Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: Science: from specialization to incompetence Message-ID: <1928@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Sat, 19-Oct-85 21:02:53 EDT Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1928 Posted: Sat Oct 19 21:02:53 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 20-Oct-85 06:35:58 EDT References: <253@yetti.UUCP> <1727@pyuxd.UUCP> <690@mmintl.UUCP> <759@utastro.UUCP> <556@spar.UUCP> <1836@pyuxd.UUCP> <583@spar.UUCP> Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week Lines: 77 >>To assert that that is roughly equivalent to saying >>that speculations about phenomena that you have no basis for drafting a >>model of (solely because you have a particular conclusion in mind and build >>your axioms and models from there) doesn't sound very reasonable to me. >>It sounds mighty presumptive, which is why Occam would have discarded it. > How about that. Unfortunately, that's all that any scientific methodology > can do! How do you suppose modern science got started? Certainly not by describing phenomena its proponents wanted to see and working backwards. > Originally, science's `entities' were abstracted from certain physical > objects and phenomena that more-or-less instinctively arose in people > everywhere. As YOU claim your beliefs instinctively arise in you? > Now, what are we to assume when a scientist insists that X does not exist? > > (1) X is a useless concept within that scientist's discipline? > (2) X really and truly DOES NOT EXIST? The "wishful thinking" ideal would have it that anything believed (of course) falls into the first category. > It is one thing to make a daring assumption (the nonexistence of `mind' > or `free will') as a methodological constraint. It is quite another > to forget ever having made the assumption in the first place. Oh, dear. Anyone who disagrees with Michael's holy position which is totally unfounded (why, was there evidence for free will out there?) is making a daring assumption! > Certain behaviorist scientists have attained such levels of incompetence > that they are unable to avoid misunderstandings due to (2) above. > I recently encountered the height of unscientific arrogance in the > quotes below from B.F. Skinner: It strikes me as VERY odd that when *I* find a flaw in the presumptions of Michael's choice philosophers, such a position is belittled for not respecting the history of philosophy. While it is OK for Michael to claim that someone who disagrees with him is engaging in "unscientific arrogance". Hmmm... > It may seem inconsistent to ask the reader to "keep a point in > mind" when he has been told that the mind is an explanatory > fiction, or to "consider the idea of freedom" if an idea is > simply an explanatory fiction... > > Decisions about the uses of science seem to demand a kind of wisdom > which, for some curious reason, scientists are denied. If they are > to make value judgements at all, it is only with the wisdom they > share with people in general. It would be a mistake for the > behavioral scientist to agree... > > Who is to decide what is good for man? How will a more effective > technology be used? By whom and for what end? These are really > questions about reinforcers. > > `Mind' does not exist. Value judgements are REALLY questions > about reinforcers. It's the world, not the specialists, who are > mistaken. The specialists will set everything right! I'm sure you won't let that happen, making sure that the heinous scientists never get the freedom Skinner speaks of. > Speaking paradoxically, we may say that incompetence, having been > standardized, has now become an essential part of of professional > excellence. We no longer have incompetent professionals, we have > professionalized incompetence - Paul Feyerabend Ye gads! The presumptive unscientific unfounded arrogance of this so-called "philosopher"!!!! (I assume that, since Michael uses this "style" that this is "OK" in this case, too.) -- Popular consensus says that reality is based on popular consensus. Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr