Posted by Reilly Atkinson on July 21, 1999 at 19:19:14:

In Reply to: Re: Misconceptions about "social constructions". posted by P. Richard Hansen on July 20, 1999 at 20:17:20:

Like, I don't dig it, man. Why hip me to an old book to tell your story?

Is it too much to ask for a summarization of the points in the book that justify your refusal to clarify your writing?

To the main point of cultural forces in science: As a young physics professor in the Vietnam era, I worked with physicists of all manner of political persuasions, including a Soviet physicist in Russia (1968 or 1969) We all spoke the same physics language, and agreed upon our goals. Our individual belief structures played no role in our scientific discourse and work. Is it not remarkable that the Maya's, the Druid's society and the folks in medieval Denmark all did pretty much the same astronomy? And, in fact their astronomy is much the same as our's today.
The plain fact is that many physical phenomena are culturally invarient, gravity for example. No amount of political manipulation, nor mystical hand waving can change gravity -- except in the most miniscule of ways, as human activity does slightly change the sources of local gravitational forces

My sense is that those who somehow believe that science, physics for example, is culturally
determined do not know much of actual science nor of its history. Brilliant as it may be, Kuhn's book hardly describes day-to-day science. To students of science, Einstein, Bohr, Feynman, Watson and Crick and so on are the people to read
They never ever talk about paradigms. They seldom talk about their formal methodologies, maybe they don't even have one. These stars of science often are highly profound philosophers, natural philosophers if you will. So if, for example, you wish to learn about objective reality, then read the Bohr-Einstein debates - these are heavy cats who really know what's coming down. They are in the same league as Plato and Kant. Before making what sound like pretentious statements about science, make sure you are well grounded factually.

Maybe I'm missing something, but the summary of "the book" certainly does not describe my experience as a working social scientist(urban/housing economist, sociology of neighborhoods)Theory is all well and good, but practice is better. Enough. RA

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Follow Ups:

• Re: Misconceptions about "social constructions". P. Richard Hansen 21:29:50 7/21/99 (2)
  • Re: Misconceptions about "social constructions". Reilly Atkinson 13:07:21 7/22/99 (0)
  • Philosophy of sosiology is not philosophy of... Lauri Grohn 03:11:58 7/22/99 (0)

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