1. A simple historical fact: Ronald Reagan was the 40th president of the US.
Depends upon whether you interpret "president" as a term in office or as the individual who occupies the office, I suppose. Considering that every four years we elect the president, and sometimes elect the same guy as last time, the privilege should be given to the office, not the man. We have, then, as a culture, made a choice to privilege the man in the office and not the office itself.
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2. The softball: If you are traveling 20 mph, and observe someone else who is traveling 40 mph, they will appear to you to be traveling 20 mph.
Meh. Relativity is boring since it focuses on the significance of perspective when measuring observable phenomena.
Let's talk about this notion of "truth" itself, though. Think of something like gravity, which most everyone in the Western world, I think, believes in. Certainly NASA does. Gravity is law. Gravity is fact. Gravity is true. Objects fall toward earth at a given rate--and always at a given rate--because of gravity.
And yet, gravity is only accepted as true because we are all part of a culture that, centuries ago, decided that science was the way to understand the way the world works. The problem is clear, I think, from the occasional flareups of evolution threads on this board: science is not always the way people understand the way the world works. There are alternate interpretations of observable phenomena that many, many, many people adhere to and believe to be "true."
I'm sure that there are folks out there who reject gravity as an adequate explanation for the attraction of objects. Perhaps objects fall to earth that way because God wills them to? Perhaps the objects are compelled to do so by the supernatural filaments that bind them all together? Perhaps the objects were willed to fall through some other, unseen and unknown force?
The only reason the Western world doesn't really buy these explanations is, as I have said, we really made a cultural decision about how we were going to understand the world. That is to say, we made a decision about what we would accept as an explanation. That is to say, we made a decision about what we would accept as a fact and what we would not.
Depends upon whether you interpret "president" as a term in office or as the individual who occupies the office, I suppose. Considering that every four years we elect the president, and sometimes elect the same guy as last time, the privilege should be given to the office, not the man. We have, then, as a culture, made a choice to privilege the man in the office and not the office itself.
Isn't that just a matter of precision? If someone wondered "does that mean the 40th person or the 40th term," they could look it up in a history book and figure it out.
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Meh. Relativity is boring since it focuses on the significance of perspective when measuring observable phenomena.
Yeah, relativity is boring. It's hard for me to imagine anything less boring. But it provides a good example for you in the sense that newtonian physics turns out not to be right, even though it sure looked like clear fact for a long time before special relativity. But if you don't want to hit the softball, that's OK.
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Let's talk about this notion of "truth" itself, though. Think of something like gravity, which most everyone in the Western world, I think, believes in. Certainly NASA does. Gravity is law. Gravity is fact. Gravity is true. Objects fall toward earth at a given rate--and always at a given rate--because of gravity.
And yet, gravity is only accepted as true because we are all part of a culture that, centuries ago, decided that science was the way to understand the way the world works. The problem is clear, I think, from the occasional flareups of evolution threads on this board: science is not always the way people understand the way the world works. There are alternate interpretations of observable phenomena that many, many, many people adhere to and believe to be "true."
Of course people have alternative views of observable phenomena, that's what western white male scientists do for a living - they dispute facts and propose alternative explanations. There's nothing at all postmodern about disagreement over facts and theories. But 1) that doesn't mean all those alternative explanations are of equal validity, and 2) that doesn't mean the facts themselves vary, it just means we don't have perfect knowledge.
I just don't buy this idea that science is just another white male philosophy (or whatever other cultural restriction is put on it). Science is simply careful observation. It's not culture-bound. It's not just another way of doing things, like dada or bauhaus. Any phenomenon can be evaluated scientifically. You make a prediction about what will happen, and you see if your prediction is right. Then you adjust your prediction again based on what you observe. There's nothing cultural about that. It doesn't pre-suppose some explanation over another.
Even the basic principle that observations are "subjective" is a scientifically investigable principle. All those post-modern sounding phenomena such as Einstein's relativity, and quantum uncertainty, and even the idea that falling trees don't make noise unless the moving molecules bounce into an ear, those are all the product of science.
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I'm sure that there are folks out there who reject gravity as an adequate explanation for the attraction of objects. Perhaps objects fall to earth that way because God wills them to? Perhaps the objects are compelled to do so by the supernatural filaments that bind them all together? Perhaps the objects were willed to fall through some other, unseen and unknown force?
The only reason the Western world doesn't really buy these explanations is, as I have said, we really made a cultural decision about how we were going to understand the world. That is to say, we made a decision about what we would accept as an explanation. That is to say, we made a decision about what we would accept as a fact and what we would not.
Gravity is an interesting example, because as I understand it, the mechanism of gravity is not understood - is it graviton particles, or something else? They can describe what will happen to an apple or a planet, but as for how exactly it works, I believe scientists readily admit that they just don't know for sure. So they're really in not too different of a situation as those other theories you mention. They all agree that gravity happens, they just don't know why exactly. And your "supernatural filament" theory sounds a little like string theory, so maybe the Western scientific world is not so prejudiced against other, bizarre-seeming theories as you think.
And your "supernatural filament" theory sounds a little like string theory, so maybe the Western scientific world is not so prejudiced against other, bizarre-seeming theories as you think.
Actually, "supernatural filaments" comes from a book by Thomas Carlyle called Sartor Resartus, which is about a lot of things. Mostly c18 and c19 German philosophy.
I'll respond in more detail to your post later, when my movie is over.
Inter-subjective. Everything that exists is taken into an interpretive space. Its that simple. even A=A is taken and interpreted against a hidden background of pre-understood values.
These 'facts' are fact are facts are still interpreted and situated in relation to the sum total of an individuals understanding of the world as it unfolds over time.
In fact we project forward from our past understandings when we encounter the world, and 'anticipate pre-understanding'. This anticipated idea of what we will understand is judeged against the present 'fact' and we adjust accordingly.
For instance, as you read this sentence and you are in the middle of it, heading towards the end, you project a notion of what you imagine the totality will say based on what you've read so far, and you adjust that as you progress . . . and your projecting is changed as you progress as well.
In other words, the background of experience against which all things are related is in flux and changes as time progresses.
But that would imply 'subjective' except for the fact that the medium of experience and interpretaton is language and custom . . so, our understandings are Inter-subjective.
This doesn't mean that we make up 'facts' when ever we want, or that science doesn't exist.
Things that are called facts are things that limit how much we can say about them . . . a scientific fact, that can be 'proved' repeatedly, is still the product of a certain discipine and discourse and finds its place withing the standards and parameters of that discourse (or understanding)
A=A has an absolute 'truth' that is not colored by historical situatedness but it is empty of content and has nothing to say . . . it is a simple tautology.
Facts are facts are facts but they mean differently and mean different things from different backgrounds and in different situations: water can be an occasion for fun or it can be a life saver.
Deconstructionist analysis is written off by the analytic Anglo-American folks and yet some of their main thinkers have arrived at the same conclusions through different means:
For example, read WV Quine's essay called Two Dogma's Of Empiricism!! excellent essay
or Davidson, even later Wittgenstein.
anyway . . .blah blah . . . got to watch the FINALS
a great quote of Wittgenstein: " the tribal man who makes a fetish figure for curses still makes his hut out of wood"
In many ways, yes. Actually, you've hit the nail on the head: language is inherently imprecise and requires interpretation. Even language that makes claims about "facts."
I was actually imprecise in my response, which should have said "it depends upon how you define a "presidency."
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If someone wondered "does that mean the 40th person or the 40th term," they could look it up in a history book and figure it out.
Sure, so long as we all agree on what constitutes history and are willing to make a series of political judgments about what is history and what is not, and even more, what is history worth learning about (since it'd be in a history book) and what is not.
But my point is that even your simple historical fact is subject to at least some degree of interpretation: Reagan is only the 40th President so long as we all agree to interpret a presidency as the man and not the office.
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But it provides a good example for you in the sense that newtonian physics turns out not to be right, even though it sure looked like clear fact for a long time before special relativity.
And before Newton there was, and before, and before, and before, until the reason objects do what they do is because of animus. The point here which you seem to be heading toward is that Einstein, too, may be proven wrong one day even though his theories have helped us understand the universe in a meaningful and productive way. And after him, and after him, and after him...
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Of course people have alternative views of observable phenomena, that's what western white male scientists do for a living - they dispute facts and propose alternative explanations.
I don't know about Western white male scientists (unless that's supposed to be a joke about pomo). I'm talking about science as a systematized means of understanding the universe, not those who practice it.
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There's nothing at all postmodern about disagreement over facts and theories.
There is if you're disagreeing over what a fact is and whether such things can be.
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But 1) that doesn't mean all those alternative explanations are of equal validity
When measured against what? That's the point here. Your notion that there is a validity in the first place presupposes an entire system of scientific judgment that assumes that what it finds is, if not truth, at least potentially "valid."
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and 2) that doesn't mean the facts themselves vary, it just means we don't have perfect knowledge.
This sounds like Hume's dodge of saying that religion is bunk. What does he say? Religion isn't inadequate when held against reason; reason is inadequate to explain religion. Something like that. We made a choice in Western culture to value reason (logic, science) as a means of explaining the world around us. And you and your understanding of the world around you both take part in and accept that system as simply the way things are.
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I just don't buy this idea that science is just another white male philosophy (or whatever other cultural restriction is put on it).
You keep talking about white males. I don't know why.
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Science is simply careful observation.
OK.
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It's not culture-bound.
Sure it is.
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It's not just another way of doing things, like dada or bauhaus.
Oh but it is. We used to not use science. We used religion. We used emotion. We used intuition. We don't anymore because western culture made a choice that science and reason were the way to go.
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Any phenomenon can be evaluated scientifically.
Yup. And any phenomenon can be evaluated in what you would consider a non-scientific way, as well.
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You make a prediction about what will happen, and you see if your prediction is right. Then you adjust your prediction again based on what you observe. There's nothing cultural about that. It doesn't pre-suppose some explanation over another.
OK. And when things don't happen in the way I predict, I correct my hypothesis by saying that God willed it to be so.
Is that still scientific? I doubt you would say so. And yet it is a perfectly acceptable way of explaining the universe to lots of people around the world. To say that "careful observation" (by which you of course mean to include the application of reason) as a way of understanding the world around you isn't culture bound ignores all those people for whom reason doesn't play a part in the process.
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Even the basic principle that observations are "subjective" is a scientifically investigable principle.
Yes. And the process of observing them alters them and so we can't investigate them. And so on and so on.
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All those post-modern sounding phenomena such as Einstein's relativity, and quantum uncertainty, and even the idea that falling trees don't make noise unless the moving molecules bounce into an ear, those are all the product of science.
Yes, they are. Sometimes the system becomes aware of its systematicity and you get things like Foucault musing on the very notion of "order" as a cultural construct.
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Gravity is an interesting example, because as I understand it, the mechanism of gravity is not understood - is it graviton particles, or something else? They can describe what will happen to an apple or a planet, but as for how exactly it works, I believe scientists readily admit that they just don't know for sure. So they're really in not too different of a situation as those other theories you mention. They all agree that gravity happens, they just don't know why exactly. And your "supernatural filament" theory sounds a little like string theory, so maybe the Western scientific world is not so prejudiced against other, bizarre-seeming theories as you think.
Well, it's my understanding that most of the serious scientists dealing in quantum mechanics and astrophysics are more than a little pissed off at philosophy trying to jump into the game.
But again, this is all a system. It has been changed before, and it will change again--not in the kind of Kuhnian process you describe with Newton and Einstein, which is merely the transformation of the center of the system from one locus to another, but on a much larger scale.
It's difficult to respond when you post in such short snippets. Maybe that's some kind of deconstructionist technique. But I think this is the heart of what you're saying:
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We used to not use science. We used religion. We used emotion. We used intuition. We don't anymore because western culture made a choice that science and reason were the way to go.
It seems obvious to me that "westerners" and scientists most certainly do use emotion and intuition in order to understand the world. And lots of scientists use religion. I don't think any choice was made to use science rather than something else. I just think people got better at observing and measuring, and therefore over time learned new stuff, and that's what we now call science.
I put western in quotes because as far as I know, science is not a western phenomenon. It's an approach that's used all around the world, all the time, to learn things about the world.
Example: One guy holds up a rock and says to another "If I let go of this rock it will fall to the ground." The other guy says "I doubt it. Why don't you let go and see." Now, what do you do here. Do you let go of the rock? Of course you do. To me, your argument is like saying that letting go is no more valid than not letting go. I'm sorry, but I see nothing culture-bound at all about letting go of that rock, about using "science" to see what happens. It doesn't take a westerner to know that.
Sure, some people, and maybe some cultures more than others, resist scientific inquiry. But they do so not because they have an equally valid way of learning about the world, it's because they don't want to learn about the world. They fear the consequences, or they don't want change, or they don't want people to have knowledge - I'm sure there are lots of reasons to retain ignorance. But I don't believe it's because they simply have another equally valid approach to understanding.
Or, cultures may not like technology. We all probably get sick of technology sometimes and in some ways wish for a simpler, more "back to nature" kind of life like the aboriginals and the kalahari. But that's very different than rejecting observation and reason as a means of understanding things. Those folks use the principles of science just as much as we do in their daily lives. They just don't have fancy technology.
And more generally, I would seriously question the idea that the western world - let's take the US - has chosen science. We're a very superstitious and religious culture. Sure, people buy and own lots of intricate technology relative to those "primitive" folks. But I'm not at all sure that average people have embraced science as a way of life more than them. I don't know for sure, but it wouldn't surprise me if typical Americans are no more rational and empirical in their day-to-day beliefs about things than people in primitive cultures.
Oh I wanted to respond to this too. I said:
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Of course people have alternative views of observable phenomena, that's what western white male scientists do for a living - they dispute facts and propose alternative explanations.
And you responded:
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I don't know about Western white male scientists (unless that's supposed to be a joke about pomo). I'm talking about science as a systematized means of understanding the universe, not those who practice it.
The white male thing was a joke, but my point about them disputing facts and proposing alternatives explanations was serious. That's exactly what scientists do, and I don't mean just those who practice it, but that's what science itself is all about. It's about challenging theories and proposing new ones and disputing the way that facts were collected and just generally disagreeing. Sometimes they're minor issues, but sometimes they're revolutionary and turn everything upside down. My point was just that science itself incorporates alternative viewpoints and evaluates them; it's not merely another viewpoint. I know next to nothing about quantum physics, but that seems to me to be a very good example of how science can really mind fuck even the scientists into tossing out their presuppositions and turning things upside down in order to understand what's going on.
It's difficult to respond when you post in such short snippets. Maybe that's some kind of deconstructionist technique.
Not really. I just like to be thorough. And for what it's worth, "deconstruction" is a technique, not an "ism." It's just a tactic for dealing with texts. It's a common misperception that there are "deconstructionists" who believe in "deconstructionism." It's just a tool in the belt. Now, it's important to remember that if your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail....
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But I think this is the heart of what you're saying:
Actually, the heart of what I was saying is this bit:
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We made a choice in Western culture to value reason (logic, science) as a means of explaining the world around us. And you and your understanding of the world around you both take part in and accept that system as simply the way things are.
My point here is that science is just a system. The difference between our positions is that I recognize it as one system among many others (and as historically, philosophically, economically, socially, geographically and culturally determiend) and you seem to view it as the natural result of some kind of teleology. It is, of course, the order of things for the dominant discourse (i.e. science/reason) to be marked as natural and inevitable. Religion, when it was/is dominant, does the same thing. In other words, it is impossible for you (or me, for that matter), to imagine any other way in which the world might be explained. This totalizing effect has the double-effect of both proposing plausible explanations for the observable world and occluding the ability for participants in the discourse from recognizing the system/discourse itself.
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It seems obvious to me that "westerners" and scientists most certainly do use emotion and intuition in order to understand the world. And lots of scientists use religion.
I know what you mean, but I don't think you mean it quite as literally as you would need to for this point to rebut my previous one. We do, indeed, use intuition to understand elements of the world, but when you get down to it, we rely on the mantra you've been repeating: observable phenomena, reliability, validity. But what Pfflam and I have been trying to point out is that that mantra is only meaningful within a system that values those things. In other words, observability, reliability, and validity are only meaningful when the system tells us what those things mean.
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I don't think any choice was made to use science rather than something else.
Take a look at the Enlightenment and, specifically, at the work of David Hume. (I can only speak about England with any authority. Pfflam, no doubt, can give a more thorough history of this transition). Hume's work catalogs a tireless argument for reason over intuition and received dogma. You need to keep in mind that the received dogma he's battling was, for centuries, preferred to reason/science as a means of explaining the world. As a good Foucaultian, I would argue that Hume and his arguments are less the contribution of a great individual mind than they are the cultural expression of a new system.
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I just think people got better at observing and measuring, and therefore over time learned new stuff, and that's what we now call science.
Better than what? By what measure? Against what are you judging their "progress"? This, again, is my point. You are presupposing the validity of the very system that is in question here.
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I put western in quotes because as far as I know, science is not a western phenomenon.
So that's why the rest of the world produced the kind of science that Europe and America did? Our tradition of science is full-bore Aristotelian.
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It's an approach that's used all around the world, all the time, because it's how you learn things about the world.
Again, that's my point. It's not with any exclusivity "how you learn things about the world." For millennia, cultures learned things about the world through meditation and inspiration and intuition. For millennia, God spoke directly to people and explains, for instance, that when it thundered, the Devil was beating his wife.
Why do you need any other explanation than that?
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To me, your argument is like saying that letting go is no more valid than not letting go. I'm sorry, but I see nothing culture-bound at all about letting go of that rock, about using "science" to see what happens. It doesn't take a westerner to know that.
My argument is with assumptions about why the rock falls. You presuppose that the rock falls because of gravity and reject claims that the rock falls because God willed it to do so, and that if God willed it, the rock would not fall. It just so happens that, for reasons we will never know, god wills it more often than he does not.
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Sure, some people, and maybe some cultures more than others, resist scientific inquiry.
For some cultures, it is anathema. It used to be for ours.
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But they do so not because they have an equally valid way of learning about the world, it's because they don't want to learn about the world.
A-ha! Again, presupposing the "truth" that your system finds because its results jive better with what it values than some other system that has nothing to do with the one you're using to judge it. You are using an orange crayon as the standard against which to judge a wristwatch, and you find the wristwatch wanting because the things you value in the orange crayon aren't there. And then you fail to see that it is the system itself that is the problem, not the wristwatch.
Note the system of values here: their way of viewing the world is not "equally valid." They "don't want to learn about the world." You, and the system in which you are a participant, value validity. You value exploration and inquiry. You are presupposing the "truth" and "propriety" of these in your evaluation of these other systems.
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They fear the consequences, or they don't want change, or they don't want people to have knowledge - I'm sure there are lots of reasons to retain ignorance. But I don't believe it's because they simply have another equally valid approach to understanding.
Again. You are operating out of a system that values "knowledge" over "ignorance," and you are insisting that your system is a better orange crayon than their wristwatch. In essence, you're arguing here that the only reason people don't accept the inevitable truth of science as the proper way to apprehend (and I use this word deliberately) is because they don't know any better.
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Or, cultures may not like technology. We all probably get sick of technology sometimes and in some ways wish for a simpler, more "back to nature" kind of life like the aboriginals and the kalahari. But that's very different than rejecting observation and reason as a means of understanding things. Those folks use the principles of science just as much as we do in their daily lives. They just don't have fancy technology.
The Maasai have a different concept of time than the rest of the world. Do you really think it's a leap to think they might be operating within a different system altogether?
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And more generally, I would seriously question the idea that the western world - let's take the US - has chosen science. We're a very superstitious and religious culture. Sure, people buy and own lots of intricate technology relative to those "primitive" folks. But I'm not at all sure that average people have embraced science as a way of life more than them. I don't know for sure, but it wouldn't surprise me if typical Americans are no more rational and empirical in their day-to-day beliefs about things than people in primitive cultures.
Yes, we are a religious and superstitious culture. But in the end, science has won the battle. Religious folk may tilt at science with, well, a religious fervor, but in the end they generally accept a television or a medicine derived from science they might in another breath reject. They accept the Darwinian principles that went into the breeding of their dog. They accept the Newtonian physics that require them to change the oil in their cars.
The point is not that they are conscious of it--hell, I've been trying to point out that you're not conscious of it--but they happily operate within a system that values science over anything else as a means of understanding the world around them.
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The white male thing was a joke, but my point about them disputing facts and proposing alternatives explanations was serious. That's exactly what scientists do, and I don't mean just those who practice it, but that's what science itself is all about. It's about challenging theories and proposing new ones and disputing the way that facts were collected and just generally disagreeing. Sometimes they're minor issues, but sometimes they're revolutionary and turn everything upside down. My point was just that science itself incorporates alternative viewpoints and evaluates them; it's not merely another viewpoint.
Right. And my point (when I mentioned Kuhn) is that these revisions and changes all occur within the accepted system.
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I know next to nothing about quantum physics, but that seems to me to be a very good example of how science can really mind fuck even the scientists into tossing out their presuppositions and turning things upside down in order to understand what's going on.
See, my reading of quantum mechanics suggests to me that something is seriously wrong with the system itself--and the system is so self-invested that it cannot accept the possiblity that it is fundamentally flawed.
My point here is that science is just a system. The difference between our positions is that I recognize it as one system among many others (and as historically, philosophically, economically, socially, geographically and culturally determiend) and you seem to view it as the natural result of some kind of teleology.
I'll give you another possibility: These post-modernist views come out of the arts and humanities, where one school of thought frequently supersedes another, despite being no better. Classical, impressionist, post-modernist, they're all just different culturally-bound trends, and no trend can be objectively called better than any other. Perhaps if one comes out of that tradition, one sees every system in that same fashion.
But in any case, I think we're getting close. Yes, I do see science as the natural process of trying to understand what happens in the world. But in a way I can see it as a system like any other, like emotion or music or what have you. Those things are big parts of how people approach life. But those different systems serve different purposes. You're not going to learn about the world outside with those other systems, because, well, they don't involve observing the world outside. If people think they can pray or dance or whatever and be able to predict what's going to happen in the world better than someone who observes the world, they're just going to be wrong more often. But if they think they'll be able to feel more intense emotion, or obtain a sense of the mystical, or maintain a social order with those systems, they're probably right. To use your example, I don't think I am evaluating the watch against the standard of the orange crayon, I just see that they're good at different things.
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My argument is with assumptions about why the rock falls. You presuppose that the rock falls because of gravity and reject claims that the rock falls because God willed it to do so, and that if God willed it, the rock would not fall. It just so happens that, for reasons we will never know, god wills it more often than he does not.
But as I understand it, scientists still disagree and don't know exactly why the rock falls. Gravitons, or something else? Scientists are in a not-too-different position than the "God willed it" people as far as that goes. Where I think you're wrong is that science is not about presupposing anything, as even this gravity example illustrates. It's about testing your guesses with observations.
And what's different is that the science-types are going to use their observations to make more accurate predictions about what happens to falling objects than the "God willed it and let's leave it at that" types. I mean, what if a "God willed it" person said they knew that God always makes stuff fall down at the same velocity, but a scientist, based on other observations, knew that the effect should be weaker in space. They could go up to the moon or to a space station, and the "God willed it" person would simply be wrong.
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See, my reading of quantum mechanics suggests to me that something is seriously wrong with the system itself--and the system is so self-invested that it cannot accept the possiblity that it is fundamentally flawed.
That's a good point, but it might also be that we have simply reached the limit of our knowledge. I don't particularly believe that, because people have said it many times in the past before our knowledge has zoomed way ahead of what anyone predicted. People will probably find a way of figuring that stuff out, and they won't be using some non-science system when they do.
By the way, I do appreciate the notion that culture influences us in general, and our understanding of the world in particular. My advisor in college studied lay approaches to "science," or rather, hypothesis formation and testing. There's a huge research literature on it in my field of cognitive psychology. I don't do it any more, but I did a lot of related stuff in graduate school - probabilistic reasoning, the limits on human rationality; great stuff, I loved it, it's what got me interested in that field. Other people study cultural influences on these things. It's all good. Yes, culture and all sorts of other things influence our practice of science. But there's never going to be another "equally valid" way of learning about the world than simply observing it.
Anyway, interesting discussion, it makes me think a lot.
Did you know that Iraq is going amazingly well according to Ann?
AND we found weapons of mass destruction... according to Ann.
Bill tries to walk her back from the cliff... but...
Don't forget that Hardball interview where Coulter tries to say that George C Scott refused the Oscar because he was tired of the liberal media trying to tear down American heroes. Matthews sets her straight and actually quotes something from Scott's obit:
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MATTHEWS: Facts mean nothing to you, Ann.
CORN: In this movie he shoots down an airplane with a gun.
MATTHEWS: I?m glad you are not making movies, Ann Coulter. Thank you, David Corn, Andrew Grossman. Jesus.
The very existence of Ann Coulter, as a quasi-celebrity/pundit, puts the lie to the idea of a "liberal media".
I don't think the conservative posters on this board, blinkered as they are in regard to what actual progressive thought looks like, have any idea what kind of fire breathing socialist maniac it would take to achieve "balance" for Ann.
And. having put forth this standard bearer (who would be obliged to call for Bush's execution for treason, nationalization of the oil companies, and an immediate 50% reduction in the defense budget to even begin to match Coulter's extremism), we would have to see to it that they got a regular hearing on the various screaming head venues, and that they got to write op-ed pieces for real newspapers, and routinely make bizarre and semi-insane accusations about what conservatives are really about, maybe something along the lines of non-christian baby genocide or the idea of their penchant for war being an expression of their loathing for young men arising out of suppressed homo-erotic tension, and that they would generally not be laughed out of the building or incarcerated but keep getting invited back to repeat and elaborate on their spittle flecked invective.
When that entity is up and running, then we can talk about a liberal media.
And for the love of god don't start talking about Al Franken cause if you can't tell the difference you shouldn't be left unmonitored in your own home, much less be posting on the internet.
Comments
1. A simple historical fact: Ronald Reagan was the 40th president of the US.
Depends upon whether you interpret "president" as a term in office or as the individual who occupies the office, I suppose. Considering that every four years we elect the president, and sometimes elect the same guy as last time, the privilege should be given to the office, not the man. We have, then, as a culture, made a choice to privilege the man in the office and not the office itself.
2. The softball: If you are traveling 20 mph, and observe someone else who is traveling 40 mph, they will appear to you to be traveling 20 mph.
Meh. Relativity is boring since it focuses on the significance of perspective when measuring observable phenomena.
Let's talk about this notion of "truth" itself, though. Think of something like gravity, which most everyone in the Western world, I think, believes in. Certainly NASA does. Gravity is law. Gravity is fact. Gravity is true. Objects fall toward earth at a given rate--and always at a given rate--because of gravity.
And yet, gravity is only accepted as true because we are all part of a culture that, centuries ago, decided that science was the way to understand the way the world works. The problem is clear, I think, from the occasional flareups of evolution threads on this board: science is not always the way people understand the way the world works. There are alternate interpretations of observable phenomena that many, many, many people adhere to and believe to be "true."
I'm sure that there are folks out there who reject gravity as an adequate explanation for the attraction of objects. Perhaps objects fall to earth that way because God wills them to? Perhaps the objects are compelled to do so by the supernatural filaments that bind them all together? Perhaps the objects were willed to fall through some other, unseen and unknown force?
The only reason the Western world doesn't really buy these explanations is, as I have said, we really made a cultural decision about how we were going to understand the world. That is to say, we made a decision about what we would accept as an explanation. That is to say, we made a decision about what we would accept as a fact and what we would not.
Cheers
Scott
Originally posted by BRussell
2. The softball: If you are traveling 20 mph, and observe someone else who is traveling 40 mph, they will appear to you to be traveling 20 mph.
What if you're traveling in the opposite direction as the other guy? Will they appear to be going 60 mph?
Originally posted by midwinter
Depends upon whether you interpret "president" as a term in office or as the individual who occupies the office, I suppose. Considering that every four years we elect the president, and sometimes elect the same guy as last time, the privilege should be given to the office, not the man. We have, then, as a culture, made a choice to privilege the man in the office and not the office itself.
Isn't that just a matter of precision? If someone wondered "does that mean the 40th person or the 40th term," they could look it up in a history book and figure it out.
Meh. Relativity is boring since it focuses on the significance of perspective when measuring observable phenomena.
Yeah, relativity is boring.
Let's talk about this notion of "truth" itself, though. Think of something like gravity, which most everyone in the Western world, I think, believes in. Certainly NASA does. Gravity is law. Gravity is fact. Gravity is true. Objects fall toward earth at a given rate--and always at a given rate--because of gravity.
And yet, gravity is only accepted as true because we are all part of a culture that, centuries ago, decided that science was the way to understand the way the world works. The problem is clear, I think, from the occasional flareups of evolution threads on this board: science is not always the way people understand the way the world works. There are alternate interpretations of observable phenomena that many, many, many people adhere to and believe to be "true."
Of course people have alternative views of observable phenomena, that's what western white male scientists do for a living - they dispute facts and propose alternative explanations. There's nothing at all postmodern about disagreement over facts and theories. But 1) that doesn't mean all those alternative explanations are of equal validity, and 2) that doesn't mean the facts themselves vary, it just means we don't have perfect knowledge.
I just don't buy this idea that science is just another white male philosophy (or whatever other cultural restriction is put on it). Science is simply careful observation. It's not culture-bound. It's not just another way of doing things, like dada or bauhaus. Any phenomenon can be evaluated scientifically. You make a prediction about what will happen, and you see if your prediction is right. Then you adjust your prediction again based on what you observe. There's nothing cultural about that. It doesn't pre-suppose some explanation over another.
Even the basic principle that observations are "subjective" is a scientifically investigable principle. All those post-modern sounding phenomena such as Einstein's relativity, and quantum uncertainty, and even the idea that falling trees don't make noise unless the moving molecules bounce into an ear, those are all the product of science.
I'm sure that there are folks out there who reject gravity as an adequate explanation for the attraction of objects. Perhaps objects fall to earth that way because God wills them to? Perhaps the objects are compelled to do so by the supernatural filaments that bind them all together? Perhaps the objects were willed to fall through some other, unseen and unknown force?
The only reason the Western world doesn't really buy these explanations is, as I have said, we really made a cultural decision about how we were going to understand the world. That is to say, we made a decision about what we would accept as an explanation. That is to say, we made a decision about what we would accept as a fact and what we would not.
Gravity is an interesting example, because as I understand it, the mechanism of gravity is not understood - is it graviton particles, or something else? They can describe what will happen to an apple or a planet, but as for how exactly it works, I believe scientists readily admit that they just don't know for sure. So they're really in not too different of a situation as those other theories you mention. They all agree that gravity happens, they just don't know why exactly. And your "supernatural filament" theory sounds a little like string theory, so maybe the Western scientific world is not so prejudiced against other, bizarre-seeming theories as you think.
Originally posted by BuonRotto
What if you're traveling in the opposite direction as the other guy? Will they appear to be going 60 mph?
Oh yeah, I guess I forgot about that little minor detail.
Originally posted by BRussell
And your "supernatural filament" theory sounds a little like string theory, so maybe the Western scientific world is not so prejudiced against other, bizarre-seeming theories as you think.
Actually, "supernatural filaments" comes from a book by Thomas Carlyle called Sartor Resartus, which is about a lot of things. Mostly c18 and c19 German philosophy.
I'll respond in more detail to your post later, when my movie is over.
Cheers
Scott
These 'facts' are fact are facts are still interpreted and situated in relation to the sum total of an individuals understanding of the world as it unfolds over time.
In fact we project forward from our past understandings when we encounter the world, and 'anticipate pre-understanding'. This anticipated idea of what we will understand is judeged against the present 'fact' and we adjust accordingly.
For instance, as you read this sentence and you are in the middle of it, heading towards the end, you project a notion of what you imagine the totality will say based on what you've read so far, and you adjust that as you progress . . . and your projecting is changed as you progress as well.
In other words, the background of experience against which all things are related is in flux and changes as time progresses.
But that would imply 'subjective' except for the fact that the medium of experience and interpretaton is language and custom . . so, our understandings are Inter-subjective.
This doesn't mean that we make up 'facts' when ever we want, or that science doesn't exist.
Things that are called facts are things that limit how much we can say about them . . . a scientific fact, that can be 'proved' repeatedly, is still the product of a certain discipine and discourse and finds its place withing the standards and parameters of that discourse (or understanding)
A=A has an absolute 'truth' that is not colored by historical situatedness but it is empty of content and has nothing to say . . . it is a simple tautology.
Facts are facts are facts but they mean differently and mean different things from different backgrounds and in different situations: water can be an occasion for fun or it can be a life saver.
Deconstructionist analysis is written off by the analytic Anglo-American folks and yet some of their main thinkers have arrived at the same conclusions through different means:
For example, read WV Quine's essay called Two Dogma's Of Empiricism!! excellent essay
or Davidson, even later Wittgenstein.
anyway . . .blah blah . . . got to watch the FINALS
a great quote of Wittgenstein: " the tribal man who makes a fetish figure for curses still makes his hut out of wood"
Originally posted by BRussell
Isn't that just a matter of precision?
In many ways, yes. Actually, you've hit the nail on the head: language is inherently imprecise and requires interpretation. Even language that makes claims about "facts."
I was actually imprecise in my response, which should have said "it depends upon how you define a "presidency."
If someone wondered "does that mean the 40th person or the 40th term," they could look it up in a history book and figure it out.
Sure, so long as we all agree on what constitutes history and are willing to make a series of political judgments about what is history and what is not, and even more, what is history worth learning about (since it'd be in a history book) and what is not.
But my point is that even your simple historical fact is subject to at least some degree of interpretation: Reagan is only the 40th President so long as we all agree to interpret a presidency as the man and not the office.
But it provides a good example for you in the sense that newtonian physics turns out not to be right, even though it sure looked like clear fact for a long time before special relativity.
And before Newton there was, and before, and before, and before, until the reason objects do what they do is because of animus. The point here which you seem to be heading toward is that Einstein, too, may be proven wrong one day even though his theories have helped us understand the universe in a meaningful and productive way. And after him, and after him, and after him...
Of course people have alternative views of observable phenomena, that's what western white male scientists do for a living - they dispute facts and propose alternative explanations.
I don't know about Western white male scientists (unless that's supposed to be a joke about pomo). I'm talking about science as a systematized means of understanding the universe, not those who practice it.
There's nothing at all postmodern about disagreement over facts and theories.
There is if you're disagreeing over what a fact is and whether such things can be.
But 1) that doesn't mean all those alternative explanations are of equal validity
When measured against what? That's the point here. Your notion that there is a validity in the first place presupposes an entire system of scientific judgment that assumes that what it finds is, if not truth, at least potentially "valid."
and 2) that doesn't mean the facts themselves vary, it just means we don't have perfect knowledge.
This sounds like Hume's dodge of saying that religion is bunk. What does he say? Religion isn't inadequate when held against reason; reason is inadequate to explain religion. Something like that. We made a choice in Western culture to value reason (logic, science) as a means of explaining the world around us. And you and your understanding of the world around you both take part in and accept that system as simply the way things are.
I just don't buy this idea that science is just another white male philosophy (or whatever other cultural restriction is put on it).
You keep talking about white males. I don't know why.
Science is simply careful observation.
OK.
It's not culture-bound.
Sure it is.
It's not just another way of doing things, like dada or bauhaus.
Oh but it is. We used to not use science. We used religion. We used emotion. We used intuition. We don't anymore because western culture made a choice that science and reason were the way to go.
Any phenomenon can be evaluated scientifically.
Yup. And any phenomenon can be evaluated in what you would consider a non-scientific way, as well.
You make a prediction about what will happen, and you see if your prediction is right. Then you adjust your prediction again based on what you observe. There's nothing cultural about that. It doesn't pre-suppose some explanation over another.
OK. And when things don't happen in the way I predict, I correct my hypothesis by saying that God willed it to be so.
Is that still scientific? I doubt you would say so. And yet it is a perfectly acceptable way of explaining the universe to lots of people around the world. To say that "careful observation" (by which you of course mean to include the application of reason) as a way of understanding the world around you isn't culture bound ignores all those people for whom reason doesn't play a part in the process.
Even the basic principle that observations are "subjective" is a scientifically investigable principle.
Yes. And the process of observing them alters them and so we can't investigate them. And so on and so on.
All those post-modern sounding phenomena such as Einstein's relativity, and quantum uncertainty, and even the idea that falling trees don't make noise unless the moving molecules bounce into an ear, those are all the product of science.
Yes, they are. Sometimes the system becomes aware of its systematicity and you get things like Foucault musing on the very notion of "order" as a cultural construct.
Gravity is an interesting example, because as I understand it, the mechanism of gravity is not understood - is it graviton particles, or something else? They can describe what will happen to an apple or a planet, but as for how exactly it works, I believe scientists readily admit that they just don't know for sure. So they're really in not too different of a situation as those other theories you mention. They all agree that gravity happens, they just don't know why exactly. And your "supernatural filament" theory sounds a little like string theory, so maybe the Western scientific world is not so prejudiced against other, bizarre-seeming theories as you think.
Well, it's my understanding that most of the serious scientists dealing in quantum mechanics and astrophysics are more than a little pissed off at philosophy trying to jump into the game.
But again, this is all a system. It has been changed before, and it will change again--not in the kind of Kuhnian process you describe with Newton and Einstein, which is merely the transformation of the center of the system from one locus to another, but on a much larger scale.
Cheers
Scott
We used to not use science. We used religion. We used emotion. We used intuition. We don't anymore because western culture made a choice that science and reason were the way to go.
It seems obvious to me that "westerners" and scientists most certainly do use emotion and intuition in order to understand the world. And lots of scientists use religion. I don't think any choice was made to use science rather than something else. I just think people got better at observing and measuring, and therefore over time learned new stuff, and that's what we now call science.
I put western in quotes because as far as I know, science is not a western phenomenon. It's an approach that's used all around the world, all the time, to learn things about the world.
Example: One guy holds up a rock and says to another "If I let go of this rock it will fall to the ground." The other guy says "I doubt it. Why don't you let go and see." Now, what do you do here. Do you let go of the rock? Of course you do. To me, your argument is like saying that letting go is no more valid than not letting go. I'm sorry, but I see nothing culture-bound at all about letting go of that rock, about using "science" to see what happens. It doesn't take a westerner to know that.
Sure, some people, and maybe some cultures more than others, resist scientific inquiry. But they do so not because they have an equally valid way of learning about the world, it's because they don't want to learn about the world. They fear the consequences, or they don't want change, or they don't want people to have knowledge - I'm sure there are lots of reasons to retain ignorance. But I don't believe it's because they simply have another equally valid approach to understanding.
Or, cultures may not like technology. We all probably get sick of technology sometimes and in some ways wish for a simpler, more "back to nature" kind of life like the aboriginals and the kalahari. But that's very different than rejecting observation and reason as a means of understanding things. Those folks use the principles of science just as much as we do in their daily lives. They just don't have fancy technology.
And more generally, I would seriously question the idea that the western world - let's take the US - has chosen science. We're a very superstitious and religious culture. Sure, people buy and own lots of intricate technology relative to those "primitive" folks. But I'm not at all sure that average people have embraced science as a way of life more than them. I don't know for sure, but it wouldn't surprise me if typical Americans are no more rational and empirical in their day-to-day beliefs about things than people in primitive cultures.
Oh I wanted to respond to this too. I said:
quote:
Of course people have alternative views of observable phenomena, that's what western white male scientists do for a living - they dispute facts and propose alternative explanations.
And you responded:
I don't know about Western white male scientists (unless that's supposed to be a joke about pomo). I'm talking about science as a systematized means of understanding the universe, not those who practice it.
The white male thing was a joke, but my point about them disputing facts and proposing alternatives explanations was serious. That's exactly what scientists do, and I don't mean just those who practice it, but that's what science itself is all about. It's about challenging theories and proposing new ones and disputing the way that facts were collected and just generally disagreeing. Sometimes they're minor issues, but sometimes they're revolutionary and turn everything upside down. My point was just that science itself incorporates alternative viewpoints and evaluates them; it's not merely another viewpoint. I know next to nothing about quantum physics, but that seems to me to be a very good example of how science can really mind fuck even the scientists into tossing out their presuppositions and turning things upside down in order to understand what's going on.
Originally posted by BRussell
P.S., anyway, I'm glad that we've got this thread back on topic after it was derailed by the first post.
Me, too.
Originally posted by BRussell
It's difficult to respond when you post in such short snippets. Maybe that's some kind of deconstructionist technique.
Not really. I just like to be thorough. And for what it's worth, "deconstruction" is a technique, not an "ism." It's just a tactic for dealing with texts. It's a common misperception that there are "deconstructionists" who believe in "deconstructionism." It's just a tool in the belt. Now, it's important to remember that if your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail....
But I think this is the heart of what you're saying:
Actually, the heart of what I was saying is this bit:
We made a choice in Western culture to value reason (logic, science) as a means of explaining the world around us. And you and your understanding of the world around you both take part in and accept that system as simply the way things are.
My point here is that science is just a system. The difference between our positions is that I recognize it as one system among many others (and as historically, philosophically, economically, socially, geographically and culturally determiend) and you seem to view it as the natural result of some kind of teleology. It is, of course, the order of things for the dominant discourse (i.e. science/reason) to be marked as natural and inevitable. Religion, when it was/is dominant, does the same thing. In other words, it is impossible for you (or me, for that matter), to imagine any other way in which the world might be explained. This totalizing effect has the double-effect of both proposing plausible explanations for the observable world and occluding the ability for participants in the discourse from recognizing the system/discourse itself.
It seems obvious to me that "westerners" and scientists most certainly do use emotion and intuition in order to understand the world. And lots of scientists use religion.
I know what you mean, but I don't think you mean it quite as literally as you would need to for this point to rebut my previous one. We do, indeed, use intuition to understand elements of the world, but when you get down to it, we rely on the mantra you've been repeating: observable phenomena, reliability, validity. But what Pfflam and I have been trying to point out is that that mantra is only meaningful within a system that values those things. In other words, observability, reliability, and validity are only meaningful when the system tells us what those things mean.
I don't think any choice was made to use science rather than something else.
Take a look at the Enlightenment and, specifically, at the work of David Hume. (I can only speak about England with any authority. Pfflam, no doubt, can give a more thorough history of this transition). Hume's work catalogs a tireless argument for reason over intuition and received dogma. You need to keep in mind that the received dogma he's battling was, for centuries, preferred to reason/science as a means of explaining the world. As a good Foucaultian, I would argue that Hume and his arguments are less the contribution of a great individual mind than they are the cultural expression of a new system.
I just think people got better at observing and measuring, and therefore over time learned new stuff, and that's what we now call science.
Better than what? By what measure? Against what are you judging their "progress"? This, again, is my point. You are presupposing the validity of the very system that is in question here.
I put western in quotes because as far as I know, science is not a western phenomenon.
So that's why the rest of the world produced the kind of science that Europe and America did? Our tradition of science is full-bore Aristotelian.
It's an approach that's used all around the world, all the time, because it's how you learn things about the world.
Again, that's my point. It's not with any exclusivity "how you learn things about the world." For millennia, cultures learned things about the world through meditation and inspiration and intuition. For millennia, God spoke directly to people and explains, for instance, that when it thundered, the Devil was beating his wife.
Why do you need any other explanation than that?
To me, your argument is like saying that letting go is no more valid than not letting go. I'm sorry, but I see nothing culture-bound at all about letting go of that rock, about using "science" to see what happens. It doesn't take a westerner to know that.
My argument is with assumptions about why the rock falls. You presuppose that the rock falls because of gravity and reject claims that the rock falls because God willed it to do so, and that if God willed it, the rock would not fall. It just so happens that, for reasons we will never know, god wills it more often than he does not.
Sure, some people, and maybe some cultures more than others, resist scientific inquiry.
For some cultures, it is anathema. It used to be for ours.
But they do so not because they have an equally valid way of learning about the world, it's because they don't want to learn about the world.
A-ha! Again, presupposing the "truth" that your system finds because its results jive better with what it values than some other system that has nothing to do with the one you're using to judge it. You are using an orange crayon as the standard against which to judge a wristwatch, and you find the wristwatch wanting because the things you value in the orange crayon aren't there. And then you fail to see that it is the system itself that is the problem, not the wristwatch.
Note the system of values here: their way of viewing the world is not "equally valid." They "don't want to learn about the world." You, and the system in which you are a participant, value validity. You value exploration and inquiry. You are presupposing the "truth" and "propriety" of these in your evaluation of these other systems.
They fear the consequences, or they don't want change, or they don't want people to have knowledge - I'm sure there are lots of reasons to retain ignorance. But I don't believe it's because they simply have another equally valid approach to understanding.
Again. You are operating out of a system that values "knowledge" over "ignorance," and you are insisting that your system is a better orange crayon than their wristwatch. In essence, you're arguing here that the only reason people don't accept the inevitable truth of science as the proper way to apprehend (and I use this word deliberately) is because they don't know any better.
Or, cultures may not like technology. We all probably get sick of technology sometimes and in some ways wish for a simpler, more "back to nature" kind of life like the aboriginals and the kalahari. But that's very different than rejecting observation and reason as a means of understanding things. Those folks use the principles of science just as much as we do in their daily lives. They just don't have fancy technology.
The Maasai have a different concept of time than the rest of the world. Do you really think it's a leap to think they might be operating within a different system altogether?
And more generally, I would seriously question the idea that the western world - let's take the US - has chosen science. We're a very superstitious and religious culture. Sure, people buy and own lots of intricate technology relative to those "primitive" folks. But I'm not at all sure that average people have embraced science as a way of life more than them. I don't know for sure, but it wouldn't surprise me if typical Americans are no more rational and empirical in their day-to-day beliefs about things than people in primitive cultures.
Yes, we are a religious and superstitious culture. But in the end, science has won the battle. Religious folk may tilt at science with, well, a religious fervor, but in the end they generally accept a television or a medicine derived from science they might in another breath reject. They accept the Darwinian principles that went into the breeding of their dog. They accept the Newtonian physics that require them to change the oil in their cars.
The point is not that they are conscious of it--hell, I've been trying to point out that you're not conscious of it--but they happily operate within a system that values science over anything else as a means of understanding the world around them.
The white male thing was a joke, but my point about them disputing facts and proposing alternatives explanations was serious. That's exactly what scientists do, and I don't mean just those who practice it, but that's what science itself is all about. It's about challenging theories and proposing new ones and disputing the way that facts were collected and just generally disagreeing. Sometimes they're minor issues, but sometimes they're revolutionary and turn everything upside down. My point was just that science itself incorporates alternative viewpoints and evaluates them; it's not merely another viewpoint.
Right. And my point (when I mentioned Kuhn) is that these revisions and changes all occur within the accepted system.
I know next to nothing about quantum physics, but that seems to me to be a very good example of how science can really mind fuck even the scientists into tossing out their presuppositions and turning things upside down in order to understand what's going on.
See, my reading of quantum mechanics suggests to me that something is seriously wrong with the system itself--and the system is so self-invested that it cannot accept the possiblity that it is fundamentally flawed.
Cheers
Scott
Originally posted by midwinter
My point here is that science is just a system. The difference between our positions is that I recognize it as one system among many others (and as historically, philosophically, economically, socially, geographically and culturally determiend) and you seem to view it as the natural result of some kind of teleology.
I'll give you another possibility: These post-modernist views come out of the arts and humanities, where one school of thought frequently supersedes another, despite being no better. Classical, impressionist, post-modernist, they're all just different culturally-bound trends, and no trend can be objectively called better than any other. Perhaps if one comes out of that tradition, one sees every system in that same fashion.
But in any case, I think we're getting close. Yes, I do see science as the natural process of trying to understand what happens in the world. But in a way I can see it as a system like any other, like emotion or music or what have you. Those things are big parts of how people approach life. But those different systems serve different purposes. You're not going to learn about the world outside with those other systems, because, well, they don't involve observing the world outside. If people think they can pray or dance or whatever and be able to predict what's going to happen in the world better than someone who observes the world, they're just going to be wrong more often. But if they think they'll be able to feel more intense emotion, or obtain a sense of the mystical, or maintain a social order with those systems, they're probably right. To use your example, I don't think I am evaluating the watch against the standard of the orange crayon, I just see that they're good at different things.
My argument is with assumptions about why the rock falls. You presuppose that the rock falls because of gravity and reject claims that the rock falls because God willed it to do so, and that if God willed it, the rock would not fall. It just so happens that, for reasons we will never know, god wills it more often than he does not.
But as I understand it, scientists still disagree and don't know exactly why the rock falls. Gravitons, or something else? Scientists are in a not-too-different position than the "God willed it" people as far as that goes. Where I think you're wrong is that science is not about presupposing anything, as even this gravity example illustrates. It's about testing your guesses with observations.
And what's different is that the science-types are going to use their observations to make more accurate predictions about what happens to falling objects than the "God willed it and let's leave it at that" types. I mean, what if a "God willed it" person said they knew that God always makes stuff fall down at the same velocity, but a scientist, based on other observations, knew that the effect should be weaker in space. They could go up to the moon or to a space station, and the "God willed it" person would simply be wrong.
See, my reading of quantum mechanics suggests to me that something is seriously wrong with the system itself--and the system is so self-invested that it cannot accept the possiblity that it is fundamentally flawed.
That's a good point, but it might also be that we have simply reached the limit of our knowledge. I don't particularly believe that, because people have said it many times in the past before our knowledge has zoomed way ahead of what anyone predicted. People will probably find a way of figuring that stuff out, and they won't be using some non-science system when they do.
By the way, I do appreciate the notion that culture influences us in general, and our understanding of the world in particular. My advisor in college studied lay approaches to "science," or rather, hypothesis formation and testing. There's a huge research literature on it in my field of cognitive psychology. I don't do it any more, but I did a lot of related stuff in graduate school - probabilistic reasoning, the limits on human rationality; great stuff, I loved it, it's what got me interested in that field. Other people study cultural influences on these things. It's all good. Yes, culture and all sorts of other things influence our practice of science. But there's never going to be another "equally valid" way of learning about the world than simply observing it.
Anyway, interesting discussion, it makes me think a lot.
NaplesX...a good read for you about Iraq:Vietnam comparisons:
http://www.lies.com/wp/2003/10/20/us...iraq-by-month/
Originally posted by sammi jo
OK back on topic:
NaplesX...a good read for you about Iraq:Vietnam comparisons:
http://www.lies.com/wp/2003/10/20/us...iraq-by-month/
Hey, I thought midwinter and I were the ones who WERE on topic.
Originally posted by BRussell
Hey, I thought midwinter and I were the ones who WERE on topic.
Me, too. considering the title of the thread...
Apparently the facts are subjective for Ann.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,121262,00.html
Did you know that Iraq is going amazingly well according to Ann?
AND we found weapons of mass destruction... according to Ann.
Bill tries to walk her back from the cliff... but...
Originally posted by chu_bakka
here's something funny to read... Ann Coulter on O'Reilly.
Apparently the facts are subjective for Ann.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,121262,00.html
Did you know that Iraq is going amazingly well according to Ann?
AND we found weapons of mass destruction... according to Ann.
Bill tries to walk her back from the cliff... but...
Don't forget that Hardball interview where Coulter tries to say that George C Scott refused the Oscar because he was tired of the liberal media trying to tear down American heroes. Matthews sets her straight and actually quotes something from Scott's obit:
MATTHEWS: Facts mean nothing to you, Ann.
CORN: In this movie he shoots down an airplane with a gun.
MATTHEWS: I?m glad you are not making movies, Ann Coulter. Thank you, David Corn, Andrew Grossman. Jesus.
Has Coulter even been on his show again?
I don't think the conservative posters on this board, blinkered as they are in regard to what actual progressive thought looks like, have any idea what kind of fire breathing socialist maniac it would take to achieve "balance" for Ann.
And. having put forth this standard bearer (who would be obliged to call for Bush's execution for treason, nationalization of the oil companies, and an immediate 50% reduction in the defense budget to even begin to match Coulter's extremism), we would have to see to it that they got a regular hearing on the various screaming head venues, and that they got to write op-ed pieces for real newspapers, and routinely make bizarre and semi-insane accusations about what conservatives are really about, maybe something along the lines of non-christian baby genocide or the idea of their penchant for war being an expression of their loathing for young men arising out of suppressed homo-erotic tension, and that they would generally not be laughed out of the building or incarcerated but keep getting invited back to repeat and elaborate on their spittle flecked invective.
When that entity is up and running, then we can talk about a liberal media.
And for the love of god don't start talking about Al Franken cause if you can't tell the difference you shouldn't be left unmonitored in your own home, much less be posting on the internet.