Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!convex!killer!ames!amdahl!pyramid!cbmvax!snark!eric From: eric@snark.UUCP (Eric S. Raymond) Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng Subject: Re: Non-science not non-sense? Message-ID: Date: 26 Aug 88 15:32:34 GMT References: <536@buengc.bu.edu> <3940@pdn.uucp> <3958@pdn.uucp> <250@quintus.uucp> <1562@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <468@ztivax.uucp> <1578@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> Organization: Golden Apple Gotterdammerung Promotions, Inc. Lines: 42 In article <1578@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> Gilbert Cockton writes: > [lots of bashing of 'positivist' science] > > Anyway, where do I stand? I stand with both feet in the dualist camp > that holds that the evidence given to sense data is adequate for a > fairly mechanical modelling of natural processes, but is hopelessy > inadequate for the study of autonomous, conative agents embedded in a > language and culture. Gilbert, you have 'scientific method' confused with reductive materialism. This is not a completely unreasonable mistake, since (as you point out) many scientists have fallen into the same error. But it is a mistake no less when *you* do so. Scientific method is a *theory of confirmation*, proceeding from the identification of 'truth' with 'predictive value'. Whether the model one is seeking involves 'material' or 'immaterial' entities is irrelevant to the method. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. If you want to criticize some aspects of the socio-historical impact of 'big science', go right ahead; plenty of that deserves bashing. But don't confuse that with a refutation of the method itself. Another point: you attribute the lure of 'big science' to its success at facilitating 'material production', but very much as though that's a sort of inferior substitute for something else. Care to name the 'something else'? I'll bet you wouldn't speak so slightingly of 'material production' if you were living in the conditions of poverty, misery and fear that were the lot of 99.9% of humanity before the beginnings of scientific improvements in 'material production'. 'Big science' has flaws, but it gets imitated because it is a stunning and unprecedented *success* for humanity. You forget or ignore this only at the risk of looking rather silly. -- Eric S. Raymond (the mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews) UUCP: ...!{uunet,att,rutgers}!snark!eric = eric@snark.UUCP Post: 22 S. Warren Avenue, Malvern, PA 19355 Phone: (215)-296-5718