The blogosphere is alight with the story of a (former) professor at Dartmouth named Priya Venkatesan. Teaching is a tough job and I have the highest regard for some of the amazing teachers I’ve had the privilege of learning from over the years. Priya, however, is apparently not quite in that class (pun intended).
The WSJ provides one summary of the case –
Priya Venkatesan taught English at Dartmouth College. She maintains that some of her students were so unreceptive of “French narrative theory” that it amounted to a hostile working environment. She is also readying lawsuits against her superiors, who she says papered over the harassment, as well as a confessional exposé, which she promises will “name names.”The trauma was so intense that in March Ms. Venkatesan quit Dartmouth and decamped for Northwestern. She declined to comment for this piece, pointing instead to the multiple interviews she conducted with the campus press.
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p>What praytell were these unruly students doing to our poor teacher? And, aside from her personal ethnicity, is there a desi angle to the story?
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p>First, it appears that the students in her class shared a good chunk of my aversion to the PostModernist deconstruction of Science –
Ms. Venkatesan lectured in freshman composition, intended to introduce undergraduates to the rigors of expository argument. “My students were very bully-ish, very aggressive, and very disrespectful,” she told Tyler Brace of the Dartmouth Review. “They’d argue with your ideas.” This caused “subversiveness,” a principle English professors usually favor.Ms. Venkatesan’s scholarly specialty is “science studies,” which, as she wrote in a journal article last year, “teaches that scientific knowledge has suspect access to truth.” She continues: “Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct.”
In my book, folks like this deserve much of the same scorn as Creationists. One finds a benevolent God having begat a weird brand of science; the other a malevolent Rich / White / Old / Male power structure. All the while, neither seem to have problems with the products of said science ranging from airplanes, to the Internet, to medicine.
A few students’ course evaluations are online and highlight a toxic classroom environment –
If she teaches here… don’t take this course. Period. She defines a terrible prof, she is offended when people ask questions about her lectures and does not grade/give feedback on papers. Grade based solely on if she likes you/ you writing reflects her “sophisticated” ideas.
…Aside from the fact that I learnt nothing of value in this class besides the repeated use of the word “postmodernism” in all contexts (whether appropriate or not) and the fact that Professor Venkatesan is the most confusing/nonsensical lecturer ever, the main problem with this class is the personal attacks launched in class. Almost every member of the class was personally attacked in some form in the class by either intimidation or ignoring your questions/comments/concerns. If you decide to take this class, prepare to NOT be allowed to express your own opinions in class because you have “yet to obtain your Ph.D/masters/bachelors degree”.
And, one particularly brave student sounds like he had enough. Priya – to her credit – tells the tale in a blog interview –
[Priya:] I made the argument that in many cases science and technology did not benefit women, and if women were benefiting science and technology, it was an aftereffect. It was not the goal of science and technology.
…But there was one student who really took issue with this–and he took issue with this, and he made a very–I’d call it a diatribe, and it was sort of like, well–science and technology, women really did benefit from it, and to criticize patriarchal authority on the basis that science and technology benefited patriarchy or men, was not sufficient grounds for this type of feminist claim. And he did this with great rhetorical flourish; it was very invective, it was a very invective sort of tone. And I think what happened afterwards was that some people–I can’t name them, and I don’t know how many there were, but it was a significant number–started clapping for his statements. It was a very humiliating moment to my life; it was extremely humiliating, that my students would clap against me,
Priya goes on to describe how that student caused her to have some sort of breakdown that sent her to the (womyn-friendly?) hospital and miss a week of class. Personally, if I could find that student, I’d contribute to his college beer fund.
What took the crap to a level beyond a run-of-the-mill student teacher disagreement, however, was Priya’s truly bizarre response. She threatened a lawsuit in widely circulated emails to her class –
Dear Student:
As a courtesy, you are being notified that you are being named in a potential class action suit that is being brought against Dartmouth College, which is being accused of violating federal anti-discrimination laws. Please do not respond to this email because it will be potentially used against you in a court of law.
Priya Venkatesan, PhD
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p>And she’s already promised a tell-all book –
[I’m] writing a book detailing my experiences as your instructor, which will ‘name names’ so to speak. I have all of your evaluations and these will be reproduced in the book.”
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p>The Desi angle? As Harvard’s Crimson reports, that card was introduced by Priya –
Last week, a few students in the Dartmouth writing class “Science, Technology, and Society” received a nasty shock. When they checked their inboxes, they learned that their professor, Priya Venkatesan, was planning to sue them for discrimination. Later investigations revealed that she also planned to sue the College and several faculty members, not referring to any particular episode, but mentioning the “hostility” she felt during her time as a professor and saying that “maybe it has something to do with my ethnicity or my gender.”
Let’s be clear – there absolutely are real instances of ethnic and gender discrimination in the world. However, Priya’s screed is a fantastic example of the “race to the 3rd rail” caricature of the argument. When racism/sexism becomes a reflexive, defensive rush for cover, it raises the burden of proof for other folks in other cases where the argument might actually hold merit. Still, I suppose for Priya Venkatesan, PhD, there’s a certain consistency in claiming ethnic/sexual victimization when so much of her teaching is basically about… well… victimization.
[PS – it’s worth noting that the lawsuit appears to have been dropped…]
and if you want valid critiques of “postmodernism”, the science world isn’t quite the place to find them.
So, it is ok for PM theory to misuse scientific results that apply to specific conditions. Whereas, when a physicist uses the rules for science to discredit PM then that work isn’t valid! I find that proponents of PM confuse scientific terms that have specific definitions (can be expressed mathematically) with similar sounding/meaning words that depend on the vagaries of language for their meaning. Eg., relativity != relativism uncertainty principle != Observer Effect Chaos theory != social chaos Misuse of the words – linearity and non-linerity
184 · bytewords said
I would tend towards the latter being that I was attempting to keep it simple, but as you like.
“whatever the table is”, it is not relevant in any hard science—so this woozy thing about the thought of a table not being existent but a mental construct is no big deal. to clarify: empirical scientists fit hypotheses to observations—all she would do is to build a set of theorems for the table that will allow her to answer certain questions about it: “will it hurt if i bang on it?” “how do i move it?” “how hard will it be to move it?”. now it doesn’t matter what the table really is.”
Actually, I agree with this, for the most part. However, certain scientific materialists here don’t seem to follow. As long as we agree that those observations aren’t and can never be direct, then we are on the same page, because within that framework, I am certainly not suggesting that science cannot develop or do new things.
“yes, this is attached to the language (axioms) of choice, but let us not get wishy washy with “exist completely separate from our minds” without knowing what the hell we are talking about (what is “mind”?). but we have freedom in picking the language”
Mind as in our thoughts, which would be the employment of those axioms that necessarily transform and are not the external world. Hence, the object during perception does not exist completely separate from our minds. Yes, we have freedom in picking in the language (to a certain extent, not completely true), but I consider that more ammo for my argument.
“first—you say it is impossible to represent the other completely—why is it? what you are claiming is that no matter what set of symbols i choose, what language i pick, there will be something with the table i haven’t captured in the language—and that requires proof. note that the inability to prove is not a proof of non existence. and analogies like the one you have are definitely not proofs.”
Alright, but lets also remember that “proofs”, the way you are using the term, are not evidence in an absolute sense, but a system based on very particular assumptions. Regardless, take any two objects, no matter how similar they are. They can even be the same type of object, say two apples. Can one apple completely represent the other? As long as they aren’t the exact same object, the answer is no. A photograph of an apple is not an apple. Unless you are suggesting that a thought is the same as its referent, I don’t see how else one could “prove” this. Also look at the recent neuroscience work I mentioned earlier, which suggests that the very nature of perception makes direct realism seem quite flimsy.
“we only ask “is there a language that gives me explanations (theorems) for all i have observed” in hard sciences. and that answer is a qualified yes. if you ask “will we be able to explain everything we observe?”, it is very interesting. the premise is “so far, we believe yes”. but we will know if (and when) we fail.”
The keys here, imo, are “all I have observed”, the “qualified yes”, and the qualifier “so far”, which indicates a willingness to change and an eternal skepticism that I see as being essential for good science, which isn’t so alien to my argument at all. The difference between hard science and soft science is that hard science can employ proofs and empiricism, but those proofs and concepts only function within a set of prior assumptions. There’s no such thing as a hard science that can guarantee objective knowledge. Of course, I still wouldn’t equate it with soft science.
I’m not sure we disagree as much you think we might. You seem to be arguing for what I would also consider good science, insofar as you seem to be aware of science’s a priori assumptions (whose existence, in many ways, is essentially my argument.)
201 · amaun said
Allow me to clarify:
There are very few people in the science world who understand much about “postmodernism”, hence the continued use of the term itself. There are also scientists who support “postmodernism”, but most dismiss it based on a lack of knowledge, not researched criticism. How many of the scientific materialists who have argued with me in this thread have read Kuhn, Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard, Deleuze, or any others in depth? Have you?
191 · Divya said
It does apply to every single discipline, but that’s the point; they are all fallible. Science studies only criticizes science that believes itself to be infallible and absolutely good, which can never be true. Such fanaticism of “truth” has led to things like eugenics and fascism, among a plethora of other bad things, which is why constant skepticism is necessary. Human nature, well, that’s a completely different conversation.
I made the argument that in many cases science and technology did not benefit women, and if women were benefiting science and technology, it was an aftereffect. It was not the goal of science and technology
I dont understand this at all. She’s implying science and tech sole purpose is to benefit men? Science and Tech’s benefit is for humanity.
On what grounds can you make an argument that science and technology doesn’t benefit women? and that if true, has stemmed from some concerted effort to have science and technology only benefit men?
I see women using cellphones just as much as men.
Regardless, take any two objects, no matter how similar they are. They can even be the same type of object, say two apples. Can one apple completely represent the other? As long as they aren’t the exact same object, the answer is no.
A red apple can be defined by an irreducible set of characteristics. By which I mean that take away one of the characteristics (take away skin color) then the the new set of characteristics describes an apple of any color. Research in the sciences is to get at that “irreducible set” for any object/physical process. So, in science once you get the “irreducible set” then you have a description of the apple and the fact that the apple in your right hand is not the same as the one in your left, is a fact that is not disputed.
Now onto “assumptions”. In present day physics theory the electron is assumed to be a point particle. Experiments are performed to test assumptions all the time in science. So experiments have detected that if the electron has size then it is of a size
NYC Akshay, first of all excellent comments on this thread. But in regard to the above…when ‘evil’ aspects of ‘science’ have been successfully challenged in the past (as in the examples you mention), has it been PoMo that has done it, or other factors/forces? Has PoMO specifically, in and of itself, actually accomplished anything concretely useful?
Please delete my multiple posts if possible. Hope this posts properly … I did not realise that the symbol for “less than” is a problem. I guess the posting software interprets this symbol “less than” differently than me!
A red apple can be defined by an irreducible set of characteristics. By which I mean that take away one of the characteristics (take away skin color) then the the new set of characteristics describes an apple of any color. Research in the sciences is to get at that “irreducible set” for any object/physical process. So, in science once you get the “irreducible set” then you have a description of the apple and the fact that the apple in your right hand is not the same as the one in your left, is a fact that is not disputed.
Now onto “assumptions”. In present day physics theory the electron is assumed to be a point particle. Experiments are performed to test assumptions all the time in science. So experiments have detected that if the electron has size then it is of a size less than 10^-19 m. If a future experiment does find the size then a theory shall be needed to explain the size and fit in with all previously understood electron phenomena. Now, if a fairly substantial set of experiment determine the size of the electron is indeed 10^-25 m. then I don’t turn around and say that the electron in my apple is not the same as the electron in your experiment.
Amitabh:>>Has PoMO specifically, in and of itself, actually accomplished anything concretely useful?
Your question has no bearing in PoMoLand. Since everything is subjective and relative, how can anything be concretely measured?
M. Nam
I second that. One willing to resist joining the pack attack* deserves more respect than the cowardly, self-serving censorship meted out to him on this “progressive” site.
*In a pack situation, once an aggressive act is initiated, whether as a playful nip or a serious bite, individually benign dogs may join in and the pack instinct escalates the attack until the victim is killed or the dogs are driven off. (Kneafsey and Condon, 1995)
I second that too. Coming from me that is quite a compliment. I am a clinical researcher: trained to think (and for the most part accept) that evidence-based medicine is the way to go; allopathy is less problematic than homeopathy; randomized controlled trials are the most rigorous of treatment evaluation methods, etc (although the insider’s view, as in any field, makes me more aware of the problems that need to be fixed from within). Anyway, so your comments were some of the most coherent, jargon-less, refreshing and intriguing arguements I have read in a long time.
For the future, if you ever need to explain how vaccines are culturally conditioned and appropriated to belong to modern science I am wondering if the well-known story of Edward Jenner will work. He used the same inoculum and procedure that countryside farmers had known for centuries before. Yet we credit him with the “discovery” of smallpox vaccine. I am not minimizing Jenner’s contribution to modern public health, but I am pointing out that having come from the medical world he possessed the requisite specialized training and language needed to recognize and take the ‘idea’ of inoculum from a farming culture to his world of medical scholarship. He then devoted himself to systematically cataloguing and dispersing such knowledge, in some ways, more efficiently than the previous group.
Yes, consumers. When in the market for dumb/useless ideas & cocktail party convo I go wholesale. Retail is for chumps
This is clearly a publicity stunt to sell her book…she took lesson from the james frey school
NYC Akshay said:
Yes, I will be the first to accept that.
I also said in comment 210:
But health scientists fixing from within (or medical schools producing doctors who are in touch with the values of their society), is not in isolation from the rest of the society. Society shapes our ideas of what is right and wrong; how ethical should we be, etc. So whether we are aware of it or not, thinkers, philosophers of all schools have an impact on us. Even if we are not directly aware of it. or don’t directly attribute it to a particular school of thought residing in the humanities building.
These above lines are my quick, and perhaps haphazard, response to Amitabh’s:
I don’t think anyone on this board intended to suggest that traditional knowledge systems are less worthy than scientific ones. My contempt for postmodern theory is directed at their high-falutin deconstruction and relativism. You too would have to be upset if the pomos decided to analyze the character and motives of the peasants who discovered vaccination methods in their native lands.
NYC Akshay, I do not agree that science is just as fallible as anything else. That is the crux of the matter. Science most definitely has higher standards than most anything else and the failure to recognize this fact is what the fight with the pomos is mostly about.
If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.
Here’s another case with similar dynamics: an indiana university janitor and student was convicted by the university for racially harassing a coworker…by reading a book! (An anti-racist book about the KKK, of all things).
This is why we need scalia and thomas on the bench.
this is the reason i was saying we are not actually in agreement. you agree a language is a subset of all possibilities: {table, table is fluid, table is solid, table can reproduce, table cannot reproduce…}. some languages are, loosely speaking, consistent for our purposes {table, table is solid, table cannot reproduce}, some are not—let us please not get into godel here.
but where is the mind here? we could even pick a language that does not represent what we perceive about the external world (quantum theory to an extent, or we want to just have fun with “what if”). the theory of mathematical logic is a formalization independent of what we perceive and how we think, since it tries to answer questions related to any language.
why isn’t it possible? to preempt you, we are not talking of decidability here. and this is where i completely lose you:
a proof is simply a statement on whether a possibility exists or not in a language. it has nothing to do with the nature of perception. if you are asking about the language of empirical sciences, a proof is only a statement on observations. it is thoroughly irrelevant if a picture of an apple is an apple if i all i want to know how the shape of the apple in a particular direction will look to me—the picture is a sufficient statistic.
Science is practised within the larger society; not exclusively outside of larger society. So there is a back and forth interaction of ideas and thoughts, which to me means standards are constantly being redefined. If they are being redefined at one point, then it means the previous standards weren’t good enough. For example, a randomized controlled trial (RCT) financed by a national (or other third party) funding agency is more welcome than a RCT financed by the pharmaceutical company that gets to profit from the new drug tested. This is because several problematic studies made people nervous. [Link to one related non-technical paper I found quickly.]
No system, including the scientific system, is perfect. The move towards perfection (an illusion in my opinion as in the long-run we are always going to keep aiming for higher and higher standards, but that is besides this particular point) is facilitated by people exclusively inside the system (i.e., scientists) and also by those outside of that system–whether they are religious leaders or political figures or social ethicists. And none of these humans, including the scientist, develop their idea of right from wrong independent of one another.
So it all seems circular to me. Each field influences, impacts and controls the other in a positive manner ultimately.
So why so much anger towards one particular school of thought? Just because you think science has higher standards than most anything else doesn’t mean its standards cannot be improved further.
For example, a randomized controlled trial (RCT) financed by a national (or other third party) funding agency is more welcome than a RCT financed by the pharmaceutical company that gets to profit from the new drug tested.
More welcome? The scientific method does not care. Lets say in the process of gassing the gypsies and the jewish folk, SS doctors found the small amounts of gas actually reversed lung cancer and wrote about it. A scientist whose research was in preventing/curing lung cancer would not palce any value judgement on said SS info. What would a postmodernist do?
Financial disclosure and documentation is now part of the scientific method. All good journals that document a study require this disclosure. When I am interpreting a study I want to know who financed it and on whose payroll the investigators were on. This does not mean a study financed by a drug company goes unpublished or unread or dismissed outright. It jsut means tha financial disclosure is one of the criteria for documenting the knowledge that comes with the study.
Even if we use this valuable knowledge for the benefit of that section of humanity suffering from lung cancer, isn’t it better to have a postmodernist reminding us of the victims who died giving us that knowledge? If you were the parent of that victim what would you want? Would you rather have a world full of scientists/doctors without any value judgements? We are supposed to be humans — a cut above the rest of the creatures in this world — so why be selective about the claim-to-fame as humans?
HMF, where are you now? wanna call out your fellow men on their patronizing, sexists, and insensitive treatment of a sad and unfortunate woman?
Don’t really understand the meaning of this.
220 Malathi:
I don’t know how well-read about postmodernism you are, but postmodernism doesn’t necessarily take a moral stance on issues of interest to society (even though specific postmodernists often do). It is not intrinsically a political program. Here is a recent column by Stanley Fish, who knows a thing or two about po-mo, on the topic:
http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/french-theory-in-america/
Also, I think you are confusing science and technology. The two are very different.
NYC Akshay, thank you for all the time you’re putting into your thoughtful, well-written responses: I’ve loved reading them!
I second and third that!
No. I said so in comment # 213. And I steered clear of theoretical arguements.
I responded to sentences such as “Science most definitely has higher standards than most anything else…” because the next time there is an outcry on TV about yet another drug being pulled off the market, people would understand that even unmonitored scientists are human and make mistakes (either knowingly or unknowingly), and not feel outraged that they are let down by a system that was supposed to be impeccable.
The way I see it, high-above-all standards is a double-edged sword.
Perhaps so, but there is an overlap. Also, scientists evaluate technology, and not just qualitatively but also quantitatively.
But thank you for the link, I will check it out when I have time.
SI: Are you discouraged by the rejection of science in certain parts of academia heavily influenced by the postmodernist antipathy toward science and reason? The Sokal hoax, which you wrote about so amusingly, certainly exposed that movement’s scientific vacuousness.
more here:http://www.csicop.org/si/9803/gardner.html
As others, I also complement Akshay for his clear summaries and responses, though I thought he didn’t do a good job of addressing the vaccination question.
The central argument here (and elsewhere) in the discussion over the truth of science is: the use of science (such as computers, vaccinations etc.) to justify that science produces a perfect mapping between a theory and the real world. Being able to use a theory (to build chips or vaccines) doesn’t guarantee that the mapping is perfect. One reason is: a “perfect” mapping depends on what is acceptable as perfect.
Here is an example: my grandmother gives ginger to cure indigestion, and Garlic to cure throat infection. Ginger does cure indigestion, and Garlic cures throat infections, but the theory in which these cures are embedded, the ayurvedic humour theory of tridosha, is no longer acceptable. You have to give a biochemical explanation, providing causes and effects and moving ions, of how ginger clears up indigestion, and how garlic attacks throat bacteria. Two points follow from this:
One, if you think the working of a technology built from a theory proves that the theory maps well to reality, then you have to buy the tridosha theory, i.e. the idea that the world is composed of three qualities (humours).
Two, the standards of what counts as truth (the right mapping) changes over time. So there is no “perfect” mapping.
The social constructivist view pushes these points (use not guaranteeing truth, and standards changing over time) to the limit, and claims that not only do standards change over time, there cannot be a final agreement, even in principle, given the nature of language and perception and the social and changing nature of standards.
Even if you don’t buy this, there are other issues that undermine the “perfect” mapping, such as the nature of causes and effects (which are treated much better by analytical philosophy and Indian philosophy than social constructivism). One central problem is: how do we establish that A causes B directly, and not via interactions with variables C, D etc., and with support from variables E, F etc.? This problem is actually causing a rift within the sciences itself, with complexity theory advocating that causation accounts are passe, and dynamic systems accounts involving thousands of variables are the way to go. This would be fine and dandy, except that no one actually understands (in analytic terms) how the simulations involving hundreds and thousands of variables work. Most arguments based on simulation make heavy use of visualizations. Which brings up the problem of how exactly we perceive a cause. There are some really neat experiments in the psychology of causation which shows that people will attribute event X as causing event Y when the relative timing between the two events cross a threshold. And we haven’t even mentioned the traditional problems in the philosophy of science, such as the problem of induction. There is also the recent problem of emergence. Once you hit these levels, the perceived concreteness of science starts looking rather smoky.
You could take any combo of these and apply to the vaccination case. Do we know how vaccinations work? How do we know that it is the vaccination, and not some complex of molecules in the immune system, or a combination of the two, and other variables, that is responsible for the effect? What level of explanation would count as “knowing”? Molecules, electrons, fancy handwaving about strings and attractors? When we agree on some explanation is adequate, how do we agree that our perceptual biases are not the reason why we agree that it is adequate?
BTW, there is also the view that “truth” and “reality” themselves are pointless constructions, and theories are better thought of as tools, kinda like hammers. No one asks whether hammers are “true”, they are just useful. Which is another way of saying “social construction”! 😉
For a really clear articulation of the so-called “science wars”, take a look at “Representing and Intervening” by Ian Hacking. Also his book “The Social Construction of What?” He doesn’t agree with the social constructionists, but treats them sympathetically. I agree with him.
As for Priya Venkatesan, she is a victim of overenthusiasm, a common problem with young professors, who think that their students should start at the cutting edge. She should’ve kept the philosophy of science to graduate courses. As you can see from the discussion in this board, even folks with degrees take a while to get what this business is all about. Naive realism is very seductive, and hard to get away from, particularly when you are 18, financed by your parents, looking for fun, and seeking brownie points with classroom peers. Having said that, she should also have had the sense to deal with the students using standard social tactics, instead of trying to understand their behaviour using her theories, and suing them. Jeez, talk about the ivory tower!
227 · IanHackingFan said
strangley, this is the point i was trying to make, from a very different perspective of course. concidentally, andrew sullivan just posted this.
I’m sorry, but having attended a liberal arts college (a women’s college, in fact), I think railing against the professor is a real show of disrespect. I don’t remember any student ever doing this in class. There is a way to ask questions. I’m not a professor and only a couple of years out of school, but I don’t understand why the students were so hostile. What she describes, that guy’s diatribe, is just alarming.
Seriously, if you don’t respect her as a professor, if you think her subject matter is lame, why are you in her class, other than to disrespect her? Presumably most people in college are there to learn, whether or not they agree with the professor’s viewpoint. She’s teaching you her perspective. That’s her job. It’s not her job to entertain students who have just left high school and believe that they have some God granted intellectual finesse that puts them on the same level as their professor.
Prof V might have overreacted, but teaching a bunch of spoiled brats isn’t easy. And to be so disrespectful that you make your professor miserable? That’s such a shame.
The central argument here (and elsewhere) in the discussion over the truth of science is: the use of science (such as computers, vaccinations etc.) to justify that science produces a perfect mapping between a theory and the real world.
There are many instances where scientific theories produce a remarkable prediction about nature which then are borne out by experiment. The predictions score zero on any “use” metric, to society in general. This predictive power is unique to the scientific method, that fashions a theory to explain/describe an entity/process that is a part of nature. Extrapolating the theory beyond the human range of experience and making predictions about other entities/processes is the success that I attribute to the scientific method.
Ayurveda lacks this predictive power. Inventions (computers), discoveries (vaccines) are a byproduct of the scientific method that discern cause/effect relationships amongst multiple variables.
Repeating the same old tired argument does not make it more credible. Even more so because it is one giant strawman. As if science claims “perfect mapping” or claims to have the “truth”. People have known about the “truth” problem for centuries. In fact the ancient Greek school of skepticism was born out of the conviction that we could never really know anything for sure. Accepting this fact puts an end to the eternal searching and one can just live with certain standards. But that does not mean we have to start mulling over whether the earth could really be flat after all. This is what the pomo world would very conveniently have us do just so there’s room for their nonsense to fit in. They’re not into standards you see, garbage/value, it’s all the same.
Science does claim that it has the truth. If it doesn’t, there is no argument, and no science-wars. The fact that there are people jumping up and down over the pomos means there are folks who hold realist views.
I don’t support the social construction view, neither do I support the realist view. We don’t have to think whether the earth is flat, but we also don’t need to accept everything that comes from folks-in-white-coats as the gospel. They are as clueless and groping as everyone else, the fact that their stories are sophisticated and tested doesn’t mean they are not subject to change. History has shown that they are.
And there is nothing special about the “scientific method” either, check out the current issue of the Economist on a computer game (fold-it) that mimics the protein-folding problem. Players in that game come up with the same solutions scientists came up with over the years, but fast, and now they are going to tackle new folding problems.
Theories are like filters, no one argues whether FFT is “true” or not, even though it can help predict things (to respond to the comment above) and design new technology. They are the scientific equivalent of the hammer, or maybe fishing tackle, and as V.S. Ramachandran notes, most science projects are like fishing expeditions.
what do you mean by scientific method? and the point you are making is what?
what is a science-war? maybe you are seeing too much south park.
please explain what you mean by “no one argues whether fft is true or not”? fft is an algorithm, it computes the discrete fourier transform fast. do you mean no one proves the correctness of the algorithm? you are way off then, any grad student or senior undergrad can prove it to you.
this is the most annoying part of you guys—misrepresentation of whatever you dont like. you think fft is false? prove it. keep malicious hints in your social sciences.
i don’t even know where to begin.
i think what bugs us “evil” minions who have contempt for statements like above—and i include nyc akshay arguements as well—what you call “well thought out” is nothing but linguistic obfuscation and subsequent misrepresentation of fairly well understood concepts. verbosity becomes proof, volume becomes evidence, bad analogies take the place of any reasoning, and popularity/democracy is what is used to determine the veracity of ideas. like this:
what does it even mean? that complexity theory and “dynamic systems” contradict each other? no result in any body of science contradicts anything else.
you don’t, others do. if something works by accident, people think about why it works. they call them “conjectures”. nothing that isn’t understood becomes part of any theory used by others.
what do you even mean here? that interpretation of data in science is suspect? that scientists just see two things happening and decide one causes the other? if your accusations were true, yeah, science is bogus. unfortunately for you, your saying so doesn’t make it true. if you know any one nontrivial example of work in science that is like this, let me know. i don’t mean ridiculous papers in some obscure conferences no one even knows about—they are all written by people like you.
Bleah.
Go read some books. Moving molecules and voltages around is not what life is all about.
And for your information, I am a scientist, whatever that means.
Spoken like a PostModerner, while moving the molecules and voltages to get it’s point across. That book in your hand is not the same as the one Ian Hacking gave to the publisher.
You don’t know what “it” means but, you are “it”!
Sure, and why not? Wondering about the truth of scientific theories does not mean I should stop doing science, or stop using the tools it provides.
Antirealist positions are not saying don’t do science, or science doesn’t produce useful things. They are just saying science is not sacred, it doesn’t produce absolute knowledge, and it should be open to criticism by outsiders. In this, they are just following:
Environmentalists who question economics (“economics is a brain disease”) Ecologists who question the chemical industry Alternate fuel folks who question fossil fuelers Feminists who question male societal attitudes towards women Homosexuals who question conservative societal attitudes towards gender Organic farmers who question factory farming Alternate medicine folks who question the slash/cut/burn/pharma-company approach to medicince Anti-globalisation folks who question the free-trade gospel Indymedia questioning the US govt …….
It is a (sorta) free world, where anyone can, and should be able to, question any authority position, from outside. Especially authority positions that affect your life. Science is no different.
Note that all the groups above use/access/participate in the areas they question. And that is how it should be. Unless you want to turn science into China.
please don’t kid yourself—you really think you are the equivalent of this sort of questioning? at the very least answer my questions before dismissing them by your “read a book” and “there is more to life”. all you do is make up stories and insinuate conspiracies in science. you are a scientist or philosopher? quit the professions, you have no understanding of what the elements of analytical or critical thinking is.
you seem to have both ego and ignorance in copious quantities—ideally you should be in politics and cutting stem cell funding.
They are just saying science is not sacred
If you really understood the scientific method you would know that “sacred” has no place in scientific lexicon. Unfortunately, questioning the SACRED tenet of PostModernism brings forth froth from your brain.
The funny thing is that these “outsiders” happen to use arguments that scientists themselves discover. The pomo world simply latched on to Kuhn’s musings about the nature of truth and proceeded to build their whole edifice on it while using it to attack science at the same time! You’ve really got to appreciate how ridiculous this is. It’s like someone finds a flaw in something and you go and build your whole discipline on this flaw! If there is ever an intelligent critique of science it comes from within because the outsiders seem just not capable of it. Something to bear in mind before talking about criticism from the outside.
Sure, will do. Thanks for the advice.
Meanwhile, why don’t you try reading those books? There are some things you can discuss over the web, for some things you have to read books. Hacking has made the argument much more elegantly than I can. Plus, I am lazy, and have better things to do than educate some south Asian kid about fine distinctions and perspectives s/he doesn’t much care about anyway.
It might also be useful to know that there are people like this, and they are very different from pomos. If the only categories you know and can use are “pomos” “science” “social science” and “skepticism”, it is time to read some books.
And while you are busy celebrating belonging and acceptance and branching out (which is the way I understand this site: ooh, look, there is a successful south Asian journalist/intern/film-director/non-engineer/non-doctor) it might be useful to ponder why there are only four Desi philosophers of some repute (Anil Gupta, Sahotra Sarkar, Mohan Matthen and Akeel Bilgrami), a pitiful representation if you consider the rich Indian philosophical tradition.
Someone mentioned Stanley Fish’s column on French Theory here, and it was interesting to see that at least 10 (non-Desi) commentators in NYT had made the connection that French theory is just Buddhism 101. How come none of you folks who commented here could think of that? Because most of the commenting folks here know zilch about Indian philosophy, but can talk about Kuhn and skepticism. That’s assimilation and belonging for you, we just follow other people’s ideas/projects, and we do that very well. No wonder we are accepted, molecule/voltage pushing is not all that different from pencil pushing. Real difference comes from proposing theories and new ideas, defending them, and capturing intellectual leadership. To do that, you have to read widely, think critically, and question fundamental assumptions. Defending science blindly just shows that you don’t know much, or haven’t thought about, the fundamental assumptions underlying science, you are just another follower.
Be aware of the criticisms, and be circumspect about what you do. May just help you think differently.
240 · IanHackingFan said
Thank you 🙂 It’s time those words were said. I haven’t read your comments, but this is a sentiment I share.
IanHacking fan, if you don’t mind me saying so: don’t get into arguements with somebody who is condescending enough to throw out petty statements of mischaracterization as above. The same person threw around a similar statement about my reading habits, a couple of weeks ago, although I am pretty sure I have never had the misfortune of running into this personhood in real life.
Divya, in contrast to my habit of whizzing past the arguements made by a certain unpleasant, highhanded handle, I am trying hard to do justice to your thoughts. But you lose me with statements like above. I don’t know if your ideal has ever really existed in historical reality–either theoretically or practically. Even in the contemporary world, every IRB is made up of a complex group of individuals with varied backgrounds–indicating that even scientific institutions are not averse to handing over some power to people who are not from within. Every scientist was born and raised as a human first, and was accorded the status of a scientist much later in life. So how are we going to neatly separate all the variables that go into making one a scientist from the ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ attributes that went into making one a human? Does your arguement not imply that we in science then have no right to criticize matters of blind faith anywhere in the world because we are outsiders to that particular form of faith, and that that criticism should come only from those strictly on the inside? (again an unattainable, prerequisite in my opinion).
I anticipate, ‘but it is all in the scientific method, stupid!’ type of response from you. So I will save you the trouble and put it down myself (be assured I am not being antagonistic, merely intellectually curious). So the thing that I still cannot fathom is this: what good is the scientific method without a (flawed) human being to breathe life into it? how secure is its exalted position in a world without language? Why is a series of trial-and-error eperiments by say a wildlife biologist financed with tax-payer dollars, while a series of trial-and-error methods by some unknown Chukchi in say, Siberian Arctic, not worthy of our scientific interest?
To me, the troubling question is this: Who gets to decide what is scientific method?
IanHackingFan – this post was about postmodernism and science to start with and that is why we’re talking about these two things. And for whatever it is worth, I do not see any connection between French theory and Buddhism.
Malathi – Actually I’m not a science person (please believe me). My abhorrence for the pomo set, and for moral relativism, led me to this staunch defence of science. No, I did not mean to imply that no-one can criticize science, only that they are mostly incapable of doing so. The social sciences are junk sciences and have not gotten us anywhere. For all the economics there is horrible poverty everywhere, for all the psycological sciences there is rampant madness, for all the social sciences there’s just as much sickness in society. So what’s it all about? How can it be possible that from the inception of the social sciences there has been not one iota of difference in the problems they try and solve? Contrast this with the hard sciences and you’ll see what I’m talking about. So how can junk scientists sit in judgment of real scientists? Yes, there’s a bit of rhetoric in what I just said, but it’s mostly true.
You completely misunderstand me if you think I am not eternally grateful for all the traditional knowledge that is out there. I’d sooner go to a witch doctor than a psychiatrist, almost never go to a medical doctor but see an ayurved instead, and lately have discovered this Korean chi energy healer person who is totally incredible. I understand science may never explain these things. But to answer your question as to why I still gravitate towards science or scientific understanding – I’ve come to realize that when it comes down to it, it is possible to argue for any side of a case very convincingly. This however does not get us anywhere. With the scientific method (i know, i’m sorry) people develop theories and if their theory is sound, it predicts outcomes and ties various phenomenon together. This is a much more fruitful approach than a mere argument and actually leads to knowledge and understanding. So if it is understanding one is seeking then this is the way to go.
This does not in any way imply that one cannot be just as happy following blind tradition for no reason whatsoever. This is an entirely different realm. Just as painting pictures and singing songs is different from doing science. This is not about pitting tradition against science. It is about pitting junk science against science.
🙂 I actually don’t pay much attention to handles, just respond to comments. I am not in this to win arguments, commenting is something I do as timepass!;) When other things pick up, I just wander off.
While we are at it, from the perspective of the history of ideas, the title of this blog is kinda silly, I think. I propose the following categorisation expt. Take all the stories they’ve published, and let users rank each as 10%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% mutiny. For a standardisation scale, use Gandhi and the idea of non-violence as 100% mutiny. I suspect most of it would fall under 10%, anything higher would mostly come from India. Maybe they should rename the site as “Flashes of brown in MSM” or something! 🙂
242 · Malathi the vet said
malathi, excellent point about IRBs (Jesse Gelsinger/Hopkins IRB/unscientific and dangerous methodologies used by Contract Research Oranizations CROs come to mind). about drug development or clinical research itself — biased endpoints are such a problem, authors in scientific journals may have conflicts of interest, and sometimes just rubber-stamp their name on industry publications. it is wishful thinking to divorce scientists from the world they live in. the set of scientific facts is quite distinct from both the practice of science and from science policy.
whoa, that was condescending, no :)? while i think you’re setting the bar unrealistically high for what this blog should be, there remains the question about making gandhi and non-violence the normative mutinous ideal (paging the sunbaltern studies folk!)?
locke and liberalism? marx and awareness of exploitation in post-industrial england? cognitive behavioral therapy? smith and the market? auctions? organ-donor-matching algorithms? keynesian economics and staunching the depression? rawls and our preoccupation with distributive justice? central banks? legal doctrines? public action problems? schelling and the cuban missile crisis? the 1000s of empirical questions economists answer as a matter of routine? human behavior is quite complex (of course :)), such that some philosophers (ie many sane ones) argue that even if we discovered the neurochemistry or molecular level explanation of our biology, especially, what happens in the brain — our mental states may still not be characterized by physical phenomena alone (eg explanation of motives, intention, belief formation). socialization, motivation, and the vast complexity of human interaction are no small potatoes. should i say physics is unsuccessful because a unified theory hasn’t coalesced yet? i am not sure which world you live in, but i heart social scientists. and scientists too. and humanists also. as long as they’re smart. which means calling out idiots on the gas tax holiday. thank you economists.
243 · Divya said
the clinical researchers i work with would smirk, and say placebo effect 🙂
The physical sciences are junk sciences and have not gotten us anywhere. For all the physics and astronomy there is still cluelessness about the origin of the universe. For all the biology people still die horribly of cancer, for all the chemistry people can’t still make MRE’s that don’t taste like crap because of preservatives.
Given your comment, you must be one of the postmodernists you so abhor.
To me, the troubling question is this: Who gets to decide what is scientific method?
Nobody ever decides the scientific method. First per se, there is no recipe for scientific method.
I hate to say this is one of the most substandard thread I have read in ages, which had the potential of becoming an amazing thread on endeavor of science, society, and human interaction, but either commenters are sounding like first-semester graduate student or very parochial in approach or plain mediocre. There are some exceptions here on this thread, but, few and far between. Yes, FFT is just an algorithm to compute fourier transform in a very efficient manner by computers, and is very easily provable its efficacy.
Let us look at some of the paradigm shifting science endeavors, and how did they proceeded, were hindered or encouraged by society at that time. Sure, it is constrained by culture it is set in, but primarily driven by man’s innate curiosity, and quest to discover. The age of earth controversy (going back to Hutton and all), and Church is testament of science progresses, and has no fixed trajectory.
But before I go into half a dozen examples, let me give, one of the most amazing scientific experiment of modern era, which really explains how science happens, the Rutherford’s scattering experiment:
Such a simple experiment shows a very simple process, science is just done by keeping your eyes open, and have the brilliance to observe, and infer, which in real life, very few people posses, be it scientists, or non-scientists.
Now let us look at age of modern rockertery. Even though to make a rocket work is an incredibly difficult task, but some governing equations and the concepts (be it Newton’s third law, or escape velocity concept or angular momentum) that makes it happen are amazingly simple, and you see shuttle going up there. But look at the history modern rockerty, New York Times had publicly ridiculed Robert Goddard when he used to experiment with rockets, but had to apologize when Neil Armstrong landed on moon.
Now, let’s look at the atomic age, which defined the entire 20th century, how it evolved from the quest of nature of atom (which in itself has gone through amazing changes in paradigm from alchemy’s concept to Dalton’s models to sea of ether to nucleus/ electron model). Hold behold, a simple concept of chain reaction forms the basis of atomic bomb, that is another story, that achieving a controlled chain reaction is very difficult, but when you put brightest human minds together (Oppenheimer, Bethe, Fermi, Bohr, Feynmen, and many more), you can make it happen.
Well, is it driven by culture, yes, like modern experimental style in western science has origins with the way alchemies did experiments, or earlier scientists like Lavousier and all, and most importantly the Jesuits priests, who experimenters of seismology, and biological sciences. But then islamic world laid the framework for lot of modern mathematics, but it was constantly being fused with western (greek) mathematical methodologies, and Hindu too. However, in the end, it is just a human quest, as basic as my cat’s inquisitiveness.
It is the curiosity, and fresh eyes of human beings that drives science, not some dogma preaching or trying to put in a box. Let’s look at another paradigm shift of 20th century, the history of plate tectonics in brief. There is this guy, Alferd Wagener, who is a glaciologists and a meterologists, he understands how ice sheets retreats, has looked at rocks at many continents, and shore lines, comes up with a theory of continental drift. Most of the geologist at that time think, he is cuckoo. Sure, he has a theory but he does not understand how it works (the concept of mantle convection and all have not been formed yet, like Lord Kelvin’s age of earth calculation was wrong, since radioactivity was not discovered when Kelvin made the calculations). So nobody really believes what he is saying, except few South African geologists, because they have seen rocks in South Africa and Australia, and they find a link. Hold behold there is World War II, there is Princeton Geologist who is a submarine commanders, and starts discovering intriguing sea floor features. He starts thinking about mantle convection, but still it is all poetry (in his own words, geopoetry).
Sure nothing would have happened if cold war would have not ensued, US of A wants to map the hell of the sea floor, and they ships 24/ 7 mapping sea floor (for submarine tracking), and they start seeing patterns – the mid ocean ridges (they look like zippers holding the earth’s outer veneer together). Now, there is this graduate student at Lamont Doherty Lab, Columbia University who is curious enough to match magnetic data on either side of mid-ocean ridges – and guess what, he finds a symmetry, and that is becomes one of the greatest discovery of modern earth sciences, and sets the stage of paradigm shift. After all, Alferd Wagener was right, wasn’t he.
The moral of the story: Science, Techology, Discovery (be it Columbus or Magellen or Apollo Missions) have no fixed methodologies. They happen because, there are human beings, amongst us are curious enough to go and think where no one else dared to. This has nothing to do with pedantic hand waving.
233 · bytewords said
ever heard of biased end-points in clinical research?
To me, the troubling question is this: Who gets to decide what is scientific method?
Nobody ever decides the scientific method. First per se, there is no recipe for scientific method.
I hate to say this is one of the most substandard thread I have read in ages, which had the potential of becoming an amazing thread on endeavor of science, society, and human interaction, but either commenters are sounding like first-semester graduate student or very parochial in approach or plain mediocre. There are some exceptions here on this thread, but, few and far between. Yes, FFT is just an algorithm to compute fourier transform in a very efficient manner by computers, and is very easily provable its efficacy.
Let us look at some of the paradigm shifting science endeavors, and how did they proceeded, were hindered or encouraged by society at that time. Sure, it is constrained by culture it is set in, but primarily driven by man’s innate curiosity, and quest to discover. The age of earth controversy (going back to Hutton and all), and Church is testament of science progresses, and has no fixed trajectory.
But before I go into half a dozen examples, let me give, one of the most amazing scientific experiment of modern era, which really explains how science happens, the Rutherford’s scattering experiment:
Such a simple experiment shows a very simple process, science is just done by keeping your eyes open, and have the brilliance to observe, and infer, which in real life, very few people posses, be it scientists, or non-scientists.
Now let us look at age of modern rockertery. Even though to make a rocket work is an incredibly difficult task, but some governing equations and the concepts (be it Newton’s third law, or escape velocity concept or angular momentum) that makes it happen are amazingly simple, and you see shuttle going up there. But look at the history modern rockerty, New York Times had publicly ridiculed Robert Goddard when he used to experiment with rockets, but had to apologize when Neil Armstrong landed on moon.
Now, let’s look at the atomic age, which defined the entire 20th century, how it evolved from the quest of nature of atom (which in itself has gone through amazing changes in paradigm from alchemy’s concept to Dalton’s models to sea of ether to nucleus/ electron model). Hold behold, a simple concept of chain reaction forms the basis of atomic bomb, that is another story, that achieving a controlled chain reaction is very difficult, but when you put brightest human minds together (Oppenheimer, Bethe, Fermi, Bohr, Feynmen, and many more), you can make it happen.
Well, is it driven by culture, yes, like modern experimental style in western science has origins with the way alchemies did experiments, or earlier scientists like Lavousier and all, and most importantly the Jesuits priests, who experimenters of seismology, and biological sciences. But then islamic world laid the framework for lot of modern mathematics, but it was constantly being fused with western (greek) mathematical methodologies, and Hindu too. However, in the end, it is just a human quest, as basic as my cat’s inquisitiveness.
It is the curiosity, and fresh eyes of human beings that drives science, not some dogma preaching or trying to put in a box. Let’s look at another paradigm shift of 20th century, the history of plate tectonics in brief. There is this guy, Alferd Wagener, who is a glaciologists and a meterologists, he understands how ice sheets retreats, has looked at rocks at many continents, and shore lines, comes up with a theory of continental drift. Most of the geologist at that time think, he is cuckoo. Sure, he has a theory but he does not understand how it works (the concept of mantle convection and all have not been formed yet, like Lord Kelvin’s age of earth calculation was wrong, since radioactivity was not discovered when Kelvin made the calculations). So nobody really believes what he is saying, except few South African geologists, because they have seen rocks in South Africa and Australia, and they find a link. Hold behold there is World War II, there is Princeton Geologist who is a submarine commanders, and starts discovering intriguing sea floor features. He starts thinking about mantle convection, but still it is all poetry (in his own words, geopoetry).
Sure nothing would have happened if cold war would have not ensued, US of A wants to map the hell of the sea floor, and their ships are 24/ 7 mapping the sea floor (for submarine tracking), and they start seeing patterns – the mid ocean ridges (they look like zippers holding the earth’s outer veneer together). Now, there is this graduate student at Lamont Doherty Lab, Columbia University who is curious enough to match magnetic data on either side of mid-ocean ridges – and guess what, he finds a symmetry, and that is becomes one of the greatest discovery of modern earth sciences, and sets the stage of paradigm shift. After all, Alferd Wagener was right, wasn’t he.
The moral of the story: Science, Techology, Discovery (be it Columbus or Magellen or Apollo Missions) have no fixed methodologies. They happen because, there are human beings, amongst us are curious enough to go and think where no one else dared to. This has nothing to do with pedantic hand waving.