> But the "scientific" evaluation of how it works has all these metaphors and
> cultural assumptions embedded in it. They help determine what will be
> accepted as scientifically proven and what not. That is why Einstein
> repudiated statistical mechanics and Heisenberg accepted it. It had
> nothing to do with the experimental data, but with a deep philosophical
> difference of opinion on the nature of science and the scientifc method
> captured by Einsteins famous justification for repudiating statistical
> mechanics, that "God does not play dice with the universe." There is no
> empirical content in that statement. It is a statement of cultural values
> and belief. It is beliefs like that which shape how science is done and
> what is accepted as legitimate data and what not.
>
Except that Einstein wasn't religious. And it doesn't matter
what he thought - the majority of the scientist accepted the
uncertainty /quantum stuff in a couple of decades, regardless
of their cultural background, because there were more mounting
evidence.
Lots of scientists are religous and - for -me
uncomprehensibly - manage to totally separate their irrational
thinking from their rational thinking. For I think it needs a special
self-delusion or, well, let's face it - hypocracy.
>
> Why did people cling to the Ptolemaic view of astronomy despite the
> contrary data from Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler and even when Copernicus
> came up with a theory which matched their data ? For the best part of two
> hundred years ? Because it meant giving up an entire cultural world view
> and all the social values and power structures that went with it.
>
Common, the earth does look flat. People find it a tod
more easy to believe it's roundness, when the circumnavigation
becomes commonplace. Information got round in those days
even slower then now...
But yes, people need the evidence and a bit of motivation
to go for new ideas. However at some point the evidence becomes
so ovepowering, that the new idea becomes just another fact of life.
> Statistical mechanics presents a similar challenge. It rejects the simple
> mechanical cause and effect arguments of the industrial culture in which
> progress is a value free term and can no more be denied than the earth can
> be prevented from circling round the sun. Progress is the equivalent in
> classical and neo-classical economics to gravity in Newtonian Mechanics.
> It is an anonymous, unexplained external force which governs everything and
> has the force of scientific truth. The whole of classical and neoclassical
> economics apes the classical scientific model. If classical science goes,
> so does neo-classical economics. Just as statisical mechanics requires the
> development of a new science in which the interdependence of observer and
> observed has to be expressly defined, so must an economics be developed in
> which this value neutral position which apes the independence of observer
> and observed in classical science, is dumped and in which values and human
> cultural intentionality is integrated (something which I had the impression
> you favour).
>
not if it implies that it's some sort of static natural law that we can't do
anuything about.
Eva
> Mike
>
>
>
>
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