Split from Threat To PRogress.

[Darth Wong]

There are certain schools of thought which seem to exist only for the ego gratification of their adherents. Nihilism, postmodernism, and solipsism leap to mind. Utterly useless contrivances masquerading as philosophies by cloaking their fallacies in impenetrable language. It's most telling when their adherents ignore any challenge to demonstrate their usefulness, and start ranting about how close-minded you are. A scientist, of course, has no fear of a challenge to demonstrate the usefulness of science.

[Spin Echo]

Nope, I'm arguing that post modernism (if used correctly, which i agree that it seldom are) can be a tool to further understand science. The mere notion that there might be a personal bias in science was, from the start, a Post Modern notion, and now it is more or less accepted in the scientific community.

I'm not buying this. Are you suggesting that scientists never realised science might be biased until Postmodernism came along? Do you have a source for this?

Natural science bring us the facts of things, but not necessarily the understandings.

Half of science is figuring out what your results mean. If I had a nickle everytime I went to a conference and I heard a talk where someone said "These are our results. We still haven't figured out what they mean yet..." I'd have a lot of nickles.

I don't ask that you embrace Post Modernism as a package. Even I, being using post mdoernist approaches for some time, thinks the extreme relativism in pure rubbish and nothing but pseudo science. This doead not, however, mean that all things about the paradigm is utterly useless. Popperism has a few drawbacks too, but we still use it and embrace it, right?

Frankly, I have no clue what popperism is. Like you mentioned previously, it appears we don't seem to understand your area of expertise. If our ideas of Postmodernism are wrong, then you'll need to give an in depth explanation as to what exactly postmodernism is really about so we could have a more

Spin Echo: Sadly you are right. the low funding on social science departments has made it all to easy to take a class successfully even though you are a complete moran. To become good, on the other hand, takes at least as much work as in the natural sciences. In all classes I've taken, we've had about twnty people getting through doing nothing, and three or four people working their asses off. The only thing I can say in that regard is that it was me and my fellow workoholics that got the tutors attention, thus leading to amazing things like research assistant jobs in a market where most academics are unemployed.

I bitch and moan about a lot of things about my alma mater, but underfunding is not one of them. We also had no slacker courses. People who were taking the social sciences were almost extensively doing it because they washed out of other courses.

Do you have any figures comparing social sciences funding versus hard sciences funding? You also have to realise, social sciences are cheap compared to the hard sciences. Just because the social sciences are getting less money than the natural sciences doesn't mean the social sciences are underfunded. You don't need to buy multimillion dollar equipment or chemicals or liquid helium or other pricey

I think most natural scientists would do good taking a class or two in science philosophy of science history. Even though some people do this erading outside their class rooms, I don't find this enough. Even if you're a destout positivist you still get a much deeper udnerstanding of you're actually doing if you know what positivism really are, it's roots, it's history and what branches of philosophy and ontology that has stemmed from it. This is not a part fo the social sciences (my mistake), but of the humanities. I wrote my latter posts late at night and apologize for the mistake.

You do realise most places do make their science students take a few humanities courses? The technical university I attended required that a full quarter of the courses I took be humanities and social science courses. This is not a phenomenon limited to the US. Norway requires their science students to take several humanities as well. I imagine Sweden is probably similar.

Out of curiousity, are the social science majors required to take any hard science courses?

I've gotten the "Lilla Gumman"approach from both laymen and scientists, the latter usually being elderly gentlemen trying to beat me at my own game. Not uncommonly stating things like "It will all pass when you get your first child and then all that drive and dedication will drain away". I don't appriciate this much, and you might understand.

Strange. Can't say I've ever had that happen to me.

[Psychodelica]

I'm cut'n pastin what I wrote to General Schatten by PM, since he urged me to continue in this thread instead.

"Hi!

Since I said I'll take this discussion by pm from here on, I simply do so.

Frankly, the discussion had more or less evolved into everybody standing in their own corner arguing with each other. In my view, that is not something that constitutes a giving and enriching discussion, which is the only reason i discuss these matters on internet forums. I don't exactly care about wiether i "win" or not.

I made several examples of my point, both in this thread and in the "progress"-thread, and felt that this was simply overlooked by everybody too keen to simply put me into the relativist-moron-corner, thus making everything I said wrong by default.

Most of the points made against Po Mo was actually made towards a relativist standpoint I do not share. Even though I pointed that out on several occations, it wasn't acknowlegded. I felt that pointing it out further would not lead anywhere, and I'm not altruistic enough to continue a conversation for the benefit of somebody else when I felt the subject was exhausted.

If you want a clearer view of what I actually mean by my placing Po Mo methods into a non-relativist framework, take the chance to correction read my thesis. (I am looking for critical correction readers in the Off Topic forum.) It will probably be great deal faster than trying to get to it through a pretty aggressive thread.

//Alva - aka Psychodelica"


So, due to general wish, I will try and explain the policy form of discourse analysis here for you (even though it's kinda like explaining the neurological functions of the brain to a social scientist)

A discource is a communicative system, making the framework for how, why and what can be said within a specific context. These are actually quite easy to verify empirically, since you only have to look at policy documents from different countries or different times to see the difference. A discourse analysis is simply to deconstruct the discourse, take a closer look at what is written, and what is not, what is left unsaid because it is seen as obviuous, and what is left unsaid because it isn't within the boundaries of the discourse. I have extentive sources on this, although all of them in swedish. If any of you happen to master that language, I will happily give them out.

The way of verifying or falsifying a discourse analysis is by opacity. By making the study opaque enough for any other reader to follow the logical premisses put up for the analysis, you give any outside reader the possibility to follow your train of thoughts, and thereby opening up for quetioning your study, your logic and your conclusions.


Post modernism for me, is a too diversed field to put together in a specific whole. The core points (and the most important ones in my humble view) though is the notion that no-one is totally unbiased (something most people see as common sense nowadays), that the world is multi facetted and thereby has to be viewed from different angles to be fully understood (not a very strange thought either I think. This is why historians and osteologists work together), that our language is an indicator of our values and ethical boundaries (post-structuralism) and, finally, that a strict division of people into categories obscures the individual differences within said categories.


Some poeple has taken this so far that they claim that there is no truth. Other people, like me, claim that there IS a truth, but that the aim for humanity should be to come as close to that truth as possible, even though we, in our nature, are biased. Scientific philosophers like for example Popper, has given us tools to make this striving easier.


You want sources? Once again most of my sources are in swedish... One place to start looking is in Carol Lee Bacchi's internationally famous book "Women, policy and politics" where she explains further how a discourse analysis approach could be used in political science to analysis the nature of posed policy problems. Another is the chapter on interprative theory in Marsh and Stoker "Theory and methods in Political science".

[Psychodelica]

By the way: Carl Popper was the guy who created the theory of falsification. Popperism is simply a slang for his theory.

Most of the swedish students of social science has studied quite a lot of the natural sciences in the gymnasium school before going to university, while they (we) hardly even touches philosophy or social science. The only discipline of the humanities we actually put in time on before Uni was history.

Oh, and the philosophy behind the natural science methodologies are a crucial part of the scientific theory we were forced to take in our freshman year.

[Darth Wong]

Still no effort whatsoever to explain how post-modernism tests ideas for validity, I see. All I see are two assertions:

1) That science is biased. Interestingly enough, this is a textbook ad-hominem fallacy: attacking the ideas of science by attacking the foibles of their authors.

2) That science is somehow culturally limited. This argument suffers from the same flaws as #1, and it ignores the fact that scientific theories (and scientists themselves) actually achieve greater international co-operation and comprehension than any other kind of human intellectual endeavour, most likely because the language of scientific discourse is mathematical.

Where's that description of how post-modernism works? You keep talking in vague generalizations.

[Psychodelica]

Still no effort whatsoever to explain how post-modernism tests ideas for validity, I see. All I see are two assertions:

1) That science is biased. Interestingly enough, this is a textbook ad-hominem fallacy: attacking the ideas of science by attacking the foibles of their authors.

2) That science is somehow culturally limited. This argument suffers from the same flaws as #1, and it ignores the fact that scientific theories (and scientists themselves) actually achieve greater international co-operation and comprehension than any other kind of human intellectual endeavour, most likely because the language of scientific discourse is mathematical.

Where's that description of how post-modernism works? You keep talking in vague generalizations.

I think I'm pretty clear and outspoken about it. The validation for post modern methods (still, note that I never argued about post modernism proper) is placed within the scientific discussion. Opacity and a clear stringenity (don't know is the wprk exists in englisg, so bear with me) between theory, method and empirical analysis makes it possible for other scientists to evaluate and cirtizise the final product.

That there is a bias in specific scientists does NOT mean that science is useless! And if you read through my texts again you'll find that I do nowhere state that scientific results are culturally limited, even though the scientific community is a culture within itself. I think we need to draw a sharp line between scientists and science, between the scientific community and the results they produce.

I point out the major points in Po Mo in my post above. And I claim that Post Modernism cannor be seen as a whole, but must be judged by it's parts, since the paradigm itself is diverse. [/i]

[Darth Wong]

I think I'm pretty clear and outspoken about it. The validation for post modern methods (still, note that I never argued about post modernism proper) is placed within the scientific discussion. Opacity and a clear stringenity (don't know is the wprk exists in englisg, so bear with me) between theory, method and empirical analysis makes it possible for other scientists to evaluate and cirtizise the final product.

That is not a description of methodology. That is the sort of thing you write on an advertising brochure. HOW DOES IT WORK?

That there is a bias in specific scientists does NOT mean that science is useless! And if you read through my texts again you'll find that I do nowhere state that scientific results are culturally limited, even though the scientific community is a culture within itself. I think we need to draw a sharp line between scientists and science, between the scientific community and the results they produce.

Then why even bring up the issue of bias at all? What difference does it make, since the scientific method can overcome individual bias through its internally competitive nature?

I point out the major points in Po Mo in my post above. And I claim that Post Modernism cannor be seen as a whole, but must be judged by it's parts, since the paradigm itself is diverse.

So diverse that you apparently can't explain how it works. Why don't you give us a case study of how post-modernism can work?

[Psychodelica]

I think I'm pretty clear and outspoken about it. The validation for post modern methods (still, note that I never argued about post modernism proper) is placed within the scientific discussion. Opacity and a clear stringenity (don't know is the wprk exists in englisg, so bear with me) between theory, method and empirical analysis makes it possible for other scientists to evaluate and cirtizise the final product.

That is not a description of methodology. That is the sort of thing you write on an advertising brochure. HOW DOES IT WORK?

That there is a bias in specific scientists does NOT mean that science is useless! And if you read through my texts again you'll find that I do nowhere state that scientific results are culturally limited, even though the scientific community is a culture within itself. I think we need to draw a sharp line between scientists and science, between the scientific community and the results they produce.

Then why even bring up the issue of bias at all? What difference does it make, since the scientific method can overcome individual bias through its internally competitive nature?

I point out the major points in Po Mo in my post above. And I claim that Post Modernism cannor be seen as a whole, but must be judged by it's parts, since the paradigm itself is diverse.

So diverse that you apparently can't explain how it works. Why don't you give us a case study of how post-modernism can work?

I can give you a case study on how I have chosen to use post modern methods. I cling to my point that post modern theory as a whole is useless crap, but that parts of it can be made useful.

PM me your mail and I'll send over my WIP masters thesis.

The issue of bias is important since science made with the recognition of said bias might be able to correct itself in the first step, thus leading to faster progress. And biases common within the scientific community might be overcome by a more critical analysis made by the scientists them selves. It's purely a way of making science better and more efficient, not eliminating it.

[Darth Wong]

I can give you a case study on how I have chosen to use post modern methods. I cling to my point that post modern theory as a whole is useless crap, but that parts of it can be made useful.

There is no way to do this in a concise manner?

PM me your mail and I'll send over my WIP masters thesis.

OK, but it really would be more beneficial for public discussion if you could describe this case study here.

The issue of bias is important since science made with the recognition of said bias might be able to correct itself in the first step, thus leading to faster progress. And biases common within the scientific community might be overcome by a more critical analysis made by the scientists them selves. It's purely a way of making science better and more efficient, not eliminating it.

I don't think you'll find any scientists who believe that they are the only human beings on Earth who are completely devoid of emotion or bias, so I don't see what benefit "recognition" of this fact brings. The idea of peer review is that "if I didn't see the flaw here, somebody else will." And that's why most criticisms of science focus on medical science, because the cost of clinical trials (and the pressure on researchers to come up with desired results) in that field has become so inflated that countless studies are performed, published, and then cited as gospel without any independent verification.

[Psychodelica]

I can give you a case study on how I have chosen to use post modern methods. I cling to my point that post modern theory as a whole is useless crap, but that parts of it can be made useful.

There is no way to do this in a concise manner?

PM me your mail and I'll send over my WIP masters thesis.

OK, but it really would be more beneficial for public discussion if you could describe this case study here.

The issue of bias is important since science made with the recognition of said bias might be able to correct itself in the first step, thus leading to faster progress. And biases common within the scientific community might be overcome by a more critical analysis made by the scientists them selves. It's purely a way of making science better and more efficient, not eliminating it.

I don't think you'll find any scientists who believe that they are the only human beings on Earth who are completely devoid of emotion or bias, so I don't see what benefit "recognition" of this fact brings. The idea of peer review is that "if I didn't see the flaw here, somebody else will." And that's why most criticisms of science focus on medical science, because the cost of clinical trials (and the pressure on researchers to come up with desired results) in that field has become so inflated that countless studies are performed, published, and then cited as gospel without any independent verification.

The main reason I don't do this is because it would be to long and time consuming. I have explained what discouse analysis is used for, and would really like to get an example on how this kind of knowledge can be produced in an equally revieling way.


Take a look at the history of science... The notion of bias has been more and more recognized as time has went by. Before Po Mo:s introduction in the 1950:ies and 60:ies, biases was more or less a non-issue. Nowadays they are recognized and used within the (natural) scientific community. I can't believe this is a coincidence, that the first breakthrough by Post Modernism came at the same time that scientists started to recognize the problem with personal bias.

[Darth Wong]

The main reason I don't do this is because it would be to long and time consuming. I have explained what discouse analysis is used for, and would really like to get an example on how this kind of knowledge can be produced in an equally revieling way.

Explaining what something is used for is not the same thing as explaining how it works. By that token, if you asked me to explain how a car engine works, I would reply that it turns the driveshaft, which in turn makes the car move. That is not an explanation of how the engine actually works.

Take a look at the history of science... The notion of bias has been more and more recognized as time has went by. Before Po Mo:s introduction in the 1950:ies and 60:ies, biases was more or less a non-issue. Nowadays they are recognized and used within the (natural) scientific community. I can't believe this is a coincidence, that the first breakthrough by Post Modernism came at the same time that scientists started to recognize the problem with personal bias.

Can you give any examples of this phenomenon?

[SirNitram]

I'm sorry, but what is this non-relativist Post-Modernism? The movement is, indeed, partially defined by it's rejection of Modernism and Enlightenment objectivity, and particularly in a frankly visceral recoiling of Empiricism. As I made clear earlier, rejecting objectivity and empiricism makes it physically impossible to do anything useful for science, which is grounded in both.

Further, the idea that science didn't know it was biased before the 1950s is such tripe I have trouble beleiving you actually wrote that. SOmeone fed you a line of pure, refined bullshit. Indeed, the mechanisms by which science works rely on that bias; the peer review process is intended to be biased against new claims, so that only those which are backed by the best evidence and logic get through. This is intentional. It's why crap like cold fusion gets thrown out, and Einstein only became accepted because he could back up his claims of proving Newton was full of it, along with being a dickhead.

[Spin Echo]

Take a look at the history of science... The notion of bias has been more and more recognized as time has went by. Before Po Mo:s introduction in the 1950:ies and 60:ies, biases was more or less a non-issue. Nowadays they are recognized and used within the (natural) scientific community. I can't believe this is a coincidence, that the first breakthrough by Post Modernism came at the same time that scientists started to recognize the problem with personal bias.

Bollocks. Science already began to recognise bias in science in the early half of the 20th century. Double-blind studies began to be implemented in the 1930's. You may find it useful to read the work of Bradford Hill on scientific bias, published in 1937.

I think you may have a biased mindset that is influencing your interpretation of the data.

[Spyder]

The main reason I don't do this is because it would be to long and time consuming. I have explained what discouse analysis is used for, and would really like to get an example on how this kind of knowledge can be produced in an equally revieling way.


Take a look at the history of science... The notion of bias has been more and more recognized as time has went by. Before Po Mo:s introduction in the 1950:ies and 60:ies, biases was more or less a non-issue. Nowadays they are recognized and used within the (natural) scientific community. I can't believe this is a coincidence, that the first breakthrough by Post Modernism came at the same time that scientists started to recognize the problem with personal bias.

Have you considered the possibility that you might have actually removed all the post modernism from your post modernist study?

[R. U. Serious]

I can't believe this is a coincidence, that the first breakthrough by Post Modernism came at the same time that scientists started to recognize the problem with personal bias.

And every scientist knows - if it's not coincidence it can only be causality; And there's never a question about which way the causality goes either. [/sarcasm]

[Darth Wong]

The really funny thing is that the breaking point at which she claims scientists finally began to recognize the problems with science comes well after the most revolutionary and important discoveries of science were successfully made. Newtonian physics, atom theory, germ theory, Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, the basic laws of chemistry, biological evolution, etc. So science's most profound breakthroughs all came at a time when she claims it was crippled by its lack of postmodernist thought.

I get the feeling she's focusing entirely on the so-called "social sciences", which have never really been conducted in the same strict manner as the hard sciences in the first place. But blaming the scientific method for the mistakes made by "social science" in the first half of the 20th century is like blaming Han Blix's report for the Iraq invasion. You can't blame it if it wasn't used.