Social Constructions of Scientific Truth
Mon, 2008-06-02 15:03
#1
Social Constructions of Scientific Truth
Mon, 2008-06-02 15:03
#2
This thread is meant to follow up the thread [url=http://www.rabble.ca/babble/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=21&t=001925]PoMo theoretician threatens to sue students[/url]. The first thread ended with some discussion of what is meant by scientific truth, how does scientific knowledge differ from other forms of knowledge, and what is meant by the phrase: "Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct".
I again present three fascinating cases of what I consider to valid, aka useful and original, sociology of science, quoting myself in a post on the previous thread:
quote:
To return to the topic I've been discussing, on the validity of different means of exploring how science is done:Case 1: [b]Fundamentalist physics: why Dark Energy is bad for Astronomy[/b]
[url=http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/0704.2291]http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/0704.2291[/url]
In it, Simon White discusses many of the cultural differences between physicists and astronomers, the rise of big science, project-specific science, the aura of "fundamental work" and he does this to explain his view. An interesting comparison is presented between the Hubble Space Telescope and The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy probe, for example. His view is that a strong focus on dark energy research could be very harmful to astronomy due to a lot of these cultural aspects, it could very well crowd out other fields; and there are reasons why it is not inherently more interesting than other open questions, indeed even less interesting. These insights would not be possible from someone not familiar with the field.Case 2: [b]A Case Study of Gender Bias at the Postdoctoral Level in Physics, and its Resulting Impact on the Academic Career Advancement of Females[/b]
[url=http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.2026]http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.2026[/url]
In this paper, Sherry Towers explores correlations between job performance and career advancement at the postdoctoral level, specifically at RunII Dzero experiments. Here, internal expertise is helpful on several front, as Towers used to work at Fermilab herself. Where that translated in this case, is that she had very rigorous and knowledgeable measurements of performance and career advancement. She doesn't look at total number of publications... she looks at total number of internal reports; which is a quirk to large-scale particle physics experiments. She uses clever measurements of influence on career advance, and very importantly she knows how to use statistics properly. As a counterexample, I remember when reading some articles on this subject by mainstream sociologists, they would often state the statistic that men and women get the same mean CGPA in undergraduate math courses, a statistic obviously irrelevant to anyone with a clue, but seemingly important to someone without. Here, Towers succeeded in demonstrating discrimination to a high level of confidence in a robust manner.Case 3: [b]String Theory and the Crisis in Particle Physics[/b]
[url=http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0805/0805.1911v1.pdf]http://arxiv.or...
Bert Shroer explores the rise of string theory as a dominant TOE in the particle physics community, the different sociological stratifications taking place, and the evolving structure of the physics body of knowledge. He explores how he believes string theory to be a bad development, and he makes, among other things, technical comparisons to previous attempts at a theory of everything. It is not obvious that there are is a crisis in particle physics, and many people have different opinions on the matter. Only one thing is certain, one cannot have an informed opinion on the matter in the absence of familiarity with particle physics. He links string theory's rise to the evolution in dual models, which is not at all obvious.I highly recommend all these papers for reading. Both of them had huge reactions on the science blogosphere if you'd like to compare notes. I can only speak for myself and from hours of discussions with colleagues that they raise very critical points.
I have been lost the past three days investigating 3-body dynamics in the presence of a supermassive black hole, and could not respond to some a good post and an ignorant post addressed to me, my apologies for that.
quote:
[b]Cueball: [/b]Right, so for example there is a lot of research into sub-atomic particles, and their use for making explosive divices, and this research specifically rests in larger social constructs such as politics, and the military industrial complex. So in fact "what we know" is defined by its position in the larger social construct, and its value to that construct.
Mea Culpa Cueball, you've nailed me with your tornado attack. My original point was not that there are, have been, and always will be sociologies at work within science, but rather that I was skeptical that -sociologists, with little knowledge of science, could offer any useful and original analysis. Somehow I was so stuck on not yielding points that I ended up arguing something completely false, it seems like I was almost denying the role of sociology. You mentioned that sociology helps determine what we research. This is true, but it's not a particularly creative statement. If you read the three sociology of science papers I linked, each of them makes very specific observations and comments, and were discussed at length by the targeted communities (Astronomy, particle physics and quantum gravity, respectively). They were very precise, very rigorous arguments, and thus useful.
As a counterargument to your point though, let me tell you a story from undergrad, back when I was an engineer, I was taking a communications in engineering class, and the professor asked us to say a little of ourselves. I said I was very interested in politics, among other things. The professor said he admired that but prefers science to politics, because in politics it doesn't matter who's right and who's wrong, all that matters is who has the biggest army.
And that does seem to be an accurate impression of politics, [i]"what we know" is defined by its position in the larger social construct[/i], people will make all sorts of ridiculous arguments, and find a way to "prove" them, if it suits their ideological agenda. Global warming is false. Tax cuts reduce the deficit, et cetera. People believe that as strongly as I believe the Earth orbits the sun. In science what we know is not determined per se by the larger social construct, it's [i]jointly-determined[/i] by the larger social construct and those things which are actually true. There's no equivalent to "tax cuts will reduce the deficit" in physics. So I hold scientific truths to be more robust, as they can convincingly evaluated versus reality, and people do move on. During the time of Aristotle, I would not have distinguished between natural philosophy and ethical philosophy.
quote:
[b]Martin Dufresne: [/b]I disagree. Research is a social construction, as many sociologists of science have pointed out. Technological limitations are some among many factors influencing it but, to pick up on your example, the fact we are putting billions into researching extrasolar planets rather than really trying to save our own is totally political, socially constructed. The fact that research sometimes applies to something 'out there' does not detract from the fact that both research and what we currently envision to be true statements about nature are social constructions, no less valuable for our acknowledgement of this, more so in fact because that view attempts to integrate the observer and that person's constraints, as in Cueball's example of the framework in which sub-atomic physics are explored.
It seems to me you hold a rather naive view of "truth" as opposed to the acknowledgement of such constraints; conversation would be easier if you stuck to the notion of accuracy in statements, which would necessarily bring in relativity and universes of reference. Indeed, it would demonstrate your acceptance of Heisenberg's principle.
I am with old Protagoras who wrote, before Plato, "Man is the measure of all things; those that exist and those that do not." In a theist society, he was chased out of town for saying it and Plato gave him a bad rap, but it rings true, oops, accurate to me.
First of all, don't accuse me of veering from accuracy when you make silly claims like billions being spent on extrasolar planets. The total annual budget for all of astrophysics, a superset of extrasolar planets, is in the neighbourhood of a few billion per year, clocking in at around 0.01% of the global GDP, so I doubt it prevents us from taking care of local problems. Historically, money invested in basic science has led to huge ROI.
Second, you have a misunderstanding of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. It's a statement about how the inner product of operators affects the range of values for their observables. When two operators are not orthogonal, the measurement of one affects the measurement of the other. Anybody who uses it to prove "free will" or "all notions are equally valid" is most likely confused.
Currently subatomic physics is best being explored by the Large Hadron Collide being built at CERN. It's a 6 billion dollar experiment, built over many years by about 15 different countries, to explore particle physics at the highest center of mass energies and the highest number of collisions seen. I don't know of any particle physicist who expects weapons to come out of that. The best particle physics has done in the past few decades is give us more fundamental knowledge of nature and help with modern medicine. What do you think radiation therapy or positron therapy are about?
[ 02 June 2008: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]
Mon, 2008-06-02 15:20
#3
Cueball
There you go, once again, subverting the socially constructed hierarchy of truth. BCG made it quite clear that one truth was that this thread topic was closed.
[ 02 June 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]
Mon, 2008-06-02 15:27
#4
quote:
Originally posted by Cueball:
[b]There you go, once again, subverting the socially constructed hierarchy of truth. BCG made it quite clear that there was one truth, and that was that this thread topic was closed.[/b]
I am impotent against such vigorous ripostes, well done! two thumbs up!
[img]http://www.character-costumes.com/c%20tiger%20thumbs%20up%20cut%20out.jp...
:-)
Tue, 2008-06-03 02:41
#5
Catchfire
When you look at a statement like the one the professor gave in an interview, without scholarly context, that states: "Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct," people tend to shorthand. There is no consideration that such a statement might not have been taken out of thin air, and rather might be built on philosophical foundations of Kant, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Heidegger, etc. Armchair critics of postmodernism (incidentally, I am not a postmodernist) think that such a statement means that gravity is socially constructed, or, like an ignorant poster in the previous thread, that medical diagnosis is socially constructted. Or again, like you mention in your post, that saying that "global warming" is a social construct means that postmodernists think that arguing that it is false is equally true. This is absurd, both as a statement and as a caricature of what postmodernists would argue.
I don't know where to begin, and honestly, Apples, I'm not entirely convinced you're in earnest. You began the last thread with an antagonistic (passive-aggressive) attack that equated critical theory with bullshit, and then put the onus on others to disprove this ill-gotten reputation. There are thousands of dissertations in science and mathematics that will have no discernible effect on the "real world." Tax lawyers and backbench politicians produce reams of futile text, collect paychecks, and remain largely worthless to society. Yet all four command a certain respect, and I would passionately argue that all four play a necessary role in the larger machines they inhabit. If you want to start with the sociology of science (of which you already seem to have an inviolable conception, which is why you probably found it difficult to attract comers to your call) you could start with why such a hierarchy exists. Cueball already gave you a significant hint. Here's another: the answer is not that science, mathematics, law and politics are essentially more valuable than the humanities and the arts.
Now, to address the statement "Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct". I can't find where Venkatesan actually said this, and it sounds like a pretty brutal simplification. Even if she did, as I said above, this does not mean that scientific truths are not true in the sense that they could be false, or lies, or imagined, or whatever. It means that the scientific truths we have are simply [i]more true[/i] than anything we have heretofore discovered. Why else study science if there is nothing else to learn? To use a categorical example, is it not conceivable that we could find out a little more about gravity to produce a clearer, [i]truer[/i] definition? What's more, where such a statement is usually the start and endpoint for ignorant dismissal of critical theory, this kind of thing is basic, undergraduate pragmatism. But apparently that's too much to ask for. It gets in the way of a good hearty laugh. Well, fill your boots.
If you want a more radical sociology of science (another disclaimer: the kind of theorists of whom Venkatesan spoke are writing about culture, not bout science) you could start with the academic she was paraphrasing: [i]The Death of Nature[/i] by Carolyn Merchant. I haven't read it, but it seems to refer to how technology is designed by men, for men, and occasionally, specifically, against women. I don't know much about that line of thought, but it does seem consonant with some things I've read about technological determinsism. That is, it is the popular interpretation that technology, say, the internet, "changed the world." That someone "invented" it and as a result social relations where forever different. This is emphatically and demonstratively false. Technology is not reducible to invention, it is historically and socially determined, usually first by military demands and then exploited by capitalist impulses. I can easily see how this can be transferred to a gendered reading.
A famous article is by Luce Irigaray, a radical feminist scholar. In her book [i]This Sex That Is Not One[/i] she has a chapter called "The Mechanics of Fluids" (where she famously suggests that E=mc2 is a "gendered equation"). Irigaray conjoins the above two arguments to suggest that the way we talk about science, the way we structre research, how we decide which projects to pursue/fund/think about and which we repudiate, is gendered. Science, like technology, is not reducible to itself. It occurs in a social, cultural setting and is determined by the attendant pressures. Irigaray is not interested in changing or refuting science, which makes the hostile reaction to her somewhat suspicious. Rather, she is simply pointing out that if the world ever wants to overcome patriarchy, it will have to conceive of massively different paradigms in all strata of society, including science, because patriarchy persists everywhere.
I should also add that it is characteristic of these types of vitriol exchanges, that radical leftist theorists like Luce Irigaray, Judith Butler, Paul Virilio and Fredric Jameson are targeted by liberal moderates like Alan Sokal and Dennis Dutton. Why do you suppose that is?
As a final endnote, the most cogent criticism of postmodernist critical theory comes from Jameson, who calls it "the cultural logic of late capitalism": that a cultural dominant of destabilized meaning, proliferation of spectacle and image, and Baudrillard's simulacra suspiciously serve the interests of trans-global capitalism. bell hooks notes a similar criticism by pointing out that the primacy of a decentred subject, one that discounts essentialist identity, arises at the precise point in history when marginalized, racialized groups are finding and asserting their voice for the first time. Like Jameson, she accuses "white supremacist capitalist patriarchy" of forwarding this idea as yet another colonialist, oppressive strategy. These are criticisms that actually attempt to engage with contemporary theory rather than dismiss it outright in a profound expression of ignorance, anti-intellectualism, entitlement and fear.
Tue, 2008-06-03 04:33
#6
Le T
Nice post Cathfire.
I would add that Eurocentric science, the kind that Apples talks about, takes its own construction of reality as an assumed starting point. In demanding "empirical evidence" and "rational thought" what is really being asked for is to view the world only through the physical senses and to then take this data and work with it only in thought, limited by epistemology.
Tue, 2008-06-03 05:35
#7
Maysie
During my undergrad 20 years ago (I started off in general science by the way, the BSc program, and transferred to the BA program in third year after falling in love with sociology) a study was cited (of course I don't have the reference, sorry) in which the data recorded by scientists who were doing "objective" measurements was studied. Just the data/numbers. The study found that a particular number, let's say the number 6, was found a statistically high number of times throughout the data, more than one would expect if the scientist is simply recording the data found. The number was found everywhere, as in
26
104.766
16.465
The study freaked me out, because up until then I had been a believer in rationalist empirical-based science like everyone else who hadn't learned critical thought or social constructionism yet.
Then I realized, if scientists are starting with various hypotheses, and are themselves doing the research, recording the data, etc, wouldn't their own biases come through? Not just for the results they're looking for (I remember the nul hypothesis vaguely), but what if you really like the number 6?
It opened doors in my mind to many more areas of critical thought, without discounting the importance of science and research in general. I will say my women friends who stayed on in science, and got their grad degrees, had entirely different experiences, given the male-dominated field that science continues to be. But that's thread drift. Or is it? [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]
Tue, 2008-06-03 08:39
#8
quote:
As a final endnote, the most cogent criticism of postmodernist critical theory comes from Jameson, who calls it "the cultural logic of late capitalism": that a cultural dominant of destabilized meaning, proliferation of spectacle and image, and Baudrillard's simulacra suspiciously serve the interests of trans-global capitalism. bell hooks notes a similar criticism by pointing out that the primacy of a decentred subject, one that discounts essentialist identity, arises at the precise point in history when marginalized, racialized groups are finding and asserting their voice for the first time. Like Jameson, she accuses "white supremacist capitalist patriarchy" of forwarding this idea as yet another colonialist, oppressive strategy.These are criticisms that actually attempt to engage with contemporary theory rather than dismiss it outright in a profound expression of ignorance, anti-intellectualism, entitlement and fear.
Well, of course they're going to engage the field of thought in which they both operate. Critical theory cannot exempt itself from an analysis of social construction. While the two you cite here recognize this, that recognition doesn't yet put either of them outside of either paradigm. Unless they're suggesting some new alternative. So, not sure what point you would be making here. However your last paragraph there is an example of how po-mo isolates itself, lending itself sometimes to ridicule.
Tue, 2008-06-03 08:43
#9
Sven
What Catchfire wrote was very, very interesting. Enlightening, really. Thanks for taking the time to write that.
Today, I was reading an article written by Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and published in [url=http://www.theroot.com/id/46680/page/3]The Root[/url] based on his recent interview of James Watson. I was thinking about what Catchfire wrote when reading that article: “Should science even be looking at genetic difference between races in the first place?” Ultimately, people’s genes, and any differences that may or may not exist between races, are what they are (i.e., “facts”). But, the decision to study genes for racial difference is a [i]cultural[/i] decision. Gates’s last paragraph is chilling. And, the question I have is a [i]cultural[/i] one: Should scientists be studying that subject in the first place? If such a study found no genetic difference between races, it would affirm the cultural goal of human equality. But, if such a study found significant genetic differences between races, it could have significant adverse cultural consequences.
So, I look at that Gates piece as perhaps a good example (at least in my understanding) of the types of issues examined by the “sociology of science” and the issues should not be limited to "scientists" alone.
[ 03 June 2008: Message edited by: Sven ]
Tue, 2008-06-03 11:59
#10
quote:
Ultimately, people’s genes, and any differences that may or may not exist between races, are what they are (i.e., “facts”). But, the decision to study genes for racial difference is a cultural decision.... And, the question I have is a cultural one: Should scientists be studying that subject in the first place? If such a study found no genetic difference between races, it would affirm the cultural goal of human equality. But, if such a study found significant genetic differences between races, it could have significant adverse cultural consequences.
Setting up areas about which scientists may not inquire is a sure-fire recipe for disaster. Among other things, one can be sure that someone, somewhere, will provide "research findings" on the topic. It is far better to have real science, and real knowledge, on the question.
Tue, 2008-06-03 12:12
#11
quote:
"Not to go on all-Fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?"Not to suck up Drink; that is the Law. Are we not Men?
"Not to eat Flesh or Fish; that is the Law. Are we not Men?
"Not to claw the Bark of Trees; that is the Law. Are we not Men?
"Not to chase other Men; that is the Law. Are we not Men?" —H. G. Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau (Chapter 12, "The Sayers of the Law")
Tue, 2008-06-03 15:42
#12
Makwa
quote:
Q: Are We Not Men?
A: We Are Devo!
- Devo
Tue, 2008-06-03 16:19
#13
[img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]
Tue, 2008-06-03 21:15
#14
quote:
Originally posted by Sven:
[b] Should scientists be studying that subject in the first place? If such a study found no genetic difference between races, it would affirm the cultural goal of human equality. But, if such a study found significant genetic differences between races, it could have significant adverse cultural consequences.[/b]
Yes they should, imo. They know African-Americans and other ethnic groups have certain risks for developing sickle cell anemia, and that a single gene is involved. This disease should have a lower risk for treating with gene therapy than for multigenic disorders in future.
Gene therapy is in its infancy today, but experts suggest that this period in time will be referred to eventually as the "pre-genetic engineering" period or pre-GE. And I think that the best way to look at increasing intelligence today is through freely accessible higher education based on merit not ability to pay for access. If democracy has a place in the near future, then at some point, technologies like GE could be the ultimate equalizer.
Former U.S. counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke wrote a sci-fi novel entitled,
[url=http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/clarkecolbert/]"Breakpoint"[/url] and takes place in the year 2012. It's based on developing technologies. "Globegrid" is a high-speed global network. Using advanced intelligence software, it promises to reverse-engineer the human brain, enable medical breakthroughs, revolutionize genomics, develop advanced human-machine interfaces, enable genetic modifications, and even manipulating consciousness.
Clarke says in the intro that like his previous book describing oil wars in the Gulf and America's showdown with China for world resources, this book is also meant to be predictive. He says engineers and scientists squabble not about [i]if[/i] the technology he describes will ever materialize but [i]when.[/i]
Wed, 2008-06-04 00:52
#15
quote:
Should scientists be studying that subject in the first place? If such a study found no genetic difference between races, it would affirm the cultural goal of human equality. But, if such a study found significant genetic differences between races, it could have significant adverse cultural consequences.
Yes, they ought to. The problems that may arise from that are the job of political theory and - dare I say - ideology to sort out. The movement from [i]is[/i] to [i]ought[/i] is social construction, and we do have some power over that. I'm not denying that the decision to study it in the first place isn't socially constructed, but assuming that the research is already underway and preparing for the results.
The same thing often comes to my mind in the context of studying the genetic basis of homosexuality. I say, fine, that may give some homosexuals respite knowing that they don't have to explain their "choice" anymore. But isn't there a problem with the idea that would should care at all about whether or not homosexuality is a "choice" or a genetic diktat? Even if it is socially programmed or an individual choice, who cares? It doesn't harm anyone, does it? Those, however, I think are the problem of political theory/practice.
That said, as long as the jist of antiracist (or feminist, or what-have-you) theory is the nigh-on exclusive province of bell hooks, Irigaray (who are both fantastic, mind you) and the rest of the bourgeois academy (including all the intellemelectuals in these parts, and I humbly include myself in that catagory), we've got a huge problem. Where current political theories of the deconstructionist (and other) left(s) have (so far) failed is in their ability to foster social agendas that are palatable to the popular masses. Is there any greater evidence of this than the ridiculous short-hand renderings of what these theories mean in the mainstream media and popular culture at large? Heck, there are some lurking in this thread. Moreover, even deliberate attempts to illicit succinct positions out of those who have the most knowledge of these theories around here rarely results in clear, concise ideas which could be presented to the uninitiated without losing their rigour and/or effectiveness.
In such a situation it is true that research into the genetic differences between sub-groups of humans could be culturally explosive. But the explosion could be a good one, if the left could learn to harness the opportunity to present a cogent and palatable ideology covering the move from scientific fact to social application.
In short, black and white people may be different genetically, but what that comes to [i]mean[/i] socially is, in part, the responsibility of the producers of ideology. And that's us "lefties". I don't think we should shy away from the problems presented by scientific discovery, but rather need to harness the opportunities presented by it to encourage social responses/mores which are in keeping with progressive values.
Historically, the right has beat us to the punch on genetic stuff - using it as a means to separate and subjugate. Fidel's post carries the seed of another kind of response - i.e. genetic science (indeed all technology) in service of the preservation and improvement of ALL human life. Capitalism/imperialism/patriarchy actually reverses this relationship while producing an ideology suggesting otherwise.
[ 04 June 2008: Message edited by: B.L. Zeebub LLD ]
Wed, 2008-06-04 09:00
#16
I think the right would like nothing better than to claim all scientific and medical achievements as their own, or as having been discovered and developed and therefore owned by private enterprise interests. This is not true in all cases though. Since about 1980 the right has been working diligently, however, in securing certain rights to the fruits of publicly-funded research, and by doing so intend to influence scientific research toward specific and narrowly focussed corporate interests, military and otherwise.
Thu, 2008-06-05 13:24
#17
quote:
Originally posted by Catchfire:
[b]radical leftist theorists like Luce Irigaray, Judith Butler, Paul Virilio and Fredric Jameson are targeted by liberal moderates like Alan Sokal [/b]
I think this is an insult to Sokal. (For those of you who are unaware, Sokal published an impeccably annotated, but completely meaningless,
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_Affair]parody[/url] of post-modernism in a post-modernist journal "to combat a currently fashionable postmodernist/poststructuralist/social-constructivist discourse -- and more generally a penchant for subjectivism -- which is, I believe, inimical to the values and future of the Left" [ [url=http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/afterword_v1a/afterword_v1a_sin... ].)
Sokal clearly says he's on the left. It was clear to me when I saw him speak. His follow-up article criticised "authoritarian" teaching, and supported "radical/democratic pedagogy" (this was a criticism of how science is often taught, not of post-modernism). He said he wrote the article because "I'm an unabashed Old Leftist who never quite understood how deconstruction was supposed to help the working class." He went to teach in Nicaragua under the Sandinistas. When his government was illegally mining the harbours and sending weapons to terrorists to bring down the government, he went to support the new government, which was democratic, socialist, anti-imperialist, and revolutionary.
To call him a "liberal moderate" is an insult. I'll post more when I cool down.
[Edited for spelling]
[ 05 June 2008: Message edited by: PB66 ]
Thu, 2008-06-05 13:38
#18
Actually, you are quite right about Sokal, who, among other things, went to Nicaragua during the Sandinista period and taught school there.
Few "radical" post-modernists have done as much, mostly being content to spin webs of words while awaiting tenure.
Thu, 2008-06-05 13:42
#19
quote:
Originally posted by 500_Apples:
[b]
Second, you have a misunderstanding of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. It's a statement about how the inner product of operators affects the range of values for their observables. When two operators are not orthogonal, the measurement of one affects the measurement of the other. Anybody who uses it to prove "free will" or "all notions are equally valid" is most likely confused.
[/b]
(While I'm in an argumentative mood I'll also add this post. Do you mean "when two operators are not commutative" instead of "when two operators are not orthogonal"? Also, while tracking down Sokal's quotes, I also came across this [url=http://www.mathematik.uni-muenchen.de/~bohmmech/BohmHome/sokalhoax.html]... [/url]on Bohr saying the same sort of stupid things.)
Thu, 2008-06-05 13:46
#20
(Oops. I replied to my post instead of editing it. Sorry for the redundant posts.)
[ 05 June 2008: Message edited by: PB66 ]
Thu, 2008-06-05 16:10
#21
quote:
Originally posted by bigcitygal:
[b]During my undergrad 20 years ago (I started off in general science by the way, the BSc program, and transferred to the BA program in third year after falling in love with sociology) a study was cited (of course I don't have the reference, sorry) in which the data recorded by scientists who were doing "objective" measurements was studied. Just the data/numbers. The study found that a particular number, let's say the number 6, was found a statistically high number of times throughout the data, more than one would expect if the scientist is simply recording the data found. The number was found everywhere, as in26
104.766
16.465
The study freaked me out, because up until then I had been a believer in rationalist empirical-based science like everyone else who hadn't learned critical thought or social constructionism yet.
Then I realized, if scientists are starting with various hypotheses, and are themselves doing the research, recording the data, etc, wouldn't their own biases come through? Not just for the results they're looking for (I remember the nul hypothesis vaguely), but what if you really like the number 6?
It opened doors in my mind to many more areas of critical thought, without discounting the importance of science and research in general. I will say my women friends who stayed on in science, and got their grad degrees, had entirely different experiences, given the male-dominated field that science continues to be. But that's thread drift. Or is it? [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img] [/b]
I don't think it would be a thread drift, in fact, I had a preemptive response for that by accident! Article 2 of 3, of the papers I posted, looks at career advancement and productivity of white female postdocs at Run II Dzero compared to those of white male scientists (sample sizes were too small for the rest).
The sixes are interesting. I think that problem would whither away nowadays as most calculations are computerized.
Thu, 2008-06-05 16:14
#22
quote:
Originally posted by Le Tйlйspectateur:
[b]Nice post Cathfire.I would add that Eurocentric science, the kind that Apples talks about, takes its own construction of reality as an assumed starting point. In demanding "empirical evidence" and "rational thought" what is really being asked for is to view the world only through the physical senses and to then take this data and work with it only in thought, limited by epistemology.[/b]
When I said useless and uninteresting analyses of science are more likely from people who don't know what science is, I didn't think you would consistently prove my point so effectively.
It is incredibly bizarre (and false) that you'd argue that white people have a monopoly on reason and logic, and that non-whites are inherently more spiritual.
The first recorded case of someone understanding the form of the solar system is not from Europe but from what is today India. There are many cases throughout history where different people, often of different races, have come up with the same discovery or idea independently.
[ 05 June 2008: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]
Thu, 2008-06-05 16:15
#23
Le T
quote:
The sixes are interesting. I think that problem would whither away nowadays as most calculations are computerized.
I think that the 6's were observations not calculations.
Do you believe that people can make objective observations?
Thu, 2008-06-05 16:21
#24
quote:
Originally posted by Sven:
[b]Today, I was reading an article written by Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and published in [url=http://www.theroot.com/id/46680/page/3]The Root[/url] based on his recent interview of James Watson. I was thinking about what Catchfire wrote when reading that article: “Should science even be looking at genetic difference between races in the first place?” Ultimately, people’s genes, and any differences that may or may not exist between races, are what they are (i.e., “facts”). But, the decision to study genes for racial difference is a [i]cultural[/i] decision. Gates’s last paragraph is chilling. And, the question I have is a [i]cultural[/i] one: Should scientists be studying that subject in the first place? If such a study found no genetic difference between races, it would affirm the cultural goal of human equality. But, if such a study found significant genetic differences between races, it could have significant adverse cultural consequences.So, I look at that Gates piece as perhaps a good example (at least in my understanding) of the types of issues examined by the “sociology of science” and the issues should not be limited to "scientists" alone.
[ 03 June 2008: Message edited by: Sven ][/b]
It should be studied but it should be studied cautiously.
Ethnic groups are obviously real but it's not as obvious that "races" are real, real as in physically real, with significant underlying statistical correlations at the genetic level. A lot of people still view race purely as a social construct.
So if you took 100 white people and 100 black people, and ran some genetic tests, than you'd probably find the genes for skin colour (I actually don't know how hard it is to find these things). But would you find anything else? I'm sure many genes have geographical correlations, but it's not a priori obvious that it's the same geographic contiguities in each case. I would be surprised.
Thu, 2008-06-05 16:42
#25
quote:
Originally posted by Catchfire:
[b]When you look at a statement like the one the professor gave in an interview, without scholarly context, that states: "Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct," people tend to shorthand. There is no consideration that such a statement might not have been taken out of thin air, and rather might be built on philosophical foundations of Kant, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Heidegger, etc. Armchair critics of postmodernism (incidentally, I am not a postmodernist) think that such a statement means that gravity is socially constructed, or, like an ignorant poster in the previous thread, that medical diagnosis is socially constructted. Or again, like you mention in your post, that saying that "global warming" is a social construct means that postmodernists think that arguing that it is false is equally true. This is absurd, both as a statement and as a caricature of what postmodernists would argue.I don't know where to begin, and honestly, Apples, I'm not entirely convinced you're in earnest. You began the last thread with an antagonistic (passive-aggressive) attack that equated critical theory with bullshit, and then put the onus on others to disprove this ill-gotten reputation. There are thousands of dissertations in science and mathematics that will have no discernible effect on the "real world." Tax lawyers and backbench politicians produce reams of futile text, collect paychecks, and remain largely worthless to society. Yet all four command a certain respect, and I would passionately argue that all four play a necessary role in the larger machines they inhabit. If you want to start with the sociology of science (of which you already seem to have an inviolable conception, which is why you probably found it difficult to attract comers to your call) you could start with why such a hierarchy exists. Cueball already gave you a significant hint. Here's another: the answer is not that science, mathematics, law and politics are essentially more valuable than the humanities and the arts.
Now, to address the statement "Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct". I can't find where Venkatesan actually said this, and it sounds like a pretty brutal simplification. Even if she did, as I said above, this does not mean that scientific truths are not true in the sense that they could be false, or lies, or imagined, or whatever. It means that the scientific truths we have are simply [i]more true[/i] than anything we have heretofore discovered. Why else study science if there is nothing else to learn? To use a categorical example, is it not conceivable that we could find out a little more about gravity to produce a clearer, [i]truer[/i] definition? What's more, where such a statement is usually the start and endpoint for ignorant dismissal of critical theory, this kind of thing is basic, undergraduate pragmatism. But apparently that's too much to ask for. It gets in the way of a good hearty laugh. Well, fill your boots.
If you want a more radical sociology of science (another disclaimer: the kind of theorists of whom Venkatesan spoke are writing about culture, not bout science) you could start with the academic she was paraphrasing: [i]The Death of Nature[/i] by Carolyn Merchant. I haven't read it, but it seems to refer to how technology is designed by men, for men, and occasionally, specifically, against women. I don't know much about that line of thought, but it does seem consonant with some things I've read about technological determinsism. That is, it is the popular interpretation that technology, say, the internet, "changed the world." That someone "invented" it and as a result social relations where forever different. This is emphatically and demonstratively false. Technology is not reducible to invention, it is historically and socially determined, usually first by military demands and then exploited by capitalist impulses. I can easily see how this can be transferred to a gendered reading.
A famous article is by Luce Irigaray, a radical feminist scholar. In her book [i]This Sex That Is Not One[/i] she has a chapter called "The Mechanics of Fluids" (where she famously suggests that E=mc2 is a "gendered equation"). Irigaray conjoins the above two arguments to suggest that the way we talk about science, the way we structre research, how we decide which projects to pursue/fund/think about and which we repudiate, is gendered. Science, like technology, is not reducible to itself. It occurs in a social, cultural setting and is determined by the attendant pressures. Irigaray is not interested in changing or refuting science, which makes the hostile reaction to her somewhat suspicious. Rather, she is simply pointing out that if the world ever wants to overcome patriarchy, it will have to conceive of massively different paradigms in all strata of society, including science, because patriarchy persists everywhere.
I should also add that it is characteristic of these types of vitriol exchanges, that radical leftist theorists like Luce Irigaray, Judith Butler, Paul Virilio and Fredric Jameson are targeted by liberal moderates like Alan Sokal and Dennis Dutton. Why do you suppose that is?
As a final endnote, the most cogent criticism of postmodernist critical theory comes from Jameson, who calls it "the cultural logic of late capitalism": that a cultural dominant of destabilized meaning, proliferation of spectacle and image, and Baudrillard's simulacra suspiciously serve the interests of trans-global capitalism. bell hooks notes a similar criticism by pointing out that the primacy of a decentred subject, one that discounts essentialist identity, arises at the precise point in history when marginalized, racialized groups are finding and asserting their voice for the first time. Like Jameson, she accuses "white supremacist capitalist patriarchy" of forwarding this idea as yet another colonialist, oppressive strategy. These are criticisms that actually attempt to engage with contemporary theory rather than dismiss it outright in a profound expression of ignorance, anti-intellectualism, entitlement and fear.[/b]
Catchfire,
I didn't mean to be snark. I like sociology. I think it's fun, and I realize a lot of people are condescending towards it; I suspect it's often because they're not willing to expand their world view. What I meant was just what I wrote, that you seem defensive about a common attitude to the subject. One can imagine a parallel universe where you're not defensive about that at all, and you just don't give a damn that others are so ignorant of that subject.
So is mass-energy equivalence a gendered concept? I don't know how one could come up with that conclusion. Clearly that woman is ignorant. Just kidding [img]tongue.gif" border="0[/img] . Actually I looked it up and I'm having trouble finding it. If you google "e = mc2 a gendered equation Luce Irigaray" this thread is the second link from the top. I also found a letter to the editor in the London Review of Books, where someone uses it as a contrast to Alan Sokal, exactly as you did. Perhaps she is one of the most misquoted individuals ever? I also found some new age bullshit: "The "E = mc2" of psychology is: SELF-ESTEEM = WELL-BEING + CONFIDENCE". Can you find a link of Luce Irigaray, in her own words explaining what is meant by describing Newton's Principia as a "rape manual" and E=mc2 as a sexed equation?
With respect to Sokal, whether and how scientists can contribute to the social sciences is a different question than whether sociologists can contribute to science. My leading question for this thread is question 2, and I don't know enough about question 1 to even start.
quote:
It means that the scientific truths we have are simply [i]more true[/i] than anything we have heretofore discovered.
Is this really useful and original?
quote:
That is, it is the popular interpretation that technology, say, the internet, "changed the world." That someone "invented" it and as a result social relations where forever different. This is emphatically and demonstratively false.
That's often true and often false. Some discoveries are inevitable, but others come out of left-field and are way ahead of schedule than how they would have emerged otherwise. That's why Newton and Einstein are revered.
You don't think the internet changed social relations? The world wide web was developed at CERN to make communications more efficient.
Also, what the ruling elites want is not necessarily what the ruling elites get. They may want fusion power for example, electricity to cheap to meter. That would grow the economy. But it's a hard problem and it's not working out. If it ever works out, it will require the hard work of many, many human individuals of great intelligence.
[ 05 June 2008: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]
Thu, 2008-06-05 16:48
#26
quote:
Originally posted by Le Tйlйspectateur:
[b]I think that the 6's were observations not calculations.
Do you believe that people can make objective observations?[/b]
The fact you draw an artificial distinction demonstrates you're a confused critic.
Most observations are automated by computer. And of course people can make objective observations. The sun appears 400, 000 times brighter than the moon. The average height of American men is around 5"9. Protons weight ~1837 times more than the electron. These are objective observations and they are true independent of human observation.
[ 05 June 2008: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]
Thu, 2008-06-05 17:11
#27
quote:
Originally posted by bigcitygal:
[b]It opened doors in my mind to many more areas of critical thought, without discounting the importance of science and research in general. I will say my women friends who stayed on in science, and got their grad degrees, had entirely different experiences, given the male-dominated field that science continues to be. But that's thread drift. Or is it?
[/b]
And interestingly, there's this article from the NY times, [url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/15/fashion/15WORK.html?ex=1368590400&en=1... isn't Rocket Science, is it?[/url]
quote:
Women were shut off from promotion by an old boys’ network that favored its own. They went to meetings and were often the only women in the room.All that has changed in the last three decades, except where it has not. In the worlds of science, engineering and technology, it seems, the past is still very much present.
“It’s almost a time warp,” said Sylvia Ann Hewlett, the founder of the Center for Work-Life Policy, a nonprofit organization that studies women and work. “All the predatory and demeaning and discriminatory stuff that went on in workplaces 20, 30 years ago is alive and well in these professions.”
That is the conclusion of the center’s latest study, which will be published in the Harvard Business Review in June.
Based on data from 2,493 workers (1,493 women and 1,000 men) polled from March 2006 through October 2007 and hundreds more interviewed in focus groups, the report paints a portrait of a macho culture where women are very much outsiders, and where those who do enter are likely to eventually leave.
...
The result, she said has been a work environment that dismisses women. Female employees come up against “the kind of culture that evolves when women are in the extreme minority,” she said. (Think “Lord of the Flies.”) [b]The ideal worker in this realm is “the hacker who goes into his cubicle and doesn’t emerge for a week, having not showered or eaten anything but pizza. Those people exist and they are seen as heroes.”[/b]
Thu, 2008-06-05 18:53
#28
Maysie
quote:
500: These are objective observations and they are true independent of human observation.
I can agree with your examples listed above, but for other things, I dunno, 500. When there were reports of differences in hormone levels between men and women, the differences are so small as to be mostly statistically insignificant. Men have more of the hormone testosterone, but women have testosterone too, just as men have estrogen. This isn't something generally known, since the way masculinity is socially constructed, anything female-like is banished from the male body, if not literally, since that's impossible, then through lies, like men don't have any estrogen.
The actual biological differences between men and women are small arithmetically, but they have become HUGE differences socially. Yikes! What would happen if we couldn't tell men and women apart?! (I'm being a bit silly but also a bit serious here.)
Fri, 2008-06-06 00:55
#29
quote:
Originally posted by 500_Apples:
[b] Protons weight ~1837 times more than the electron. These are objective observations and they are true independent of human observation.[ 05 June 2008: Message edited by: 500_Apples ][/b]
Ah but now the unobserved observer becomes a participant in a dynamic universe ... [url=http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/schroedinger/two-slit2.html]wave-pa... duality[/url] java plugin req'd
Fri, 2008-06-06 02:03
#30
Catchfire
Apples, for Luce Irigaray, you'll have to actually take her book out of the library. Her references to E=mc2 etc are parenthetical, and as a result, only seem to turn up in hostile interpretations rather than sympathetic, since the latter regard the comments as provocative rather than central to her overall argument. To those who want to make more of such statements in order to gear up cheap shots at critical theory, well, fill yer boots.
The Internet has not changed society, it was used by society to change itself.Society wanted, was ready to change itself. It started to change and picked up what it needed from the tools made available to it. Newton, as I'm sure you know, did not make his discoveries from "left field." For example, his famous "standing on the shoulders of giants" statement, often considered a mark of modesty, was directed at Robert Hooke (a hunchback) who had made no complement to Newton to warrant such deferent modesty. Rather, Newton presumed himself that he "saw farther," placing himself in the company of Descartes, when in fact his ideas came from discourse with peers and from previous work--surreptitiously placing himself in the company of "giants" in a show of mock modesty. He was surely brilliant, but not singular. Nothing comes "from left field." Such interpretations are the basis of "social constructivism" (a term I would never, ever use).
As for whether my point about pragmatism and truth (i.e. gravity as we understand it is not "true," it's simply "more true" than anything we have heretofore discovered) is "useful or original," it is the starting point, not the conclusion of critical theory. I was simply pointing out a fundamental misunderstanding that seems to motivate these kinds of threads. It wouldn't be very productive for me to start throwing around any Richard Rorty or Judith Butler until such a point is understood.
As for those who have their own opinions of Alan Sokal, you are welcome to them. I admit I was not aware of his time in Nicaragua twenty years ago and his then support of the Sandinistas. I can only speak of what I have read of his political views and the effect they have on what I perceive to be proper radical leftism. It's nice to see, however, that jeff house thinks he knows what kind of leftist credentials Judith Butler, Raymond Williams and Slavoj Zizek have (he doesn't) and how he compares them unfavourably with someone he already agrees with without reading any of the texts he "critiques." Sokal is not the only person I mentioned--the liberal left is still left, still anti-war (largely) and still class conscious (somewhat)--but his foray into Nicaragua does not contradict the fact that the attack on critical theory (largely left) comes incomparably from the conservative right (case in point: the lazy Wall Street Journal article linked to in the last thread). It is typical of bourgeois capitalism to target its radical elements in its attenuation toward mediocrity. And please, fearing endless tedium, I don't want to say anything more about the so-called "Sokal Hoax."
[ 06 June 2008: Message edited by: Catchfire ]
Fri, 2008-06-06 14:08
#31
I am going to reiterate my point that provocative language in parenthetical or subtle points is counter-productive. In political discussions, it weakens the position of the left and provides cover to regressive ideas and groups. I think "scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality, but to a social construct" is an example of this type of counter-productive language.
Catchfire has written some very thoughtful posts, and I'm going to mainly respond to those. I fear I will sound more critical thatn I really am, since I think we agree on most issues. Before really getting started, concerning Sokal, Catchfire writes:
quote:
[b]
As for those who have their own opinions of Alan Sokal, you are welcome to them. I admit I was not aware of his time in Nicaragua twenty years ago and his then support of the Sandinistas. I can only speak of what I have read of his political views and the effect they have on what I perceive to be proper radical leftism. It's nice to see, however, that jeff house thinks he knows what kind of leftist credentials Judith Butler, Raymond Williams and Slavoj Zizek have (he doesn't)
[/b]
This really aggravates me. No one mentioned Zizek until now, but if you want to raise the subject, fine. Alan Sokal can choose to work to support a revolutionary government, and Slavoj Zizek can run as the presidential candidate for the "Liberal Democracy of Slovenia" party, but, apparently, this will not change Catchfire's opinion that Zizek is a "radical leftist" and Sokal is a "liberal moderate".
One of the criticisms that Sokal raises about many post-modernists writers, is that there are many examples where an apparently highly-provocative claim is made, but this claim is either tangential or not actually what is meant. This type of claim is what I'm complaining about.
quote:
Originally posted by Catchfire:
[b]Apples, for Luce Irigaray, you'll have to actually take her book out of the library. Her references to E=mc2 etc are parenthetical, and as a result, only seem to turn up in hostile interpretations rather than sympathetic, since the latter regard the comments as provocative rather than central to her overall argument. To those who want to make more of such statements in order to gear up cheap shots at critical theory, well, fill yer boots.
[/b]
If the comment that "E=mc^2 is gendered" is parenthetical to Irigaray's arguments, and only provokes hostile comments and easy cheap shots, then, to me, it seems totally counter-productive to provide this as the second piece of information about her thinking. On the other hand, without this piece of information, the content of 500_Apple's posts about sexism in the scientific profession sound very similar to Catchfire's original description Irigaray's position:
quote:
[b]
A famous article is by Luce Irigaray, a radical feminist scholar. In her book This Sex That Is Not One she has a chapter called "The Mechanics of Fluids" (where she famously suggests that E=mc2 is a "gendered equation"). Irigaray conjoins the above two arguments to suggest that the way we talk about science, the way we structre research, how we decide which projects to pursue/fund/think about and which we repudiate, is gendered. Science, like technology, is not reducible to itself. It occurs in a social, cultural setting and is determined by the attendant pressures. Irigaray is not interested in changing or refuting science, which makes the hostile reaction to her somewhat suspicious. Rather, she is simply pointing out that if the world ever wants to overcome patriarchy, it will have to conceive of massively different paradigms in all strata of society, including science, because patriarchy persists everywhere.
[/b]
(To me, the fifth sentence also seems to provoke but not really mean what it says. It's provocative because it casts suspicion on all Irigaray's critics. I assume it's false, since if she sees sexism in the scientific profession, presumably, she would like to change that.)
Concerning the phrase "scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality, but to a social construct", Catchfire now describes this as "shorthand" or a "brutal simplification", but in the previous thread, more than one poster expressed strong support for this without qualification, and at least one said that it was so obviously true that no further explanation was necessary. The statement "scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality" is very strong. Taken at face value, it says exactly that science does not describe reality and, with "a" modifying natural reality, implies that it is perfectly reasonable to consider that there are no or multiple physical realities. Many babblers have expressed clear, well-thought-out opinions about the role of social factors on which research gets done and how that research is used, opinions in which the existence of our world is not questioned. I agree with these. 500_Apples has expressed one of these. The main disagreement is whether these are accurately summarised by saying "scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality, but to a social construct."
bigcitygal's comments about male- and female-hormones reminded me that people coming from different backgrounds might interprete a statement differently. On first reading, it would seem obvious to me that a female-hormone is one which is more common in women than in men, not one which is exclusive to women. After further thought, I realised that this meaning of the terminology would not be at all obvious to many people, and that, taken literally, it could promote the misconceptions she was concerned about. Had Catchfire said "scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality, but to a social construct" was shorthand or brutal simplification last week, before so much unqualified support for it had been expressed, I wouldn't feel the need to explain why it seems so counter-productive.
(Some people have literally denied a belief in reality. No one on this board has clearly stated that position, so I'm not going to discuss it further.)
Catchfire seemed to indicate that it was Sokal's responsibility to demonstrate that he wasn't right-wing when he criticised post-modernist thinkers, since most criticism of post-modernism come from the right. That's a legitimate concern, but Sokal does go to great lengths to make this clear (for example, in his original, 7 page [url=http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/afterword_v1a/afterword_v1a_sin... in Dissent[/url]). Similarly though po-mo/"French school"/Theory thinkers and their supporters need to be more careful in the language they use to critique the way science is done, since most criticism of science comes from regressive churches, from polluters, from the makers of dangerous and toxic goods, and from their mouth-pieces in right-wing parties and, yes, the WSJ. All of these would love to raise doubts about the ability of science to reach conclusions about reality.
[ 06 June 2008: Message edited by: PB66 ]
Fri, 2008-06-06 15:06
#32
Sven
quote:
Originally posted by bigcitygal:
[b]What would happen if we couldn't tell men and women apart?![/b]
I suppose if we literally couldn't differential our species into male and female, then there wouldn't [i]be[/i] "males" or "females". Instead, we'd be more akin to asexual spores. [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img]
Thu, 2008-06-26 10:10
#33
quote:
[b]
... most criticism of science comes from regressive churches, from polluters, from the makers of dangerous and toxic goods, and from their mouth-pieces in right-wing parties and, yes, the WSJ.
[/b]
Case in point: Wall Street Journal attacks the science of global warming:
[url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121433436381900681.html]http://online.ws...
Thu, 2008-06-26 16:07
#34
quote:
Originally posted by Sven:
[b]I suppose if we literally couldn't differential our species into male and female, then there wouldn't [i]be[/i] "males" or "females". Instead, we'd be more akin to asexual spores. [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img] [/b]
or whip tails.
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnemidophorus_neomexicanus]http://en.wikipe...
Tue, 2012-11-20 17:08
#35
Catchfire
Mathgen, a computer program which randomly generates mathematics papers, had a submission accepted in a peer-reviewed academic "journal." #sokalschadenfreude
Tue, 2012-11-20 19:34
#36
Mathgen, a computer program which randomly generates mathematics papers, had a submission accepted in a peer-reviewed academic "journal." #sokalschadenfreude
Any reviewer that didn't catch the "University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople" reference needs a remedial PDQ Bach course. I'll have to read the paper to see if it's as funny as Sokal's.