fostel@ncsu.UUCP (10/12/83)
I intend this to be my final word on the matter. I intned it to be
brief: as someone said, a bit more tolerance won this group would help.
From Laura we have a wonderful story of the intermeshing of physics and
religion. Well, I picked molecular physics for its avoidance of any
normal life experiences. Cosmology and creation are not in that catagory
quite so strongly because religion is a everyday thing and will lead to
biases in cocmological theories. Clearly there is a continueum from
things which are divorced from everyday experience to those that are
very tightly connected to it. My point is that most "hard" sciences
are at one end of the continueum while psychology is clearly way over
at the other end, by definition. It is my position that the rather
big difference between the way one can think about the two ends of the
spectrum suggests that what works well at one end may well be quite
inappropriate at the other. Or it may work fine. But there is a burden
of proof that I hand off to the rational psychologists before I will
take them more seriously than I take most psychologists. I have the same
attitude towrads cosmology. I find it patently ludicrous that so many
people push our limited theories so far outside the range of applicability
and expect the extrapolation to be accurate. Such extrapoloation is
an interesting way to understand the failing of the theoies, but to
believe that DOES require faith without substantiation.
I dislike being personal, but Laura is trying to make it serem black and
white. The big bang has hardly been proved. But she seems to be saying
it has. It is of course not so simple. Current theories and data
seem to be tipping the scales, but the scales move quite slowly and will
no doubt be straitenned out by "new" work 30 years hense.
The same is true of my point about technical reasoning. Clearly no
thought can be entirely divorced from life experiences without 10
years on a mountain-top. Its not that simple. That doesn't mean that
there are not definable differnces between different way of thinking
and that some may be more suitable to some fields. Most psychologists
are quite aware of this problem (I didn't make it up) and as a result
purely experimental psychology has always been "trusted" more than
theorizing without data. Hard numbers give one some hope that it is
the world, not your relationship with a pet turtle speaking in your
work.
If anyone has anymore to say to me about this send me mail, please.
I suspect this is getting tiresom for most readers. (its getting
tiresome for me...) If you quote me or use my name, I will always
respond. This network with its delays is a bad debate forum. Stick to
ideas in abstration from the proponent of the idea. And please look
for what someone is trying to say before assuming thay they are blathering.
----GaryFostel----fostel@ncsu.UUCP (10/12/83)
Well, someone else quoted me and I promised to respond to all such. SO,
here it is. I asked my wife about the phrase "rational Psychology".
She is effectively a layperson on these matters and her response was
swift and accurate:
"Isn't that a little like 'Military Intelligence'?"
The prosocution rests.
----GaryFostel----laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (10/19/83)
I have just finished reading a rather interesting book. it is called The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light -- Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture. It is by William Irwin Thompson. It is interesting, and it makes a few good points. I think that Thompson never understood Sociobiology when he first came across it and so I find that the Chapter entitled "Hominization" rips through Sociobiology and unfortunately blames Wilson for Thompson's lack of understanding, but then I *like* Sociobiology, and may be strongly biased that way. Otherwise it is a pretty good read. It has a plethora of points to make, but the one that seems relavant to this discussion is: "Perhaps such overly confident [note, this follows an attack of Sociobiology which I personally find unfounded] and inflated feelings of power and importance are expressions of the ambition and emotional motivation that a scientist needs to maintain himself in a long and arduous work, for the petty annoyances of tedious research are made light when mitigated by a belief that one is a heroic Darwin about to be granted apothesis for a lifelong labour. Professor Wilson's new synthesis does seem heroic, a grand heroic myth that tells us who we are, where we come from, and even where we are going..." <page 44> Once Thompson has made Sociobiology into a heroic myth he has got it where he wants it. One of his principle theses is that human beings find things attractive because they appeal to a universal appreciation which all cultures share. He traces some of the elements of these myths through several cultures throughout the book. He didn't go anywhere near molecular physics, but I suspect that had he, he would have found elements in current theories which suggest to him the same sort of myth-making that he finds in the myths of Ancient Sumer and Egypt. I can't say how the molecular physicists will feel about this - although I know some biologists have taken violent dislike to this book based on his treatment of Wilson. I do not agree with him on many counts, and I suspect that he could find elements of myth in what I did or did not have for breakfast this morning, but it does make interesting reading, if only for the strange myths that are presented and interpreted in a different fashion than I have seen other places. It also leads one to question the concept of scientists as white coated god-like beings of supreme intellect who forge theories out of nothing. Perhaps some scientists work that way, but the majority of them seem to be influenced by their religion, their families, their miserable bosses and insufferable co-workers. this is what one would expect, given that scientists are real people, but a good many people I know seem to have forgotten this. laura creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura