feyerabend who?
Alex Duncan (aduncan@mail.utexas.edu)
22 Jul 1995 01:58:29 GMT
In article <DC323r.LFs@inter.NL.net> Gerrit Hanenburg,
ghanenbu@inter.nl.net writes:
>
>First, my posting on Feyerabend was not meant to be taken too serious.
>Second,I do not doubt the intellectual capabilities of the proponents of the
>AAH and in particular I do not consider them as pseudoscientists.
>
I didn't really mean to suggest that AAT folks were pseudoscientists. I
think that term should be reserved for astrologers, chiropractors,
psychics and others who have a stake in keeping people ignorant.
Obviously, the AAT people want to see the state of knowledge advanced as
badly as I do. And, as I think Ms. Morgan mentioned in one of her posts,
the AAT has been valuable, if for no other reason, because it has
required anthropologists to reexamine assumptions. Now, if we could only
turn that around a little bit and get the AAT proponents to examine some
of their assumptions...
Back to Feyerabend -- I think the idealistic model of how science is
SUPPOSED to work is something we all get over after a few years in the
field. Based on your quick synopsis (thank you), it sounds to me like
Feyerabend has conflated hypothesis generation with hypothesis testing.
Is my impression accurate?
Alex Duncan
Dept. of Anthropology
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712-1086
512-471-4206
aduncan@mail.utexas.edu
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