Centroids:
Not sure why this was called to my attention. Basically I agree with the video
but also think that its message is so obviously true that discussion isn't
necessary.
Sort of like a discussion of whether the British were defeated at Yorktown.
There is nothing to argue about.
This said, it is useful to compare creationists with social constructionists.
Both operate on the basis of "post truth" outlooks, or, better, post
objectivity outlooks.
I have no use either for social constructionist or creationists ("creationists"
as the world is usually understood, anyway, since it seems to me that creation
is "guided" in some sense and because there also seems to be purpose,
in fact, the teleology of nature is easy enough to argue for because
of its explanatory power, something woefully lacking in any kind
of random chance interpretation of the universe).
Philosophically, how can anyone defend either social constructionism
of naive creationism?
Creationism has not been the focus of any of our discussions in the past
even though it has come up a scarce few times, in each instance in a
peripheral sense, and we always passed on to something else -quickly.
Meanwhile I don't recall anyone here making any kind of case for
social constructionism. It doesn't interest anyone, least of all myself.
It is prima facie false -and meaningless.
Not that I haven't run across the homosexual version of this dubious theory
in my research into same-sex sexuality; in that field it pops up
on a regular basis, especially on the part of feminist homosexuals
and "hard left" homosexuals -the kinds of persons who take
John Boswell seriously. But the arguments are so transparently
full of crap that I seldom spend any time refuting them.
That would be like arguing with a headstong 3 year old,
which would be a total waste of time.
Anyway, not exactly a secret, I am a true blue Saint-Simonian
and the foundation of Saint-Simonian philsophy is
empirical science. I'd say that we are far past the simplistic
sciences of ca 1800 AD but this still is, nonetheless,
to discuss science, hence evidence, inductive logic,
truth tests, questioning of one's hypotheses, and so forth.
Or think of it as akin to medicine; there are results
that can be observed and that often can be measured.
The effort almost always is productive and useful.
This does not mean closing the door on genuine mysteries.
What a mistake that would be. But it does say that some mysteries
of the past ceased to be mysterious decades ago, or even centuries ago.
Billy
PS
I wonder what Ernie's take on the video is.
---------------------------
________________________________
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on
behalf of Centroids <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, March 5, 2018 5:32 PM
To: Centroids Discussions
Subject: [RC] Fwd: [FoRK] Science Wars: Is Science a Social Construct?, Women's
Studies as Virus
For Billy. :-)
Sent from my iPhone
Begin forwarded message:
From: "Stephen D. Williams" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Date: March 5, 2018 at 10:21:48 PST
To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: [FoRK] Science Wars: Is Science a Social Construct?, Women's Studies
as Virus
Reply-To: Friends of Rohit Khare <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
This ties together and coherently refutes a wide range of anti-science ideas
and people. Quite the hairy mess.
There are plenty of good terms to learn from this like: science-shy students
(because of cultural association, etc.). Science wars. I suppose that's always
been a thing, in waves. Quite a thing that it's such a thing still, apparently
stronger than ever with people who are serious about theories. Even if the
theories aren't really serious.
The whole video is good, but this is at the paper proposing a strategy for a
"Women's Studies as Virus" approach:
https://youtu.be/bxdBRKmPhe4?t=24m43s
I'm all for general inclusiveness and equality, but this is deep into territory
that is begging for good and persistent mocking. It's fine to not be into
science, but attacking science with pseudoscience in all these ways is
unacceptable. Not that there's any real worry about science, but there are
various negative impacts and the occasional (I hope) dumb decision, in politics
and elsewhere. It's going to take more than Niel to constantly refute all of
this to avoid a nasty infection.
It is amazing that people watch this kind of thing for reasons other than
comedy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jLs-1GpwQM Dr Prof Alex Jones Explains
Advanced Physics
Stephen
--
Stephen D. Williams [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> LinkedIn:
http://sdw.st/in
V:650-450-UNIX (8649) V:866.SDW.UNIX V:703.371.9362 F:703.995.0407
AIM:sdw Skype:StephenDWilliams Yahoo:sdwlignet Resume: http://sdw.st/gres
Personal: http://sdw.st facebook.com/sdwlig<http://facebook.com/sdwlig>
twitter.com/scienteer<http://twitter.com/scienteer>
_______________________________________________
FoRK mailing list
http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork
--
--
Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community
<[email protected]>
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism
Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
--
--
Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community
<[email protected]>
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism
Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
