Re: prediction and worth
Shannon Adams (shannon_adams@byu.edu)
Wed, 11 Sep 1996 08:05:56 -0700
Bryant wrote:
>
> In article <32359731.6C93@byu.edu>,
> Shannon Adams <shannon_adams@byu.edu> wrote:
>
> >Just wondering why prediction is the standard of worth for a field of
> >study. I have my own ideas but I wanted to get the natives opinion ;)
>
> 1. There are many native Americans on this newsgroup who have already
> expressed their sensitivity about labels. I seriously expect that
> this reference, with its allusion to "natives" as ignorant masses, is
> bound to hurt people's feelings.
>
(This is probably going to sound a lot worse than I intend it to be, sorry in
adavance.) You really haven't taken a cultural anthro course have you.
"Native" is used to describe a legitimate member of any given
society/culture. I did not use "Native American" because I was not
discussing them. I was actually refering to science as an ideological
culture base and was then refering to proponents of the aforesaid as
"natives". The arguement over who is truly native deals only with Native
Americans and immigrant populations, not "natives" of over cultures.
> 2. Prediction is only a measure of how well a given approach approximates
> a system. If you can predict how a system will behave under certain
> circumstances, you probably have a good approximation of that part of how
> the system works, how it's put together, etc.
>
> >Shannon
>
> Bryant
Thanks for the answer!
Shannon
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