a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by OftenBen

Have you read the full text of the Damore memo?

Have you read the full text of Boghossian et. al's work? Listened to their explanations of their methodology and the feedback they received from academics in positions of authority?

I am a full and complete advocate for the development and advancement of 'soft' sciences. Anthropology made me completely reconsider the way that I approach healthcare, medicine and research. Part of the maturation of the field is the critical analysis of the methods by which research is conducted, reviewed and published. The fact that Boghossian and company were able to pull this off, regardless of either their ideological slant or the slant of the people they were submitting papers to, is an indictment of the whole process by which these things get approved and published.

I'm not anti-social justice. I'm not against the study of the many different factors that delineate human diversity. I am firmly against the idea that ideology should be put above the honest collection and analysis of data. I am firmly against censorship.

A thing or idea is not good or valuable just because it is status quo. Improvements can always be made. And these things have real world consequence because lawmakers and administrators are taking the conclusions of this branch of academia seriously. If that is the case then it behooves us to make sure that those conclusions are driven by the way the world actually is, not the way a few radicals decide it should be. Pizza isn't a vegetable no matter how many times the government says it is.

But sure, dismiss this massively important moment of possible growth and change as bigoted. Let's keep things going exactly the way that they are, seems to be working well so far.





Quatrarius  ·  1956 days ago  ·  link  ·  

it is theoretically possible to read the same thing, consider + analysis it based on the best of your knowledge, weigh whether its supporting evidence is strong/weak, and come to different conclusions

this is because different people have different perspectives in life and thus have varying levels of knowledge / attitudes about different topics

    Bad think is bad

every day judgements are made that are contrary to the ones you made, and these judgements can also be valid

    But sure, dismiss this massively important moment of possible growth and change as bigoted. Let's keep things going exactly the way that they are, seems to be working well so far.

i know mr. bl00 doesn't like it when people just say the names of logical fallacies instead of actually arguing, but i do think that it's worth pointing this out as a strawman - i don't think galen thinks that "things" are perfect now / should keep on going how they are, he just doesn't think that sokal affair 2 electric boogaloo is enough to dismiss "the whole process by which these things get approved and published"

in my own personal very humble opinion i think that getting some of these papers published is embarrassing for these journals, but not an indictment of... what this is supposed to be an indictment of - it feels like another gotcha moment for those crazy academics and i don't think it's useful / productive in establishing more rigor in publishing (more useful as a shell in the internet culture war bombardment)

going further afield into my extremely unqualified and very subjective opinion, you preach far more than you practice vis-a-vis legitimately entertaining other points of view and it's disappointing to see so many intelligent people suckered into being the militia for the kind of conservatism they claim to oppose

thought daddies are the new god, rise up sheeple

Quatrarius  ·  1956 days ago  ·  link  ·  

in summary: okay, this is epic