Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Monday, October 22. 2007

Why it's OK for scientists to lie

Because they have The Truth, of course. Dino. Dino reminds us of the famous joke paper by Sokal published by Social Text, arguing that physics is nothing more than an instrument of oppression (and in college, as I recall, it seemed that way).

At Maggie's Farm, we love science and we love the scientific method, but we view it as a gradual and never-ending search for facts, not as Truth.

Posted by The Barrister in Our Essays, Politics at 19:28 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

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Excellent definition of science in your last sentence Barrister. Too many people take the latest facts as Truth til the new set of contradictory facts arrive and become the new Truth de jour.
#1 sean on 2007-10-23 11:03 (Reply)
"Too many people take the latest facts as Truth til the new set of contradictory facts arrive and become the new Truth de jour."

sean's observation is why i find it sad
that several high profile figures
can announce "the science on global warming
is done",and sadder that some many are anxious
and willing to join the foot-stomping mob.


this book title comes up frequently in discussions about the history of science (from Wiki summary):

*The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)*,
by Thomas Kuhn...is an analysis of the history of science. Its publication was a landmark event in the sociology of knowledge, and popularized the terms 'paradigm' and 'paradigm shift'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions
#2 gumshoe on 2007-10-23 16:21 (Reply)

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