Re: Patriarchy: Re: What Matriarchy?
Marty G. Price (mprice@Ra.MsState.Edu)
Thu, 8 Aug 1996 08:48:50 -0500
On Wed, 7 Aug 1996, Stephen Barnard wrote:
> >
> > I'm not a psychotherapist. What I am is *not the idiot who would embrace
> > cold-fussion because it's "science".* I am a skeptic who is challenging
> > your world view because it is naive; it is not hard-nosed. It is soft and
> > gullible.
> >
>
> Get real, Gale. The credible people who shot down cold fusion are scientists, not
> belly-button philosophers.
>
Yes, scientists who understood the limitations & strengths of scientific
method, which you do not. That's *how they did it.*
>From your earlier example --- "scientists eliminated smallpox." Correct.
Part two --- Scientists (as you term them; we won't get into specific
specialties here), flush with success, imagined they could likewise
eliminate malaria (not realizing that certain differences in the
circumstances, causal agents, etc., made that a far different task). They
failed miserably, likely hastening the spread of hard-to-deal-with strands
of malaria and malaria carrying mosquitos into areas where the disease had
previously been eliminated.
The moral: it is *important* for scientists to know the presuppositions of
& implications of their actions.
(Second point, I am becoming troubled with your use of the term
"scientists." It is as though you imagine a sharply delineated segment of
the population which is immersed in the esoterica of "science," with other
humans as the "ignorant outsiders." The sciences are occupational fields,
not a monolithic cult.)
Blessed Be,
Gale
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