-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of ian glendinning Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 2:42 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [MD] Global Warming: Science or Politics?
Hi Case, (Post-modern I can handle, but "postmodern-cult-of-professionals" you may have to explain to me ?) Anyway, responses inserted ... On 2/16/07, Case <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Ian, > > Peer review at minimum is designed to ensure that the editor's deciding > whether or not to publish an article have the faintest clue what the article > is talking about. While certainly politics are involved they are secondary > considerations and they are academic politics not government politics. [IG] Agreed. > > I confess to not having the time or interest to read the Booth article in > full but your exchange with Bradford was interesting. [IG] Thanks for your honesty. Interesting choice of reading though ;-) Glenn will be pleased. > Newton just about > single handedly invented modern science. His reluctance to publish and his > battles with Hook and Royal Society are legendary. But this is the kind of > office politics that is inevitable in any human institution. [IG] Tell me something I didn't know. And when you've done that tell me something relevant to my point. Inevitable, take note, your word. > > Peer review is an academic practice aimed at maintaining the quality of > academic research. The fact that it on occasion fails is not a condemnation > of the practice. Academics are quick to root out and censure mistakes when > they are found. [IG] I'm NOT talking about "mistakes" nor am I condemning it. I'm talking about situations where the balance is closer to rhretoric than objective logic. Of course I support peer review. But the further it gets from simple repeatable cases, further from Newtonian mechanics, the more it depends on rhetoric. Inevitable, as you said. > > All you are doing with this kind of postmodernish-cult-of-professionals talk > is fuelling the kind of misguided and political condemnation of academia > that the Platt's of the world relish. [IG] I'm fully aware of that risk and suffer the slings and arrows constantly, lest I forget. Which is good. In a community like this though, I'd expect people to at least see the middle-ground I'm pointing at, praticularly as it was Pirsig that pointed out to most of us that there was something valuable underlying these damn subjects and objects we're all so quick to divide the world up into. (postmodernish-cult-of-professionals ? you'll have to elaborate.) > > The idea that academia should support the publication of any crazy idea > someone wants to publish is just wrong. [IG] I'd be much obliged if you could point out where I said "any". That would be plain wrong. (Stop excluding middles - "forced" to make a choice between two, I'd make the same one as you, I'm an engineer / technologist / scientist through and through, but "given" a free choice, I choose the middle.) > There are plenty of outlets to > publish anything anyone wants to say. The internet, at least for the time > being, is the great equalizer of information access. [IG] You telling me ? Blogger of this parish ? > But to receive a > "Quality" seal of approval from an academic journal, authors must rightly go > through a process to at least try to make sure their ideas have merit. [IG] A "seal of approval" is a social phenomenon, reliant on rhetoric and social authority ... good when used appropriately, but not foolproof over intellect, and better understood as a result. That's largely what Booth's paper is about. Jeez Pirsig was a teacher of rhetoric ! > > To abandon this goal to some idealized democratization of intellect is sheer > folly. [IG] Abandon. Jeez where did you dream that. No such words ever cross my lips. > Society can eventually learn to love its contrarians but by God they > ought to have to work for that love. There should be obstacles in the path > of wackos. [IG] There are penty, thank god. But equally, thank god, they are only obstacles, not exclusions. It's not all or nothing. Repeat after me ... > > If society is going to be totally open minded there is not telling what kind > of nonsense will pass as common sense. [IG] Totally !?! you extremist. I never used such a word. I'd like to think no nonsense will ever pass me as common sense, but it might strike me as worth thinking about. We're talking quality ... some ideas are better than others, but the better ones ain't necessarily "totally" right, nor the inferior ones "totally" wrong for that matter. Is that so hard to accept, or are you a totalitarian at heart ? I'm disappointed case. Regards Ian > > Case > > > > > moq_discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ > moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
