----- Original Message ----- From: "Trent Shipley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Brin-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, April 14, 2002 10:14 PM Subject: Re: Evolution Question
> > > The folks I cannot at all have a reasonable discussion are the > > postmodernists...the ones who believe that there is no truth, just > > competing narratives. > > > > Dan M. > > Hm. As the closest things to Brin-L's token PoMo there may be a way to > approach this. > > First Post-modernism works best for humanities and near humanities like > lit-crit and history. Its applicability lessens as you move toward chemistry > and mathematics. > > However, PoMo does make what I think should be requisite skeptical moves for > *any* scholarly discipline. > > 1) Assuming a pre-existing (that is empirical) reality is an unwarranted > form of platonism. The good skeptic will at most assume that there are only > subjective perceptions of objects. If I'm a real good skeptic, why should I assume you exist? > 2) The good skeptic will not assume that subjective perceptions can > necessarilly be reconcilled or effectively communicated. Congruence of > subjective positions must be demonstrated. But, for all practical purposes, they are. Why can I get people to build the tools I design? > 2b) Furthermore, such demonstrations are themselves expressions of subjective > positions. If you are arguing that there is no absolute certainty, that's certainly true. But, given all this, why bother studying any humanities. Why isn't one subjective experience as good as another? > 3) Not withstanding #1 and #2, the perceived relevance of problems in *any* > field of inquiry are very subjective. Problem relevance must always be > understood in a social context as a political-economic problem. To be polite, that's pure bunk. What usually happens with arguing with a PoMo is that they won't even thinking of looking at data before it is subjected to such a tortured analysis that anything they want can be proven. As far as I can tell, PoMo folks follow the Marxists in having theory trump data. Let's take an argument from history. For a PoMo person, the Southern Apologist (I forget the proper name) viewpoint that states rights was the main motivation for the South would be just as valid as the now prevalent view that preserving slavery was the main motive of the South in the Civil War. There is no need to analyze source data, because the original intent of the author doesn't really exist. > 3b) It follows that while it might be that a given > truth-statement-per-subjectivity may in some sense be regarded as a qualified > universal truth, the relevance of the said truth, and above all the fact that > the question that led to the truth was even posed must be understood not only > as subjective positions, but more importantly as *interested* points-of-view. Well, its true that no one is truly objective. But, there are better and worse fits to data. No matter what the narrative in the Soviet Union was, Lysenko genetics didn't work. > 3c) Being the *result* of interested subjectivities, any finding (no matter > how universally acceptable as fact or truth) is unlikely to be Pareto > optimal. It produces relative winners and losers. Well > 4) All of the above apply to themselves. Therefore, if you disagree with me > you are not exactly wrong, rather you are just a cretenous philistine > totalitarian @#$%er who needs to read more good artsy-fartsy literature and > *much* less science fiction. IMHO, that's the essential point of PoMo. No matter what data I bring to the table, it is ignored as only valid in the political-social system in which I am trapped. So, there is really no advantage for the people of Europe in having the United States instead of the Soviet Union win the Cold War. The statement that most people who lived in East Germany say they are happier now is simply part of the narrative of the dominant system, and has no real meaning. > > However, items in family #3 should be regarded as behavioral science fact. > They are pretty much a cynical, real-politic description of how inquiry > works--and more importantly how it gets funded. They should be very > important for any scholar or professional who is serious about self-criticism > or social responsibility. Chemists and mathematicians are hardly exempt. But, even though the Soviet Union funded Lysenko genetics to the hilt, it still didn't work. A weak understanding of Po Mo does have validity: the warning that none of us is totally objective is a reasonable one. For example, the viewpoint that one always interprets scripture, that it is impossible to be purely objective. However, I don't think that means that there is nothing but subjective intepretation involved. If there was, there would be no need to study at all, just read and get what you want out of it. Indeed, PoMo people have to do a _very_ elaborate dance which makes it even harder to talk with them when they have to explain why it humanities professors are needed in a PoMo world. Dan M.
