourself that five times and then read Levin's paper in the same
issue of Social Text and I'll discuss your perplexity and confusion with
equanimity.
Van
Silke-Maria Weineck
: Silke-Maria Weineck <wein...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
: > Of course it can; right there in your first step: what counts as
: While I don't agree with Greg's account (among other reasons,
: because the notion of THE scientific method is quite obsolete), I
: am more than puzzled by Weineck's comment. Accepting Greg's
: account for the purpose of argument, perhaps Weineck would
: provide an example of some phenomenon that she has observed that
: she worries science would a priori exclude from its
: investigations?
A misunderstanding; I was more concerned with "phenomena" that only come
to exist as "problems in the natural world" through the perception of the
problematizers. "Why is it that women have no super-ego?" (I actually
believe that is somewhat true, but you get the drift...)
Silke
kmag...@eagle.wesleyan.edu
In article <4nq3cl$7...@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>, vpi...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu (Van Piercy) writes:
> In article <Drou8...@eskimo.com>, Noel Smith <nsm...@eskimo.com> wrote:
>
Whoever believes this should remind my employers in the
State about it. Everyone here and practically everywhere
else I know of in non-trendy biology is running on a
shoestring. I think this myth shows up why people in
science who are scraping around for any bit of funding
available get pissed off at people like the poster who
keep repeating it.
> do science and the public which has no small stake in monitoring and
> funding and LIVING IN the results of the people doing science.
A tension which is not helped, by either exposing truth
or debunking myths, by people like you.
> He also showed his own ignorance of a lot of the work and of the field
> with his own bad parody.
That, indeed, was the whole point: that someone can write
total nonsense, wrap it up in some postmodern jargon, and
have it published. Something like that would not happen
in a peer-reviewed science journal. Which is not to say
that social journals should institute a system similar to
science journals, but that publishing something like Sokal's
piece shows how much the actual content is judged for how
well it makes sense.
>>Once the article was safely in print, Sokal
>>revealed his modest experiment. "Would a
>>leading journal of cultural studies," he
>>wrote in the May/June issue of Lingua
>>Franca, "publish an article liberally salted
>>with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and
>>(b) it flattered the editors' ideological
>>preconceptions?"
>
> The same thing happens in science journals. Scientists DO fudge data and
> publish it.
Fudging or stealing data is not the same as publishing nonsense.
The former could only be pointed out by someone else involved in
the original experiment or trying to replicate it. The latter
should be obvious to anyone with an adequate background in the
subject matter.
> I suppose a source of Sokal's upset is the decreased stature of science in
> our culture--so he goes after the non-science academics, who we know are
> not hampered by enormous amounts of respect and corporate industry jobs
> after they graduate.
Right. There's just the lucky few who land jobs where they're
paid to take up space and spout out gibberish on a regular basis,
an only get to build up their egos with each other.
And yes, that comment was largely uncalled for; but lumping all
scientists as money-grubbing industry servants is as well. If
you know of a non-pest control job for a vespid specialist,
let me know. Most of the people I know in science are working
in subjects that they feel are important and are interested in,
not ones that are likely to be high-paying. If you're lucky,
you might get a job for $16000 as a lab slave sorting dead bugs.
> It's queer to worry about the public confidence in
> science while science training is already largely vocational and
> technical
As opposed to spiritual?
and the scientists' run for lucrative industry jobs--pursuing
> Truth for the highest bidder--has probably done more to take the shine off
> the scientist-as-culture hero image as anything the "Radical Left"
> "nihilist postmodernist" professors and their mighty progeny have done.
Of course, it hasn't been helped when "nihilist postmodernists"
go around proclaiming that scientists are on a run for lucrative
industry jobs. An industry job is usually one of last resort,
if you can't find anywhere to do independent research because
NBS has been cut to ribbons.
Karl
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Having a seizure is like rebooting | If there's nothing wrong with you,
your brain." --P. Johnstone | then there's something wrong with you.
<<<<.EROMYNA LAER SMEES GNIHTON>>>> | <<<<NOTHING SEEMS REAL ANYMORE.>>>>
moggin
Russell Turpin <tur...@cs.utexas.edu> wrote:
:Now: people who practice science will have certain political and
:moral biases which they will promulgate, just as do people who
:fish. But one should distinguish their scientific opinions from
:their political views. It is not surprising that people who head
:high-energy physics labs believe that this research is
:inadequately funded. It is *extremely* surprising that a
:literary theorist (or anyone who has graduated college) would
:view this as a scientific rather than political pronouncement.
:These are fundamental, logical distinctions. Without them, it
:is impossible to understand science. Or for that matter, fishing.
:I will again reference Sandra Harding as an example of this.
What -- now she's writing for _Field and Stream_?
-- moggin
David Swanson
In article <4nqce3$o...@swsu65.swmed.edu>
a man of no importance <no...@nowhere.net> writes:
> Please pardon my stupidity,
Politeness? This is a pleasant new twist.
but how in the hell does this "debunk"
> anything? This is so damn general it could be interpreted any which way,
> kinda like astrology.
>
> Yeah yeah yeah. The sensory data entering our brain gets filtered through
> our pre-conceived notions. This does not change the fact that the editors
> of a serious journal published an article that was deliberately written
> as nonsense, just because it masqueraded as catering to the beliefs of
> the academic left.
Why should it? I haven't seen a single copy of that journal in my life
and suspect, from hearsay, that it's run by absolute morons.
>
> For all the statements coming out of pomo philosophy about the equal
> validity of many beliefs (no matter how stupid), they sure don't like to
> admit the validity of beliefs based upon evidence and reason.
"they" who? Perhaps they just want you to get clear about what
"validity" means.
>
> a.m.o.n.i.
David Swanson
In article <4nqe35$6...@news.nd.edu>
sch...@sibelius.helios.nd.edu (Thomas Scharle) writes:
> When it comes to a dispute between historical reporting and
> uniformitarian presuppositions, we must agree with the observations
> and not the theories.
Absolutely, and when it comes to a contest between the Yankees and the
Dodgers, we must vote for the Democrat rather than the Republican.
moggin
david....@mpcug.com (David Jensen):
>> | I am sure you have no idea what science is. Science, learning about the
>> | universe through the use of the scientific method, is inherently amoral.
Gordon:
>> Oh, it is not. Science could not function at all without a
>> system of morality, which centers, of course, on the belief
>> in, accessibility, and value of truth. Falsify some
>> experimental data and see where it gets you.
Doug Turnbull <d-t...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote:
> I would disagree. First, I don't think a belief in the accessibility
>of truth is an ethical belief.
Comes down to cases -- it _could_ be epistemological, but in
nearly every instance it turns out to be ethical.
>I also think it is also held as a working assumption rather than a
>foundational belief.
That's only because it's unfounded, and thus easier to defend
if you say something like, "Oh, it's just my working assumption" than
if you try to establish that you really _do_ have access to the truth.
> I agree that a belief in the value of truth is a common ethical belief
>of scientists. However, such a belief is not necessary to the function of
>science. It's possible for a person to not care about the value of truth or
>even to think truth was detrimental, and yet still carry out scientific
>research.
Well, of course it is -- at cigarette companies, they do it
that way all the time. Also in siting nuclear waste dumps. But I
thought we were talking about science in the ideal, abstracted from
its social context. And in that case, how could science function in
the absence of the value of truth? It's an interesting idea, and I'm
willing to be convinced, but right now I just don't see it. Even if
it _was_ possible, "belief in the value of truth" hasn't just been a
common thing among scientists -- it's a central feature of the entire
enterprise. The only question is whether it's a necessary one. You
say no. How come?
-- moggin
Russell Turpin
-*---------
In article <4nrhe5$a...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
Silke-Maria Weineck <wein...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
> A misunderstanding; I was more concerned with "phenomena" that
> only come to exist as "problems in the natural world" through
> the perception of the problematizers. "Why is it that women
In that case, you should be fond of science! The first question
that gets asked of such a claim is: What is a superego and how
do I measure whether a person has one? The scientific criticisms
of Freudian psychotherapy are the harshest, and I suspect that his
theories are viewed much more skeptically by scientists than by
literary theorists.
> ... I actually believe that is somewhat true, ...
Case in point. I am not even sure that it is well-defined.
moggin
david....@mpcug.com (David Jensen):
>>| I am sure you have no idea what science is. Science, learning about the
>>| universe through the use of the scientific method, is inherently amoral.
Gordon:
>>Oh, it is not. Science could not function at all without a
>>system of morality, which centers, of course, on the belief
>>in, accessibility, and value of truth. Falsify some
>>experimental data and see where it gets you.
Greg <Gold...@utsw.swmed.edu>:
>You're confusing science as an institution with science as a process.
[...]
>The belief that there is a truth is not a "moral" belief, as it does not,
>in and of itself, dictate any one course of action over another.
The term you're missing is "value." The belief in the _value_
of truth is necessarily a moral belief. The belief that truth exists
isn't necessarily moral in nature, but functions that way the majority
of the time. Ditto for its accessibility.
-- moggin
Gordon Fitch
David Swanson (dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu) wrote:
| ...
| : beliefs change. We don't think that the earth was flat when (and
| : because) people thought the earth was flat. At the same time we have
| ...
sch...@sibelius.helios.nd.edu (Thomas Scharle):
| When it comes to a dispute between historical reporting and
| uniformitarian presuppositions, we must agree with the observations
| and not the theories.
I don't think anyone ever observed the earth to be flat in
the sense of flat-versus-25000-miles-around. Anyone who has
driven through Louisiana has observed the earth to be flat,
but that's a different kind of flat.
Somewhere I read that a Hopi was telling people that in the
Hopi religion, the world was conceived of as a series of
hollow spaces. The Hopi entered this world (the Fourth)
through a small hole in the sky of the Third, led by Spider
Woman. Someone objected that everyone knew the earth was a
sphere hanging in limitless space. "Well, yes," answered
the Hopi, "it could be that as well." It's probably in the
Apocrypha.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Gordon Fitch
Maybe people are using the terms _moral_ and _ethical_
differently here. In my experience, while scientists don't
necessarily want everyone to be a scientist, they do want
people to respect what they do, which they generally believe
has something to do with some kind of "truth." Within the
field, there is definitely an imperative towards veracity.
This, to me, is a moral value. Even Buddhist scientists
feel constrained to report their illusory analyses of the
illusional physical world with the illusion of truth.
The alternative to truth would have to be power. In that
case, science would indeed be "texts all the way down." I
don't think science as we presently conceive of it can work
that way, although certainly it assumes that guise from
time to time. But this mask seems to lack eyeholes,
because when it's put on science ceases to go anywhere.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
David Jensen
wein...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) wrote:
>A misunderstanding; I was more concerned with "phenomena" that only come
>to exist as "problems in the natural world" through the perception of the
>problematizers. "Why is it that women have no super-ego?" (I actually
>believe that is somewhat true, but you get the drift...)
>Silke
"Why is it that women have no super-ego?" is not a valid scientific
question:
1. super-ego is a philosophico-logical construct rather than an observable
fact, 2. the question "why" cannot be answered by science, except in the
meaning of a mechanistic "why".
Why do scientists parody social scientists? Because too many social
scientists believe that "Why is it that women have no super-ego?" is a
scientific question.
David Swanson
In article <4nrhe5$a...@netnews.upenn.edu>
wein...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) writes:
> A misunderstanding; I was more concerned with "phenomena" that only come
> to exist as "problems in the natural world" through the perception of the
> problematizers. "Why is it that women have no super-ego?" (I actually
> believe that is somewhat true, but you get the drift...)
>
> Silke
You're not going to find many glorifiers of science who consider Freud
a scientist. How about a different example? Besides, Sartre claimed
to have no super-ego, and so do I.
David Jensen
g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) wrote:
>Maybe people are using the terms _moral_ and _ethical_
>differently here. In my experience, while scientists don't
>necessarily want everyone to be a scientist, they do want
>people to respect what they do, which they generally believe
>has something to do with some kind of "truth." Within the
>field, there is definitely an imperative towards veracity.
>This, to me, is a moral value. Even Buddhist scientists
>feel constrained to report their illusory analyses of the
>illusional physical world with the illusion of truth.
Science seeks knowledge, facts. Truth can also be used here, but it has a
fortunate or unfortunate moral connotation. The words knowledge and facts
generally do not. The knowledge learned has no moral value. Many people,
especially scientists, believe that learning has a moral value in its own
right, but that is not inherent in the definition of science or knowing.
Cheating is bad because it does not follow the scientific method. If you
cheat, you are not a scientist. You are not trying to know. This is a
serious ethical breach for a scientist, but science is not affected by it.
moggin
Matthew P Wiener <wee...@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu> wrote:
>>>I've been reading the article, and it is hysterical.
>>> Furthermore, as Lacan suspected, there is an intimate
>>> connection between the external structure of the phys-
>>> ical world and its inner psychological representation
>>> qua knot theory: this hypothesis has recently been con-
>>> firmed by Witten's derivation of knot invariants (in
>>> particular the Jones polynomial [Jones 1985]) from
>>> three-dimensional Chern-Simons quantum field theory
>>> (Witten 1989). [Sokol, TTB, p225]
>>>It takes no intelligence to realize that "inner psychological
>>>representation" has absolutely no meaning here.
moggin:
>> That's the one thing here that _does_ make sense
Matthew:
>I'm sorry to hear that you are a retard.
Let's see: you deleted my argument, offered nothing in the way
of a response, but tossed out your customary grade-school insult -- an
impressive performance. I'm sure you'll be glad to learn that just as
the expression "shit for brains" automatically reminds me of Carl, the
term "retard" now infallibly summons up your name.
-- moggin
Silke-Maria Weineck
That's true _now_ -- Freud certainly considered himself a rigorous
scientist at times. I don't want to start a psychometrics or Bell Curve
thread, that's why I picked superego. One of my diss advisers claims he
has no _ego_ now there's an interesting personality structure. Would be
much more fun to discuss.
Silke
David Swanson (dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu)
wrote: : In article <4nrhe5$a...@netnews.upenn.edu>
moggin
g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) wrote:
>>Maybe people are using the terms _moral_ and _ethical_
>>differently here. In my experience, while scientists don't
>>necessarily want everyone to be a scientist, they do want
>>people to respect what they do, which they generally believe
>>has something to do with some kind of "truth." Within the
>>field, there is definitely an imperative towards veracity.
>>This, to me, is a moral value. Even Buddhist scientists
>>feel constrained to report their illusory analyses of the
>>illusional physical world with the illusion of truth.
jen...@mpcug.com (David Jensen):
>Science seeks knowledge, facts. Truth can also be used here, but it has a
>fortunate or unfortunate moral connotation. The words knowledge and facts
>generally do not. The knowledge learned has no moral value. Many people,
>especially scientists, believe that learning has a moral value in its own
>right, but that is not inherent in the definition of science or knowing.
You ain't getting it, dude. Look: science makes truth into a
moral value. It is, in fact, the value on which science is based. We
can state the moral proposition as follows: "Truth is good." Call it
"knowledge" if you prefer; makes no difference for our purposes here.
If science didn't place a high value on truth or knowledge, scientists
wouldn't pursue them. But of course they do, at least in the form
they understand those things.
What you mean, I suspect, is that knowing about the orbit of
Mars doesn't tell you whether it's o.k. to cheat at poker or sell off
your grandmother to the highest bidder. And it probably doesn't, but
that's not the point. What matters is that scientists are determined
to learn about Mars' orbit (or what-have-you); not only is that part
of the definition of science, it's the whole damn point -- and when a
scientist says that it's better to know than not know, that's a moral
choice -- so is a scientist's decision that it's better to know _the
truth_ about the orbit of Mars than to be deceived about it. Other
choices (it's better not to know, it's better not to know the truth,
it's better to know some other kind of truth) are possible, but they
aren't consistent with a scientific outlook.
We could go further and analyze the particular morality that
science follows. After it, it has a specific conception of knowledge,
and of truth, which it pledges itself to, and which it defends against
other moralities that have different ideas about them. That's a large
part of our debates here: scientists (and fellow-travellers) defending
their morality against all comers.
Of course, one element of the scientific morality consists in
denying that it _is_ morality -- thus all the posts rejecting the very
idea as a tremendous insult, or a misunderstanding, and insisting that
science is purely, y'know, _scientific_.
-- moggin
Silke-Maria Weineck
Hmmm... to me, "useful" is a highly loaded term. To me it seems that you
have to show how it isn't, but no doubt to you it looks as if
I had to prove that it is.... "useful" implies benefits,
doesn't it? Whose? At what cost?
Silke
Christopher C. Wood
(chr...@lexis-nexis.com) wrote:
: In article <4nqgo4$k...@netnews.upenn.edu>, wein...@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) writes:
: |> Greg (Gold...@utsw.swmed.edu) wrote:
: |> : The belief that there is a truth is not a "moral" belief, as it
: |> : does not, in and of itself, dictate any one course of action over
: |> : another.
: |> The belief that one should know the truth, however, is moral,
: Only for sufficiently odd definitions of "truth" or "moral". If one
: prefers, consider science to be a search for useful information about
: the world. It is a process for determining whether a statement (a)
: concerns the real world, and (b) is useful. To me, these aspects
: appear orthogonal to issues of morality.
: |> and since science that believes in truth doesn't stop there but
: |> also tries to get to it --- or not?
: Chris
: --
: Speaking only for myself, of course.
: Chris Wood chr...@lexis-nexis.com ca...@CFAnet.com
Christopher C. Wood
Russell Turpin
-*-------
In article <4nreuf$9...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
Silke-Maria Weineck <wein...@mail1.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
> Well, no, dear Russell, since I can think of logic as a social
> custom and a practice, hence, by your definition, as an
In that case, what word do you use for the kind of logic I
described? Particularly in the formal case, it seems pretty
clear that the first-order predicate calculus is *not* a social
custom. If so, who practices it? Certainly not logicians! They
may prove theorems *about* the first-order predicate calculus,
but I have NEVER seen a logician do anything that might be
considered an instance of this logic. Social customs just aren't
the kinds of things that can be, say, negation complete.
> ... Is this getting too tedious?
I am wondering if there is a point somewhere. Certainly, I am
not going to argue vehemently about what labels to use, since
labelings are arbitrary as long as we keep them straight.
(Right?) And certainly you aren't going to argue that I cannot
draw the distinction I do, since any distinction that we can make
sense of is permitted. (Right?) So where is this going?
(The "rights?" above tag agreement with what I hope are basic
principles of thought, principles that used to be taught in
rhetoric classes, and that are sometimes called "logic," though
perhaps that is a bad word to use in this post, since what to
label "logic" is partly at issue.)
Russell Turpin
-*--------
In article <4ns702$g...@bessel.nando.net>,
moggin <mog...@bessel.nando.net> wrote:
> The term you're missing is "value." The belief in the _value_
Absolutely. Now note two things. (1) That truth is valuable is
NOT a scientific claim. (2) There would be much less rhetoric
wasted between scientists and some of their self-appointed
critics if the latter said "sure science finds truth, but we
don't think truth is important." Most of the scientists would be
left speechless, and could only hope that such a claim would, by
itself, cause everyone listening to desert the cause of the
self-appointed critics. Whatever discussion followed would, in
any case, not be particular to science.
Of course, it is probably silly to urge *honest* discussion on
someone who doesn't value truth. Honesty, after all, is the
personal characteristic we ascribe to those whose actions are
consistent with valuing the truth.
Without some committment to honesty in speech, discussion itself
starts to get pretty futile ...
Because of these considerations, truth IS an academic value. At
the point that someone says "I don't care about the truth," they
should be released from any and all academic position and
responsibility. (Again, as Moggin points out, this has nothing
in particular to do with science. It is a moral issue of
critical importance to the academy, equally applicable to all
parts of it.)
Russell Turpin
-*-------
In article <4nslig$5...@bessel.nando.net>,
moggin <mog...@bessel.nando.net> wrote:
> You ain't getting it, dude. ...
Moggin should enscribe the phrase above in his bathroom mirror.
> ... If science didn't place a high value on truth or knowledge,
> scientists wouldn't pursue them. ...
Wrong. If *scientists* didn't place a high value on truth, they
wouldn't pursue it. But scientists and science are not synonyms,
and what motivates scientists doesn't necessarily explain
scientific epistemology. Most of moggin's responses in this area
stem from the confusion that is so clear in his sentence above.
For example:
> ... What matters is that scientists are determined to learn
> about Mars' orbit (or what-have-you); not only is that part
> of the definition of science, it's the whole damn point ...
Sorry, but no. Whether it is worth spending $N to refine our
knowledge of Mars's orbit is a political or business question,
and its answer is NOT a scientific claim. Scientific claims may
inform the question. But in the end, it is a matter of: Is what
we are getting out of this worth it? No matter how much moggin
twists and turns, this is not the kind of question that science
by itself can answer. Most scientists realize this.
Matthew P Wiener
In article <4nsjj0$m...@bessel.nando.net>, moggin@bessel (moggin) writes:
>Matthew P Wiener <wee...@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu> wrote:
>>>>I've been reading the article, and it is hysterical.
>>>> Furthermore, as Lacan suspected, there is an intimate
>>>> connection between the external structure of the phys-
>>>> ical world and its inner psychological representation
>>>> qua knot theory: this hypothesis has recently been con-
>>>> firmed by Witten's derivation of knot invariants (in
>>>> particular the Jones polynomial [Jones 1985]) from
>>>> three-dimensional Chern-Simons quantum field theory
>>>> (Witten 1989). [Sokol, TTB, p225]
>>>>It takes no intelligence to realize that "inner psychological
>>>>representation" has absolutely no meaning here.
>>> That's the one thing here that _does_ make sense
>>I'm sorry to hear that you are a retard.
> Let's see: you deleted my argument,
Your argument was doodoo. What your argument consisted of was
justifying the phrase "inner psychological representation", and
not justifying it in the passage in question, which is what I
pointed out what was lacking.
Since, by your own admission, you have zero knowledge of what the
rest of the passage is referring to, you were *incapable* of giving
any argument.
Think about it, OK? Don't injure yourself.
> offered nothing in the way
>of a response, but tossed out your customary grade-school insult -- an
>impressive performance.
Meanwhile, my statement is correct.
>the term "retard" now infallibly summons up your name.
Woo. Based on your crybaby performances in the past few months, your
name infallibly summons up the term "retard". In fact, the only thing
intelligent about it is that it is completely fake. Wise choice, moron.
--
-Matthew P Wiener (wee...@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
David Jensen
mog...@bessel.nando.net (moggin) wrote:
[snip]
> You ain't getting it, dude. Look: science makes truth into a
>moral value. It is, in fact, the value on which science is based. We
>can state the moral proposition as follows: "Truth is good."
That may be the proposition of the scientist, science is the method for
pursuing that. Science and scientist are two different words because they
are two different things.
> Call it
>"knowledge" if you prefer; makes no difference for our purposes here.
>If science didn't place a high value on truth or knowledge, scientists
>wouldn't pursue them. But of course they do, at least in the form
>they understand those things.
Science places no value on truth or knowledge. That is what scientists do.
> What you mean, I suspect, is that knowing about the orbit of
>Mars doesn't tell you whether it's o.k. to cheat at poker or sell off
>your grandmother to the highest bidder. And it probably doesn't, but
>that's not the point. What matters is that scientists are determined
>to learn about Mars' orbit (or what-have-you); not only is that part
>of the definition of science, it's the whole damn point -- and when a
>scientist says that it's better to know than not know, that's a moral
>choice -- so is a scientist's decision that it's better to know _the
>truth_ about the orbit of Mars than to be deceived about it. Other
>choices (it's better not to know, it's better not to know the truth,
>it's better to know some other kind of truth) are possible, but they
>aren't consistent with a scientific outlook.
But again, there is no evidence here that science is a moral agent, only
that you believe that scientists are. Knowledge or truth is a result of
scientific inquiry.
> We could go further and analyze the particular morality that
>science follows. After it, it has a specific conception of knowledge,
>and of truth, which it pledges itself to, and which it defends against
>other moralities that have different ideas about them. That's a large
>part of our debates here: scientists (and fellow-travellers) defending
>their morality against all comers.
Science cannot do any of the things that you so conveniently ascribed to it
in support of your hypothesis. Anthropomorphism can be a useful in many
areas. Logic is not one of them.
I'm glad to hear that you believe scientists have morality. That has
nothing to do with the proposition that science is amoral.
> Of course, one element of the scientific morality consists in
>denying that it _is_ morality -- thus all the posts rejecting the very
>idea as a tremendous insult, or a misunderstanding, and insisting that
>science is purely, y'know, _scientific_.
Again, not true. It is probable that the scientists are trying to get you
to understand the difference between science and scientist and why we use
two different words for two different concepts.
>-- moggin
Dave
Matthew P Wiener
In article <4nsitt$o...@netnews.upenn.edu>, weinecks@mail1 (Silke-Maria Weineck) writes:
>That's true _now_ -- Freud certainly considered himself a rigorous
>scientist at times.
So what? He and his cult of followers.
His work has always been considered pseudoscientific garbage within
the scientific community.
Carl Carter-Schwendler
vpi...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu (Van Piercy) wrote:
>He also showed his own ignorance of a lot of the work and of the field
>with his own bad parody. To me, the publishing of his article in ST
>looked more like a friendly gesture to someone in a distant discipline who
>seemed, in his own quirky and incomprehensible way (he and Ross work at
>the same university I understand), to be trying to make connections. And
>then he yells, from the back of a pickup truck speeding away, "Fuck you!
>It was all a joke." Well, WE knew that. We're just glad to know that you
>weren't for real, even if it was at our expense.
I haven't yet read the article, so perhaps my replies are meaningless.
However, I think the point of the hoax wasn't so much that bad
treatment of postmodernism could be accepted in a journal. I don't
think he would care about that at all. I think he was more concerned
that a such a bad treatment of physics could be accepted. From the
snippets I have seen, it looks like anyone who didn't know enough
about science to realize it was a parody had no business publishing an
issue discussing science. Naturally, the issue wasn't supposed to be
about science content. But perhaps that is part of the point. One
really can't address these issues without some understanding of the
content.
>The same thing happens in science journals. Scientists DO fudge data and
>publish it. They steal data too, a la Watson and Crick, and graduate
>students in chemistry do screw up each others' results. (I know all this
>because I have two chemists, an engineer and a geophysicist who've seen
>first hand the evidence of human foible in "Science.")
Yes of course fraud happens in science as well as honest mistakes.
The difference with science is that such "findings" don't stand the
test of time.
>I suppose a source of Sokal's upset is the decreased stature of science in
>our culture--so he goes after the non-science academics, who we know are
>not hampered by enormous amounts of respect and corporate industry jobs
>after they graduate. It's queer to worry about the public confidence in
>science while science training is already largely vocational and
>technical, and the scientists' run for lucrative industry jobs--pursuing
>Truth for the highest bidder--has probably done more to take the shine off
>the scientist-as-culture hero image as anything the "Radical Left"
>"nihilist postmodernist" professors and their mighty progeny have done.
I think you have something there, but the basis for your judgement is
a little off. My own field is physics. For the most part, the
training of a physicist is anything but vocational. A PhD in physics
trains you to be a professor in much the same way as a PhD in some
humanities field trains you to be a professor. It is just as
difficult to get a tenure track job in physics as in the humanities.
Most fields don't have any industrial applications. How is industry
going to use a string theorist, or an astrophysist? There are a
couple of subfields that have direct industry application, but the
traditional employers such as BellLabs (now Lucent) or IBM have been
shortening the research cycle so that it starts to look more and more
like engineering. True, a physicist is more likely to come away with
some marketable skills like computer programming. But physicists are
as high-minded about their field as anyone and they usually don't
relish spending 7 years in grad school and 4 as a post-doc so that
they can program games (the featured career in the last issue of
Physics Today.)
I think where you are right is that scientists are beginning to see
the effects of this kind of dialogue. The scientific literacy of this
country is declining. The public is becoming less capable of
evaluating the importance of research funding. Schools are beginning
to be allowed to teach creationism as an alternate "viewpoint" to
evolution. Scientists natually think science education is important.
The trend has always been that an educated person is permitted
ignorance in science and math but not in history or literature.
Scientists are simply afraid that such discussions will accelerate
this trend.
I have read "Higher Superstition" (which I thought was a little
overblown) and I heard a talk by Sandra Harding herself. My own take
on all this is that naturally there is some truth to all that is being
said. Culture influences the direction of science certainly. We know
more about nuclear physics because of the cold war. It can also
affect the content of science, although not as strongly. In physics
we need to look back to the Greeks' idealization of the sphere and the
influence of this on celestial mechanics to get a clear example. But
in other fields it is a bit easier to see. We have people looking for
a gay gene. There is the "Bell Curve"/"Mismeasure of Man" dichotomy.
Anyone looking for genetic markers for various behavior is immediately
thrown into a cultural debate.
The important thing is that "good", that is objective, science
eventually wins. I can think of two examples in physics where strong
culture lost to good science.
The developers of quantum mechanics were none too happy with the loss
of determinism. Einstein who probably had more influence on the
culture of science than anybody who ever lived, to his death didn't
completely accept QM. Yet despite all of these cultural influences
against it, QM survived on the basis of the evidence.
There was (and still is) a tremendous amount of cultural support for
chaos. There are bestselling books full of pretty pictures. It has
the full approval of the postmodernists and their ilk. Indeed they
have even appropriated such terms as "nonlinear" for their own use.
But it has not become the paradigm shift that it was presented to be.
People still study it, and it can be interesting to find instances of
it. For the most part, however, it is a minor sideshow when it does
appear.
Carl Carter-Schwendler
Russell Turpin
-*------
Imagine waking one morning and reading an article in the paper
about a politician sponsoring a new bill to change all accounting
processes. It is not clear exactly what the bill would do, but
at one point the politican states that "we must ask, again and
again, whether it is possible, or prudent, to isolate individual
bank accounts from employers and government agencies."
It does not take a Ph.D. in English Lit to recognize that there
is considerable dishonesty in this statement. Individual bank
accounts never have been isolated from employers or government
agencies. It has been possible for centuries to write checks
against them to these institutions, or deposit checks from these
institutions into them. Today this can be done electronically.
Law enforcement agencies have long been able to investigate
account histories given a warrant, and to sieze funds given a
court order. The average reader would probably approve of the
existing restrictions on these relationships: prohibition of
comingling of funds, requiring the account owner's permission to
draw funds, requiring warrants to investigate and court orders to
sieze accounts, etc. So here is a politician talking about
ending an isolation that does not exist. Pity the poor reader
who is not suspicious of such rhetoric, indicating as it does
that the politician has something more nefarious in mind that he
is not spelling out!
This statement would be doubly suspicious if it were tangentially
dropped in various articles that never quite spell out what is
meant nor directly address the issue, and it were then pulled
forth as foregone conclusion in others. What deceit is being
planned? Who is benefitting?
It used to be that the English department taught rhetorical
analysis, in part so people would become better able to detect
and deal with such deception. Now, it seems, there is a large
faction of the humanities that thinks it better to play the game
than expose it. Andrew Ross, in his response to the Sokal
"affair," drops a claim very similar to the one above, with
precious little explanation of it:
We must ask, again and again, whether it is possible, or
prudent, to isolate facts from values.
I am as suspicious as I would be in reading the analogous
statement from the politician about bank accounts, and for the
same reasons. We have never isolated facts from values. As far
back as history records, people have examined what is the case
(fact) to determine what they might be able to do in forwarding
their goals (value). In researching what happened or what is
(fact), people have always been guided by what they want to
achieve (value). So where is this isolation that should be
questioned? The *only* isolation that I can imagine, encouraged
because it is essential to understanding, is a logical
distinction: that we should not confound what is (fact) with what
we desire (value). Is *this* what Ross would question??
There are several pieces of evidence that there is indeed
something fishy in this part of academia. One is the rampant
confounding of facts and values by the students of these
departments. The recent threads over science provide some
examples of this. One respondent in the lit crit camp declares
that we can never determine facts independent of values, because
values determine how we define our terms. Is this the kind of
nonsense that is being taught in the humanities?? Back when
English taught rhetorical analysis, most undergraduate students
could explain that a sentence that is ambiguous because some of
its terms are ill-defined is semantically deficient, and simply
doesn't express a factual proposition to evince or refute. This
is not a case of needing valus to determine fact, but of needing
definition to determine what is being said!
Another piece of evidence is the stupidity in the last paragraph
of Ross's response, which I examined in another post. If one
confounds facts and values, one might indeed think it makes as
much sense to have political debate over scientific methodology
as it does to have political debate over what to research!
Ross's response talks much about good faith, and how Sokal
supposedly broke it with his hoax. But Sokal only hid his
intentions for a little bit, and the murkiness and nonsense of
his article were (or should have been) obvious from the get go,
as Ross himself admits in the response. So why was it published?
Do the humanities not also value sensibility over nonsense?
Clarity over murkiness? Does it have anything to do with the
murkiness and nonsense that is visible in Ross's response? Are
these part of the culture of the new humanities? If so, Sokal's
claims are correct, and his motivations for the hoax
understandable. If not, then Ross is displaying bad faith in his
response.
John Pieper
In article <4nrfct$c...@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>,
vpi...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu (Van Piercy) wrote:
> From: tur...@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin)
> Russ:
> For example, the people who oppose industrial run-off often make great use
> of science to make their points, and include no few biologists and biology
> teachers.
>
> Van:
> Andrew Ross makes this very point in his introduction and, by the way,
> it's an indication of the postmodern condition, or, following Ulrich Beck,
> what Ross calls "reflexive modernization--where modernity today everywhere
> confronts the effects of the earlier, primary modernization" (_Social
> Text_, 46-7:2). Ross writes of the "social and cultural symptoms" of the
> ecological consequences of industry and science, and how those symptoms
> have given "birth to a social movement that deploys science against the
> industrial threats generated by science" (2). He comments, in initial
> agreement with you, that "This contradiction--using science against
> science--speaks faithfully enough to the Janus-faced development of
> technoscience in the modern period, associated as much today with
> destructive as with productive forces" (2). This isn't simple
> anti-scientism. Certainly I am not speaking from some completely
> anti-science, Ur-Luddite, Unabomber perspective. But science isn't lilly
> white and totally, in Ross's terms, "productive." It has social and
> environmental costs and abuses associated with it too, and everyone has a
> stake in that.
This is a very common misconception. Ross is confusing science with
technology. While certainly the former makes the latter possible,
technology and industrialization are ultimately driven by those
who see a profit to be made in doing so. These are usually people
other than scientists. There is no great contradiction involved
with using science as a tool to ameliorate the negative effects of
industrial society. Indeed, if the early architects of industrialization
had had more information--more science, in effect-- and more foresight,
this use would not be so necessary today.
There is this tendency to look at the problems of technological
society and want to point to some abstract cause. So, it becomes
"science" that is the cause. This is a much more comforting position
than the realization that just as "everyone has a stake" in the
problems, everyone also has part of the responsibility. Science
doesn't function in a vacuum.
--
John Pieper | "I'm not quiet--everybody
Department of Physics and Astronomy | else is too loud!"
University of Iowa | -J. Entwistle
pie...@dusty.physics.uiowa.edu |
S. LaBonne
In article <4nsitt$o...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
Silke-Maria Weineck <wein...@mail1.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
>That's true _now_ -- Freud certainly considered himself a rigorous
>thread, that's why I picked superego. One of my diss advisers
Here I thought you were so polite, and now you tell us you retain
advisers just to coach you in how to diss people? ;-)
Sorry, couldn't resist.
--
Opinions are mine alone; I never met a university with opinions!
Steve LaBonne ********************* (labo...@cnsunix.albany.edu)
"It can never be satisfied, the mind, never." - Wallace Stevens
Patrick Juola
In article <4nsprb$s...@netnews.upenn.edu> wein...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) writes:
>Hmmm... to me, "useful" is a highly loaded term. To me it seems that you
>have to show how it isn't, but no doubt to you it looks as if
>I had to prove that it is.... "useful" implies benefits,
>doesn't it? Whose? At what cost?
Useful certainly doesn't imply benefits in a moral sense -- after all,
lockpicks and other burglary tools are "useful."
Patrick
Patrick Juola
In article <4nslig$5...@bessel.nando.net> mog...@bessel.nando.net (moggin) writes:
>jen...@mpcug.com (David Jensen):
>
>>Science seeks knowledge, facts. Truth can also be used here, but it has a
>>fortunate or unfortunate moral connotation. The words knowledge and facts
>>generally do not. The knowledge learned has no moral value. Many people,
>>especially scientists, believe that learning has a moral value in its own
>>right, but that is not inherent in the definition of science or knowing.
>
>moral value. It is, in fact, the value on which science is based. We
>"knowledge" if you prefer; makes no difference for our purposes here.
>If science didn't place a high value on truth or knowledge, scientists
>wouldn't pursue them. But of course they do, at least in the form
>they understand those things.
Um, moggin, *you* seem not to be getting it. Science does not make
truth into a moral value, any more than a soccer player makes scoring
goals into a moral value. The rules and conventions of soccer dictate
that you try to score goals. The rules of the game by which
science is played include the goal of seeking knowledge (defined
by consensus as a closer mapping of theory to "reality"). If you're
not willing to play by those rules, then you're not playing "science."
Conversely, if you're willing to play by the rules of science, then
can do science, even if you think they're silly, inappropriate, or
immoral rules.
Of course, given the amount of time and effort it takes to become
a scientist, it's unlikely that someone who didn't feel that the
goals of science were good (in a moral sense) would put in the
effort. But that's a simply the results of people having different
interests. And someone who did not, in fact, believe either that
theories approximated truth or that finding knowledge was a good
and moral occupation could still perform science if she wanted to.
Patrick
Silke-Maria Weineck
S. LaBonne (labo...@csc.albany.edu) wrote:
: In article <4nsitt$o...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
: Silke-Maria Weineck <wein...@mail1.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
: >That's true _now_ -- Freud certainly considered himself a rigorous
: >scientist at times. I don't want to start a psychometrics or Bell Curve
: >thread, that's why I picked superego. One of my diss advisers
: Here I thought you were so polite, and now you tell us you retain
: advisers just to coach you in how to diss people? ;-)
A valuable skill on Usenet, wouldn't you say? Actually, some workshops in
the art of dissing would benefit people like Kagalenko or Wiener greatly.
Perhaps moggin could set one up.
: Sorry, couldn't resist.
Well, then there's some super-ego problem here as well...
Silke
Russell Turpin
-*-------
Van Piercy:
>> Andrew Ross makes this very point in his introduction ...
>> ecological consequences of industry and science, and how
>> those symptoms have given "birth to a social movement that
>> deploys science against the industrial threats generated
>> by science" (2). He comments, in initial agreement with
>> you, that "This contradiction--using science against
In article <pieper-2105...@breckenridge.physics.uiowa.edu>,
John Pieper <pie...@dusty.physics.uiowa.edu> wrote:
> This is a very common misconception. Ross is confusing science with
> technology. While certainly the former makes the latter possible,
> technology and industrialization are ultimately driven by those
> who see a profit to be made in doing so. These are usually people
> other than scientists. There is no great contradiction involved
> with using science as a tool to ameliorate the negative effects of
> industrial society. ...
I would amend John Pieper's response in two ways. First, I would
change "no great contradition" to "no contradiction at all."
There is no reason to give even a millimeter here. There isn't
even a tension, except individual conflicts of interest, which is
older than history.
Second, I would question the source of such "misconception" and
"confusion." It is beginning to seem to me that writers such as
Ross *purposely* confound things that are easily distinguished,
because the "contradictions" so created feed their ideology.
They can pretend to look around, and then say "ahhh ... the
postmodern condition," when in reality they are suffering only
the consequences of their (purposely?) murky concepts.
William J Idsardi
In article <4nq3cl$7...@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>,
Van Piercy <vpi...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote:
>...
>He also showed his own ignorance of a lot of the work and of the field
>with his own bad parody. To me, the publishing of his article in ST
>looked more like a friendly gesture to someone in a distant discipline who
>seemed, in his own quirky and incomprehensible way (he and Ross work at
I think this comment is as revealing about the whole business
as anything I've read. Why in the world would any journal want
to publish (even as a favor) an article that was "quirky and
incomprehensible"? Isn't the point of publication to disseminate
information; to communicate knowledge to other people? This is
clearly impossible when an article is incomprehensible.
Bill Idsardi
S. LaBonne
In article <4nstuc$c...@peaches.cs.utexas.edu>,
Russell Turpin <tur...@cs.utexas.edu> wrote:
>
> We must ask, again and again, whether it is possible, or
> prudent, to isolate facts from values.
>
>I am as suspicious as I would be in reading the analogous
>statement from the politician about bank accounts, and for the
>same reasons. We have never isolated facts from values. As far
Y'know, it occurs to me that the bilge that such as Ross produce is
not bad science, or even bad literary theory, but bad _philosophy_.
Professional philosophers know this very well, and it has puzzled me
for some time that more of them do not accept their responsibility to
speak out against shoddy work that falls into their own bailiwick.
(An admirable, and admirably non-polemic, recent exception is John
Searle's _The Construction of Social Reality_, a veritable oasis of
clear thought and one successfully aimed at a general educated
readership rather than a philosophically trained one.) Why do they
leave this task to _scientists_, who are generally ill-equipped to
perform it??
Matthew P Wiener
In article <4nt4tj$m...@rebecca.albany.edu>, labonnes@csc (S. LaBonne) writes:
>(An admirable, and admirably non-polemic, recent exception is John
>Searle's _The Construction of Social Reality_, a veritable oasis of
>clear thought and one successfully aimed at a general educated
>readership rather than a philosophically trained one.)
John Searle said something philosophically intelligent? Woo.
S. LaBonne
In article <4nsitt$o...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
Silke-Maria Weineck <wein...@mail1.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
>That's true _now_ -- Freud certainly considered himself a rigorous
>scientist at times.
In much the same sense that many denizens of mental institutions
consider themselves to be Napoleon. ;-)
Bruce Hutchinson
nsm...@eskimo.com (Noel Smith) scribed:
>LINDA SEEBACH: Scientist trolls for gullible academic fish
>
(Citation snipped)
From a quick review of the posts to date, it appears that most of you are
at least conversent with this "postmodern physics" subject that Sokal
parodied: I am not. From my viewpoint, the only analogy I can come up
with is the famous monkey that captivated New York's Modern Art world
30-odd years ago. At the time, I was struck by the "sight" of many well
versed art people who sang the praises of this "major new talent", and
spent many happy hours trying to outdo each other by describing the deep,
almost mystical meanings the artist brought out in "his" art.
Today, after reading a few articles, I had this sense of deja vu. I'm
probably wrong, but it appears that this "postmodern" science kick is
simply a "created science that NO one can quantify, nor, it appears, even
remotely understand". That definitition, which is actually my philosophy
prof's description of *his* subject, might excuse the journal from
publishing the hoax, as it is quite obvious now to those of us looking in
from the outside, that it is quite probable that these "cultural
scientists" really don't have a very solid handle on *their* own subject.
Like the art critics, these cultural scientists seem to have have created a
realm of sci-babble and postulates that do not have any true, quantative or
absolute meanings, even to each other. Because of this, it was easy for
Sokal to create his "monkey", as he was undoubtedly of the opinion that
most of these "scientists" were far more prone to posturing (like the art
critics) with their secret language than defining their subject.
I can also understand Sokal's amusement, and his anger, at these cultural
scientists. In physics, an inordinate amount of time is spent codifiying
the language used to prevent *any* mis-understanding. So to read these
Social Texts with their vague, sci-babble terms that defy any attempts to
define absolutely, must have irritated him considerably. Then, to see some
of their writings taken seriously by others who might be in a postition to
affect *his* research, probably pushed him over the edge.
20-odd years ago, my applause went to the monkey's owner, for exposing the
hypocrisy of Modern Art. Today, I applaud Dr. Sokal for exposing an
"science" that was attempting to define *his* world in vague, ill defined
cultural mumbo-jumbo. Just as there were some who decried the morals of
the the monkey's owner in perpetuating his "joke", there have been some who
have questioned Sokal's morals in publishing his hoax in a respectable
journal. Personally, I think that, like the monkey, Sokal simply dangled
his bait in front of those who could not distingush between the real thing
and obvious fraud. It is highly significant that his article looked like
the real thing to the publishers *and* the reviewers.
I would also like to point out that he could have kept silent for, say,
three years before exposing the hoax. It might have been instructive, at
that point, to see how many citations his work might have recieved in other
writings.
hutch
______________
"A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always
depend upon the support of Paul." --George Bernard Shaw
Silke-Maria Weineck
S. LaBonne (labo...@csc.albany.edu) wrote:
: In article <4nsitt$o...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
: Silke-Maria Weineck <wein...@mail1.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
: >That's true _now_ -- Freud certainly considered himself a rigorous
: >scientist at times.
: In much the same sense that many denizens of mental institutions
: consider themselves to be Napoleon. ;-)
That's only very mildly funny; if, for example, you consider Freud's
approach to hysteria as opposed to mid-19th century approaches, you will
find that the first is much closer to today's understanding of some
psychosomatic disorders than the latter. There have been some recent
studies, on the validity of which I am not competent to pronounce, that
suggest that certain kinds of cognitive therapy affect some kind of brain
structure -- the "talking cure," in other words, may be every bit as
physical as Freud supposed it to be in the very essays most mocked by the
mainstream science of _his_ day. If you consider the fact that Freud was
happy to speculate, and brilliant at it, as something to disqualify him
from status as "scientist," you are saying something disturbing about
science, especially of that branch of sciences that deals with what we
still often enough term, perhaps for lack of a better word, our souls.
Silke
Matt Silberstein
wein...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) wrote:
>Greg (gold...@utsw.swmed.edu) wrote:
>: wein...@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) wrote:
>: >
>: > SNIP SNIP SNIP
>: >
>: >These are common distinctions; I just don't understand them. I cannot
>: >distinguish between the institution of philosophy and the logic of
>: >philosophy; the institution and the logic of psychology; the institution
>: >and the logic of education. Why is it different for "science"? Sorry if I
>: >make you repeat yourself.
>: >
>: >Silke
>: OK, let me try to answer this. The process/logic of science can be
>: described as essentially being a collection of methods, all of them based
>: on the "ideal form" of the scientific method, which goes something like
>: this:
>: Goal: Find a conceptual structure which would explain a certain aspect of
>: the natural world.
>: 1) Given a collection of facts regarding this aspect, generate a number
>: of possible hypotheses which a) explain these data and b) are consistent
>: with pre-existing data.
>: 2) Come up with testable predictions for each hypothesis.
>: 3) Test the predictions by experiment. Eliminate all hypotheses which did
>: not generate predictions which were consistent with the new data.
>: 4) If there are still several alternative hypotheses, use these to
>: generate further predictions, trying to develop experiments which would
>: specifically distinguish between these hypotheses. Do experiments.
>: 5) Repeat these steps until a satisfactory understanding of the process
>: or system you are studying has been obtained.
>: This is roughly what the "logic/process" of science is. Now the
>: institution of science consists of people with ideas and interests and
>: political agendas,etc. These are the people who apply the process
>: outlined above to various problems. Again, it's the difference between
>: the fishing industry (people, companies, ships, etc.) and the process of
>: fishing (step 1: locate area where fish of interest might exist...).
>: The process of science cannot be racist, sexist, etc. It is simply a
>Of course it can; right there in your first step: what counts as a
>"phenomenon in the natural world"? You summary suggests that this is a
>neutral step, when, of course, it isn't. But I'm sure this point could be
>refined.
That any step can be politisized it not denied by anyone here. But that is
not an aspect of science, that is an aspect of human behavior in a group.
Look at the example above. Fishing as a process is certainly speciest, but
it is not racist. But fishing industry can easily be both.
>But your list reads like a protocol, therefore it seems to me
>like an institutionalization. You aren't saying, "this is what science
>is," you are saying, "this is how science should proceed," since it seems
>unlikely that no scientific result has ever been reached without adhering
>to the protocol.
This subtly, but importantly, wrong. The list reads like an attempt to
describe a process, in print, in a way that it could be expicitly
understood. As such it reads like a protocol. But any process, describe
the same way would also sound like a protocol. And I suspect you don't
claim all process is instutionalized. The process of puting process in
print has the potentiality of incuring an institutionalize aura.
>Silke
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I intend this as a indecent, and even obscene, message. It is
especially unsuitable for minors.
--Because I am human, nothing human is beyond me. S.A. --
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Matt Silberstein
wein...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) wrote:
That any step can be politicized it not denied by anyone here. But that is
not an aspect of science, that is an aspect of human behavior in a group.
Look at the example above. Fishing as a process is certainly specieist
(sp), but it is not racist. But fishing industry can easily be both.
>But your list reads like a protocol, therefore it seems to me
>like an institutionalization. You aren't saying, "this is what science
>is," you are saying, "this is how science should proceed," since it seems
>unlikely that no scientific result has ever been reached without adhering
>to the protocol.
This subtly, but importantly, wrong. The list reads like an attempt to
describe a process, in print, in a way that it could be explicitly
understood. As such it reads like a protocol. But any process, describe
the same way would also sound like a protocol. And I suspect you don't
claim all process is institutionalized. The process of putting process in
print has the potentiality of incurring an institutionalize aura.
Stephen Schwartz
In article <4nstuc$c...@peaches.cs.utexas.edu>, tur...@cs.utexas.edu
(Russell Turpin) wrote:
> It used to be that the English department taught rhetorical
> analysis, in part so people would become better able to detect
> and deal with such deception. Now, it seems, there is a large
> faction of the humanities that thinks it better to play the game
> than expose it. Andrew Ross, in his response to the Sokal
> "affair," drops a claim very similar to the one above, with
> precious little explanation of it:
>
> We must ask, again and again, whether it is possible, or
> prudent, to isolate facts from values.
>
> I am as suspicious as I would be in reading the analogous
> statement from the politician about bank accounts, and for the
> same reasons. We have never isolated facts from values. As far
> back as history records, people have examined what is the case
> (fact) to determine what they might be able to do in forwarding
> their goals (value). In researching what happened or what is
> (fact), people have always been guided by what they want to
> achieve (value). So where is this isolation that should be
> questioned? The *only* isolation that I can imagine, encouraged
> because it is essential to understanding, is a logical
> distinction: that we should not confound what is (fact) with what
> we desire (value). Is *this* what Ross would question??
In a word: yes. What Ross and his fellow travelers are putting into
question is the "modern" separation of "ought" and "is." A traditional
society is one in which questions of what ought to be the case are
generally resolved by reference to what is: we should do this because we
are the descendants of people who did this; our gods have decreed it; it
is our tradition, etc. The hierarchies that make up the society are held
to be the natural way of doing things, a simple fact. Modern Western
societies, as well as modern science, are predicated largely on the
separation of ought and is, values and facts. We no longer accept as a
valid reason for why we should do something the fact that it has always
been done this way or that it is the nature of things. We separate value
judgments from judgments about matters of fact.
Relative to these two positions--the traditional embedding of value in
fact and the modern separation of the two--Ross's "postmodern" position is
likely to be that all facts are merely values in disguise. In short, an
embedding of fact in value. This comes to cultural studies by way of
Foucault who himself takes it from Nietzsche. To oversimplify: In the
end, there are no facts, only values and those are, of course, utterly
personal. What we call "facts" are simply values in disguise. This is
what is supposed to be uncovered and demystified by corrosive
"genealogical" questions like "Whose facts?" Everything is then a power
struggle of competing interests the stakes of which are the right to
determine what everyone else will be forced to accept as fact (for, if
they did not will it themselves, it can only have been "violently" forced
upon them).
Needless to say and despite the rhetoric of "social constructionism," this
view necessarily regresses into a hyper-individualism in which legitimacy
is nowhere and abuse is everywhere other than the position occupied by
whoever happens to be "theorizing." Everything risks degenerating into a
war of all against all. Which is why the CS (no, not computer science)
people babble on endlessly about the need for "articulation": ways of
patching together my cause with your cause, my "facts" with your "facts."
And of course any and all putative facts that one might offer in
justification of a belief are subject to dispute for, in the end, the
abyssal ground of everything turns out to be the will to power without any
ends or goals beyond its own propagation (those would, after all, require
that one be able to assess what is the case independently of one's values
if only to determine when to stop). Power and interest come first, the
"facts" and "reasons" and "justifications" come afterwards.
The dangers of this particular paranoid and agonistic model of human
inquiry and social formations ought to be fairly obvious. To see it put
forth by the left and those in the humanities is especially surprising.
But it colors everything they do as well as providing justification for
their rampant careerism, the "mot d'ordre" of which might be: (if
everything is a power struggle then) *More for Me.*
>One respondent in the lit crit camp declares
> that we can never determine facts independent of values, because
> values determine how we define our terms. Is this the kind of
> nonsense that is being taught in the humanities??
Yes.
> Another piece of evidence is the stupidity in the last paragraph
> of Ross's response, which I examined in another post. If one
> confounds facts and values, one might indeed think it makes as
> much sense to have political debate over scientific methodology
> as it does to have political debate over what to research!
They do think that. Everything is a political issue because what they
call "politics" is the arena where our mutually contradictory interests
are shaken out resulting in the constitution of "fact."
> Ross's response talks much about good faith, and how Sokal
> supposedly broke it with his hoax. But Sokal only hid his
> intentions for a little bit, and the murkiness and nonsense of
> his article were (or should have been) obvious from the get go,
> as Ross himself admits in the response. So why was it published?
This is the question they'd prefer to distract our attention from by
talking about the positions expressed in the _Lingua Franca_ article.
Ross's response takes the casuistic art of "directed intention" on behalf
of the editorial board to a new low. It's as if it had been discovered
that he voted for Reagan and he responded with "yeah, but I was 35%
against him."
> Do the humanities not also value sensibility over nonsense?
> Clarity over murkiness?
Some of us who work in them still do.
Steve
moggin
Greg (Gold...@utsw.swmed.edu) wrote:
>>: The belief that there is a truth is not a "moral" belief, as it does not,
>>: in and of itself, dictate any one course of action over another.
The belief that truth is _valuable_ is a moral evaluation,
whether or not it provides a guide to action, although you might
easily take it to indicate that obtaining truth is a highly moral
goal.
Silke:
>>The belief that one should know the truth, however, is moral, and since
>>science that believes in truth doesn't stop there but also tries to get
>>to it --- or not?
Greg:
>I disagree. Learning the truth is merely the object of scientific
>inquiry, just like catching fish is the object of fishing. Would you
>say that fishing has the "moral imperative" of catching fish? No. It
>is merely the practical goal of a certain activity, with no moral
>attachments.
No, the practical goals of science are collecting data and
building theories. _That's_ comparable to fishing. The difference
is that fisherman don't claim they've discovered the truth whenever
they make a catch.
The only other way to make your analogy work is to say that
there are _no_ moral imperatives, and that "being good" is just the
"practical goal of a certain activity," namely moral behavior.
-- moggin
moggin
Matt Silberstein <ma...@lainet.com> wrote:
>That any step can be politicized it not denied by anyone here. But that is
>not an aspect of science, that is an aspect of human behavior in a group.
Science _is_ "human behavior in a group." (That's why the
science devoted to the behavior of humans in groups -- sociology --
makes it a subject of study.)
-- moggin
moggin
moggin <mog...@bessel.nando.net>:
>> The term you're missing is "value." The belief in the _value_
>> of truth is necessarily a moral belief. ...
Russell:
>Absolutely. Now note two things. (1) That truth is valuable is
>NOT a scientific claim.
How do you mean? Science doesn't offer it as a finding -- if
that's what you're getting at, then I agree. But it does serve as an
underlying assumption.
>(2) There would be much less rhetoric
>wasted between scientists and some of their self-appointed
>critics
Who do you think should appoint critics?
>if the latter said "sure science finds truth, but we
>don't think truth is important." Most of the scientists would be
>left speechless, and could only hope that such a claim would, by
>itself, cause everyone listening to desert the cause of the
>self-appointed critics.
I imagine it would be a fervent hope for most of them. (You
realize, of course, that some of their critics questioned the value of
truth a long time ago.)
> Whatever discussion followed would, in
>any case, not be particular to science.
Correct -- they would be a case-in-point.
>Of course, it is probably silly to urge *honest* discussion on
>someone who doesn't value truth. Honesty, after all, is the
>personal characteristic we ascribe to those whose actions are
>consistent with valuing the truth.
>Without some committment to honesty in speech, discussion itself
>starts to get pretty futile ...
Not necessarily.
>Because of these considerations, truth IS an academic value. At
>the point that someone says "I don't care about the truth," they
>should be released from any and all academic position and
>responsibility. (Again, as Moggin points out, this has nothing
>in particular to do with science. It is a moral issue of
>critical importance to the academy, equally applicable to all
>parts of it.)
I can only find one "consideration" here, which is nothing
but your assertion that any discussion is futile unless it's based
on a committment to honesty.
-- moggin
moggin
Matthew P Wiener <wee...@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu> wrote:
>What your argument consisted of was
>justifying the phrase "inner psychological representation", and
>not justifying it in the passage in question, which is what I
>pointed out what was lacking.
"Inner psychological representation" is an old, familiar
notion with a long history behind it; I've already explained to you
what it means. The nonsense lies elsewhere -- presumably in the way
that Sokal applies it when he connects Lacan with various items taken
from physics and math.
This business about "justification" is something new -- you
didn't claim that Sokal's use of the phrase was unjustified -- your
assertion was that it "has absolutely no meaning here." But it has
the same meaning that it usually does. Whether the meaning fits is
another question.
>Since, by your own admission, you have zero knowledge of what the
>rest of the passage is referring to, you were *incapable* of giving
>any argument.
Too late -- I already did. I never said that I don't know a
thing about the rest of the passage, although most of the references
_are_ beyond me. That's beside the point, though, since the meaning
of the phrase is comprehensible even without knowledge of "Witten's
derivation," as I demonstrated. For some reason, you've been unable
to offer a substantial reply.
-- moggin
David Jensen
mog...@bessel.nando.net (moggin) wrote:
>Matt Silberstein <ma...@lainet.com> wrote:
"Human behavior in a group" is not any definition of science that I have
ever seen, or ever will see from a scientist.
>-- moggin
How many scientists believe sociology (or any other social science) is
science?
Matthew P Wiener
In article <tralfaz-2205...@ppp-206-54.neuilly.club-internet.fr>, tralfaz@club-internet (Stephen Schwartz) writes:
>And of course any and all putative facts that one might offer in
>justification of a belief are subject to dispute for, in the end, the
>abyssal ground of everything turns out to be the will to power without any
>ends or goals beyond its own propagation (those would, after all, require
>that one be able to assess what is the case independently of one's values
>if only to determine when to stop). Power and interest come first, the
>"facts" and "reasons" and "justifications" come afterwards.
>The dangers of this particular paranoid and agonistic model of human
>inquiry and social formations ought to be fairly obvious. To see it put
>forth by the left and those in the humanities is especially surprising.
For the left, this seems perfectly natural. They tend to side with the
unempowered, so rhetoric that erases their disadvantage is a natural.
For the humanities, the reasons seem just as clear. It's a question of
academic power, and the past several decades have seen them lose on that
front. So again, they embrace a voodoo rhetoric that blinds them.
Similarly, it is perfectly natural that deconstructionism has been a big
hit in feminist and minority and AIDS cultural studies.
David Jensen
tra...@club-internet.fr (Stephen Schwartz) wrote:
>In article <4nstuc$c...@peaches.cs.utexas.edu>, tur...@cs.utexas.edu
>(Russell Turpin) wrote:
[Excellent critique of ST deleted, except]
>>Is *this* what Ross would question??
>In a word: yes.
[more snip]
>Relative to these two positions--the traditional embedding of value in
>fact and the modern separation of the two--Ross's "postmodern" position is
>likely to be that all facts are merely values in disguise. In short, an
>embedding of fact in value. This comes to cultural studies by way of
>Foucault who himself takes it from Nietzsche. To oversimplify: In the
>end, there are no facts, only values and those are, of course, utterly
>personal. What we call "facts" are simply values in disguise. This is
>what is supposed to be uncovered and demystified by corrosive
>"genealogical" questions like "Whose facts?" Everything is then a power
>struggle of competing interests the stakes of which are the right to
>determine what everyone else will be forced to accept as fact (for, if
>they did not will it themselves, it can only have been "violently" forced
>upon them).
So Ross's post-modernism is really pre-modernism, just as new age religions
are recycled pre-modern religions. The only problem is that pre-moderns
always did it that way because the wisest of the leaders managed to
persuade their tribes to make beneficial changes without upsetting the
culture. Now, we do it without direction from the tribal elders.
No wonder we have science feeling total disdain for humanities. The
humanities have become a parody of knowledge. Given the state of humanities
today, it is hard to recall that the humanities helped give birth to
science.
[snip, more good stuff]
>>One respondent in the lit crit camp declares
>> that we can never determine facts independent of values, because
>> values determine how we define our terms. Is this the kind of
>> nonsense that is being taught in the humanities??
>Yes.
Sad.
[more good stuff snipped]
>> Do the humanities not also value sensibility over nonsense?
>> Clarity over murkiness?
>Some of us who work in them still do.
>Steve
It sounds as if you are one. Keep it up.
Matthew P Wiener
In article <4nusn3$f...@bessel.nando.net>, moggin@bessel (moggin) writes:
>Matthew P Wiener <wee...@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu> wrote:
>>What your argument consisted of was
>>justifying the phrase "inner psychological representation", and
>>not justifying it in the passage in question, which is what I
>>pointed out what was lacking.
> "Inner psychological representation" is an old, familiar
>notion with a long history behind it; I've already explained to you
>what it means.
And I already _know_ what it means, retard.
> The nonsense lies elsewhere
No. In the Sokal context, it meant absolutely nothing. The rest was
legitimate. Not that you would no.
> -- presumably in the way
>that Sokal applies it when he connects Lacan with various items taken
>from physics and math.
Right. It meant nothing.
> This business about "justification" is something new -- you
>didn't claim that Sokal's use of the phrase was unjustified -- your
>assertion was that it "has absolutely no meaning here." But it has
>the same meaning that it usually does. Whether the meaning fits is
>another question.
If it doesn't, it has no meaning there.
>>Since, by your own admission, you have zero knowledge of what the
>>rest of the passage is referring to, you were *incapable* of giving
>>any argument.
> Too late -- I already did. I never said that I don't know a
>thing about the rest of the passage,
Yes you did. You were explicit on this point.
> although most of the references
>_are_ beyond me. That's beside the point, though, since the meaning
>of the phrase is comprehensible even without knowledge of "Witten's
>derivation," as I demonstrated.
Right. But in the context, it does not have that meaning, or any other.
It is merely words on paper, filled in.
> For some reason, you've been unable
>to offer a substantial reply.
Liar.
Matthew P Wiener
In article <4ntv33$l...@netnews.upenn.edu>, weinecks@mail2 (Silke-Maria Weineck) writes:
>S. LaBonne (labo...@csc.albany.edu) wrote:
>: In article <4nsitt$o...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
>: Silke-Maria Weineck <wein...@mail1.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
>: >That's true _now_ -- Freud certainly considered himself a rigorous
>: >scientist at times.
>: In much the same sense that many denizens of mental institutions
>: consider themselves to be Napoleon. ;-)
>That's only very mildly funny; if, for example, you consider Freud's
>approach to hysteria as opposed to mid-19th century approaches, you will
>find that the first is much closer to today's understanding of some
>psychosomatic disorders than the latter.
Wow.
The _only_ advance Freud made over his predecessors was his taking the
unconscious mind seriously, as a real thing with real consequences.
The rest of his work was crackpot gibberish.
Silke-Maria Weineck
David Jensen (david....@mpcug.com) wrote:
: mog...@bessel.nando.net (moggin) wrote:
: >Matt Silberstein <ma...@lainet.com> wrote:
: >>That any step can be politicized it not denied by anyone here. But that is
: >>not an aspect of science, that is an aspect of human behavior in a group.
: > Science _is_ "human behavior in a group." (That's why the
: >science devoted to the behavior of humans in groups -- sociology --
: >makes it a subject of study.)
: "Human behavior in a group" is not any definition of science that I have
: ever seen, or ever will see from a scientist.
Try "cultural practice" -- does that ring a bell?
Silke
moggin
jen...@mpcug.com (David Jensen):
>>>Science seeks knowledge, facts. Truth can also be used here, but it has a
>>>fortunate or unfortunate moral connotation. The words knowledge and facts
>>>generally do not. The knowledge learned has no moral value. Many people,
>>>especially scientists, believe that learning has a moral value in its own
>>>right, but that is not inherent in the definition of science or knowing.
moggin:
>> You ain't getting it, dude. Look: science makes truth into a
>>moral value. It is, in fact, the value on which science is based. We
>>can state the moral proposition as follows: "Truth is good." Call it
>>"knowledge" if you prefer; makes no difference for our purposes here.
>>If science didn't place a high value on truth or knowledge, scientists
>>wouldn't pursue them. But of course they do, at least in the form
>>they understand those things.
Patrick Juola <pat...@gryphon.psych.ox.ac.uk>:
>Um, moggin, *you* seem not to be getting it. Science does not make
>truth into a moral value, any more than a soccer player makes scoring
>goals into a moral value.
Let me re-phrase that, since my point wasn't clear -- science
doesn't have to literally _make_ truth into a moral value, because it
already is one. So by making truth into _its_ highest value, science
takes a moral stand. (To avoid confusion, I should have written that
science _takes_ truth as a moral value.) But from what you say below,
your contention is that in fact science _doesn't_ center on the value
of truth.
>The rules and conventions of soccer dictate
>that you try to score goals. The rules of the game by which
>science is played include the goal of seeking knowledge (defined
>by consensus as a closer mapping of theory to "reality"). If you're
>not willing to play by those rules, then you're not playing "science."
>Conversely, if you're willing to play by the rules of science, then
>can do science, even if you think they're silly, inappropriate, or
>immoral rules.
I can go along with you there, but we're in a minority -- it's
not widely accepted that science is basically a game. And what I said
above holds true for the conventional understanding. Also remember my
main point to Mr. Jensen: what matters isn't whether science produces
knowledge that has a "moral value," but that the value of knowledge is
central to the scientific outlook.
-- moggin
moggin
mog...@bessel.nando.net (moggin):
>> You ain't getting it, dude. Look: science makes truth into a
>>moral value. It is, in fact, the value on which science is based. We
>>can state the moral proposition as follows: "Truth is good."
David Jensen <david....@mpcug.com>:
>That may be the proposition of the scientist, science is the method for
>pursuing that. Science and scientist are two different words because they
>are two different things.
How does that make any difference to what I said? Replace the
first "science" with "scientists" and it still comes out the same way.
moggin:
>>Call it
>>"knowledge" if you prefer; makes no difference for our purposes here.
>>If science didn't place a high value on truth or knowledge, scientists
>>wouldn't pursue them. But of course they do, at least in the form
>>they understand those things.
>Science places no value on truth or knowledge. That is what scientists do.
We could debate that, but I'd rather focus on one question at
a time, and even if you were right, it wouldn't make any difference in
this discussion.
moggin:
>> What you mean, I suspect, is that knowing about the orbit of
>>Mars doesn't tell you whether it's o.k. to cheat at poker or sell off
>>your grandmother to the highest bidder. And it probably doesn't, but
>>that's not the point. What matters is that scientists are determined
>>to learn about Mars' orbit (or what-have-you); not only is that part
>>of the definition of science, it's the whole damn point -- and when a
>>scientist says that it's better to know than not know, that's a moral
>>choice -- so is a scientist's decision that it's better to know _the
>>truth_ about the orbit of Mars than to be deceived about it. Other
>>choices (it's better not to know, it's better not to know the truth,
>>it's better to know some other kind of truth) are possible, but they
>>aren't consistent with a scientific outlook.
>But again, there is no evidence here that science is a moral agent, only
>that you believe that scientists are. Knowledge or truth is a result of
>scientific inquiry.
Again, this is a red-herring, since science are moral agents
insofar as they practice science -- as a form of inquiry designed to
produce "truth," science has a moral component, but if you prefer to
attribute its morality to scientists, rather than to science, that's
fine -- doesn't change a thing.
moggin:
>> We could go further and analyze the particular morality that
>>science follows. After it, it has a specific conception of knowledge,
>>and of truth, which it pledges itself to, and which it defends against
>>other moralities that have different ideas about them. That's a large
>>part of our debates here: scientists (and fellow-travellers) defending
>>their morality against all comers.
>Science cannot do any of the things that you so conveniently ascribed to it
>in support of your hypothesis. Anthropomorphism can be a useful in many
>areas. Logic is not one of them.
Oh, you know about logic? Good. Then you'll understand the
term "non sequitur," which describes all your comments in this post.
>I'm glad to hear that you believe scientists have morality. That has
>nothing to do with the proposition that science is amoral.
Yes, it does. If you want to say that the moral component of
science inheres in scientists, rather than in the scientific method,
then I'm willing to go along, not because I agree, but so that we can
remain focussed on the relationship between science and morality, and
avoid getting lost in a discussion of anthropomorphism (although it's
well-worth talking about separately).
But what you have to realize is that scientists have morality
_qua_ scientists, and that their morality, as scientists, is not just
something they bring to the job, but part of their identity as people
who practice science. If it makes you happy, you can take everything
I said about "science" and apply it to "scientists" -- what counts is
that it does apply to them, as far as they participate in scientific
inquiry.
moggin:
>> Of course, one element of the scientific morality consists in
>>denying that it _is_ morality -- thus all the posts rejecting the very
>>idea as a tremendous insult, or a misunderstanding, and insisting that
>>science is purely, y'know, _scientific_.
David:
>Again, not true.
Looks pretty true to me. Do you have any idea of _why_ you
think it's false, or is this the whole story?
>It is probable that the scientists are trying to get you
>to understand the difference between science and scientist and why we use
>two different words for two different concepts.
It's probable that you're brain-dead, but I'm playing a long
shot.
-- moggin
P.S. Anthropomorphism isn't necessarily illogical any more
than morality is necessarily good.
moggin
Matt Silberstein <ma...@lainet.com>:
>>>That any step can be politicized it not denied by anyone here. But that is
>>>not an aspect of science, that is an aspect of human behavior in a group.
moggin:
>> Science _is_ "human behavior in a group."
David Jensen <david....@mpcug.com>:
>"Human behavior in a group" is not any definition of science that I have
>ever seen, or ever will see from a scientist.
So?
moggin:
>>(That's why the
>>science devoted to the behavior of humans in groups -- sociology --
>>makes it a subject of study.)
David:
>How many scientists believe sociology (or any other social science) is
>science?
I don't know -- maybe there's a study on it.
-- moggin
Matthew P Wiener
In article <4nstuc$c...@peaches.cs.utexas.edu>, turpin@cs (Russell Turpin) writes:
>It used to be that the English department taught rhetorical
>analysis, in part so people would become better able to detect
>and deal with such deception. Now, it seems, there is a large
>faction of the humanities that thinks it better to play the game
Just reading the front cover of SOCIAL TEXT yields a textbook example
of such nonstop lying use of rhetoric:
Science Wars. As part of the campaign against "political
correctness," the history and theory of science studies
is increasingly subject to intense political scrutiny. In
this ... issue, ..., many of the leading figures in the
social and cultural study of science respond to recent
debates in the field. ....
Ross (I assume he wrote this) lies by calling the backlash part of some
anti-PC campaign. Uh no. In his dreams. The field's stupidities are
stupidities, pure and simple. That its proponents have managed, by a
decades long effort, to infect legitimate policy making questions and
education in general with their drivelings has meant that a response
is now in progress. That the style of argument employed by Ross and
company involves dense invocations of meaningless PC catchphrases is
just more reason to hate PC gibbermongers, nothing else.
Ross lies by mentioning "intense political scrutiny". In his dreams.
Most of these flapmouths are completely ignored--not even heard of
except perhaps as dumb jokes--in real scientific circles. Nothing
"intense" going on. And the scrutiny that is present is apolitical,
except for Ross and the like inventing sides out of nowhere. And the
scrutiny is rather factual. Not all the kicking and screaming and
crying in the world--they do try, don't they?--can ever turn true
facts into politics.
Ross lies by referring to "recent debates". There are no debates
going on. Lies and stupidity are being exposed for what they are.
Referring to cold hard ugly truths as "debates" is simply a way to
invent, out of whole cloth, an imaginary legitimacy for what Ross
wants to believe is going on.
Van Piercy
In article <4nqbf3$o...@swsu65.swmed.edu>,
Greg <Gold...@utsw.swmed.edu> wrote:
>g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) wrote:
>>david....@mpcug.com (David Jensen):
>>| ...
>>| I am sure you have no idea what science is. Science, learning about the
>>| universe through the use of the scientific method, is inherently amoral.
>>| ...
>>
>>Oh, it is not. Science could not function at all without a
>>system of morality, which centers, of course, on the belief
>>in, accessibility, and value of truth. Falsify some
>>experimental data and see where it gets you.
>>--
>> }"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
>
>You're confusing science as an institution with science as a process.
>
>The scientific institution, as any institution, has collective moral
>opinions, frauds, political bickering, etc. Science as a process is
>definitely amoral. The process of discovery that led to the invention of
>the atomic bomb was not affected by the idea that this could be used to
>kill people. Though individual scientists were afraid of how the
>knowledge might be used, and some regretted participating in the process
>later, the process went on.
>
>The belief that there is a truth is not a "moral" belief, as it does not,
>in and of itself, dictate any one course of action over another.
>
The idea that truth is amoral seems to leave the door open for everyone
with a truth to espouse. History is filled with examples of Truths that
are no longer with us and Truths that have been abused. If the Truth is
so transparent then how is injustice possible?
But more I think the idea of truth as amoral levels truth to be such a
pragmatic and quotidian affair that no one would dispute it: I eat, I
drink, I laugh. Does it follow that racist beliefs are true? No, they
can't be verified, the quizzed "realist" will reply. Hmmm, so why is
history replete with racism, in science as in other fields? (Remember
the Bell Curve and phrenology.)
Van
Greg
mog...@bessel.nando.net (moggin) wrote:
>Greg (Gold...@utsw.swmed.edu) wrote:
>
>>>: The belief that there is a truth is not a "moral" belief, as it does not,
>
>whether or not it provides a guide to action, although you might
>easily take it to indicate that obtaining truth is a highly moral
>goal.
>
>Silke:
>
>>>The belief that one should know the truth, however, is moral, and since
>>>science that believes in truth doesn't stop there but also tries to get
>>>to it --- or not?
>
>Greg:
>
>>I disagree. Learning the truth is merely the object of scientific
>>inquiry, just like catching fish is the object of fishing. Would you
>>say that fishing has the "moral imperative" of catching fish? No. It
>>is merely the practical goal of a certain activity, with no moral
>>attachments.
>
> No, the practical goals of science are collecting data and
>building theories. _That's_ comparable to fishing. The difference
>is that fisherman don't claim they've discovered the truth whenever
>they make a catch.
>
> The only other way to make your analogy work is to say that
>there are _no_ moral imperatives, and that "being good" is just the
>"practical goal of a certain activity," namely moral behavior.
>
>-- moggin
>
No. The way that I am defining the process of science, it is a series of
steps designed to find out a certain set of facts, the way fishing is a
series of steps designed to get fish.
"Being good" is a very vaguely defined object. Who the hell knows when
someone is "being good"? I sure dont. Science, OTOH, does look for a
defined obeject, but it's not "Truth" with a capital T, but facts and
models which allow you to make predictions that work. If the predictions
based on them are right, great! If not, it's back to the bench.
The science I do concerns itself with how the brain processes olfactory
signals. When I find out the biophysical properties of a certain kind of
cell, I'll be content. That's not "truth" from on high. That's just some
measurements that I will fit into a model which will allow me to predict
how signals passing through the network get modified. When I put in some
signal, and apply some substance, and get the outputs that my model
predicts, then I have reached my goal- I have a model that works, and
that's my practical criterion for when I have reached truth.
There is no such simple criterion for when "good behavior" has been
reached.
Greg
Greg
>>>One respondent in the lit crit camp declares
>>> that we can never determine facts independent of values, because
>>> values determine how we define our terms. Is this the kind of
>>> nonsense that is being taught in the humanities??
>
This is really funny, as well as sad. If you make a statement abstract
and general enough, it's harder to attack it. I think that's what they're
trying for.
If you drop an anvil on your foot, it hurts! That's a fact. If the lit
crit crowd wishes to argue that that ain't necessarily so, I would be
glad to demonstrate it for them (using their foot, of course :).
Greg
Greg
bhu...@cris.com (Bruce Hutchinson) wrote:
>nsm...@eskimo.com (Noel Smith) scribed:
>
>>LINDA SEEBACH: Scientist trolls for gullible academic fish
>>
>(Citation snipped)
>
>From a quick review of the posts to date, it appears that most of you are
>at least conversent with this "postmodern physics" subject that Sokal
>parodied: I am not. From my viewpoint, the only analogy I can come up
>with is the famous monkey that captivated New York's Modern Art world
>30-odd years ago.
>
>
>hutch
Bravo! Beautifully written.
And I agree, of course.
As several people have said about before, The Emperor Wears No Clothes!
Greg
Russell Turpin
-*------
I wrote:
>> Absolutely. Now note two things. (1) That truth is valuable is
>> NOT a scientific claim.
In article <4nupgj$5...@bessel.nando.net>,
moggin <mog...@bessel.nando.net> wrote:
> How do you mean? Science doesn't offer it as a finding -- if
> that's what you're getting at, then I agree. But it does serve
> as an underlying assumption.
Again, that depends on what Moggin means. "Truth is valuable" is
NOT an assumption of any scientific theory. If Moggin thinks
otherwise, I urge him to name the specific theory that relies on
this assumption, and to indicate the inference where it is applied.
If, on the other hand, Moggin means that valuing truth is a large
part of what motivates people to practice and fund science, then
he is absolutely correct.
Some part of this thread, and related threads, concerns the kind
of distinction I make above. Many literary analyses of science
fail to make this kind of distinction, and run aground because
of it.
Turpin:
>> Without some committment to honesty in speech, discussion itself
>> starts to get pretty futile ...
Moggin:
> Not necessarily.
Such opinion could explain Ross's response to the Sokal "affair."
Russell
--
An atheist doesn't have to be someone who thinks he has a proof that
there can't be a god. He only has to be someone who believes that
the evidence on the God question is at a similar level to the evidence
on the werewolf question. -- John McCarthy
Van Piercy
In article <4nsvc3$5...@news.ox.ac.uk>,
Patrick Juola <pat...@gryphon.psych.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
>In article <4nsprb$s...@netnews.upenn.edu> wein...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) writes:
>>Hmmm... to me, "useful" is a highly loaded term. To me it seems that you
>>have to show how it isn't, but no doubt to you it looks as if
>>I had to prove that it is.... "useful" implies benefits,
>>doesn't it? Whose? At what cost?
>
>Useful certainly doesn't imply benefits in a moral sense -- after all,
>lockpicks and other burglary tools are "useful."
>
> Patrick
Patrick, you seem to think that "moral sense" means only good or positive:
"burglary" exists on a moral scale and compass, hence its perceived
immorality.
Van
--
Moral, immoral, amoral; amo, amas, amat; pempaw, pempees, pempee
Van Piercy
But if scientists were only automatons, then we'd only be worried about
who programs them to carry on their tasks and what programs get
initiated.
A number of the science types (and conservative humanists) I've been
reading on this now monster thread are very quick to distinguish human
from machine, scientist from scientific method. If it were all just a
matter of truth in the machine or truth in the method, then who would
care? The machine works. The problem is that HUMAN BEINGS operate the
machine, program it and fund it for tasks that are (or should be) subject
to political and ethical debate. As a move in that debate, some of the
humans operating the machine want to avoid all discussion and criticism on
the grounds that they are operating a neutral machine, and that's
fallacious. It's an ancient concern we all have: who guards the
guardians?
Science isn't some orthogenetic, autonomously developing organism.
Science is shaped by its context, and any distinction between science and
its context is open to debate, as are the effects of science on our
planet.
Van
In article <d-turnb-20...@obiwan.ccsm.uiuc.edu>,
Doug Turnbull <d-t...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>In article <4nq4s6$a...@panix2.panix.com>, g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
>wrote:
>
>> david....@mpcug.com (David Jensen):
>> | ...
>> | I am sure you have no idea what science is. Science, learning about the
>> | universe through the use of the scientific method, is inherently amoral.
>> | ...
>>
>> Oh, it is not. Science could not function at all without a
>> system of morality, which centers, of course, on the belief
>> in, accessibility, and value of truth. Falsify some
>> experimental data and see where it gets you.
>> --
>
>
> I would disagree. First, I don't think a belief in the accessibility
>of truth is an ethical belief. I also think it is also held as a working
>assumption rather than a foundational belief.
> I agree that a belief in the value of truth is a common ethical belief
>of scientists. However, such a belief is not necessary to the function of
>science. It's possible for a person to not care about the value of truth or
>even to think truth was detrimental, and yet still carry out scientific
>research.
>
>
>Doug Turnbull
Silke-Maria Weineck
Russell Turpin (tur...@cs.utexas.edu) wrote:
: -*------
: I wrote:
: >> Absolutely. Now note two things. (1) That truth is valuable is
: >> NOT a scientific claim.
: In article <4nupgj$5...@bessel.nando.net>,
: moggin <mog...@bessel.nando.net> wrote:
: > How do you mean? Science doesn't offer it as a finding -- if
: > that's what you're getting at, then I agree. But it does serve
: > as an underlying assumption.
: Again, that depends on what Moggin means. "Truth is valuable" is
: NOT an assumption of any scientific theory. If Moggin thinks
: otherwise, I urge him to name the specific theory that relies on
: this assumption, and to indicate the inference where it is applied.
What about, "truth is science's object of desire"?
Silke
S. LaBonne
In article <4ntv33$l...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
Silke-Maria Weineck <wein...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
>S. LaBonne (labo...@csc.albany.edu) wrote:
>: In article <4nsitt$o...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
>: Silke-Maria Weineck <wein...@mail1.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
>: >That's true _now_ -- Freud certainly considered himself a rigorous
>: >scientist at times.
>
>: In much the same sense that many denizens of mental institutions
>: consider themselves to be Napoleon. ;-)
>
>That's only very mildly funny; if, for example, you consider Freud's
>approach to hysteria as opposed to mid-19th century approaches, you will
>find that the first is much closer to today's understanding of some
>studies, on the validity of which I am not competent to pronounce, that
>suggest that certain kinds of cognitive therapy affect some kind of brain
>structure -- the "talking cure," in other words, may be every bit as
>physical as Freud supposed it to be in the very essays most mocked by the
>mainstream science of _his_ day. If you consider the fact that Freud was
>happy to speculate, and brilliant at it
No, I'm saying that he was hopeless, and even arguably dishonest,
about _testing_ his speculations. If one or two of them turned out to
have some usefulness (debatable to say the least), well, even a blind
pig occasionally finds an acorn. I don't want to start a Freud thread
so I will merely refer you to the works of the philosopher Adolf
Grunbaum, who in typical Germanic fashion has devoted to the task of
demonstrating Freud's lack of scientific credibility, far more pages
than would have sufficed for the purpose.
--
Opinions are mine alone; I never met a university with opinions!
Steve LaBonne ********************* (labo...@cnsunix.albany.edu)
"It can never be satisfied, the mind, never." - Wallace Stevens