Re: WHITAKER'S LAWS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

Bob Whitaker (bwhit@conterra.com)
Fri, 24 Jan 1997 19:26:04 -0500

smaceach@polar.bowdoin.edu wrote:
>
> bwhit@conterra.com wrote:
> >
> > I said "wholly owned subsidiary". Anthropologists take theior
> > Politically Correct orders from sociologists.
>
> Where does _this_ come from?? The two disciplines have quite different
> backgrounds and drastically different outlooks and research techniques;
> I have very nice colleagues, but at this point I'm still trying to figure
> out what they do, for God's sake. I go to the AAAs and SAAs, the anthro and
> archaeology meetings; anthropologists do not go to the ASAs, the sociology
> meetings.

It is alwayts the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, which means
that no one who offends the most militantly Poltically Correct people on
earth, the sociologists, goes nowhere in his academic career. Do you
think people do not understand academic politics?

>
> > Please TRY to read what I say, I said SOCIAL SCIENCE.
>
> Nope, you said "...Anything advocated by social science that claims
> to be Scientific..." Central to biological considerations of
> population difference in the social science that I deal with --
> andthropology and its sub-discipline archaeology -- is genetics. Full stop.

You are claiming YOU are being scientific by using genetic
terminology. But every conclusion is always Poltically Correct. In
sshort, you are exactly what I am talking about.

>
> > You seem to be making my point again.
>
> Not particularly. The popularity of any particular scientific theory
> has very little to do with its truth content. If anything, popular
> acceptance of a theory over significant periods of time may indicate
> a theory that is relatively robust.
>
> > So tell me some polticial stuff advocated by social scientists down
> > that WEREN'T disasters when they got into the real world.
>
> I think we've already gone through this. Racial equality, de-colonization,
> toleration of individual difference, equality for females -- projects not
> completed yet, but successes.

Well, at least you've dropped the scientifc pretense. You have simply
stated taht your polical faith is the true faith.
What successes?

>
> Scott
> __________________________
>
> Scott MacEachern
> Department of Sociology and Anthropology
> Bowdoin College
> Brunswick, ME 04011
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