Young Master Smeet
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The psephelogical record is we do better in Labour heartlands (and under Labour governments). That said, the hidden fact of the plurality electoral system is that Labour chalks up big votes in tory constituencies (I've not looked in detail at the ones in question, but it's a fair bet that you'll find more labour voters there than you would in an equivilant labour seat with a similar majority). We're unlikely to bring round Tories first, and Liberals are Tories in disguise, so of active engaged politically minded people we talk a more language recognisable to labourites, at least. We're a part of the same wider labour movement.
And here is a very useful *cough* scientific analysis of the situation…http://dontpaniccorrectingmythsaboutthecrowd.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/ferguson-riots-militarised-policing-is.html
Quote:'Studies [ ] show that police have the power to either lessen the tensions of an angry group of people or goad them into a riot. This conclusion is based on the Elaborated Social Identity Model (ESIM), which is the leading scientific theory on managing a boisterous horde of people. What the ESIM shows is that an angry crowd can be driven to riot if they believe they are being treated unfairly—for example, by being confronted by cops decked out with military weaponry. When police treat a crowd justly and humanely, the chance of an uproar decreases and participants trust law enforcement more.'Indeed, because we're not abstract propagandists, we should be talking where more effective, and the route to socialism lies through the millions of voters who support labour, not through those who would undermine our class position by campaigning against voting and who support noxious authoritarian views like anarchism. And, yes, I do mean authoritarian. Anarchism is not the opposite of power politics, it's its jealous kid brother, that just wants to spread the lawless anarchism kings and despots have enjoyed throughout the ages to ever smaller kingdoms. Just look at what happened when the anarchist Lenin got somewhere.
Their members are committed to using democratic political action to achieve common ownership (esp. those who still believe in the old clause four). Whilst we disagree with their strategy and how they see their goal, I'd say they are nearer us than the majority of anarchists (excluding maybe a few old Kropotkinites). Certainly, they membership is the one we should be winning over, not those lost to anti-democratic ideologies like anarchism.
We wouldn't book a stall at the Labour Party conference, and we're nearer them than we are the anarchists…And I'd hope we wouldn't book a stall at London Pacifists Fair, which would be different from a peace fair..
LBird wrote:D'y'know, the hired prize-fighters of the bourgeoisie in academia couldn't put up as good a rearguard action, against any radical, critical thought about 'science', as this site has done!I suspect that your ideology leads you to see everything as an attack, vide your mistaking "Th Feng Shueists are coming!" for "The Vandals are coming" despite he empirical evidence.
Ah, turns out I do agree with it, which might be why I didn't pick up on it when you were discussing it elseplace, I just didn't associate the term.btw. Lbird seems to have added yet another meaning of ideology in the above post, now it seems to mean a theory.
Oh, away man, in good faith, I asked you what one of the points on your bullet list means. For all I know I might agree with it under another name) or disagree, but in a way that might be more fruitful for research/discussion. What are Lakatos' "multiple research programmes"?
Quote:c) one doesn't subscribe to Lakatos view of multiple 'research programmes';What does this mean?
But I have read your outline, and reported my impression based on it, and upon what I have read elsewhere. I haven't shouted anything about vandals, but critiqued it based upon the model of ideology it relies on. I've also said, in its similarity to knowledge organisation tools, it could be useful in terms of the processing of data. At the least it could well be a useful refinement on the way of thinking about the scientific procedure, as useful of delineating the difference between grey and off-white.So, it's not so much a fear of vandalism, more that it seems you're just rearranging the furniture.The Feng Shuists are coming! The Feng Shuists are coming!
Quote:Your comment, about 'leaving nothing changed' is unsupported by any evidence. It's an opinion, but it would have to be justified by argument.Yes, that is my opinion, AFAICS CR calls for serial refinement of the theory, supported by experiment. Or, to quote the wikipedia article:
Quote:The implication of this is that science should be understood as an ongoing process in which scientists improve the concepts they use to understand the mechanisms that they study. It should not, in contrast to the claim of empiricists, be about the identification of a coincidence between a postulated independent variable and dependent variable.As I said about the ISCU dfinition of science I posted this morning, this is perfectly compatible, it is only addressing the question of how we organise the systematic investigation and how we select our hypothesese. That is my impression from what I've read and what you've said.Yes, a scientist can continue to do their daily work without consciously applying these principles (but they might be thre) much as a shop keeper who has never read a word of Smith can continue to do their job. the difference is, we talk of abolishing shop keepers, not of abolishing scientists.
Oh, and I hav said that I fear this tends back towards Hegelian idealism, and relies upon a totalising model of ideology that in the end does require high priests and Leninism, because the fact ideology becomes the one eternal truth.
LBird wrote:YMS wrote:…in practical terms, for most scientists, I doubt this changes the day job.Is that an approach that you'd take to discussing Capital and value? Surely this is a philosophical discussion, to help us to understand the process of science?
Well, certainly Capital has nothing to say about how to build a house, or even plan an economy, and we don't need to have read Capital to be a socialist or build socialism. The difference is that the information Capital gives us gives us the impetus to abolish the relations it describes whilst, AFAICS, the CR model is a refinement (or reinterpretation) of existing practice that would leave nothing changed. We're not going to abolish investigation of nature and the unknown.I've already stated my general concerns about CR, from your precis and what I read on Wikipedia. It sounds like an adaptation to the information age, and reminded me a lot of Facet Analysishttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306457312001203and Entity Analysishttp://www.martymodell.com/dadmc/dadmc13.htmlSo, maybe there is some value in the approach in terms of organising information and data for research.
Some may find the Wikipedia article useful:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_realism_%28philosophy_of_the_social_sciences%29(although that suggests that Alex Callinicos adheres to theory, which suggests to me that it is not Leninist-proof). I assume this is the intended theory not:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_realism_%28philosophy_of_perception%29Whilst I can see the value of looking at the deep process logic (much like Value theory itself, as Value does not exist in any physical form, and yet is present as an emergent property of the logic of the production process), in practical terms, for most scientists, I doubt this changes the day job. As indicated above, this is about refining the systematic part of the scientific process, and where the hypotheses come from. Which is anotehr way of saying that we're heading back to some notion of essence and Plato's cave.Or, Hegel's famous "What is actual is rational, what is rational is actual". I believe there is a slight punning on tha "act" of "actual". This may be the route Bhaskar took back towards some spirituality (if the Wikipedia page is correct on that point).I assume we're not discussing:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theological_critical_realismbut I do wonder if this is one of those philosophical paths that winds its way to Hegel waiting with his arms folded. After all, Callinicos, IIRC, is influenced by Althusser and that strand of Marxism, which AFAICS is heading back towards idealism, where Ideology becomes the evolving world spirit.
