I was intrigued to read somewhere that as recently as about a hundred years ago there were criticisms of "lab" experiments, even in physics, because what can you learn about Nature with a contrived unNatural experiment?
Bruce On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 10:51 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES <[email protected]> wrote: > Also... Having theories about normally living humans derived from rats in a > Skinner box is no worse, at least in principle, than having theories about > natually occuring chemicals derived from experiments with purified chemicals > in a sterile lab. I have never seen colleagues in other sciences criticized > for controlling for extraneous variables. Is it really that surprising or > problematic that behavior is more predictable when we can control the > environment, but less predictable when we cannot control the environment and > do not know about an organism's past history? > > (Apparently cranky,) > Eric ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
