LBird
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ALB wrote:But, in turn, I put a question to you: what in your view are the criteria by which to judge whether a theory or view is "knowledge" or just fantasy or wrong/inaccurate/inadequate?
Now, we’re getting to the nub of the issue, aren’t we?Before I try to answer that essential question, though, I’d like to sum up where I think we are now about the ‘scientific method’, by the use of analogy.I’ve already posted my ‘NHS Computer System building process’ in an attempt to explain the actual cognitive process that science takes, in my opinion. I’ll post it again, for any readers who have missed (or, indeed, forgotten!) that post:
LBird, post #145, wrote:In line with alanjjohnstone’s request for someone to try to ‘explain this thread to the rest of us in an easy to understand way so we know what it's all about’, and my suggestion that the world of computers might help, I’ll make an attempt to use the analogy of ‘building a computer system’. Of course, the problem with analogies is that, if they’re taken too literally, they obscure rather than illuminate the real issue. So, please bear this in mind, and ask questions if something seems to present a problem, rather than take something which is irrelevant to the explanation and erroneously try to follow that wrong turn and completely misunderstand.If we think of the process of building a computer system, say, for the NHS.The NHS really exists, prior to the attempt to build a computer system for it.The business analysts who ask questions of the doctors, nurses and administrators of the NHS to try to gain an understanding of the workings of the NHS, the system designers who interpret the analysis and produce a paper design of something which should work, the programmers who actively write the code following the design, and the testers who ensure that the code ‘works’ in line with the design, are all humans with pre-existing ideas, both of their own jobs, each others’ jobs, and the NHS itself. These humans have to extract relevant information from the NHS, actively design, write and use a plan reflecting the NHS.The end result of this human active process is a new product, an NHS Computer System, which in some way reflects the workings of the NHS, but is clearly not a ‘carbon copy’ of the NHS, but only a comprehensive attempt to replicate the features regarded as essential and relevant to the computer system.So, in terms of the separate entities of Schaff’s tripartite theory of cognition:the NHS is the ‘object’;the human analysts, designers, coders and testers, are the ‘subject’;the NHS Computer System is the ‘knowledge’.Is the System a ‘true’ reflection of the NHS? Yes, if it works as proposed.Is the System an identical copy of the NHS? Of course not. Another System could be built, produced by different analysts, designers, coders and testers, with different ideas about what the NHS is, and what purposes and interests the System should serve, and this second System can also be regarded as a ‘true reflection’ of the NHS, whilst still being different to the other ‘true reflection’ of the first System.As another example of this tripartite schema, perhaps posters remember DJP’s likening ‘nature’ (object) to ‘evidence’, and my response that ‘evidence’ instead was similar to ‘knowledge’ which had been selected from a ‘crime scene’. In this example, the ‘crime scene’ (object) forms the basis of an active examination by the legal offices (subject) who then build a case of evidence (knowledge).This is the cognitive method of science: scientists (subject) actively interrogate the universe (object) and employ the product (knowledge) to prove itself.Perhaps one could say that ‘knowledge’ is a representation accurate enough for the purposes of the producer. Thus, knowledge is formed by humans from the entity it represents for a reason, and the ability of the knowledge to be used for those reasons proves its accuracy.But… knowledge is not the object; knowledge is not an identical copy of object; knowledge is a selection made by an interested subject.I hope this all helps, comrades. I would appreciate some feedback from those readers who didn’t feel that they properly understood the more arcane parts of this thread, but that now they do (or don’t, as it may be).We have here all the elements of the scientific method, and perhaps we could, too, liken it to a baker making pies.The constituents of the pie exist prior to the attempt to bake the pie, but the pie doesn’t emerge from the baker merely looking at the ingredients. The process requires the interaction of two things: the ingredients and an active human. The pie is created by the human working upon the ingredients. Thus, we have a third entity, which is an admixture of real ingredients and human creativity. The pie is based upon the real ingredients, but is not a mere ‘copy’ of the ingredients.It’s doesn’t take much imagination to realise, though, that the ingredients themselves don’t magically appear on the table: they are also selected, according to the tastes, abilities, training and culture of the baker: the selecting baker is an amalgam of individual and social elements. And furthermore, the process of baking a pie includes some accidental elements, like mood or an oven which had developed a dodgy thermostat. Finally, the same ingredients baked by another baker could result in a very different pie, or a different baker may choose slightly different ingredients for the same type of pie (better cuts of meat, salt, pepper, etc.).This pie-making method, I would argue, is far closer to the knowledge-making method of science than we are lead to believe, by those who would have us just blindly accept ‘science’ as an unquestionable authority for their deeds.Often, those who argue for the authority of the scientific method say that ‘replicability’ is a key element, but this often a gray area. Anyone who has studied the sciences in school will know that often an experiment is followed to the teacher’s precise instructions, but still doesn’t work. The pupil is then blamed, rather than encouraging the belief that science is more variable than the scientific authorities would like society to believe. And what counts as a ‘replica’? Anyway, for info:http://cogprints.org/7691/7/icmlws09.pdfSo, to return to ALB’s essential question:
ALB wrote:But, in turn, I put a question to you: what in your view are the criteria by which to judge whether a theory or view is "knowledge" or just fantasy or wrong/inaccurate/inadequate?Given my beliefs as a Communist and following the outlined theory of cognition of science, I’d argue that the only ‘criteria’ which can ever be acceptable for humans are those arrived at by the society that is doing the human social activity of science. The current ‘criteria’ of the bourgeoisie won’t be the future ‘criteria’ of the proletariat.Thus, I’d argue that, for Communist society, the ‘judgment’ between ‘knowledge’ and ‘fantasy’ should be a democratic one. Of course, this is predicated upon a society where all productive activity, including scientific research and development, is under democratic control, and every member of humanity has open to them a scientific education up to post-PhD research, where to be a ‘scientist’ is to be taught to have the ability to explain their work in terms understandable by those affected by that science, where all scientific research papers are openly available to all, and where all children and taught to think critically about all affairs that affect their society.Or is there an arcane method, beyond the ken of ordinary folk, which can’t be explained by simple analogy, which must remain the concern of a scientific priesthood, which produces ‘Truth’, an eternal and socially-neutral truth?No, science is political, and we Communists must argue for its control by our society, just as we do for our economics and politics, through democratic means.
'Shame' as part of science? Who'd've thought it? How can an allegedly 'neutral method' bring 'shame', which is an all-too-human feeling?
A Nobel prize winner wrote:“Another problem is that scientists begin to feel ashamed of negative results, which wasn’t the case a few years ago. Negative results are often as important as the positive results. The current system doesn’t tolerate failure."http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/dash-for-cash-is-stopping-science-in-its-tracks-claims-nobel-winner-8539744.htmlThese discoveries by scientists (and I mean the discovery of how shit capitalism is for science, not graphene) opens up the possibility of Communists providing an alternative approach. Only free access Communism can provide the socio-economic basis of anything approaching 'blue-skies research'.
Well, from what I can tell by the quote by Pannekoek you have provided, ALB, as the basis of your theory of cognition, it seems to agree with the one that I’ve put forward, based upon Schaff.I’ve argued that an active social subject interacts with a really-existing object, to produce knowledge, which is based upon, but not identical to, the object.As I think we both agree with a) the premise of the object being real and prior to cognition, and b) the premises that the subject is both social (not an isolated individual) and is active (not a passive registering instrument, but a searching and selective producer), we should clarify some issues about knowledge, to ensure we agree on the nature of this third entity, too.Of course, there is more to be said of both object and subject, where other posters might disagree with us (for example, some might argue that ‘real object’ doesn’t include ideas, but only things that can be ‘touched’ (ie. the ‘material’ or ‘matter’), or argue that the subject is an individual), but I think we agree on these two entities, so far.The part of the process of cognition that I think is worth clarifying is the issue of the ‘production of knowledge’. That is, it is a third entity which differs from the object of which it is knowledge of, and that it is ‘actively produced’, and so must contain elements of the producer.These, then, are my two questions:Do you agree that ‘knowledge’ is a separate entity to ‘object’?Do you agree that ‘knowledge’ is ‘produced’, rather than is an identical copy?Of course, if you think that I’ve posed those two questions in an unclear or unfair way, it’s open to you to discuss a ‘re-formulation’ of them! And if you disagree from the start that Pannekoek’s quote supports Schaff, then we can re-examine the quote in detail.
twc wrote:For you [LBird], the scientific enterprise is riddled with fraud, which the scientific enterprise is powerless to detect, expose and correct.LBird wrote:Sometimes the active social subject can be fallible, thus knowledge is untrue.This can be established by a later attempt at producing knowledge by another active social subject, employing a different theory, interacting with the objective world.twc, you seem to have the strange ability to 'write', but not have the usually concommitant ability to 'read'.As I never tire of saying, I'm attempting to support the 'scientific method', by explaining 'what' it actually is, rather than, as you seem to be trying to do, to defend the indefensible, that the activity of science can't be questioned, and to argue that those who do are trying to destroy science.We Communists have to defend science, on a basis that can be defended against the exposures of fraud, like Kammerer or Burt (and many others), and against the bourgeois authority of 'scientific Truth', which supposedly employs a method that produces a Truth which is final, and to which There Is No Alternative.Science, unlike the other bourgeois authority of The Market, can be saved.But we have to discuss it, and put science on a truly scientific footing which encompasses all scientific activity, from physics to sociology, through chemistry, biology, psychology, etc. Science is a human activity. We have to identify a Communist method, and reject the bourgeois method.The starting point, however, is to realise that science is a social activity, and is thus suffused with human ideology, biases, theories and, sometimes, outright individual or class-systematic fraud.In essense, science is a political activity, not a neutral method of discovery.
ALB wrote:Anyway, you have conceded the point by saying that the outside world precedes thinking. Which makes you a materialist after all.Well, since from my very first post I've argued that the 'object' exists outside of, and precedes, the process of cognition, your triumphal point about my 'concession' (sic) isn't very productive for a discussion of 288 posts, is it?What's being avoided is discussion of 'the process of cognition'.Why can't you describe your process of cognition, ALB?I accept object, subject and knowledge as separate entities in this process, and argue that the interaction between an active social subject and a pre-existing object produces knowledge.Thus, 'knowledge' can't be identical to 'object', because it's the product of an interaction with a subject which actively searches and selects from object, and with those materials builds a structure of knowledge.Sometimes the active social subject can be fallible, thus knowledge is untrue.This can be established by a later attempt at producing knowledge by another active social subject, employing a different theory, interacting with the objective world.But we can never reach a final, complete, absolute truth, because that would be to duplicate the object of cognition in every way, which is impossible.Finally, I'm not a 'materialist', I'm a 'historical materialist'.That's why I can explain the history of the production of knowledge, unlike those who see science as a discovery of the object, which Pannekoek also warns us against.IF HISTORICAL MATERIALIST GOTO: ENDELSE GOTO: POST1END"I accept Schaff's tripartite theory of cognition, of preexisting object interacting with active social subject to produce knowledge"
lets guess who wrote:I read those sociologists as asserting that natural scientists lack scientific integrity. This is I believe, for the reasons I gave, a quite undeserved charge against scientists of conscious human fraud.Perhaps those still afflicted with 19th century-like awesome respect for, gosh, scientists!, should have a read of, for example, Chapter 7 Scientific Misconduct, in Jonathan Marks’ Why I Am Not a Scientist.[to forestall a certain poster’s apoplexy, Marks does regard himself as a scientist, it’s just rhetoric for a book title, to help sales in our wonderful market-driven society]The ‘midwife toad’ fraud (pp. 171-7) is simply hilarious. The biologist Paul Kammerer experimented on the Alytes obstetricans, the common midwife toad, and produced ‘nuptial pads’ (a feature of water-dwelling species) on the land-dwelling midwife toad and got them to transmit through the generations. He said.
Marks wrote:Then Nature published the results of G. Kingsley Noble’s analysis of the nuptial pads of Kammerer’s midwife toad: there were no nuptial pads; the darkened patches were the result of injections of India ink.There are other examples. Some ‘natural scientists’, being human, are fallible, for any number of reasons, and lie about their experiments, results and ideas.Natural scientists commit ‘conscious human fraud’.
ALB wrote:Actually, this gives me a chance to raise something I've been wanting to but have avoided till now so as not to get into an argument over semantics, i.e your view of what "positivism" is.Positivism is the view that the only source of ideas and knowledge is experience.I disagree with your definition of ‘positivism’, here, ALB. I think positivism goes further than ‘experience’, and claims that ‘experience’ provides ‘positive’ proof of ‘objective reality’. This claim can’t be true, because we know that science both makes mistakes and can only give a ‘partial truth’ of the ‘object’, at best.In its simplest form, it claims that the scientific method can’t be wrong. The twentieth century has put paid to that ideological claim!
ALB wrote:It is a rejection of all "metaphysics", i.e. of the view that there is anything outside or beyond the world of experience. In this sense both Dietzgen and Pannekoek were "positivists".I think most would now call this ‘realism’, rather than ‘positivism’ for the historic reasons given above. I think that perhaps Pannekoek and Dietzgen would now disclaim being called ‘positivists’, given its authoritarian and conservative overtones.
ALB wrote:Positivism is not committed to the view that "'sense impressions' tell us the 'whole truth'", only that knowledge is constructed by the mind by organising sense impressions.Not just ‘organising’ but determining what actually constitutes a ‘sense-impression’ and selecting from the overwhelming number by using a pre-existing theory.Positivism is the antithesis of Critical Realism, which I would argue is the best method for Marxists to employ.
ALB wrote:I can't see how anyone (other than an idealist) can argue that sense-impressions are not primary, but that before they can be experienced the person experiencing them has to have a theory.This is to argue that ‘sense-impressions’ are transmitted purely to the brain/mind. Young Master Smeet has already given an example which seems to contradict this belief, and DJP’s video shows that ‘sense-impressions’ are selected by an active mind, and that the ‘sense-impression’ of the gorilla was ignored.
ALB wrote:This is not how a child acquires knowledge (nor how the pre-human mind would have evolved into the human mind). For the new-born child, the world is indeed a mass of mere sensations which it eventually learns to make some sense of by learning the names of parts of it.We are discussing the method of science, rather than infants, but even so the child must be taught by society before it can ‘name names’.You show me a new-born child removed from all social influence, and 2 years later, I’ll show you, not a cognising human making sense of the world through their ‘sense-impresssions’ alone, but a corpse. The child is primed with ‘theory’.
ALB wrote:As someone once put it if not in so many words, sensations (or, rather, the outside world that gives rise to them in humans) have to precede thinking about them.No, the ‘outside world’, or object, precedes ‘thinking’, but ‘sensations’ don’t necessarily. Have your ever ‘sensed’ Tasmania (or somewhere you haven’t been, if my example falls down by you actually having been to Tasmania!), or is just a theoretical construct in our minds, but which we can scientifically prove, if we wanted, by flying there? Theory precedes practice.
Brian wrote:And we organise "sense impressions" by filtering those which have no immediate effect on our circumstances. This filtering also avoids overwhelming our mind with too much information.Yes, the ‘filter’ is a ‘theory’, as I have been arguing. Logically, the filter must precede the sense-impression. This is the mistake that ‘positivism’ was making, by arguing that ‘sense-impressions’ are primary (as opposed to arguing that the object pre-exists sensation), and that there is no filter, if the mind remains ‘passive’, just takes in sensations, and ignores ideologies. This can’t be done. The human mind is active, as Marx argued, and we all have ‘social-filters’ to all of our ‘sense-impressions’. The human mind searches through innumerable sense-impressions. This applies to physics, as much as sociology. Hence, we have the makings of a ‘unified method’, which Marx thought possible for humans to construct.Time to stop. I’ll try to come up with an example, later.
Pannekoek wrote:When, however, in consequence of the development of the productive forces, the world is changing, new and different impressions enter the mind which do not fit in with the old image. There then begins a process of rebuilding, out of parts of old ideas and new experiences. Old concepts are replaced by new ones, former roles and judgments are upset, new ideas emerge.http://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/society-mind/ch03.htmobject (new experiences) interacts (process of rebuilding) with subject (old ideas) to produce knowledge (new ideas).
If we can leave the intricacies of Bogdanov side for the moment, ALB, you’ve said something that I don’t agree with.
ALB wrote:They would merely be saying that "sense-impressions" precede thinking about them (a not unreasonable position that we have been trying to convince you of).But ‘sense-impressions’ don’t precede thinking about them. Of course, the external world exists before we think about it, but science is the application of our minds (and their social theories) to the external world, through our sense-impressions. But what we consider ‘sense-impressions’ is determined by our theory. If we started from ‘sense-impressions’, we’d be overwhelmed by infinite sensation, and have to accept the ‘bucket theory of mind’. So, I think it is an entirely ‘unreasonable position’ to take! The notion of the ‘primacy’ of ‘sense-impressions’ is empiricism and inductivism. And the belief that these ‘sense-impressions’ tell us the ‘whole truth’ is positivism.
ALB wrote:Dietzgen and Pannekoek, starting from the same premises as Mach and Bogdanov (that all knowledge is derived from our sense-impressions), did not make this mistake.I’m not sure about this, ALB. We have ‘scientific knowledge’ of many things that we have never had a ‘sense-impression’ of, otherwise how could we account for the ‘scientific knowledge’ of ‘the ether’?The whole point of my argument is that science, being a human fallible method, can be wrong. But if ‘all knowledge is derived from our sense-impressions’, how do we account for false ‘scientific knowledge’, if it can be ‘sensed’?It’s better to regard scientific knowledge as built up from theory and sense-impressions, which leaves us the option of realising that the ‘theory’ was wrong (when confronted by a better theory tested against later sense-impressions). Surely ‘sense-impressionism’ is naïve realism?I’m still basing my ideas on Schaff’s tripartite schema of object and subject interacting, to produce knowledge. I’ll have to have a further look at Pannekoek, on your claim that he thought ‘all knowledge is derived from our sense-impressions’.
Prefatory comment:Rowley doesn’t define what he means by ‘scientific’, but he seems to share ‘common sense’ opinions that ‘science’ produces ‘objective knowledge’, in the positivist sense.
Rowley, pp.2-3, wrote:Marxism, however, [regarding]…working class revolution …predicted what must happen in the world as the result of the operation of objective laws of history… Marxism, precisely because it was a scientific statement about the world …How ever, the authority of its science depended upon a valid epistemology. Scientific socialists could act without moral blame only if they had confidence in their ability to know objectively the laws of history.As ever, no mention of the proletariat democratically determining ‘objective knowledge’, a ‘scientific knowledge’ which must always be ‘socially-objective’, rather than ‘objective’ in the positivist sense of ‘knowledge being a reflection of reality’. This is not possible.
Rowley, p.5, wrote:Bogdanov sought a form of empiricism that could provide certainty without relying upon Kantian categories. He realized the centrality of epistemology to the debate, but (in light of contemporary trends in philosophy) he declined to rely on Plekhanov's unsophisticated "reflection" theory of knowledge. Following the empiriocriticism of Ernst Mach, Bogdanov espoused a strict empiricism and denied the possibility of a priori knowledge of any sort at all.We can reject Plekhanov’s (and Lenin’s) ‘reflection theory of knowledge’ (naïve realism) without needing to fall into empiricism. Theory precedes observation.
Rowley, p.5, wrote:Following the empiriocriticism of Ernst Mach, Bogdanov espoused a strict empiricism and denied the possibility of a priori knowledge of any sort at all…. Bogdanov defined reality in terms of experience: The real world is identical with human perception of it. Bogdanov's universe was a monist system, but the monism was "a type of organization according to which experience is systematized." It is a monism of "knowing method." In Empiriomonism, the first major collection of his positivist writings, Bogdanov illustrated how this was possible. "The basis of 'objectivity,' must lie in the sphere of collective experience … The objective character of the physical world consists in the fact that it exists not for me individually but for everyone, and for everyone has a definite meaning, exactly, I am convinced, as it does for me." In this way the sense of a real external world, the knowledge, and the values of any particular social group are not the mere subjective whims of individuals. "Reality" is made up of the shared perceptions of the collective consciousness of a society. "The physical world is collectively organized experience."Bogdanov seems to equate ‘reality’ (ie. object) with ‘knowledge’. We have already seen that this can’t be done. Object, subject and knowledge are separate cognitive categories, and ‘knowledge’ is an on-going process, not a ‘once-for-all-time’ discovery, which some authority then ‘knows’ with finality.Given the rest of the article’s quotes from Bogdanov, I’m inclined to view Bourrinet’s opinion’s of Bogdanov in a more favourable light than you do, ALB.Rowley also mentions Lenin.
Rowley, p.12, wrote:Lenin attempted to achieve an objective justification of his social ideals. He required objective proof of proletarian revolution without which his program would have been mere subjective idealism. In order to preserve scientific inevitability, Lenin had to insist on materialist monism and the possibility of objective knowledge.As we now know from the events after 1917, those who argue for ‘the possibility of objective knowledge’ and ‘scientific inevitability’ are defending ‘authority’ in science, which inexorably leads to defending ‘authority’ in politics.Communism must involve the democratic control of all social authority, including ‘science’.
Rowley, p.12, wrote:Why did Lenin insist on Plekhanov's and Engels' scientism, determinism, and materialism?Yes, Engels will come into our discussions, eventually, but it needs to be on another thread.
Rowley, p.15, wrote:Bogdanov's Empiriomonism may have been originally conceived in order to justify violent revolution, but his intellectually honest philosophical development toward moderation and cultural transformation has left him with a deservedly high reputation as both a philosopher and a revolutionary.Needless to say, I don’t share Rowley’s opinion of Bogdanov’s ‘deservedly high reputation’. I think Bogdanov was a bourgeois intellectual, as was Lenin and is Rowley.None of the three mention workers’ democratic control of all aspects of social life. That, to me, is the peak of ‘intellectual honesty’.All in all, ALB, I think that I have great differences, epistemological and political, with Bogdanov. I’ve ordered Kolakowski’s book, and will read his opinions of Bogdanov, but I think that your advice to me to look to Bogdanov, in some way, is seriously misplaced.
ALB, have you read:Bogdanov and Lenin: Epistemology and RevolutionDavid G. RowleyStudies in East European Thought, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Mar., 1996), pp. 1-19
Quote:ABSTRACT. This paper explains how A. Bogdanov changed from a left Bolshevik impatient for armed insurrection into a moderate proponent of revolution through cultural transformation by placing him in the context of a debate over epistemology among Russian Social Democrats in the early twentieth century. By relying on neo Kantian epistemology to justify socialist revolution, N. Berdyaev actually began to turn away from Marxism. Lenin espoused a naive realism that was consistent with scientific socialism, but which did not satisfy Bogdanov. Empiriomonism, Bogdanov's neo-Positivist epistemology, led him away from violent revolution and toward a proletarian cultural revolution.I haven't read it, yet, myself, but will do so soon.
Thanks for your opinion, ALB.
ALB wrote:Anyway, (for what it's worth) here is Kolakowski's summary of some of Bogdanov's views (he devotes 11 pages of his Main Currents of Marxism to discussing them).I'll have to get hold of Kolakowski's first volume, and dig a bit deeper.
For ALB, info regarding our discussion of Bogdanov:
Bourrinet, The Dutch and German Communist Left (1900-68), pp. 229-30, wrote:Within the RSDLP, and especially in the bolshevik fraction, there was a whole tendency, represented principally by Bazarov, Lunacharsky and Bogdanov, which defended, within the party and even externally, the empiriocritical conceptions of Mach and Avenarius, with the aim of ‘going beyond’ Marx’s limitations. With Bogdanov, the social process was reduced to the biological process of the organism adapting to the environment, and the relations of production were reduced to the purely technical aspects of the organisation of labour – a thesis which in some ways prefigured the stalinist view. At the same time, by affirming that social life is in all its manifestations a conscious psychic life”, that “social existence and social consciousness are identical in the exact sense of the word”, Bogdanov denied the marxist thesis that consciousness only reflects social life more or less, that it lags behind it, and that material social existence develops independently of the social consciousness of humanity. The implications of Bogdanov’s view were that social classes were always conscious of the social relations presiding over their activity in production, and thus that the revolutionary consciousness of the proletariat – which in Marxist theory is alone capable of seeing social reality clearly – was no different from the consciousness of other, non-proletarian social strata. In this sense, Bogdanov was simply reflecting his old populist conceptions, which Bolshevism had always fought against. Under the cover of ‘empirio-criticism’, Bogdanov’s theories opened the door to a mechanistic, fatalistic conception of the revolutionary process as well as to idealist voluntarism on the political level.[my bold]What do you think, ALB? Is it a fair reflection of Bogdanov’s views, in your opinion?
Young Master Smeet wrote:Indeed, that the apiarist industry is a party to a power struggle to defend itself was, kind of, part of the point.Yeah, the link between 'power/authority' and 'science'.Since twc doesn't do 'discussion', and prefers one-sided harangues, full of irrelevant asides, where twc's opponents must 'confess their sins' for daring to be 'critical of science', it's hard to sort the wheat from the chaff of their posts. twc has clearly done a fair amount of reading, but doesn't care to engage and explain, so that we can all ask questions and try to advance all of our understandings of this vital issue about the nature of 'science'.I've tried at least twice to interact with twc, but all I've received is personal abuse. I refuse now to deal with twc, though I'd be interested to read other posters' discussions with twc, if that's at all possible.
Thanks for the link, YMS.
Bee Article wrote:Facts are not simply discovered by science as absolute truths, but are instead constructed in social contexts that are riddled with power relations. As the old adage suggests, knowledge and power are always intertwined.What becomes a fact and what does not is a social and political issue that is concerned with what kind of knowledge – and importantly whose knowledge – acquires legitimacy and therefore authority.Yeah, this quote seems to support some of the things that I've argued:'Facts' are socially-constructed by authorities, not just simply 'innocently discovered by a neutral method'.We have to question 'who' produces the specified 'facts', and for what and whose 'purposes', and using what 'method'.The days of just accepting 'scientists' disinterestedly gathering 'obvious data' as an act of charity or professional pride, is long gone.'Science' is about power, legitimacy and authority, and there is no 'method' which avoids these human issues.Communists must take a critical interest in these questions. It's my opinion that if science is not under our democratic control (and I mean 'cognition', too, not just funding, research aims or teaching, for example), it will be under the control of a self-selecting elite.
