On Monday, November 14, 2011 12:43 AM, "ERIC P. CHARLES"
<[email protected]> wrote:
"It is the behavior of a group that is not working towards
consensus, and that is not clear on what the value of specific
replicable results would be. It is the behavior of a group that
vies for prestige through popularity contests and through bean
counting publications regardless of replicability or actual
progress being made. It is self-serving behavior, well adapted to
the landscape of a field that lacks a core theory."
At the risk of annoying everyone (except perhaps Nick) - I would
suggest that, with regard to the preceding paragraph, physics is
no different from psychology. Feyeraband, Knorr-Certina,
Christopher Alexander ("self conscious process") and many other
observers of how science is really done as opposed to self
serving reports of how it is supposed to be done.
How fast a discipline's thinking ossifies to a consensual theory
is a function of the need to protect one's research funding and
repelling challengers with outre ideas - not the substantiveness
of the "core theory."
dave west
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