A collection of responses:
1) Lou Proyect, who was kind of accused of wasting list bandwidth and
the attention of members by Ulhas for his (Lou's) movie reviews, is,
as far as I can tell, not posting from an AOL address. Nevertheless,
in a bizarre and churlish as well as strangely pompous set of posts,
he suggests that he in some manner owns a thread, and calls us idiots
for not changing the subject line of it, though it neither identifies
him nor his blog. We are, according to him, a bunch of "tenured
professors and their enablers" (I am not a tenured professor so I
guess that makes me an "enabler" -- I am not sure what that means in
this context), who do not advance his learning (he calls it "our"
learning, but thus far, apart from Carrol nobody else seems to share
his fear) -- it is puzzling then why he chooses to stay on the list. I
have always had great respect for Lou (despite my disagreement with
his views on Iran -- and Yoshie's stand -- and pomo), yet I think in
this case Raghu's succinct "Dude, get over it" seems the ideal response.
2) He feels that I have no interest in his views on the Jared Diamond
matter but instead used his post to "drape some rather shop-worn
ideological garments on". First this use of "shop-worn ideological
garments" -- this again is bizarre coming from someone who runs a
"Marxism" mailing list, since the bulk of the rest of the world
considers the framework or analysis employed by Marxists exactly that:
shop-worn ideological garments. I presume that those who use such a
framework, ideology, analytical model (whatever you want to see it as)
do so not because they are riding a personal hobby horse but because
they find it fruitful and central. Much as I do with regards to what
is claimed in the name of science (more on that further below). He is
also wrong on the issue of my interest in this matter. I blogged about
Jared Diamond's silliness way back in June 2008 (http://platosbeard.org/archives/319
), so I am definitely interested in it, and the fact that I read
through to a paragraph deep enough in his long post to respond to it
should make it clear that I am interested as well in what he writes.
3) The real substance of his complaint, and Carrol's own unfortunate
knee jerk response to any post from me that has the word "science" in
it, is that my response is (a) a diversion from his analysis and (b)
it is a worthless diversion. W.r.t (a), as Raghu might say "deal with
it" -- that's how conversations proceed, especially on the Internet.
But let me be clear: I do not consider my post a diversion from the
main issue, at all: that issue being Diamond's disservice to other
populations in his opportunistic misrepresentation of an individual
and a set of events. Lou may think that the issue at the centre is
merely one of research fraud, but I believe it is in fact larger than
that, which is exactly what I was trying to point out in my response.
So, far from being intended as a diversion, it was intended (whether I
presented a convincing argument is a different matter) as a larger
critique of Diamond's activities. Diamond could well be wrong on the
facts and the critique on that front that Lou documents (via SJ
Gould's wife) is a very important one. But (IMHO) there is also a
stronger, larger danger in Diamond's genre (and it is a genre) of
writing. And though Lou may not agree with me on whether this context
is larger, he clearly sees it, for why else would he mention, in the
paragraph I responded to, that despite his "multiculturalist" (the
quotation marks are from Lou) identity Diamond's reasoning is a
throwback to Victorian times (BTW, I think the quotes are quite
appropriate and also relate to the point I made in response i.e.,
there is not a lot of real multiculturalism among liberals when you
scratch below the surface).
4) Carrol, having seen visions in my posts where there were none to be
seen, then goes on to justify his wild goose chase by pointing out
that those who responded to him followed his lead. Well, duh! Let me
restate unambiguously: it should be obvious to the most casual reader
that I stand against the Summers/Pinker (and Dennett) claim [of their
kind of analysis, which is within the context of internal battles in
science] as hard unromantic[izied] thinking based on the data. Carrol
is right in that there is an alternate tradition. He points to Gould
and Lewontin. I offered a quote from Lewontin that in itself should
make clear which party in this internal feud holds the popular
position, and further what that popularity engenders and emboldens.
Google yourself some "group selection", for starters, if you wish.
5) While making claims on my motivations and behaviour, Carrol worries
that I am indulging in mental telepathy or some such. He is trivially
correct: indeed I cannot peer into Diamond's mind. But the point is
what this style of writing represents, as Chomksy notes in his
comments about polite intellectual debate. Certain thoughts/ideas/
considerations are off the table in the current climate, and anything
that smells like feel good "multiculturalism" or "relativism" is one
of them (I also mention why I think this is the case). This is not so
much an issue of what goes on in the minds of others but about what
the environment is in which they wish to publish their thoughts. There
is nothing new or even particularly controversial in all this.
E.O.Wilson felt that all attempts on his part to advance his
sociobiology thesis were thwarted by politically motivated protest.
Similarly for those on the other side who today wish to bring up group
selection. Lynn Margulis, whose contribution to 20th century biology
is revolutionary, is laughed out of court (at least AFAICT) not simply
because some of her holistic ideas are less well-substantiated but
because they do not fit the analytical mood. So on and so forth.
6) Since this has been morphed into a debate about science (and the
various ambiguities that Carrol is introducing with capitalisation and
such), Shane's points are worth restating. The problem with astrology,
if any, is that it is what Lakatos would call a degenerative research
programme. As Shane notes (if I am reading him correctly), astrologers
have attempted to respond to empirical data with hypothesis (most of
them testable), and even developed theories that have predictive
power. Their hypotheses included the spherical nature of the earth,
their techniques included identification of constellations,
calculations to predict the path of planets, and so on. Even by
[naive] falsificationism, there is good reason to reject vague
demarcation that finds astrology on the wrong side of many activities
in academia that include the term "science" in their title. Lewontin,
once again in the quotes I posted, points out not just this, but
further that ideas such as verificationism and falsificationism,
offered to define or demarcate "science", suffer various inadequacies.
Carrol of course will read from this some sort of hostility from me
towards science or scientific activity, but that is not just wrong but
self-serving. My hostility is not towards science, especially not
towards scientific activity (which is an at once opportunistic and
parsimonious affair and is quite different from what is described by
its fanboys and false defenders), but to those individuals (or more
correctly, the theses offered by them: e.g Summers on women, Sokal/
Weinberg/Gross/Levitt/et al on matters outside their expertise as
Lewontin -- quote later -- and Stolzenberg point out, Watson on black
people, so on) who would narrowly define science to further a private
agenda (e.g pomo bashing), glom on to its reputation in order gain
credibility for their position, or offer meaningless lines of
demarcation that accrue all productive rational human activities and
gains, both in terms of knowledge and in technique, to their ill-
demarcated caricature.
With all that out of my way, I want to add one more thing: I do not
consider this a spat between me and Lou Proyect. I continue to find
his writing interesting, I have quoted him on my own blog, and my
response was written in fundamental agreement with the section of his
blog post I quoted (and with the rest, implicitly, in their omission).
Lou might consider me an idiot (or my response idiotic), but I am now
finally old enough not to care.
--ravi
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