From: L-Soft list server at St. John's University (1.8c) To: Ian Pitchford Subject: File: "SCI-CULT LOG9511" Date: Sunday, September 27, 1998 1:18 PM ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Nov 1995 11:51:17 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Welcome from Moderator Welcome. Forty people signed up for Science-as-Culture on the first day, so I feel optimisic that we will have an active and interesting forum. It is associated with the quarterly journal of the same name, so I hope people will feel inclined to subscribe and to contribute articles, essays, thoughts and queries. Contributions which are longer than is appropriate to an email forum are encouraged and suitable ones will be placed on a web site for reading, downloading, discussion. It is not a requirement that submissions to the hard copy journal should go to the web site, but we think it a new and interesting procedutre that some should be put there for constructive comment and criticism, which the author can take into account before revising the piece for publication. Longet contributions of any kind should be sent to me by email (no more than 24k per message; longer ones should be sent in parts) or as attachments (which will retain formating). If in doubt about submittirng something, write to me and we can discuss it. I can sometimes advise about problems in sending things. (For example, if you don't know about attachments, they are an option on the Message menu of Eudora.) I very much hope that the subscribers to the forum will take the trouble of writing a paragraph about themselves so that e can have some idea who we are. Let's go, Bob Young __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. +44 171 607 8306 fax. +44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | _Mental Space_: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/rmy.html | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/process.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Nov 1995 11:51:25 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: _Science as Culture_ quarterly journal _Science as Culture_ 26 Freegrove Road London N7 9RQ, England tel.0171-609 0507 fax 0171-609 4837 email pp@rmy1.demon.co.uk _Science as Culture_ explores the role of expertise in shaping the values which contend for influence over the wider society. The journal analyses how our scientific culture defines what is rational, and what is natural. SaC provides a unique, accessible forum for debate, beyond the boundaries of academic disciplines and specializations. Contributors have included: Vincent Mosco, Donna Haraway, Richard Barbrook, Langdon Winner, Michael Chanan, Sarah Franklin, Michael Shortland.Steve Best & Douglas Kellner. Roger Smith, Mary Mellor, Scott L. Montgomery, Roger Silverstone, Bruce Berman, Ashis Nandy, Jack Kloppenburg, Jr, Les Levidow, Christopher Hamlin, Philip Garrahan & Paul Stewart, Maureen McNeil, Barbara Duden, Andrew Ross, Dennis Hayes, Kevin Robins & Frank Webster, David Pingitore, Jon Turney, Stephen Hill & Tim Turpin, Chunglin Kwa, Joel Kovel, David Hakken, Robert M. Young. The journal has published articles on mass-media representations of expertise, the political role of radio, human and agricultural biotechnologies, cultures of workplace automation, the metaphors central to scientific knowledge, artificial intelligence, images of the scientist in film and theatre, etc. _Science as Culture_ is published quarterly, and each issue contains 160 pages. Subscription may begin with any issue. (=A31.00 =3D $1.60) Subscripti= ons for United Kingdom: =A325 individual for four issues, =A342.50 for eight issues; =A350 institutional for four issues, =A385 for eight issues Overseas= : =A330 for four issues, =A350 for eight issues. All prices include postage. A= ir Mail =A310 extra. Orders to Science as Culture, Worldwide Subscription Service Ltd., Unit 4, Gibbs Reed Farm, Ticehurst, TN5 7HE, England. Tel. +01580 200657 Fax. +01580 200616. Payment should be in sterling or US dollars or by credit card (Visa/Barclaycard/MasterCard/Access). If payment is made in another currency, add the equivalent of =A35. to cover conversion charges. Subscriptions for the USA, Canada/Mexico: $30 individual USA, $45 Canada/Mexico; $65 institutional USA, $80 institutional Canada/Mexico. All prices include postage. Order from Guilford Publications, Inc., 72 Spring Street, New York, N. Y., USA. Tel. (212) 431 9800; (800) 365 7006; Fax. (212) 966 6708. Payment should be in US dollars or by credit card (American Express/MasterCard/Visa). Send for a free sample copy and for a free list of contents of all issues, specifying which are still available. Back issues are =A37.50 each for non-subscribers, =A34.00 for subscribers; =A310.= 75 for institutions. Available from Science as Culture, 26 Freegrove Road, London N7 9RQ. Tel. +0171 607 8306 Fax. +0171 609 4837 email pp@rmy1.demon.co.uk. Science as Culture 26 Freegrove Road London N7 9RQ tel.0171-609 0507 fax 0171-609 4837 All back issues are still available @=A37.50 /=A34 to subscribers as follows= : pilot issue Star Wars is already working (Vincent Mosco); Science, poetry and utopia:Humphrey Jennings' Pandaemonium (Kevin Robins); A new way of talking: community radio in 1980s Britain (Richard Barbrook); The scientist as guru: the explainers (Robert M. Young); Sex selection in India: girls as a bad investment (Les Levidow. SaC 1 'Play it again, Sony': the double life of home video technology (Ben Keen); Alan Turing on stage (Tony Solomonides); Nostalgic naturalism: Granta on science (Sally Shuttleworth); 'Choice' in childbirth (Grazyna Baran); Making chips with dust-free poison (Dennis Hayes); Socially useful production (Pam Linn). SaC 2 The home computer (Leslie Haddon); Science shops in France (John Stewart); Counting on the cards: a blackjack system (Holly Gamble); High-tech mining and the new model miner (Joe Bohen & Nick Wroughton); Science-fiction utopias (Barbara Goodwin); Electronic surveillance -- or security perverted (Bertrand Giraux). SaC 3 Athens without slaves... or slaves without Athens? (Kevin Robins & =46rank Webster); Piano studies (Michael Chanan); Life Story: the gene as fetish object on TV (Sarah Franklin); Non-Western science, past and present (Les Levidow); Romancing the future (Peter Hulme). SaC 4 Wonder stories in Alienland (Michael Shortland); Watching television (Steve Best & Douglas Kellner); The trials of forensic science (Roger Smith); The female in scientific biography (Sylvana Tomaselli); Looking backward at the socialist utopian (Patrick Parrinder); Chernobyl: nobody's to blame? (Les Levidow). SaC 5 Robocop and 1980s sci-fi films (Fred Glass); The embracing vision of Joseph Needham (Joel Kovel); Charles Darwin: man and metaphor (Robert M. Young); TechnoCity: symbolic utopia and status panic (Vincenzo Ruggiero). SaC 6 Nuclear emergency: an 'unusual event (Patricia Kullberg); Turning green: whose ecology? (Mary Mellor); The cult of jargon (Scott L. Montgomery); The operating theatre as degradation ritual (Larry O'Hara); Television: text or discourse? (Roger Silverstone); Black Athena: two views (John Gabriel and George W. Stocking, Jr). SaC 7 The computer metaphor: bureaucratizing the mind (Bruce Berman); AIDS culture (John Fauvel); Science as a reason of state (Ashis Nandy); The telephone as romance in Hollywood film (George Custen). SaC 8: Post-Fordism Post-fordism and technological determinism (Eloina Pelaez & John Holloway); Management-by-stress in the US auto industry (Mike Parker & Jane Slaughter); Foreclosing the future (Les Levidow); Mistranslations: Lipietz in London and Paris (Richard Barbrook); Scientism in the history of management theory (Robert M. Young); Rationalism, irrationalism and Taylorism (Bill Schwarz). SaC 9 Monstrous nature or technology? (Ian Barns); The double helix as icon (Greg Myers); Woman, nature and the international division of labour (Maria Mies interviewed by Ariel Salleh); Repressive tolerance in science policy (Philip Bereano); Nuclear accidents by design (Les Levidow); Darwinism and the division of labour (Robert M. Young). SaC 10 Science as kitsch: the dinosaur and other icons (Scott L. Montgomery); India's human guinea pigs (Vandana & Mira Shiva); 'Mathophobia': Pythagoras and roller-skating (Richard Winter); Women who make the chips (Les Levidow). SaC 11 Cervical screening, medical signs and metaphors (Tina Posner); Chaos and entropy: postmodern science and social theory (Steven Best); Technological cultures of weapons design (Perry Morrison & Stephen Little); Reclaiming experience (Richard Gunn). SaC 12: Deadly science as culture Exterminating angels: morality, violence and technology in the Gulf War (Kevin Robins & Asu Aksoy); Some are mathematicians (Mike Siddoway); Codes and combat in biomedical discourse (Scott L. Montgomery); The culture of Star Wars (Edward Reiss); Postmodern politics in Los Angeles (Don Parson); The anti-nuclear campaign on the Ganges (Dhirendra Sharma). SaC 13: Genes 'n' Greens Alternative agriculture and the new biotechnologies (Jack Kloppenburg, Jr); Green meanings: what might sustainable agriculture sustain? (Christopher Hamlin); Cleaning up on the farm (Les Levidow); The social side of sustainability (Patricia Allen & Carolyn Sachs); Biodiversity and food security (Alistair Smith); India's Green Revolution in crisis (Praful Bidwai); Surviving development (Sarah =46ranklin). SaC 14 The Bird and the Robot at Walt Disney World (Stephen Fjellman); =46IAT's cultural revolution (Sheren Hobson); Otherworldly conversations; terran topics; local terms (Donna Haraway); The virtual unconscious in post-photography (Kevin Robins); Genes and racial hygiene (Deborah Steinberg). SaC 15 Science, ideology and Donna Haraway (Robert M. Young); Science in China and the West (Matthew Gutmann); British radio in the 1980s (Richard Barbrook); The constructed female in women's science fiction (Debbie Shaw). SaC 16 Working for Nissan (Philip Garrahan & Paul Stewart); Why people die (Lindsay Prior & Mick Bloor); Darwin's metaphor and the philosophy of science (Robert M. Young); Roger Penrose and the critique of artificial intelligence (Bruce J. Berman); Social constructivism: opening the black box and finding it empty (Langdon Winner); Agricultural biotechnology: whose efficiency? (Les Levidow). SaC 17: Procreation Stories New reproductive technologies: dreams and broken promises (Maureen McNeil); The gender character of in vitro fertilization (Marta Kirejczyk); Postmodern procreation: representing reproductive practice (Sarah Franklin); Visualizing 'life' (Barbara Duden); The public foetus and the family car (Janelle Sue Taylor). SaC 18 The world according toNational Geographic (Scott L. Montgomery); Japan: panacea or threat? (Ron Mitchinson); Technology assessment in German's biotechnology debate (Bernhard Gill); Powders, pills, bodies and things (Tony Kirman); The new smartness (Andrew Ross); The emperor's new genes (Pat Spallone). SaC 19 Family medicine in American culture (David Pingitore); Evolution, ethics and the search for certainty (Martha McCaughey); Thinking about the human genome project (Jon Turney) Gravity's Rainbow and the Newton/Goethe colour controversy (Megan Stern) SaC 20 Academic research cultures in collision (Stephen Hill & Tim Turpin); Modelling technologies of control (Chunglin Kwa); Desmond and Moore'sDarwin:: a critique (Robert M. Young); De-reifying risk (Les Levidow). SaC 21 Demolition derby as destruction ritual (Stephen C. Zehr); Electronic curb cuts and disability (David Hakken); Te(k)nowledge & the student/subject (James McDonald); The zoo: theatre of the animals (Scott L. Montgomery). SaC 22: Science on Display Making nature 'real' again (Steven Allison); Supermarket science? (Sharon Macdonald); Realism in representing race (Tracy Teslow); Nations on display at Expo '92 (Penelope Harvey). SaC 23 Body wars, body victories: AIDS and homosexuality in immunological discourse (Catherine Waldby); Animal experiments: scientific uncertainty and public unease (Mike Michael & Lynda Birke); Reading the human genome narrative (Josie van Dijck); What scientists need to learn (Robert M. Young); UK Consensus Conference on plant biotechnology (Ian Barns). SaC 24 Haitians, racism and AIDS (Laurent Dubois); The social construction of farm pollution (Philip Lowe and Neil Ward). Brains from space (Jeffrey Sconce); Laughing gas: democracy without feeling (Santiago Colas); Vannevar Bush: an engineer builds a book (Larry Owens). Back issues are =A37.50 each for non-subscribers, =A34.00 for subscribers; =A310.75 for institutions. Available from Science as Culture, 26 Freegrove Road, London N7 9RQ. Tel. +0171 607 8306 Fax. +0171 609 4837 The journal is published quarterly, and each issue contains 160 pages. Subscription may begin with any issue. Subscriptions for United Kingdom: =A325 individual for four issues, =A342.50 for eight issues; =A350 instituti= onal for four issues, =A385 for eight issues Overseas: =A330 for four issues, =A3= 50 for eight issues. All prices include postage. Air Mail =A310 extra. Orders t= o Science as Culture, Worldwide Subscription Service Ltd., Unit 4, Gibbs Reed =46arm, Ticehurst, TN5 7HE, England. Tel. +01580 200657 Fax. +01580 200616. Payment should be in sterling or US dollars or by credit card (Visa/Barclaycard/MasterCard/Access). If payment is made in another currency, add the equivalent of =A35. to cover conversion charges. Subscriptions for the USA, Canada/Mexico: $30 individual USA, $45 Canada/Mexico; $65 institutional USA, $80 institutional Canada/Mexico. All prices include postage. Order from Guilford Publications, Inc., 72 Spring Street, New York, N. Y., USA. Tel. (212) 431 9800; (800) 365 7006; Fax. (212) 966 6708. Payment should be in US dollars or by credit card (American Express/MasterCard/Visa). A full catalogue of Process Press publications is available at: http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/projects/gpp/process.html It can also be sent via air mail if you have trouble with the web site. Write to pp@rmy1.demon.co.uk __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. +44 171 607 8306 fax. +44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | _Mental Space_: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/rmy.html | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/process.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Nov 1995 09:00:01 -0600 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Douglas Kellner Subject: Re: Welcome from Moderator In-Reply-To: <199511051155.FAA03615@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu> from "Robert Maxwell Young" at Nov 5, 95 11:51:17 am I'll open up Bob Young's request to begin introductions on the SaC list: I'm a Prof of philosophy at the Univ of Texas, Austin, and I've been on the SaC editorial board for some time. I just published this year a book on MEDIA CULTURE with Routledge and am concluding a book with Steven Best, THE POSTMODERN ADVENTURE that follows up our earlier book POSTMODERN THEORY. I'm currently studying the impact of media and computer technology on all aspects of society and am very interested in the use of media and computers to promote progressive agendas, hence my interest in this list. I like Bob's suggestion that prospective articles to SaC be posted on list, or a Website, and that people comment, generate discussions, etc. This is a wonderful new opportunity for intellectual exchange so let's make use of it! Douglas Kellner kellner@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Nov 1995 16:59:51 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Re: Welcome from Moderator >I'll open up Bob Young's request to begin introductions on the SaC list: > >I'm a Prof of philosophy at the Univ of Texas, Austin, and I've been on the SaC >editorial board for some time. I just published this year a book on MEDIA >CULTURE with Routledge and am concluding a book with Steven Best, THE > POSTMODERN ADVENTURE that follows up our earlier book POSTMODERN THEORY. >I'm currently studying the impact of media and computer technology on all >aspects of society and am very interested in the use of media and computers >to promote progressive agendas, hence my interest in this list. >I like Bob's suggestion that prospective articles to SaC be posted on list, >or a Website, and that people comment, generate discussions, etc. This is >a wonderful new opportunity for intellectual exchange so let's make use of >it! >Douglas Kellner >kellner@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu Doug, Tell us a bit about your line and about your experience in the media, esp tv, please. Bob __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. +44 171 607 8306 fax. +44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | _Mental Space_: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/rmy.html | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/process.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Nov 1995 14:19:45 -0600 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Douglas Kellner Subject: Re: Welcome from Moderator In-Reply-To: <199511051705.LAA09607@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu> from "Robert Maxwell Young" at Nov 5, 95 04:59:51 pm Bob Young just asked me to comment on my TV work: Part of my approach to technology is to attempt to devise ways that technology can be used positively to promote social change. Accordingly, for over 18 years I've co-produced a public access television program called ALTERNATIVE VIEWS which is produced here in Austin and shown all over the US. I've written about this project in my book TELEVISION AND THE CRISIS OF DEMOCRACY and several articles, including one SaC project. The project was to produce a venue for voices excluded from mainstream media, ranging from the relatively famous (Ramsey Clark, CIA critic John Stockwell) to local labor organizers, gay activists and other progressives usually excluded from mainstream media. We also showed leftist documentaries and other material sent to us from around the world (i.e. raw footage of guerilla war in El Salvador, raw footage of US Nazis assassinating labor organizers in North Carolina. More recently, I have become interested in computer activism, in how computers can be used for social change and would be interested in people's postings on this issue. Douglas Kellner kellner@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 03:19:23 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: John Giacobbe Subject: Introduction Dear SCIENCE-AS-CULTURE List members, I am John A. Giacobbe, a physical anthropologist and archaeologist by vocation, and one of the aspects of human culture I study is the role of science and technology as an adaptive strategy. I am currently working for a commercial resource management firm in New Mexico, USA (Western Archaeological Services, Inc.). My research may take a different perspective to the study of science as culture, in that I approach the concept from a diachronic perspective, that is, how science and technology have changed the form and function of culture, as an adaptive strategy, over time. I hope to be able to learn from others in different fields on this list, and contribute in some small way my possibly divergent perspectives. Up until this point I was not familiar with the SaC journal, or Website, but I agree that such a format is beneficial, if not vital, for the full intellectual exchange any scientific endeavor must have. I look forward to future discussions. John A. Giacobbe catalinus@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 11:46:03 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Television as a dense medium & a technology I am responding to Doug Kellner's posting about television. He has concentrated on the problem of access. I am equally interested in tv and other technologuies as media which are not transparent. I worked for a number of years making documentaries about science, technology & medicine, and in the end felt defeated by the labour process and the medium itself. I was so shattered that I went into analysis and was so helped by psychoanalysis that I became a psychotherapist! It took me a long time to feel able to think and write about that happened. I have done three recent essays, all of which can be downloadd from my web site: http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/projects/gpp/process.html 'What Scientists Have to Learn' 'What I learned at Summer Camp: Experiences in Television' 'A Place for Critique in the Mass Media' I would be glad to have comments about the issues raised in these essays. In particular, I argue that television is a dense (not transparent) medium and that the way it reproduces existing relationships of work and of knowledge and the way it pre-structures what can be said and how, makes it very hard , indeed, to say things which do not go with the grain of how science and technology are treated in the broader culture. Those ways are built into television itself. I also argue that it's strange that we do not empower ourselves more to make our own programs without passing through the filters of the centralised programming bodies (something that can be done more easily in the US than Britain, because we don't have local tv in Britain. We do have casettes, though!). My argument is a version of the peosition that technologies embody social relations. That doesn't mean - s Doug Kellner's programs show - that you can't use them for counter-hegemonic purposes, but I am here to tell you that it's damned hard to do from inside the belly of the beast. Bob Young __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. +44 171 607 8306 fax. +44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | _Mental Space_: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/rmy.html | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/process.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 13:01:56 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Science-as-culture can do a ton We're over a hundred now. If you want to know who, email to: listserv@sjuvm.stjohns.edu Body of message: review sci-cult Please, could each of us say something about herself/himself and what is hoped from the list. Bob Young robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk 26 Freegrove Road, London N7 9RQ, England 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 15:44:31 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: email forums of potential interest I am posting a list of forumsof potential interest to sci-cult subscribers. Will others please do the same. I am particularly interested in ones on cultural studies. please always supply address to write to in order to subscribe and the message for subscribing. Thanks, Bob Young EMAIL FORUMS OF POTENTIAL INTEREST TO SCIENCE-AS-CULTURE SUBBSCRIBERS Science and Technology Studies To: listproc@kasey.umkc.edu Body of message:subscribe sci-tech-studies YOUR NAME **************** History of Medicine To:mailserv@beach.utmb.edu Body of message: subscribe Cadeuceus-L **************** Comparative Science & Literature To: majordomo@coombs.anu.edu Body of message: subscribe Comparative-Sci-L Youremailaddress **************** History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science To: listserv@Qucdn.queensu.ca Body of message: subscribe HPSST-L forstname lastname **************** History of Science (mostly UK) To: mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk Body of message: join mersenne your name ************** Philosophy of the Social/Human Sciences To:listserv@nosferatu.cas.usf.edu Body of message: subscribe COCTA-L Yourname ************** To discover the forums served by the listserve software in a given area of interest, send a message to: listserv@umdd.bitnet Body of message: lists global Then add the subject, e.g., politics, history, anorexia or whatever. Send a new message for each topic. e.g., lists global sex *************** The Clark/Morville CLearinghouse list of philosophy lists, and links to all the other lists of lists, philosophy sites and such like are at Liverpool University: http://www.liv.ac.uk/~srlclark/philos.html There are list for more philosophers than you could shake a stick at. *************** The "Philosopher's Internet Resource Kit," a fairly comprehensive listing of, well, what it says it lists: ftp://raz.mc.duke.edu/pub/pirk ************** SOCRATES SOCRATES is an email forum for persons interested in the theoretical and philosophical foundations of psychology. SOCRATES deals with such topics as categorization, consciousness, evolution, hermeneutics, language, mental representation, metapsychology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science. HOW TO SUBSCRIBE: Send an email message to: LISTSERVER@PMC.PSYCH.NWU.EDU. In the body of your message say: SUBSCRIBE SOCRATES Your_First_Name Your_Last_Name. **************** Hot List for Critical Approach to Cultural Studies http://polestar.facl.mcgill.ca/burnett/HotList.html **************** The Spoon Collective has forums on a number of philosophers & topics: avant-garde bataille baudrillard blanchot cybermind fiction-of-philosophy deleuze-guattari feyerabend film-theory foucault frankfurt-school french-feminism image habermas heidegger bakhtin-dialogism technology lyotard marxism nietzsche postcolonial ontology While most of the listnames are straightforward, some are not. Cybermind is concerned with the psychology and philosophy of cyberspace. Fiction-of-philosophy is a space for both theoretical and creative texts. Image is a list in which avant-garde art meets binary .wav and .gif files. Bakhtin-dialogism deals with Bakhtin's works as well as scholarship based on his ideas. To subscribe to a Spoons list such as bakhtin-dialogism, send an email message:> To: majordomo@jefferson.village.virginia.edu Body of message: subscribe bakhtin-dialogism yourusername@your.host.site or in simpler terms: subscribe listname your internet address To send a message to the list itself (do not send subscribe messages to the list address), send your message to: bakhtin-dialogism@jefferson.village.virginia.edu I also have a list of forums related to psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, psychiatry, radical psychology, mental health and related matters. Write to me privately. Robert M. Young robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. +44 171 607 8306 fax. +44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | _Mental Space_: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/rmy.html | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/process.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 15:45:07 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Death of Deluze and of Gellner Not a jolly day. Deluze died Saturday - now Gellner Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 13:06:51 GMT Reply-To: srlclark@liverpool.ac.uk Originator: philos-l@liverpool.ac.uk Sender: philos-l-request@liverpool.ac.uk Precedence: bulk From: Stephen Clark To: Members of the list Subject: Ernest Gellner is dead X-Comment: Philosophy in Europe MIME-Version: 1.0 > From: David Miller > > > I have just received this message from John Watkins. > > Sad news. Gaye rang just now to say that Ernest Gellner > died last night. It seems to have been very sudden; he had > seemed okay shortly before. Presumably a heart attack. > > __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. +44 171 607 8306 fax. +44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | _Mental Space_: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/rmy.html | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/process.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 16:08:27 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Net sites, etc. on literature & science Here's a message I saved in the summer which is full of information about links between science and literature and related mattters. Date: Sat, 5 Aug 1995 19:36:30 -0400 Reply-To: "Society for Literature and Science - philos., tech., cyber discussion" Sender: "Society for Literature and Science - philos., tech., cyber discussion" From: Andrew Russ Subject: Science and Literature sites on the web summary. (second try) To: Multiple recipients of list LITSCI-L A couple months ago i solicited information on web sites pertaining to literature and science. I got a number of replies, which i checked out, and found a couple interesting sites, some boring ones, and some that were either interesting or boring but off the topic i had in mind. There was also an occasional site of interest to some in SLS, but not me (e.g. literature and medicine). I've collected these responses below, listing only the URLs and some comments either by me or by the person who sent the message originally. Links to the most interesting (to me) of these sites are on my own home page, which is at: http://www.phys.psu.edu/~endwar More on my site (it's mostly links and a few lists of references and a couple book reviews) is towards the end of this message. So here are the various sites i've found, in no significant order: http://mchip00.med.nyu.edu/lit-med/medhum.html This looks like it is useful if you're interested in literuature and medicine, which is not my specialty. http://coombs.anu.edu.au/SpecialProj/ASAP/WWWVL-HSTM.html This is a pretty major site in Australia. Definitely worth looking at as it's general in scope. http://www2.ncsu.edu/ncsu/chass/mds/psts.html This is the NC State site, which has about 100 links, about 80-90% of which are to science sites (e.g. American Physical Society, National Science Foundation, US Department of Education), but a few useful links. This URL has changed twice since it was sent to me! This one should work. Deanna Dunn wrote: >A few months ago an interesting (free) newletter previewed a couple of >samples on the SLS. It is called INTERNET-ON-A-DISK. You can join by >contacting samizdat@tiac.net and simply asking to be added to the list. It >focuses mostly on opening up access to the internet for small schools and >has more of a literature flavor. In the process, however, it gives a good >synopses of new & interesting addresses, some of which have electronic >books on line. And here's their URL: http://www.tiac.net/users/samizdat Basically a good source for books on line, more than anything. Not much on Science and Literature, or science studies, or that kind of thing. But good if you're looking for Last of the Mohicans or Moby Dick in a computer file, this is the place for you. From: Elliot McGucken >Hello, a great WWW site for both science and literature is the Beaconway >Press Home Page @, "http://sunsite.unc.edu/owl/home.html" >Also, a great monthly e-journal for cool literature is The Jolly Roger. >You can subscribe to it by sending the message, "subscribe drakeraft your >name," to listserv@unc.edu. Have fun! Mr. McGucken runs the Beaconway Press, at least in part. This site is basically for promoting a literary journal, so it is a bit off-topic. >I just found a new environmental web site with a large glossary and free >conects to the CFR's. Dial http://www.gate.net/solutions. This site collects information on environmental regulations, primarily. There's a search engine. This is basically pure science, as opposed to pure literature as above. From: "Mark A. Turian" >And, slightly off topic, have you checked out the Principia Cybernetica >pages? I think they would be a great model for organizing a new web site. >Let me hop over to my PPP accound and get you some URL's. >Here is Principia Cybernetica's URL: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Default.html Apparently this was at one time changed to http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/, but the next to last time i tried it, i didn't connect. The last time i tried it, the only option i had was downloading the homepage to my own directory, which rendered the links useless (they have relative filenames). I did get over there once before and it is a very informative site when it works as designed. This page would be of interest to those interested in cyperpunk of future related things. The Principia Cybernetica is a philosophy of/for the future (in their own description) You might try http://134.185.35.101/INTRO.html This seems to work for the Principia Cybernetica, but is slow. >For an individual's home page, check out: >http://groucho.gsfc.nasa.gov/joslyn/joslyn.html This person is on the Principia Cybernetica board (or something), and i got the updated URL from this site, but it still didn't work. http://www.webscope.com/project_mind/project_mind.html This site is dedicated towards the establishment of a higher creativity think-tank, rooted in the ideas of one T. Kun. Apparently a sort of new-age Kabbalistic philosophy or something. >Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 17:14:45 PDT >From: Bart Simon Subject: Re: SSSS list >"sci-tech-studies" >Sorry to add to the confusion, but the 4S (society for the social study of >science) list sci-tech-studies is now located in Kansas. >To subscribe send a message to listserv@kasey.umkc.edu and in the body of >the message type >subscribe sci-tech-studies firstname lastname >This list moved from UCSD in January >if you have any other questions about this list feel free to contact me. The tentative SLS conference program posted a few weeks ago by Jay A. Labinger is now available on the World-Wide Web under the following URL: http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/projects/sls/program.html >It's currently not listed from any of the other pages on our web server, >so you will need to type in, or copy-and-paste this URL, into your Web >browser's "Location:", "Open Location" or "Open URL" window. Needless to say, this is a relevant site for all SLS members. andrew russ In addition, my own web page is up at http://www.phys.psu.edu/~endwar The front page has some physics stuff at the top, then science studies in the middle, some art/literature/music towards the bottom, and leftover stuff at the very bottom. Actual links to other sites are generally in separate files, and the ones of most interest here would probably be under sociology of science (http://www.phys.psu.edu/~endwar/socsci.html). There's also some links in nonlinear science and information theory, and so on. Some of these links: http://snorri.chem.washington.edu/ysnarchive/index.html -- this is the current site for the Young Scientists Network. There are some case studies of nontraditional job paths taken by PhDs forced out of their field by the current tight job market. http://www.eff.org/ -- The Electronic Frontier Foundation -- devoted to privacy and civil rights issues in cyberspace. http://communication.ucsd.edu/pagre/rre.html -- access to archives of the Red Rock Eater mailing list operated by Philip Agre. It covers some of the same area as the Electronic Frontier Foundation. http://www.physics.umd.edu/rgroups/ripe/readlist.html -- a reading list on physics education maintained at the University of Maryland. http://phenom.physics.wisc.edu/~shalizi/hyper-weird -- Weird science? An attempt to replicate High Weirdness by Mail onthe web, but comes close to being a pretty useful selective index of topics. http://www.public.iastate.edu/~edis/skeptic_biblio.html -- a Skeptical guide to weird science on the web. http://www.liv.ac.uk/!larvar/intersci.html -- science and philosophy at Liverpool university. http://www.umkc.edu/ac/sci-stud/ -- science studies at University of Missouri at Kansas City http://www.ualberta.ca/~slis/guides/scitech/kmg.htm -- University of Alberta. One of these last two, i think the U of Alberta, had information as well as links. __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. +44 171 607 8306 fax. +44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | _Mental Space_: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/rmy.html | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/process.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 20:54:31 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: File: Our subscribers: 147 people, 24 countries OUR SUBSCRIBERS * Australia: andrea@ASAP.UNIMELB.EDU.AU Andrea Barnes RIG@FS3.BALLARAT.EDU.AU Rob Greig dgoldman@LAUREL.OCS.MQ.EDU.AU David Goldman kcregan@SILAS.CC.MONASH.EDU.AU Kate Cregan pgmcgarr@SILAS.CC.MONASH.EDU.AU PG Mcgarrity robm@TIGER.VUT.EDU.AU Rob McCormack Stewart_Russell@UOW.EDU.AU Stewart Russell * Belgium: Koen.Hendrickx@PING.BE Koen Hendrickx * Canada: SFRIGON@ACADVM1.UOTTAWA.CA Jean-Sylvain Gauthier cgordon@CCS.CARLETON.CA Charles Gordon goughn@EDUC.QUEENSU.CA Noel Gough ctchir@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA Connie Tchir sungook@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA Sungook Hong abramsob@ERE.UMONTREAL.CA Bram Abramson susan@FREENET.NPIEC.ON.CA Susan Wheeler rdeltche@GPU.SRV.UALBERTA.CA Roumiana Deltcheva frohmann@JULIAN.UWO.CA Bernd Frohmann ES051352@ORION.YORKU.CA Karl-Michael Nigge cmassey@SDRI.UBC.CA Christine Massey mgurst@SPARC.UCCB.NS.CA Mike Gurstein apattana@TIKVA.CHEM.UTORONTO.CA Arjendu Pattanayak pmurray@UWINDSOR.CA Pat Murray lerner@WATSERV1.UWATERLOO.CA Sally Lerner * Finland: MARKO@FINUJO Marko K. 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Ghazanfar lshartsi@UMABNET.AB.UMD.EDU Leon Suskin johnson@UMBSKY.CC.UMB.EDU Bob Johnson Umass/Boston djford@UMICH.EDU Danielle Ford sbolduc@UNLINFO.UNL.EDU Steven Bolduc joao@UTEP.EDU Joao Ferreira-Pinto gallaher@UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU Sheryl Gallaher WHITEHRE@VAX1.ACS.JMU.EDU Rob Whitehead RBFST1@VMS.CIS.PITT.EDU Robert Faux Lana.A.Spence@WILLIAMS.EDU Lana Spence vikram@WORLD.STD.COM Vikram Sethi * Country could not be determined for: john@DOGCENSUS.WIN-UK.NET John Watt sufi@GATE.NET Sue Fishalow carosue@IGUANA.RURALNET.NET Susan Crites cherie@MIND.NET Cherie Rawlins linari@REDCOM.SATLINK.NET Alejandro Iuliani vrc@TIAC.NET Maynard S. Clark * * Country Subscribers * ------- ----------- * Australia 7 * Belgium 1 * Canada 15 * Finland 2 * France 1 * Germany 2 * Great Britain 16 * Greece 1 * Iceland 1 * Ireland 1 * Israel 1 * Italy 2 * Japan 1 * Korea 1 * Netherlands 1 * Norway 2 * Saudi-Arabia 1 * Singapore 2 * Sweden 3 * Switzerland 1 * Taiwan 1 * Thailand 1 * USA 77 * ??? 6 * * Total number of users subscribed to the list: 147 * Total number of countries represented: 24 * Total number of local node users on the list: 1 * ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 13:56:04 -0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Cherie Rawlins Subject: introduction I am Cherie Rawlins. I am a child and family psychotherapist in rural Southern Oregon, USA. My special interest is in providing services to the youngest children - birth through three to five years and their parents. My roots are in psychoanalytic - psychodynamic - object relations theories of human development. I have an unending curiosity about human behavior, brain function including trance states, social psychology, culture and ethnicity, mind-body-spirit connections, "reality" and alternative views on such... I also am curious about the natural world, the heavens, how things work and on and on. I often think I have little to contribute and feel embarrassed about that, so when I am asked to introduce myself, I become anxious. I think I am a learner and a teacher... and I suppose a lurker in internet terms... However, I am endlessly interested in what others are doing and what others have to say. I am grateful for this forum and hope for the best for us all. Best Regards, Cherie `````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` Cherie Rawlins, MSW Post Office Box 939 email: cherie@mind.net Ashland, Oregon 97520 USA (514) 482-6545 `````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 09:27:46 GMT+1000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Rob Greig Subject: Introduction Hi! I am Rob Greig and I am Head of Food Technology and Biotechnology at the University of Ballarat in Australia. I am a Food Scientist according to my initial training but, after 20 rather disappointing years as a scientist I changed "camps" and retrained in the Sociology of Science and Technology. My major research interests (apart form science which pays the mortgage) are in the influence of cultural and social conditions on the development of technological systems (with a special interest in the food industry) and the local nature of knowledge production. The list looked interesting and I am looking forward to discussions commencing. Regards Robert Greig School of Science University of Ballarat Ballarat, VIC 3353,Australia E-mail: rig@fs3.ballarat.edu.au ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 16:53:16 -0600 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Parzival Subject: Introduction Hello all-- My name is Greg Dyer, and I am a temporary instructor, teaching "Written Communication for Engineers" and Expository Writing I and II, at Kansas State University. I finished my MA here in May, and was fortunate enough to get a temporary position...hoping to enter a Ph.D program in the fall of '96. My MA is in creative writing and literature, and I've been very interested in hypertext for some time. Since starting to teach technical writing, my interest in science has been kind of reborn. I have no particular area of concern to put forth at this time, but I'm hoping to pick everyone's brain and maybe offer my own two cents when appropriate. I'm looking forward to further discussion. Greg +------ Greg Dyer ** gad@ksu.ksu.edu ** http://www.ksu.edu/~gad ------+ | | | "This is the time of tension between dying and birth | | The place of solitude where three dreams cross | | Between blue rocks" | | | +-------------------- T.S. Eliot ** "Ash-Wednesday ---------------------+ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 20:20:04 -0600 Reply-To: "Sheryl S. Gallaher" Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Sheryl S. Gallaher" Subject: Re: Introduction In-Reply-To: <199511070005.SAA27097@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu> My name is Sheryl Gallaher. I am the director of the Office of Economic Education at Governors State University in Illinois. Our office trains teachers to teach economics to students in grades K-12; we serve especially the south suburbs of Chicago. I look forward to participating in the discussion of issues which are impacted by people's reaction to scarcity and their analyses of costs and benefits. In the long run, decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources th regarding the allocation of scarce resources have determined many of the great movements in history. Today's concerns about health care, the environment, alcohool and drugs are often related to the supply of and demand for goods and services. The possibilities for discussion should be interesting. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 18:45:35 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Susan Crites/Caroline Hedge Subject: Re: email forums of potential interest >I am posting a list of forumsof potential interest to sci-cult subscribers. ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬ I think this is great! If I am going to belong to a cult, this is the one for me! Susan >From Susan (the Neon Nurse) Crites and/or Caro Hedge, At The Sign of the Three White Cats aka House of Unruly Fish aka House of 1,000 Unfinished Projects. Accept No Substitutes! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 18:45:25 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Susan Crites/Caroline Hedge Subject: Re: Science-as-culture can do a ton >Please, could each of us say something about herself/himself and what is >hoped from the list. Hi! I will probably mostly lurk. I am a knowledge junkie, and this looked like a really interesting source! On the other hand, I may be able to cross reference something else from time to time, Serendipity willing. Or maybe just have a regular person sort of observation to make! Susan >From Susan (the Neon Nurse) Crites and/or Caro Hedge, At The Sign of the Three White Cats aka House of Unruly Fish aka House of 1,000 Unfinished Projects. Accept No Substitutes! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 20:19:12 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Susan Crites/Caroline Hedge Subject: Re: Introduction >My name is Greg Dyer, and I am a temporary instructor, teaching "Written >Communication for Engineers" and Expository Writing I and II, at Kansas >State University. And may the deities help you.... Susan >From Susan (the Neon Nurse) Crites and/or Caro Hedge, At The Sign of the Three White Cats aka House of Unruly Fish aka House of 1,000 Unfinished Projects. Accept No Substitutes! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 20:19:24 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Susan Crites/Caroline Hedge Subject: Re: File: Our subscribers: 147 people, 24 countries >* Country could not be determined for: >carosue@IGUANA.RURALNET.NET Susan Crites Add me to the USA...sorry about that! Susan >From Susan (the Neon Nurse) Crites and/or Caro Hedge, At The Sign of the Three White Cats aka House of Unruly Fish aka House of 1,000 Unfinished Projects. Accept No Substitutes! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 21:30:55 EST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Paul Hamburg <71203.3312@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: introduction: as a new member of this forum, let me introduce myself: I'm a psychiatrist at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School in Boston. My research interests are the applications of philosophy and modern cultural theory to the practice and teaching of psychotherapy. In my clinical practice I treat many patients with eating disorders, and have written and thought some about the intersection of personal and cultural history represented by the symptoms of anorexia and bulimia nervosa. In collaboration with a colleague, Dr. Ann Becker, who is an anthropologist & psychiatrist I am writing a series of papers regarding the concept of body image, including the role of the mass and scientific media in promoting and perpetuating ideals regarding body shape and its active transformation by exercising, dieting and other directed practices. I look forward to learning from the diverse membership of this forum. paul hamburg md e-mail: phamburg@A1.Mgh.Harvard.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 14:47:58 +0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Iljas Baker - SH Subject: Introduction ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 14:09:46 +0700 (GMT) From: Iljas Baker - SH Subject: Introduction Hello, I'm Ilyas Baker. I teach graduate students in the field of environmental social science.My professional interests are the social impact of technology,public participation in technological decisionmaking,public perceptions of risk, nuclear energy. I have degrees in sociology, social work, and urban and regional planning but feel I cannot honestly describe myself as a sociologist,social worker or planner. I guess I am a generalist--I know a little about a lot but not much about anything! I am a Muslim,definitely not fundamentalist, more Sufi oriented and believe that my attitude towards most things are informed by this belief system and the body of ethics which accompanies it.Life is a story told by "God", our own story telling is a vague reflection of this. Science and culture are stories we tell each other and act out. We need to do that but unfortunately some of our stories, e.g. some forms of psychanalysis, religious fundamentalism, evolutionism etc prevent us from hearing further stories, perhaps better ones. Sometimes we even think our story is the BIG one and so stop looking for the BIG one. I don't intend, you'll be glad to know, to repeat this stuff ad nauseum, but I thought I'd reveal my true colours at the start. Anyway I'll probably end up being King Lurker. I look forward to hearing your stories. One last thing, I'm also very interested in documenting the way that scientific or technological discoveries tend to precipitate the closure of potentially complementary(social or personal) ways of solving problems, eg if doctors can diagnose at a distance through telecommuncations systems will intuition still have a chance to participate; if electronic surveillance systems are put in the homes of the elderly who live alone--to make sure that they're fine--will we stop looking for companions/visitors for them? Regards, Ilyas ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 08:15:11 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Re: eating disorders >as a new member of this forum, let me introduce myself: > >I'm a psychiatrist at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School >in Boston. My research interests are the applications of philosophy and modern >cultural theory to the practice and teaching of psychotherapy. In my clinical >practice I treat many patients with eating disorders, and have written and >thought some about the intersection of personal and cultural history >represented >by the symptoms of anorexia and bulimia nervosa. In collaboration with a >colleague, Dr. Ann Becker, who is an anthropologist & psychiatrist I am writing >a series of papers regarding the concept of body image, including the role of >the mass and scientific media in promoting and perpetuating ideals regarding >body shape and its active transformation by exercising, dieting and other >directed practices. I look forward to learning from the diverse membership of >this forum. > >paul hamburg md >e-mail: phamburg@A1.Mgh.Harvard.edu Very interesting. Any papers available? My partner, Em Farrell, has written a new book on anorexia and bilimia. You might, in particular, be interested in her work on vomit as a transitional object, which is also the subject of a separate paper. Go to: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/emf.html for more information. Please let me have a list of what you have written in this area and email any papers you can. Thanks, Bob Young Ps Do you come across Andrew P Morrison. If so, please give him my best regards. B __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. +44 171 607 8306 fax. +44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | _Mental Space_: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/rmy.html | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/process.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 17:22:01 +0900 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Andrew Barfield Subject: Introduction My name is Andy Barfield; teach English at Tsukuba University in Japan; doing research in second language teacher education; heading up a university curriculum development project; coordinating a growing body of teacher educators across Japan. Am interested in how teachers 'construct' learners, and how twentieth- century techno-culture dehumanizes people's relationships with each other; I'm wondering how to re-find 'soul' in education/learning/teaching, and what that means for how we both relate to each other, and how we construct/share/understand received wisdom and knowledge. Am concerned that our material progress and growth in GNP's are missing the basic point of living on this planet. And yet here I am on e-mail ... Andy Barfield andyman@sakura.cc.tsukuba.ac.jp ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 11:42:49 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Quotation from Lukacs >From time to time, in the service of stimulating discussion, I hope people will post thoughts, quotations, puzzles. Here is an example, a passage which I have continued to ponder since I read it almost a quarter of a century ago. 'Nature is a societal category. That is to say, whatever is held to be natural at any given stage of social development, however this nature is related to man and whatever form his involvement with it takes, i.e., nature's form, its content, its range and its objectivity are all socially conditioned.' -Georg Lukacs, _History and Class Consciousness_ (1923) London: Merlin, 1971, p. 234. __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. +44 171 607 8306 fax. +44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | _Mental Space_: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/rmy.html | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/process.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 07:13:24 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Judith L. Poxon" Subject: Re: Introduction In-Reply-To: <199511062231.RAA07389@mailbox.syr.edu> Hello. I'm a PhD student in a religion department, writing a dissertation on the implications of Gilles Deleuze's philosophy for feminist theological thinking. I don't imagine I'll have a whole lot to say on this list, but my reading of Deleuze--and the increasing amount of time I spend on the net--has awakened an interest in the intersection of science, culture, and politics that I never would have imagined I'd feel a few years ago. In particular, I'm curious about complexity and chaos theory, and the implications that might have for my project, which has a lot to do with interrogating the binary categories of gender that we (mostly still) take so much for granted. Glad to find a list like this, and looking forward to being a part of it. Judith Poxon Syracuse University, Dept. of Religion jlpoxon@mailbox.syr.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 12:13:47 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Martin Spaul Subject: Re: Science-as-culture can do a ton In response to the request to 'reveal' ourselves from Bob Young. I teach information systems at a predominantly teaching university, but I have a long-standing interest in critical theory and the philosophy of technology. My current interest is in trying to mould long-standing Frankfurt School arguments about 'technoscience' and the mass media so that they have something useful to say about the new communication technologies (I'm not arrogant enough to think that I can make much of a dent in this problem, but it interests me). I felt that this list would help me broaden the intellectual background which I brought to this project. Martin Spaul Anglia Polytechnic University, UK ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 06:50:55 -0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Cherie Rawlins Subject: Re: Quotation from Lukacs Bob quoted: >'Nature is a societal category. That is to say, whatever is held to be >natural at any given stage of social development, however this nature is >related to man and whatever form his involvement with it takes, i.e., >nature's form, its content, its range and its objectivity are all socially >conditioned.' > -Georg Lukacs, _History and Class Consciousness_ (1923) > And I observe: I've thought similarly about weeds... Who defines weeds? Seems to me that a plant is a "weed" only if we don't want it in our garden... Best, Cherie `````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` Cherie Rawlins, MSW Post Office Box 939 email: cherie@mind.net Ashland, Oregon 97520 USA (541) 482-6545 `````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 09:05:55 -0600 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Christopher A. Thorn" Subject: Intro Hi, I'm doing post-doc research looking at the spread cooperation in the = high-tech electronics sector. I'm pulling together some of the = organizational behavior research on the culture of high-tech firms and = looking for new forms of collective goods. It's a sort of political = economy-sociology of technology mushy squishy sort of topic. I work with = a group of Sociologists based at the University of Bielefeld, Germany. = I'm looking here for a bit of feedback and some new perspectives on my = research.=20 Cheers, Chris Christopher A. Thorn, Dr. Soc. (608)-262-5715 (Office)=20 University of Wisconsin-Madison (608)-265-3233 (Fax) La Follette Institute of Public Affairs 1225 Observatory Drive =20 Madison, WI 53706 cathorn@facstaff.wisc.edu (Email) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 07:35:23 -0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Cherie Rawlins Subject: Re: Introductions Bob and others: Is it possible to save and make available on a web site these intros? My experience on other groups is that latecomers never know information that we have all shared... also, sometimes I would like to connect with someone in a particular field or with particular interests long after I have forgotten the name of that person. Also we could update our intro and address from time to time when it seemed appropriate. What do others think? Best, Cherie `````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` Cherie Rawlins, MSW Post Office Box 939 email: cherie@mind.net Ashland, Oregon 97520 USA (541) 482-6545 `````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 10:48:01 -0400 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Faux Subject: Re: Quotation from Lukacs Hello all, I was struck by the Lukacs quote and thought this would be a good time to comment on that and introduce myself. I am an ABD at the University of Pittsburgh in the Dep't. of Psychology in Education. My dissertation research will focus upon the use of problem-based learning in the acquisition of content knowledge, in this case engineering design. The theoretical base is primarily Bransford et al.s concept of anchored instruction. I am also a research associate in the Univ. of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The research project I am working on is a longitudinal study looking at teaming regular ed children with children who are physically challenged, primarily hearing impaired. The goal is to get the challenged kids "socialized" into the regular ed classroom and to be accepted by their peers. Having said all this, my primary interests lie in the history and philosophy of science and psychology. I hope to pursue these interests further once I have completed by dissertation. Concerning the quote, it reminds me a bit of Dewey and Vygotsky. Vygotsky argued that learning and development were social in nature. That learning occured through the discourse between a teacher and student, or between two peers, one of whom is more capable. The knowledge that is shared on what Vygotsky called the interpsychological plane is "internalized" and moves to the intrapsychological plane where it becomes a part of ones's cognitive repertoire. I'm looking forward to interesting discussions. Bob Faux Department of Psychology in Education University of Pittsburgh rbfst1@vms.cis.pitt.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 10:13:34 +0600 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Dr. Ovsei Gelman-Muravchik" Subject: Re: Quotation from Lukacs At 11:42 AM 7/11/95 +0000, Robert Maxwell Young wrote: > Sorry to tell this but I was not lucky to get the quatations. That is all that I got. I wonder if I am alone in the disgrace. Ovsei +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Dr. Ovsei Gelman-Muravchik, Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Disaster Research +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Director, | Ed. 12, Instituto de Ingenieria, Programa Interinstitucional | Apdo.P. 70-472, Ciudad Universitaria de Prevencion de Riesgo | Mexico, DF, 04510, MEXICO y Monitoreo Industrial, | Phone: (525) 622-8132 till 37 Universidad Nacional | Fax: (525) 622-8091 Autonoma de Mexico | E-mail: ogm@pumas.iingen.unam.mx =========================================================== ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 16:23:51 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Re: Quotation from Lukacs & Douglas >Bob quoted: >'Nature is a societal category. That is to say, whatever is >held to be >>natural at any given stage of social development, however this nature is >>related to man and whatever form his involvement with it takes, i.e., >>nature's form, its content, its range and its objectivity are all socially >>conditioned.' >> -Georg Lukacs, _History and Class Consciousness_ (1923) > > >And I observe: I've thought similarly about weeds... Who defines weeds? >Seems to me that a plant is a "weed" only if we don't want it in our >garden... Best, Cherie Mary Douglas, in _Purity and Danger_, points out that from the point of view of anthropological relativism, 'Dirt is matter out of place'. __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. +44 171 607 8306 fax. +44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | _Mental Space_: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/rmy.html | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/process.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 16:24:05 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Re: Introductions >Bob and others: Is it possible to save and make available on a web site >these intros? My experience on other groups is that latecomers never know >information that we have all shared... also, sometimes I would like to >connect with someone in a particular field or with particular interests long >after I have forgotten the name of that person. Also we could update our >intro and address from time to time when it seemed appropriate. What do >others think? Best, Cherie >```````````````````````` The list is to be archived at St Johns. Bob Y __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. +44 171 607 8306 fax. +44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | _Mental Space_: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/rmy.html | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/process.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 22:46:38 -0600 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Matthew Weinstein Subject: Introduction Hi, I'm Matthew Weinstein. I'm director of secondary education at Macalester College in St. Paul (just finished the PhD) and a long time SaC subscriber. My dissertation, while just completed (hoorah!!!) under the aegis of the school of eductation, would be better described as the anthropology of sci/tech. I did ethnographic work at a hands-on science museum for tourists in a tourist-town called the Wisconsin Dells (picture New York state's Niagra Falls in the U.S. midwest). Themes I dealt with in my study included the relationship of the reproduction of scientific discourse in schools and museums to its production in labs and universities, the way that "science as culture" encourages certain forms of embodiment, gender and science (again a lot of "body" issues), and the way that the ubiquitous linking of wonder with science works as ideology. BTW Anyone going to DC for the Amer. Anthro. Assoc. conference? Tea? Coffee? Wine? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 11:52:37 EST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Noel Gough Subject: Introducing myself I'm a professor in education, normally based in Australia, but currently on sabbatical in Canada. My teaching and research interests are in curriculum inquiry, educational research methodologies, and environmental education. My particular slant on these areas draws heavily on narrative theory, poststructuralist criticism, and popular media studies (especially science fiction and more recently detective fiction). Among other things I'm the Australian Editor of the _Journal of Curriculum Studies_, and an Executive Editor of the _Australian Educational Researcher_. Much of my recent writing has been concerned with issues of textuality and textual authority in educational research, including some efforts toward reconceptualizing environmental education research as a postmodernist textual practice. I subscribe to very few lists, even as a lurker, but I have found lit-sci (and much else that comes from the Society for Literature and Science) among the most generative resources in my work. For purposes associated with my work on sabbatical, I have an annotated list of my recent publications dealing with aspects of fiction in educational inquiry available that I could transfer by email to anyone who's interested. Some title that might be of interest to people on this list include: Gough, Noel (1993) Environmental education, narrative complexity and postmodern science/fiction. _International Journal of Science Education_ 15 (5): 607-625. Gough, Noel (1993) _Laboratories in Fiction: Science Education and Popular Media_ (Geelong: Deakin University Press). Gough, Noel (1994) Playing at catastrophe: ecopolitical education after poststructuralism. _Educational Theory_ 44 (2): 189-210. Gough, Noel (1995) Manifesting cyborgs in curriculum inquiry. _Melbourne Studies in Education_ 29 (1): 71-83. Noel Gough Contact details for 1 September-30 November 1995: Noel Gough MSTE Royal Bank Fellow Faculty of Education Queen's University Kingston Ontario K7L 3N6 Canada Internet: goughn@educ.queensu.ca (613) 542 6275 (home) (613) 545 6000 extn 7242 (office) (613) 545 6584 (fax) After 30 November 1995: Noel Gough Associate Professor Faculty of Education Deakin University 662 Blackburn Road Clayton Victoria 3168 Australia Internet: noelg@deakin.edu.au Telephone area code: 03 (International: +61 3) 9244 7368 (desk) 9244 7286 (messages) 9562 8808 (fax) 9836 8241 (home) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 22:54:08 -0600 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Matthew Weinstein Subject: Re: Quotation from Lukacs >And I observe: I've thought similarly about weeds... Who defines weeds? >Seems to me that a plant is a "weed" only if we don't want it in our >garden... Best, Cherie Yup, weeds are a sort of vegetable dirt! As M. Douglas writes (in one of my favorite passages): As we know it, dirt is essentially disorder. There is no such thing as absolute dirt: it exists in the eye of the beholder. If we shun dirt, it is not because of craven fear, still less dread or holyt terror. (Purity & Danger, p. 2) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 12:15:53 EWT Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Maia Saj Schmidt Subject: Re: Introduction I am a doctoral student in English and American Literature at Indiana University in Bloomington. I am writing a dissertation about illness narratives and contemporary culture. I hope to see a wide-ranging discussion of science, culture and society on this list. I am currently teaching a literature course about science technology and society and in the spring I will be teachinga course in the literature of medicine and ethics. Maia Saj Schmidt Ballantine Hall Indiana Uiversity MSAJ@Indiana.Edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 17:06:42 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Re: SCIENCE-AS-CULTURE ARCHIVES Cherie Rawlins wrote: >Bob and others: Is it possible to save and make available on a web site >these intros? My experience on other groups is that latecomers never know >information that we have all shared... also, sometimes I would like to >connect with someone in a particular field or with particular interests long >after I have forgotten the name of that person. Also we could update our >intro and address from time to time when it seemed appropriate. What do >others think? Best, Cherie Answer: Access to archives has always been available via standard listserv commands. To get an overview and tutorial, send mail to listserv@sjuvm.stjohns.edu with the command: get list analysis __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. +44 171 607 8306 fax. +44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | _Mental Space_: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/rmy.html | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/process.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 12:26:10 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Jude L. Hollins" Subject: Re: Quotation from Lukacs In-Reply-To: <199511071648.LAA20706@mailbox.syr.edu> just a quick response. I _just_ joined this list. I am happy with the prospects. hence, i am instantly projecting my voice. As to the learning issue, see Durkheim, Piaget (of course) and some of the research put under the category of 'constructivism' and learning. Also, work within the Social Reproduction school of thought comes to mind. I just came from the Revival in Pragmatism conferrence at CUNY this weekend, and i found little discussion of education, when talking along such lines of philosophy of science and people such as Dewey. This frustrates me. About me: i am a doctoral student at syracuse university, studying sociology and philosophy of education. I am generally interested in the 'school choice' debates, yet, philosophy and sociology of science is central to my thinking. 'The politics of explanation' remain central to my studies and inquiry. Having been deeply moved by Bruno Latour's work, i wonder if anyone has some insights or intuitions as to how a general notion of 'the politics of explanation' can be extended into movements of social reform, legistration, and community action? The link between political philosophy and legal DISCOURSE is a vital seed for me, yet, my understanding of material out there is limited. Take care, jude hollins ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 13:09:08 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Lynda Bruce Subject: Re: Science-as-culture can do a ton Greetings to All: I have BA in philosophy (emphasis in epistemology) and am currently in graduate school toward a Ph.D. in psychology (clinical). In psychology it seems to me that epistemlogical issues are cast in the debate/discussion of qualititative vs. quantitative research. Currently, I have an internship in a mental health clinic serving Native Americans in Central California. My interests are in psychology, epistemology, theories of language and reference, cross-cultural /alternative epistemologies or "ways of knowing," feminist epistemologies, qualitative vs. quantitative debates, Continental philosophy----and how this all relates to clinical psychology. I am writing from Fresno. Ca. (USA) Look forward to discussions. I don't normally participate much, because of shyness but also because my studies frequently interfere with my consistent participation. Lynda Bruce ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 13:56:39 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Abramson Bram Dov Subject: Re: Science-as-culture can do a ton In-Reply-To: <199511061306.IAA08557@cyclone.ERE.UMontreal.CA> from "Robert Maxwell Young" at Nov 6, 95 01:01:56 pm > Please, could each of us say something about herself/himself and what is > hoped from the list. Hello all, I'm a graduate student in communications here at Universite de Montreal, and am especially interested in how science and technology 'interface' with the national form. I am slowly (!) moving towards a dissertation on space policy in Canada and Quebec (as two state apparatuses) in which I hope to interrogate the relations between governments, technology, and nationhood, by looking at how science and technology -- specifically, outer space -- is constituted as the object of "national needs" (and desires), and how technologies of outer space are called into service to help consolidate national spaces. This means looking at technology policy, and trying to argue that it *should* be looked at vis-a-vis cultural policy, inasmuch as technologies structure and are structured across a cultural field. Technology in the enterprise of national identities, then. I'm looking forward to discussion, and especially to hearing about areas of the literature that I haven't yet had a chance to move in to. Bruno Latour, for instance ... Bram Abramson (abramsob@ere.umontreal.ca) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 18:40:02 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Lukacs quote From: Paul Hamburg <71203.3312@compuserve.com> To: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Re: Quotation from Lukacs Message-ID: <951107141529_71203.3312_GHL99-1@CompuServe.COM> <<'Nature is a societal category. That is to say, whatever is held to be natural at any given stage of social development, however this nature is related to man and whatever form his involvement with it takes, i.e., nature's form, its content, its range and its objectivity are all socially conditioned.' -Georg Lukacs, _History and Class Consciousness_ (1923) London: Merlin, 1971, p. 234.>> What seems so remarkable about this quote is the time and context in which it was made. Looking at diverse territories of thought today in terms of social construction is such a contemporary fashion---it is sobering that a post-WWI Marxist could so readily deconstruct "nature" and the fable of the "natural." __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. +44 171 607 8306 fax. +44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | _Mental Space_: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/rmy.html | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/process.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 13:58:29 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: GINA CAMODECA Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Re: eating disorders Hi, I've got a question, so I guess I'll introduce myself. I'm Gina Camodeca, ABD grad at SUNY@Buffalo. I'm writing a dissertation re: American 19th c. lit and medical discourse. I'm particularly interested in the way characterization of fictional characters remits, transfigures, and ultimately works to produce medical "truths" regarding symptoms and morally-predicated generatives of illness for women. I've begun the work, but I'm largely still in the hunter-gatherer stage. I've joined a gaggle of listserves looking for others w/ like interests and information; but I've discovered that one of my primary weaknesses is web-site illiteracy. I've spent days screwing around trying to pull things from addressed that begin something like hhtyz///;;: and after much frustration and "badly formed address" messages, I usually have forgotten what I wanted in the first place. Thus, could Bob (can I call you Bob?) give a bit more information about vomit as a transitional object? I would love the title and publisher of that new book! Thanks, Gina ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 18:40:44 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Re: Introducing myself Noel Gough, Could you share with us some key references on narrative theory and paerhaps one or two summing up recent debates in the field? I, for one, would be grateful. Bob Young __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. +44 171 607 8306 fax. +44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | _Mental Space_: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/rmy.html | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/process.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 14:07:45 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Lori Wagner Subject: Re: Introduction reply In-Reply-To: <199511071816.NAA33072@ccat.sas.upenn.edu> from "Maia Saj Schmidt" at Nov 7, 95 12:15:53 pm Hi, I got your message through the sci-culture group. I am looking for panelists for a proposed session on disease and lit. for a science and lit. conference. If you are interested, please contact me at lwagner@ccat.sas.upenn.edu. Thanks. Lori W ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 19:20:47 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Science-as-Culture Archive s and Digest You might want to save this. If anyone is ever interested in reading messages that have been previously posted, this can be easily done. Just send a message to listserv@sjuvm.stjohns.edu with the command index sci-cult This will return a file showing what files are stored on the list. These will include the welcome message and the header messages, but more importantly, the logged messages that have been posted. They will be listed by date and will have a name "logxxx". To get one, simply send another message to the same address with the command get sci-cult logxxx. with the logxxx being the name of the log file. This will be a list of those postings that were made during that time. You can also set you account so that you _only_ receive digests rather than individual messages. These are daily files that contain all of the messages posted. To do this, send a message to listserv@sjuvm.stjohns.edu with the command set sci-cult dig Thats all you need to do. If you have additional questions, please feel free to contact me directly. Best wishes, Bob Young __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. +44 171 607 8306 fax. +44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | _Mental Space_: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/rmy.html | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/process.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 14:15:29 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: James L Morrison Subject: On the Horizon I enjoy reading the introductions to this list as well as the messages. I edit a newsletter, moderate a list, and manage a web site, all focusing on the future of education. I want to take advantage of the talent on this list by asking participants to consider writing for educational leaders through our publications. Below is our call for manuscripts describing our activities: * * * CALL FOR MANUSCRIPTS * * * On the Horizon provides educational leaders with an interactive platform for discussing emerging trends and potential developments in the social, technological, economic, environmental, and political (STEEP) sectors and their implications for education. The interactive platform is via a print publication and an Internet list called Horizon List where past and potential STEEP articles from the newsletter are posted to focus discussion. Some of the resulting list discussion is also published in On the Horizon, thereby allowing the list and the print publication to supplement and reinforce each other. In addition, we have a World Wide Web (WWW) site, Horizon Home Page, where Internet users have easy access to past issues of On the Horizon, a futures planning database, and text discussion strings from Horizon List, many of which respond to articles published in On the Horizon. On the Horizon articles take two forms: abstracts of one or more articles/books/Internet postings that have implications for education or essays on emerging trends or developments that may affect the future of education. A unique feature of abstracts or essays in On the Horizon is that authors speculate on the specific implications of these "signals of change" in the macroenvironment (the STEEP sectors) for educational leaders. Abstracts and essays are brief (800 to 1,000 words); our readers are busy leaders who want to get to the bottom line quickly. If you have not seen the newsletter, write for a review copy or browse our WWW pages at the URL address: http://sunsite.unc.edu/horizon. We currently have the preview issue and Volumes I through III posted. Please send your abstracts or essays to me via U.S. mail or e-mail. If your article is accepted for publication, we will also need a two or three sentence summary of the article, your picture and a biographical sketch (up to two pages) for insertion on our Web site in the section announcing the issue in which your article will appear. (We do not have sufficient space to provide biographical information in the newsletter, but we do make this information available to readers via Horizon Home Page beginning with Vol IV, No 1.) -- James L. Morrison Morrison@unc.edu Editor, On the Horizon 919 962-2517 (office) Professor of Educational Leadership 919 962-1533 (fax) CB 3500 Peabody Hall UNC-CH Chapel Hill, NC 27599 Horizon Home Page http://sunsite.unc.edu/horizon ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 11:39:24 -0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Francis Harvey Subject: Introducing myself In-Reply-To: <9511071918.AA11448@mx5.u.washington.edu> Hi, My name is Francis Harvey, currently a PhD. geography student at the University of Washington. I find this collection of statements from list subscribers more than interesting. It really gives me a feeling who is involved, and seems to be "community" building. I'll just add a little bit to the mini-bio I just wrote for our department's WWW site attached below. Since I'm primarily a geographer, most of the text deals with my 'geographical' development, but geography is very encompassing, so there are many other facets. First, though I would add that I've always been fascinated by technology, but after some very meaningful cross-cultural experiences, which made me very critical (and for a while I rejected the growing influence of technology), and I became aware of the importance of culture in mediating our science and technology. I might even go so far to say our basic understanding. I've been reading Science as Culture since I first discovered it and was always hoping to have a chance to discuss these affairs with similarly interested people. From earlier postings it is clear this is a very diverse group and I am keen for discussions on a variety of topics. Francis Harvey (More info about me and my research is at http://weber.u.washington.edu/~fharvey/fhmain.html. Please note these WWW pages are permantly under construction, so things may change without notice.) A small biographical sketch (taken from my WWW pages): Through June 1996, I'm a geography graduate student at the University of Washington, spending most of my time stirring the dissertation brew and working on a low-level radioactive waste project. I'm looking forward to finishing and finding a university teaching and research job to move on to. Seattle has been home only for three years, and it isn't the first or last place where I've lived for several years. Before Seattle, home was in Germany and Switzerland for 10 years. I'm still strongly connected to these places, and through the other side of the family have many contacts to Eastern Europe too. My attachment to people and places in Europe and North America makes me acutely geographicly conscious. I travel enough this way that I don't need to do much tourism. I prefer the longer stay in a place I can relate to, surreptitiously extending my own geographical and social knowledge. Growing up in Chicago I was astonished to discover the white spaces in my developing mental map of the city were actually black. Racial differences segregated a free and open space I had been otherwise taught about. Maybe it was this contradiction that led to my spatial awareness. In any case, I was keenly interested in social studies and geography as far back as I can remember. Later in Europe, I discovered other ways to approach the division of earth into distinct geographies. They are fundamental parts of every culture. My interest was thereafter always in understanding the cultural influence of geographic understanding. In my academic work, the focus revolves less around understanding differences in how we utilize or understand space, and even less around overcoming discrepancies. Mostly I am interested in the use of technologies that extend, enhance, and simultaneously delimit our understanding. It's a sort of double hermeneutic of geography. In a sense, we produce space through technologies such as maps and geographic information systems (GIS). These in turn influence our understanding of space, that impacts our developement of technologies. . . It's a never ending circle, that is commonly approached through theory. Theory alone may be fascinating, but only rarely does it provide the necessary insight for real issues we face. At present in the dissertation I am looking at this connection in terms of a frequently reoccurring theme in geography: integration. Looking at from the cultural perspective, there are several elements and developments that stand out. When we identify them, we can more readily include culture as the essential part of society, that so frequently is but tacitly acknowledged. Culture has a meaning beyond here and now, it is part of our history that stretches back thousands of years. I do not pretend to examine this all, but I have been able to show how systems thinking is a fundamental part of geography. Approaching integration as a system, we have different approaches and results then Alexander von Humboldt, Carl Ritter, and others. Although I will finish my dissertation in the near future, many issues remain open. My interest in understanding these issues, teaching about them and presenting them, means I still have much to do. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 15:25:25 EST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Noel Gough Subject: Narrative theory Bob Young writes: >Noel Gough, >Could you share with us some key references on narrative theory and >paerhaps one or two summing up recent debates in the field? I, for one, >would be grateful. Bob Young Here goes. For a thorough overview up to the late 1980s it is hard to go past: Coste, Didier (1989) _Narrative as Communication_ (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press). However, that's about as far as I got into "pure" narrative theory -- following Spinoza's orientation to definitions, I want to know how narratives work, and what they do, but not what they are. Thus, I tend to work with literature that uses narrative theory in areas allied to my own research and teaching interests. So in relation to education I'd recommend: Lemke, Jay L. (1995) _Textual Politics: Discourse and Social Dynamics_ (London: Taylor & Francis). Because of my interests in the ways in which the discourses of science wield narrative authority in wider cultures, two really useful texts (in addition to everything that Donna Haraway and Kate Hayles have ever written!) have been: Levine, George (ed.) (1993) _Realism and Representation: Essays on the Problem of Realism in Relation to Science, Literature and Culture_ (Madison WI: University of Wisconsin Press). Ormiston, Gayle L. and Sassower, Raphael (1989) _Narrative Experiments: The Discursive Authority of Science and Technology_ (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press). Another very useful collection that sums up recent debates about narrative in the context of one particular narrative genre (viz., autobiography) is: Ashley, Kathleen, Gilmore, Leigh and Peters, Gerald (eds) (1994) _Autobiography and Postmodernism_ (Amherst MA: The University of Massachusetts Press). I could go on, but that might suffice for starters... Noel Gough Contact details for 1 September-30 November 1995: Noel Gough MSTE Royal Bank Fellow Faculty of Education Queen's University Kingston Ontario K7L 3N6 Canada Internet: goughn@educ.queensu.ca (613) 542 6275 (home) (613) 545 6000 extn 7242 (office) (613) 545 6584 (fax) After 30 November 1995: Noel Gough Associate Professor Faculty of Education Deakin University 662 Blackburn Road Clayton Victoria 3168 Australia Internet: noelg@deakin.edu.au Telephone area code: 03 (International: +61 3) 9244 7368 (desk) 9244 7286 (messages) 9562 8808 (fax) 9836 8241 (home) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 15:42:58 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: sundeep muppidi Subject: Re: Introduction In-Reply-To: <199511071723.MAA07441@falcon.bgsu.edu> Hi, I am Sundeep Muppidi. At present I am enrolled in the doctoral program in Mass Communication in Bowling Green State University. I am from India and have had experience in teaching development and mass communication theory and video production. At present I am working in the political economy of telecommunications. I did start out intending to do quantitative research but am now shifting to qualitative research (especially constructivist methodology). I am also interested in cultural studies, post-coloniality and basic communication theory. That's my introduction. Any questions welcome! Sundeep .............................................................................. Email: smuppid@bgnet.bgsu.edu ..::''''::.. Voice: 1-419-353-4504 .:::. .;'' ``;. .... 1-419-372-0202 (FAX) ::::: :: :: :: :: ,;' .;: () ..: `:::' :: :: :: :: ::. ..:,:;.,:;. . :: .::::. `:' :: .:' :: :: `:. :: '''::, :: :: :: `:: :: ;: .:: : :: : : :: ,:'; ::; :: :: :: :: :: ::,::''. . :: `:. .:' :: `:,,,,;;' ,;; ,;;, ;;, ,;;, ,;;, `:,,,,:' :;: `;..``::::''..;' ``::,,,,::'' .............................................................................. Sundeep R. Muppidi 104, West Hall School of Mass Communication, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio. USA - 43403. .............................................................................. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 15:49:20 +0001 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Sarah W Salter Subject: Re: Introductions In-Reply-To: <199511072030.AA04011@world.std.com> Hello to the community. I teach law - computer law, tax, intellectual property, international trade - from the general viewpoint of the critical legal studies movement. The responses of law to technology changes is one of my teaching interests, especially where difficulties reveal underlying cultural/linguistic patterns that diverge. Sarah Salter New England School of Law 154 Stuart Street Boston, MA 02116 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 19:36:33 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Conference on Psychoanalysis and the Public Sphere 18-19 Nov. This conference is occurring next week. Bob Y PSYCHOANALYSIS AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE 9TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE 'RECOVERING A FUTURE' Sponsored by Free Associations journal Department of Applied Psycho-Social Studies, University of East London The Human Nature Trust Saturday & Sunday, 18-19 November 1995 University of East London Conference Centre Duncan House, High Street, Stratford, London E15 The keynote speakers this year will be Gordon Lawrence Director, Imago East-West, author of To Surprise the Soul: Psychoanalytic Explorations of Groups, Institutions and Society in the Bion-Tavistock Tradition 'Tragedy: Private Trouble or Public Issue?' Anthony Elliott University of Melbourne, author of Social Theory and Psychoanalysis in Transition: and Psychoanalytic Theory: An Introduction 'Psychoanalysis and Postmodernism: Containing the Future' This conference is established as the major forum in Britain for exploring the inter-relationships between psychoanalytic theory, politics, culture, social identity and psychotherapeutic practice. As in previous years, the intention is that the conference should provide the opportunity for creative exchange among psychoanalytically-oriented practitioners and theorists and others active in thinking, writing and working in the public sphere. The conference is regularly attended by people from all sorts of disciplines in the helping professions. The 7th and 8th conferences dealt, respectively, with the themes 'Losing and Finding Values' and 'Thinking Under Fire'. These themes acted as umbrellas for papers and discussions which responded to crises in thinking, practice and politics, attacks on values and attempts to think, create and work in a hostile or reactionary climate. This year, the theme of the conference will be 'Recovering a =46uture'. In many spheres attempts can be detected to rethink, to redefine and construct new models. New forms of protest, resistance and imagination are emerging with the surfacing of new preoccupations in science, technology, morality, politics, art, helping professions and social theory. There is also a tension, however. Can the touchstones of theory and traditions of thought and ethics which in the past guided and inspired such hope in radical enquiry, some psychoanalytic thinking and social action now guide our understanding of these attempts to envisage the new? What is the relationship between tradition and these new imaginings and discourses? Can continuity be sustained as we look forward or are we to vacillate between fin-de-si=E8cle nostalgia and romantic or naively iconoclastic attachment to the new? Speakers in parallel sessions: Pru Chamberlaine, 'Cultures of Care: East Germany and Britain' Denis Brown, 'Glyn Maxwell: Aestheticising Place-Myth' Andrew Cooper, 'Desire and the Law: Child Abuse, Social Anxiety and the Symbolic Order' Adam Curle, 'Peace' Angela Foster, Naomi Landau, Viv Igel, 'The Management of Community Health Teams: Integration or Fragmentation' Dick Blackwell, 'Living Our Own Exile- Towards a Decoloniisation of the Inner World' Sue Reid, 'From Despair to Hope: The Journey of an Autistic Girl' Elish Davar, 'Containment, Surviving and Living' Julian Lousada, 'Anti-Racism: The Adoption of an Idea' Sandra Lovell. 'The Loss and Recovery of the Superego' Deborah Marks, 'Disability and Disavowal' Rosalind Minsky, '"Women Have Got It Made": Womb Envy and Cultural Cha= nge' Caroline New, 'Kleinian Theory and the Environmental Threat' Helen Morgan and Nick Benefield, 'Bare Earth, Blue Sky: Risking Innovation in Mental Health' Martin Ryle, 'Literary Subjects' Les Levidow, 'Agricultural Biotechnology: Splitting and Simulating Mother Nature' Andrew Samuels, 'Psychotherapists and Counsellors for Social Responsibili= ty' Amal Treacher, 'Childrens' Myths of Origins and Destiny' Robert M. Young, 'Psychoanalysis and/of the Internet' A paper by Michael Rustin and Andrew Cooper, reflecting on the history and future of the conference and related activities, will be pre-circulated to all who register in advance. Other speakers will include Karl Figlio, Michael Rustin, Tara Weeramanthri, Gerald Wooster, Ivan Ward, Margaret Rustin (titles to be confirmed) Prices: L75 (British pounds)for two days L45 for one day & concessions Write to: Psychoanalysis and the Public Sphere Conference Dept. of Applied Psycho-Social Studies University of East London Longbridge Rd. Dagenham Essex RM8 2AS England Tel. +0181 590 7722 ext. 2767/2785 email amal@uel.ac.uk __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. 44 171 607 8306 fax. 44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/projects/gpp/process.html | 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. +44 171 607 8306 fax. +44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | _Mental Space_: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/rmy.html | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/process.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 22:31:38 +0100 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Ulrich Brinkmann Organization: Freie Universitaet Berlin Subject: Introduction (Another one) Hello, my name is Ulrich Brinkmann. Call me Uli. It is interesting to be summoned to introduce oneself so insistently. Since there's only two members in Germany (both of them on the same machine but I don't know the other) I feel the urge of representativity to leave my habitual lurker's shell to tell you "who I am". I am doing a dissertation in American Studies on, let's put it broadly, Literature and Tourism. My M.A. topic was on tourism, too. I created a narrative of how insufficient the old liberal criticism of mass tourism as superficial was in terms of cultural analysis and promoted a semiotic approach, following critically Dean MacCannell. I am planning to relate literature and tourism on this basis. I'll try to find out how and if literature (alas, I've chosen Henry James to represent that one) or fiction, as I rather view it, can serve as a paradigm for explanations of tourism. Tourism, that is, depends on narratives that instill the urge to verify oneself in the presence of the tourist attraction. Somehow literature is a paradigmatic, but not the only complement in this touristic system. I'll have a lot of difficulties to overcome to make that a sound argument. Right now I'll try to get beyond the cultural models that have so far dominated the approaches on the subject. Those are the Bourdieu model of the sociology of taste, and of the post-colonialist mode. What I mean by "beyond" is a close analysis of the status of ((literary, touristic) fictional) texts, and taking this as a basis for a reconstruction of the cultural fields. Theoretical concepts that will be crucial in the construction of the cultural field (context, matrix, whatever) are Castoriadis's Society as Imaginary Institution, some reader-oriented theory by Iser et al,, mingled with semiotics (I'll have to find out what color I prefer of that). That's gonna be a nice cocktail. I'm sorry if this was too specific. I have serious difficulties in globalizing my concerns. After all, that is a translation in which I sometimes feel the important thing gets lost. Apart from that I am interested in the medium I writing this in. That is, the computer, networking, and related distributed concepts. The computer made me get into programming (I am taking a perl course right now). I'd rather talk about computing as a practitioner. Because what you are doing when you are programming is very tangible. It is more tangible than a lot of theory about it. I would theorize programming as a hybrid form of authorship where you actually do overcome some limitations in authoring traditional fictions, while on the other hand you pay the price of restricting yourself semantically to a closed universe (of the bits and bytes). You will have to restrict yourself to the role of the medium in providing a tangible experience to the --- user (no more reader). The user does what the programmer allows for, but he has a choice. And the programmer preconceives what the user wants to do, he constructs a world in which the program makes sense and has a function and is a success. There must be a point where all this collapses into fiction... All this proves, to return to the context of this mail, that literature and the computer are another pair of mutually informing cultural practices which I am interested in. Maybe I'll introduce my other selves another time. That's it for the introduction. I'm looking forward to an interesting lurker's feast of inspirations. I was really amazed at the amount of mail this list generated in the first hours of its existence. I hope the momentum is steady, selfish as I am. I am very bad at keeping up communication. (This is another interesting phenomenon, you hear me thinking, the vanishing of threads and entire lists in the big nowhere, rather, silence). Regards Uli ------ Ulrich Brinkmann on and off the net at random Freie Universitaet Berlin fone +49-30-615 76 78 visit my homepage! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 16:45:16 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Jude L. Hollins" Subject: Bruno Latour In-Reply-To: <199511071924.OAA12841@mailbox.syr.edu> two particular works which center my mind in times of utter despair: _Science in Action_ Harvard (1987) _We Have Never Been Modern_ Harvard (1993) "Even at the worst moments of the Western imperium, it was never a matter of clearly separating the Laws of Nature from social conventions once and for all. It was always a matter of constructing collectives by mixing a certain type of nonhumans and a certain type of humans, and extracting in the process Boyle-style objects and Hobbes-style subjects (not to mention the crossed-out God) on an ever-increasing scale" - We Have Never Been Modern; page 132 :) rings like the earlier quote from Lukacs in my mind. His basic argument is that we have been thinking and talking along the lines set by Modernity, while developing complex hybrid nature-social-etc empires. Likewise, he places modes of discourse and explanation within such contexts. I could go on for ever, yet, i really do suggestthese two works. I am extremely curious about reactions to ideas. Someone want to talk about positivism? seems comman definitions and understanding would be very useful... when i hear the word 'technology' (or 'culture', in the original of the coining of this expression) i reach for my gun, and i think of the term signifying a wide range of relations and objects. From the technical aspects of this language to this complex information system made of computers and fibers, i mark all as technology. "That a delicate shuttle should have woven together the heavens, industry, texts, souls and moral law- this remains uncanny, unthinkable, unseemly." Ibid, p 5 yeah, this basis for having professional educators remains at the heart of my despair. Being an 'educator,' no less professional, strikes me as a very critical station in the complex world we inhabit, etc. It seems that any profession carries a moral contractual wieght which is sinking among the political incommensurabilities of modern life. ok, i stop. jude ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 21:57:55 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Growth of list We have just crossed the 200 mark in subscribers - in four days from a standing start. Nice. Bob Young __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. +44 171 607 8306 fax. +44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | _Mental Space_: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/rmy.html | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/process.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 14:04:03 -0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "S.M. Ghazanfar" Subject: Re: Introductions In-Reply-To: <199511072049.MAA08469@crow.csrv.uidaho.edu> Dear Cohorts: I am long-time economics faculty at the University of Idaho. Over the years I have taught and published in various areas within economics--lately, teaching international development and public finance. However, my interests always, especially in recent years, have extended beyond pure economics; I usually claim to have a broader, interdisciplinary focus on things. In fact, it worries me that there is such intense overspecialization of knowledge--as though human beings can be neatly categorized as specialized robots! Lately I have been publishing and presenting papers on the contributions to economic thought by the Arab-Islamic medieval scholastics--and there is so much to discover--during what Joseph Schumpeter unfortunately dismissed as the "great gap" period of "blank" centuries (from Aristotle to St. Thomas Aquinas)!. And, so much of that contribution, through various mechanisms, transmitted and became absorbed in Europe and facilitated European Renaissance. I also worry about technology overpowering the human element (including this impersonal, `dehumanized' means of `community' formation--the e-mail!). The hardware and the software, broadly speaking, have such strong social implications, negative and positive, for the human condition. Are we to become mere robots eventually? As an academic, I worry about the growing use of technology in teaching for what is often labelled as "teaching enhancement!" Maybe reading-writing will become extinct and being "dumb and mediocre" will become increasingly fashionable--and we will go full circle!! Such social forces worry me much. Not only I worry about things too much--I also talk too much!! Warm best wishes. Ghazi Dr S M Ghazanfar, Professor and Chair, Department of Economics College of Business and Economics University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho 83843 Tel: (208) 885 7144 Fax: (208) 885 8939 On Tue, 7 Nov 1995, Sarah W Salter wrote: > Hello to the community. > > I teach law - computer law, tax, intellectual property, international > trade - from the general viewpoint of the critical legal studies movement. > The responses of law to technology changes is one of my teaching interests, > especially where difficulties reveal underlying cultural/linguistic > patterns that diverge. > > Sarah Salter > New England School of Law > 154 Stuart Street > Boston, MA 02116 > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 17:15:00 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Ron Goldsmith Subject: more intros Hi. Ron Goldsmith here. I'm a geographer at Ryerson Polytechnic University in Toronto. My teaching is mostly in "cultural geography", very VERY loosely defined. I'm intrigued by the role(s) that science has played, or has been claimed to play, in the evolution of world views of western and non-western cultures. My interest in this theme was provoked initially when I was dabbling in some research on cultural constructions of Nature, and Ian Barbour's book (1970-ish) "Myths, Models, and Paradigms" pushed me into the area in a more serious manner. Looking forward to some good discussions. RonG ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 16:30:59 PST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Benjamin Bratton <6500benb@UCSBUXA.UCSB.EDU> Subject: intro.. Hello all, My name is Benjamin Bratton. I am a graduate student in the department of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. I also co-edit the web publication, SPEED: An Electronic Journal of Technology, Media and Society. SPEED can be found at http://www.arts.ucsb.edu/~speed Recent issues, "Myths of Electronic Living" and "Science and Re-Enchantment," have included articles and interviews by Kathy Acker, Sandy Stone, Mark Leyner, Akira Lippitt, Mark Pesce, Laura Grindstaff and others. Our forthcoming issues, "Malls and Airports,"a double issue that will be available around the beginning of the year, and our special issue on Paul Virilio are currently under construction. Please see our callsfor papers at SPEED's web site under SPEEDFuture. My own work deals with the spatial character of media and society. Specifically, my research concerns the role of mass media in the Algerian war and the events of May 1968, and the transformations of Parisian architecture subsequent to those crises in the "coherence" of the French imagined community. This ongoing project is called "Sous Les Paves... Les Halles." I am in Paris this year doing research. My recent articles and conference papers include "Real Stories of the Information Superhighway Patrol," "Where the Bank Has Your Body Right Now," "God in the Age of Digital Reproduction," "Airport Sociographies: Access, Architectual Inertia and the Critical Dystopia," "Mythology, Cultural Tradition and the Imagining of Electronic Public Space: The Case of Le Minitel Rose in France, 1983-1987," "The Futurology of Device, or Screening the Social Geographies of Tomorrow," "The Politics and Poetics of the Fantastic in an Age of Machines," and "Derrida's Liquor Store: Artificial Intelligence and Model of the Sign" I'm looking forward to a lively discussion.... p.s.-- anyone who wishes to view yesterday's Liberation and their story on Gilles Deleuze's suicide can do so by pointing their browsers to http://www.netfrance.com/Libe/une.p this requires an Acrobat browser, which can be downloaded from http://www.adobe.com b. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 20:17:37 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: GINA CAMODECA Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Re: email forums of potential interest Correction: the history of Med. list is CADUCEUS-L Gina Camodeca ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 00:35:00 +0100 Reply-To: ALASTAIR DICKSON Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: ALASTAIR DICKSON Organization: ALMAC : Grangemouth, Scotland : +44 (0)1324 665371 Subject: Re: INTRODUCTIONS I was going to sit this one out but have been struck by disparity between my own perspective and those posted to the list, so... Most other introductions have been framed in terms of position vis-a-vis educational institutions. My own direct experience of post-school institutions is limited to a technical college computing course some 20 years ago. Interest in critical theory followed after that, and has followed its own course, for better or worse. More recently, my interest/involvement in education is in explicitly anti-institutional forms: e.g. through the Glasgow Free University Network in the late 80s and, more recently and domestically, in our son's home education. That last situation has all kinds of interesting features: - in the interesting ways in which he grasps and uses various operations in his own way and time; - in pondering and comparing the different perspectives of the few families who home-educate here (and finding the shifting grounds for co-operation); - and in the extent to which it places one outside the contemporary educational debate (in comparison with let's say the Illichian one of 25 years ago, it's now a curiously arid one which comes down to resource bargaining by professional specialists). Overall, I'd say "anti-managerial" describes the key to what I regard as important at the moment. So I'll be interested in the extent to which discussions on this list retain and develop an awareness of how professionalising groups establish issues to their own advantage. __________________________________________________________________ -- Alastair Dickson, Stirling, Scotland -- --- * Orator V1.14 #31 * ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 19:56:00 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Susan Crites/Caroline Hedge Subject: Re: Introductions >I also worry about technology overpowering the human element (including >this impersonal, `dehumanized' means of `community' formation--the e-mail!). >The hardware and the software, broadly speaking, have such strong social >implications, negative and positive, for the human condition. Are we to >become mere robots eventually? As an academic, I worry about the growing >use of technology in teaching for what is often labelled as "teaching >enhancement!" Maybe reading-writing will become extinct and being >"dumb and mediocre" will become increasingly fashionable-- Actually, it seems to me the likelihood is for 'net society to go the other way. There is already a standard developing that sets those who can communicate well, especially with humor and intelligence, as the 'elite' others should strive to emulate. Reading and writing are still behaviors, even when the medium is electronic instead of paper. I for one am looking forward to the Second Renaisance! And as for community, the ability the 'net is giving us to reach others with similar interests or goals despite their geographic location is far from 'dehumanizing'. You should check out some of the support groups--they give a daily reminder of some of the best traits of humanity; kindness, empathy and grace in the face of tragedy and disaster. Just a little food for thought from a different dish! Susan ..."You may say I'm a dreamer...but I'm not the only one." John Lennon. >From Susan (the Neon Nurse) Crites and/or Caro Hedge, At The Sign of the Three White Cats aka House of Unruly Fish aka House of 1,000 Unfinished Projects. Accept No Substitutes! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 13:09:24 +0900 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: SeongJik Lee Subject: Introduction Hello, I'm SeongJik Lee, a graduate student in Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea. My major is computer database, and I'm interested in the social changes brought by computer technology, especially by CMC. Currently, I'm studying the democratic potential of the Net and planning some real activities with my friends. If you have any interest in the computer activism in Korea, drop by SING (SNU Information Networking Group) web site - http://power1.snu.ac.kr:8080. -Seong ===================================================================== Seong Jik Lee Email: sjlee@cimcenter.snu.ac.kr Knowledge and Data Eng. Lab. sjlee@well.com Seoul National University Tel : 82-2-880-8370 ===================================================================== ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 11:14:25 +0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Iljas Baker - SH Subject: Re: Quotation from Lukacs In-Reply-To: <199511071145.SAA28118@mucc.mahidol.ac.th> On Tue, 7 Nov 1995, Robert Maxwell Young wrote: > > 'Nature is a societal category. That is to say, whatever is held to be > natural at any given stage of social development, however this nature is > related to man and whatever form his involvement with it takes, i.e., > nature's form, its content, its range and its objectivity are all socially > conditioned.' > -Georg Lukacs, _History and Class Consciousness_ (1923) London: > Merlin, 1971, p. 234. Some thoughts, by no means original, but offering a different perspective: This "whatever" (in this case nature)to be conditioned must have a pre-conditioned state. Yes? The question is: Can we know this pre-conditioned state? I guess most social scientists will say no, perhaps the new breed of physicists will also say no. According to Islamic metaphysics we can know things in their pre-conditioned state only through the Universal Intellect ('aql-i kulli') and not through the partial intellect('aql-i-juzwi'), generally referred to as reason. It is this Universal Reason that can "see things as they are" and is associated with revelation. Hence, for most of us the answer is generally that we have to deal with things in their conditioned state. But this "potential"of knowing something in its pre-conditioned state strikes me as a compelling reason, or at least inviting us, to treat things with a certain amount of humility and making sure that our actions are not one way streets. Hence, in terms of biological nature, conserving biodiversity would seem to be the right thing to do. " The intellect is of two kinds: The first is acquired. You learn it like a boy at school, >From books, teachers, reflection and rote, from concepts and from excellent new sciences. Your intellect becomes greater than that of others, but you are heavily burdened because of your acquisition... The other intellect is a gift of God. Its fountainhead is in the midst of spirit. When the water of knowledge bubbles up from your breast it will never become stagnant, old or discoloured. If the way to its outside source should become blocked, there is no reason to worry since the water keeps on bubbling up from within the house. The acqiured intellect is like a stream led into a house from outside. If it's way be blocked, it is helpless. Seek the fountain from within yourself! -Jalaludin Rumi (See: The Sufi Path of Love:The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi by William C. Chittick, SUNY Press, 1983) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 09:01:18 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: History of Medicine forum - CADUCEUS A couple of people have pointed out that my list of forums mis-spelled the name of this forum. The version below is from the forum's own announcement, so maybe it will be correct. Sorry. Bob Young How to Deal with CADUCEUS-L For new subscriptions, cancellations, and changes of address, send e-mail to: Mailserv@Beach.UTMB.Edu and type in the message line: subscribe CADUCEUS-L To begin new subscription unsubscribe CADUCEUS-L To cancel your subscription For changing your e-mail address, unsubscribe from your old address and subscribe from your new address. Please send all announcements and responses to: CADUCEUS-L@Beach.UTMB.Edu. __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. +44 171 607 8306 fax. +44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | _Mental Space_: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/rmy.html | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/process.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 12:01:22 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Medicine in movies >From hist med forum: There is an good source on medicine in movies which I recommend to people looking for medicine-related films: Michael Shortland. MEDICINE AND FILM: A CHECKLIST, SURVEY AND RESEARCH RESOURCE. Oxford: Wellcome Unit, 1989. (Research Publication of the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, Oxford; No. 9) __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. +44 171 607 8306 fax. +44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | _Mental Space_: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/rmy.html | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/process.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 09:12:04 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Lori Wagner Subject: Re: reply In-Reply-To: <199511080120.UAA35920@ccat.sas.upenn.edu> from "GINA CAMODECA" at Nov 7, 95 08:17:37 pm Hello, Thank you for your reply concerning a sci/lit panel. I am happy for your interest. I will get back to you soon with a description to see if you might be interested. Lori W ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 16:12:36 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "eric.dean" Subject: Introductions Hello to all. I manage software development for systems that run on a large private global network. I've been in the systems business for the last 16 years or so. My intellectual interests tend to be philosophical (Heidegger, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein) and literary (Proust, Sterne, Dickens, James; or Rex Stout, Sara Paretsky, Sue Grafton...). I find that those interests (OK, maybe not the murder mysteries) intersect constantly and pervasively with problems that arise in developing, implementing, operating and using technology. It's the link between the technical, philosophical, literary and institutional/cultural that drew me to this list. I live and work in Chicago but wish I was back in New Mexico where I grew up. I'm very much looking forward to the discussions here. Eric Dean ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 23:09:51 +0100 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Koen Hendrickx Subject: introduction I'm Koen Hendrickx. I studied Germanic Philology and Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Catholic University in Leuven, Belgium. I've written a dissertation on Computer-dystopias (how John Barth has reworked the icon of the central computer in fifties and sixties science-fiction in his Giles Goat-Boy) and I am still very interested in all topics concerning computers and culture. I too am looking forward to interesting discussions, but I hope that this list won't result in an avalanche of mailings like the cybermind-list does. I was subscribed to that list for one day and had to digest more than ninety messages, most of them about three lines long. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Nov 1995 09:08:14 +0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Iljas Baker - SH Subject: Spirit in education,alternative cosmologies etc. I'm not quite sure where this list is going at present. There seem to be quite divergent interests.Perhaps some theme will emerge that energises a large number of participants.I'm basically responding at the moment to Bob Young's invitation to post quotes etc to see if it gets things rolling but I'm also bearing in mind the members of the list who indicated an interest in the subjects identified in the subject field of this posting. Unless there is any expression of interest, ie follow-up postings I will lay off this topic and wait until someone else posts something that engages me. Anyway for the moment here is another quote from the same 14th century Islamic mystic that I quoted in my last posting. It comes from the same book referred to in that posting: " These people who have studied or are now studying imagine that if they attend faithfully here they will forget and abandon all their knowledge. On the contrary, when they come here their sciences all acquire a spirit. The sciences are all paintings. When they gain spirits, it is if a lifeless body receives a spirit. The root of all these sciences is from Yonder, but they have been transported from the world without sounds and letters into the world of sounds and letters." -Jalaludin Rumi ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 23:42:48 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Paul L. Woodworth" Subject: Introduction Fellow seekers, I wanted to drop a few lines of introduction, but I am somewhat intimidated. Each of you has displayed academic credentials that I don't have. Then I thought, isn't the effect of technology on the common man just as far reaching. I have spent over twenty years in telecommunications and computers, giving me a good understanding of the sciences and applied technology. I joined this list to discuss the interaction of societal groups, through the evolution and proliferation of technology, or applied science. Cultural change is at the core of my career. Consider the effect of the internet on the cultural development of the President's Information Super Highway, or is it the other way around. I am excited to have this opportunity to communicate with such a distinguished group. Furthermore, I am excited to apply my cognitive skills to the issues uncovered here. Glad to be aboard!! Peace my new friends, -- Paul L. Woodworth pwoody@pipeline.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Nov 1995 10:01:05 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Ellen Herman Subject: introduction Dear all, Since everyone seems to be introducing themselves, so will I. I'm a modern U.S. historian, I teach in the Social Studies program at Harvard University, and my own work to date has been mainly on the history of psychological expertise in the 20th-century. I published a book earlier this year titled THE ROMANCE OF AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGY, from the University of California Press and have also written about sexual science. I'd be very interested in hearing from any list subscribers who have done work on (or who are aware of interesting work on) the historical development of technologies peculiar to the helping professions: various types of individual and family assessment instruments, tests, and studies; diagnostic tools; psychotherapies, etc. Are there any clinicians and practitioners on this list with interests in these areas? Ellen Herman Social Studies, Harvard 59 Shepard St. Cambridge, MA 02138 (617) 496-5177 eherman@husc.harvard.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Nov 1995 10:21:28 +0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Michael North (by way of mnorth@nyam.org Michael North)" Subject: Medical Trade Catalog Exhibition THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE LIBRARY A NEW EXHIBITION "MODERN MEDICINE COMES OF AGE: TECHNOLOGY & THE MEDICAL TRADE CATALOG, 1830-1930" The new exhibition at the New York Academy of Medicine Library highlights its collection of illustrated medical trade catalogs. The catalogs tell the story of the dramatic changes which took place in medicine in the century from 1830 to 1930, including the introduction of anesthesia, the rise of the hospital, and the acceptance of germ theory. The exhibited catalogs form one of the most comprehensive collections of medical trade catalogs in the United States: the Academy holds over 1400 examples, including 651 in pamphlet format, dating from 1831 to 1964. The subjects of the catalogs are as varied as medicine itself: medical and surgical instruments, dental and ocular equipment, pharmaceutical products, and veterinary instruments and supplies. The catalogs are themselves art, organized by type of instrument or pharmaceutical, often with brilliant illustrations which show the products in use and help to explain their function. Many catalogs contain scholarly articles or abstracts showcasing products, and they often included testimonials from satisfied customers, both physicians and patients. Included in the exhibition are instruments and other items selected from the Academy's museum collections which bring the catalogs to life. Included are a drug kit from the Civil War era, early versions of the ophthalmoscope, and photographs of nineteenth century operating theaters, hospital wards, and x-ray images. The exhibition is free and open to the public from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday in Woerrishoffer Hall until December 22, 1995. The New York Academy of Medicine is located at 1216 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY. This exhibition is made possible through the generosity of Hoffmann-LaRoche, Inc.; Johnson & Johnson, Inc.; the New York State Program for the Conservation and Preservation of Library Materials; and Carl Zeiss, Inc. For further information, please contact Lois Fischer Black, Acting Curator of Special Collections, at 212/ 876-8200, ext. 311. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Nov 1995 11:43:39 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Charles G. Gross" Subject: introduction In-Reply-To: <199511091528.KAA02967@ponyexpress.Princeton.EDU> I am a neuroscientist working mostly on vision and the brain. I am also very interested in the history of neuroscience and have written on such matters as the hippocampus minor debate, Alhazen, Aristotle and right and left.. At the mment I am working on Swedenborg's theories of brain function. Charlie Gross, Dept. Psychology, Princeton University. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Nov 1995 13:44:10 -0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Donald J. Yankovic" Subject: Re: introduction My first posting to this list is to direct your attention to the most recent edition of The Network Observer, which seems to be right on topic. To get your copy send a message: To: rre-request@weber.ucsd.edu Subject: subscribe This volume is quite long, so I have not quoted much beyond the header. Whatever.... Yank >X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/869 >X-Loop: rre@weber.ucsd.edu >Precedence: list >Resent-Sender: rre-request@weber.ucsd.edu > > >-------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > T H E N E T W O R K O B S E R V E R > > VOLUME 2, NUMBER 11 NOVEMBER 1995 > >-------------------------------------------------------------------- > > "You have to organize, organize, organize, and build and > build, and train and train, so that there is a permanent, > vibrant structure of which people can be part." > > -- Ralph Reed, Christian Coalition > >-------------------------------------------------------------------- > > This month: Designing genres for new media > >-------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Welcome to TNO 2(11). > > This month's issue consists of a single long article, an informal > manifesto on sociocentric design that I wrote for an introductory > Internet class and presented at a recent publishing symposium in > Portugal. The WorldWide Web makes everyone a publisher in some > basic sense, and new media in general vastly expand the scope > of potential innovation in communications between individuals > and groups. My experience, though, is that too many people, > both professionals and amateurs, try to design for new media > through an unarticulated sense of what they "like". My argument > is that design for new media (which, these days, really means all > media) requires some mapping of the social relationships around > a g *************************************************************************** Donald J. Yankovic (360)378-2878 P.O.Box 1583 Friday Harbor WA 98250 yankovic@pacificrim.net ********** Its Never Too Late To Have A Happy Childhood ***************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Nov 1995 10:05:37 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Bertram Rothschild Subject: Re: introduction I'm a clinical psychologist with an interest in culture and history, but time forbids that I add any new enterprises. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Nov 1995 11:52:56 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young In one week since it came on line, this forum has attracted 300 subscribers from 29 countries. Congratulations to us. Now let's get on with discussing the role of expertise - of all kinds - in culture and society. I hope that those who have not yet introduced themselves will soon do so. Best wishes, bob Young __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. +44 171 607 8306 fax. +44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | _Mental Space_: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/rmy.html | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/process.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Nov 1995 12:42:34 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "John Soyland (Dr A J Soyland)" Subject: Re: Quotation from Lukacs Okay, okay, Bob, I'll stop lurking and give an introduction - then I'll come back to the quotation you posted some days ago. I'm called John, but publish as A.J. Soyland (the silent A is part of my Norwegian background, but I am actually Australian). I work in a Psychology Department, but was hired to teach on the then new Culture & Communication degree scheme at Lancaster University, UK. My first 3 degrees were in Psychology, my PhD in History & Philosophy of Science. An expanded version of the PhD thesis appeared last year as Psychology as Metaphor (London: Sage): most of the book consists of case studies: neuropsychology, childhood development, accounts of emotion, the IQ debate, and theories of mind. Most of my work so far has been studies of rhetoric in the psy-sciences: psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and most of the branches of psychology. There, will that do? Bob Young asks us to reflect on the following: >'Nature is a societal category. That is to say, whatever is held to be >natural at any given stage of social development, however this nature is >related to man and whatever form his involvement with it takes, i.e., >nature's form, its content, its range and its objectivity are all socially >conditioned.' > -Georg Lukacs, _History and Class Consciousness_ (1923) London: >Merlin, 1971, p. 234. If there is any thing s'prising about this one, it is the date it was published. But within the culture that is science-as-culture-studies, this has become something of a common-place. A rock is only an example of 'reality-out-there' through the rhetorical achievement of appearing to make a non-discursive act. The 'natural' is only what is maintained within that category, which takes work - and very little of it has remained stable between accounts. Take sexuality as an example: lots of studies coming out now (no jokes) suggesting that sexuality is a kind of core of identity, and biological at that. But, before 1892, we had terms to describe acts, but no term to describe a preference for same sex activity. The biological is parasitic on the social/cultural. So, let's agree with Lukacs, and get on with it. Cheers, John __________________________________________ A. J. Soyland Lecturer in Culture & Communication __________________________________________ Department of Psychology | Email: psa003@cent1.lancs.ac.uk Lancaster University | Phone (office): (01524) 593887 Lancaster, LA1 4YF | Fax (department): (01524) 593744 UK | ___________________|______________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Nov 1995 11:18:33 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Jude L. Hollins" Subject: expertise In-Reply-To: <199511111200.HAA28505@mailbox.syr.edu> After reading _The Reflective Practitioner_ by Donald Schon, this summer, I have come to be extremely fascinated by the history of the professions. Clearly, each 'profession' has provided a set of ethical guides, and has claimed guild-like rights over science-based skills and knowledge (Do we still think of theology as a profession?). In the US, we constantly question the particular experts, yet, never question the professions. I mean, when a doctor or any type of expert speaks in the media, we grant a special priviledge to their title, yet, become skeptical if the person speaks their personal opinion. What kind of social security would remain in my heart if i did not assume that the professionals had some moral commitment to the Truth and Knowledge their role makes claims on? Yet, how reasonable is it to assume that any professional carries such a MORAL commitment in their heart? I do not simply mean duty when i say moral. I refer to general loyalties, attachments, subtleties of value, etc. etc. Is not the basis of having expertise in society that of having plumbers and lawyers and physicists who CARE? jude ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Nov 1995 17:25:44 -0600 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Bonnie Blustein Subject: introduction This is Bonnie Blustein. I am a historian of science and medicine... have worked mostly on history of neurology in the US ... Now teaching (maths) at a Chicago high school. I have also been active in opposing the US goverment's "violence initiative" (search for "crime gene" etc). I'e also been talking to a number of people about the possibilities of (re)activating a "left" presence at meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and other venues where the politics of science are "out there." ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 Nov 1995 19:14:42 +0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Iljas Baker - SH Subject: Re: expertise In-Reply-To: <199511111639.XAA18145@mucc.mahidol.ac.th> On Sat, 11 Nov 1995, Jude L. Hollins wrote: > > Is not the basis of having expertise in society that of having plumbers > and lawyers and physicists who CARE? I think the basis of expertise is having a body of knowledge that will get the task done whether it be saving our souls, fixing our roof, mending our pipes, curing our disease etc and a commitment to using that body of knowledge to the best of one's abilities.Possibly the origins of the guild system lie in these facts ie designed to ensure transmission and accountability. That probably worked well (historians please comment)when the body of knowledge was limited, when the citizens/professionals more or less shared common values and when the economic system didn't have such a stranglehold on people.With regard to the first item on this "list",the body (bodies) of knowledge is ( are ) now so complex that a higher degree is insufficient preparation for the situations one will face in professional life and I mean this in a broad sense. For example a social worker or therapist is not only faced with a plethora of ,often competing, theories to help him/her explain the reality of the client but it is all carried out with reference to social, legal and administrative structures.I think as layman we might have to see professionals as more limited than we would like and as professionals we have to be more humble in how we serve people . I like the idea of a professional as an enabler and entering into a dialogue with clients, a partnership if you like. Saying something like:" I have certain skills and knowledge, so do you. Let's apply them together to try to achieve your objective." Most of you will be familiar with the sociological spin on professions ie as a body of people furthering their own interests(largely economic) by exclusion.I don't think this is totally true as I think the old guild spirit mentioned earlier still exists to a degree.Enough from me! Regards, Ilyas ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 00:48:11 +1000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: David Goldman Subject: intro By way of introduction: I am a clinical/forensic psychologist located in inner-city Sydney. Half my working week I spend as a police psychologist mainly doing critical incident debriefing, counselling and training. The rest of the time I conduct a psychotherapy practice and do some formal research on the dynamics of trauma in various areas of policing as well. Looking forward to the list with interest. dgoldman@laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 Nov 1995 12:52:26 -0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Donald J. Yankovic" Subject: Re: expertise jude: Now is a time when I wish that I didn't use the delete key so often so fast. Within the past few days there was a review on H-REVIEW describing how many academic fields became corrupted during the Nazi period in Germany. You might find it via a message to LISTSERV@msu.edu. Yes, I would like to think that the practitioners of any profession are virtuous, but unfortunately that trust is often misplaced. I do remember being part of a project at a university that was introducing special "business ethics" and "ethics for health care professionals", etc. To this economist and some of my colleagues, the substance of these courses boiled down to "how to use ethical arguments to justify any course of action you choose and how to cover your ass when challenged". I also remember spending an afternoon with some EMT students who were studying for their certification exam. Virtually none of their conversation had to do with, e.g. stoping bleeding or starting hearts; their concern was about which law or regulation would be violated if they took this or that course of action. While we can expect all entrants to a professional socialization program (graduate school) to be acting in their self interest, there is really no way to sort out which are selfish. This is why self policeing in the professions is so very important. It is possible, e.g., to fire a tenured academic for moral turpitude such as plagerism, but it is seldom done on the "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" principle. Is all of this too cynical??? >After reading _The Reflective Practitioner_ by Donald Schon, this summer, >I have come to be extremely fascinated by the history of the >professions. Clearly, each 'profession' has provided a set of ethical >guides, and has claimed guild-like rights over science-based skills and >knowledge (Do we still think of theology as a profession?). In the US, >we constantly question the particular experts, yet, never question the >professions. > >I mean, when a doctor or any type of expert speaks in the media, we grant >a special priviledge to their title, yet, become skeptical if the person >speaks their personal opinion. > >What kind of social security would remain in my heart if i did not assume >that the professionals had some moral commitment to the Truth and >Knowledge their role makes claims on? Yet, how reasonable is it to assume >that any professional carries such a MORAL commitment in their heart? > >I do not simply mean duty when i say moral. I refer to general loyalties, >attachments, subtleties of value, etc. etc. > >Is not the basis of having expertise in society that of having plumbers >and lawyers and physicists who CARE? > >jude > > *************************************************************************** Donald J. Yankovic (360)378-2878 P.O.Box 1583 Friday Harbor WA 98250 yankovic@pacificrim.net ********** Its Never Too Late To Have A Happy Childhood ***************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 06:42:10 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Bertram Rothschild Subject: Re: expertise In a message dated 95-11-11 11:26:38 EST,Jude Hollins writes: >Is not the basis of having expertise in society that of having plumbers >and lawyers and physicists who CARE? Sure, but care about what? I hope that my surgeons to worry too much about me as a person, but care a great deal about themselves and what they profess. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 16:00:25 +0100 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Kjell Jonsson Subject: Introduction First of all: cogratulation to the list I've just entered. Let me introduce myself. I am a professor at the department of History of Science and Ideas , Umea university, in the north of Swedan. Also doing research at the Institute for future studies, Stockholm (intellectual discourse on media and popular culture) and the editor of _Tvarsnitt_, a popular (well) journal of the Council for research in the humanities and social sciences. Since my dissertation, _The Limits of Science _ (1987, in Swedish), I've been studying the relation between religion and science and the cultural dimensions of science: popular science, science journalism and science as "Welsanschauung" in the early 20th century/See fx. Kjell Jonsson, "Physics as Culture", in _Center of the Periphery_, ed. S. Lindqvist, Canton, MA: Science history publ, 1993/. Hope I could contribute to the discussion on the list in the future. Best, Kjell kjell.jonsson@idehist.umu.se ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 09:59:51 EST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Annette Gough Subject: Introduction My name is Annette Gough and, although my current (until 30 November) email address is Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada I normally can be found at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia. My interests in science-as-culture are related to my teaching and research interests in the Faculty of Education where I teach undergraduate and postgraduate courses in science education and environmental education. In these courses I draw upon the work of people like Sandra Harding and Carolyn Merchant to develop notions of the socially constructed gendered nature of science and environment and to address how these constructions can be handled in primary school and high school classrooms as well as our daily lives. My doctorate was a feminist poststructuralist analysis of some of the foundations of the environmental education movement and my current research interests are in developing poststructuralist, feminist and postcolonial perspectives in science education and environmental education. I tend to lurk on lists, but I hope to get better at being more obvious! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 10:01:24 -0600 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Sheryl S. Gallaher" Subject: Re: expertise X-To: Iljas Baker - SH In-Reply-To: <199511130617.AAA26730@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu> Perhaps it is NOT furthering of one's own interests at the expense of others in the negative economic sense, but rather the specialization in a field of expertise and the exchange of other expertise for the advancement of everyone's self interest. Adam Smith said it more than 200 years ago, and the invisible hand does still exist. We all exchange our skills in specifid areas for compensation or incentives of one sort or another. Thus, those whose skills are more scarce or more valuable may receive a larger economic reward. This should encourage others to obtain the skills and knowledge to make them more competitive. My two cents. Sheryl On Sun, 12 Nov 1995, Iljas Baker - SH wrote: > On Sat, 11 Nov 1995, Jude L. Hollins wrote: > > > > > Is not the basis of having expertise in society that of having plumbers > > and lawyers and physicists who CARE? > > > I think the basis of expertise is having a body of knowledge that will > get the task done whether it be saving our souls, fixing our roof, > mending our pipes, curing our disease etc and a commitment to using that > body of knowledge to the best of one's abilities.Possibly the origins of > the guild system lie in these facts ie designed to ensure transmission > and accountability. That probably worked well (historians please > comment)when the body of knowledge was limited, when the > citizens/professionals more or less shared common values and when the > economic system didn't have such a stranglehold on people.With regard to > the first item on this "list",the body > (bodies) of knowledge is ( are ) now so complex that a higher degree is > insufficient preparation for the situations one will face in professional > life and I mean this in a broad sense. For example a social worker or > therapist is not only faced with a plethora of ,often competing, theories > to help him/her explain the reality of the client but it is all carried > out with reference to social, legal and administrative structures.I > think as layman we might have to see professionals as more limited than > we would like and as professionals we have to be more humble in how we > serve people . I like the idea of a professional as an enabler and > entering into a dialogue with clients, a partnership if you like. Saying > something like:" I have certain skills and knowledge, so do you. Let's > apply them together to try to achieve your objective." Most of you will > be familiar with the sociological spin on professions ie as a body of > people furthering their own interests(largely economic) by exclusion.I > don't think this is totally true as I think the old guild spirit > mentioned earlier still exists to a degree.Enough from me! > > Regards, > > Ilyas > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 16:29:03 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: _Science as Culture_ quarterly journal I very much hope that the subscribers to this forum will also want to subscribe to the hard copy journal of the same name. _Science as Culture_ has, we think, a distinguished history dating back to the ferment of the 1960s and the journal from which it grew, _Radical Science Journal_ (copies of which are still available, as is the collection, _Radical Scienc Essays_ - ask me). We also hope that forum members will contribute to the journal both on the net and for the hard copy version. Comments, articles and other matrials are hereby invited for either version or both. Write to me: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk. Subscriptions (see below) are supposed to be sent to Guilford for US & Canada or to Worldwide (rest of world), but I'd be grateful if you'd drop me a note as well, so we know who has come via this forum. Thanks, Bob Young (editor) _Science as Culture_ explores the role of expertise in shaping the values which contend for influence over the wider society. The journal analyses how our scientific culture defines what is rational, and what is natural. SaC provides a unique, accessible forum for debate, beyond the boundaries of academic disciplines and specializations. Contributors have included: Vincent Mosco, Donna Haraway, Richard Barbrook, Langdon Winner, Michael Chanan, Sarah Franklin, Michael Shortland.Steve Best & Douglas Kellner. Roger Smith, Mary Mellor, Scott L. Montgomery, Roger Silverstone, Bruce Berman, Ashis Nandy, Jack Kloppenburg, Jr, Les Levidow, Christopher Hamlin, Philip Garrahan & Paul Stewart, Maureen McNeil, Barbara Duden, Andrew Ross, Dennis Hayes, Kevin Robins & Frank Webster, David Pingitore, Jon Turney, Stephen Hill & Tim Turpin, Chunglin Kwa, Joel Kovel, David Hakken, Robert M. Young. The journal has published articles on mass-media representations of expertise, the political role of radio, human and agricultural biotechnologies, cultures of workplace automation, the metaphors central to scientific knowledge, artificial intelligence, images of the scientist in film and theatre, etc. Editor: Robert M. Young Managing Editor: Les Levidow Board: Sarah Franklin, Pam Linn, Maureen McNeil Advisory Panel: Tom Athanasou, Roger Cooter, Ruth Schwartz Cowan, Stephen Cross, Norman Diamond, David Dickson, Karl Figlio, Marike Finlay, Donna Haraway, Ludmilla Jordanova, Anne Karpf, Douglas Kellner, Sonia Liff, Vincent Mosco, Dorothy Nelkin, David Noble, Don Parson, Barry Richards, Eveleen Richards, Kevin Robins, Roger Smith, Tony Solomonides, Judy Wajcman, Gary Werskey, Judith Williamson, Langdon Winner _Science as Culture_ is published quarterly, and each issue contains 160 pages. Subscription may begin with any issue. (L1.00 British pound Sterling =3D $1.58) Subscriptions for United Kingdom: L25 individual for four issues, L42.50 for eight issues; L50 institutional for four issues, L85 for eight issues Overseas: L30 for four issues, L50 for eight issues. All prices include postage. Air Mail L10 extra. Orders to Science as Culture, Worldwide Subscription Service Ltd., Unit 4, Gibbs Reed Farm, Ticehurst, TN5 7HE, England. Tel. +44 1580 200657 Fax. +44 1580 200616. Payment should be in sterling or US dollars or by credit card. Credit card orders should include name, mailing address, expiry date. (Visa/Barclaycard/MasterCard/Access/Amex). If payment is made in another currency, add the equivalent of L5. to cover conversion charges. (Credit card orders are easiest for us.) Subscriptions for the USA, Canada/Mexico: $30 individual USA, $45 Canada/Mexico; $65 institutional USA, $80 institutional Canada/Mexico. All prices include postage. Order from Guilford Publications, Inc., 72 Spring Street, New York, N. Y., USA. Tel. (212) 431 9800; (800) 365 7006; Fax. (212) 966 6708. Payment should be in US dollars or by credit card (American Express/MasterCard/Visa). Back issues (see below) are L7.50 each for non-subscribers, L4.00 for subscribers; L10.75 for institutions. Available from Science as Culture, 26 =46reegrove Road, London N7 9RQ. Tel. +44 171 609 0507 Fax. +44 171 609 4837 email pp@rmy1.demon.co.uk. _Science as Culture_ 26 Freegrove Road London N7 9RQ tel.0171-609 0507 fax 0171-609 4837 All back issues are still available @L7.50 /L4 to subscribers as follows: pilot issue Star Wars is already working (Vincent Mosco); Science, poetry and utopia:Humphrey Jennings' Pandaemonium (Kevin Robins); A new way of talking: community radio in 1980s Britain (Richard Barbrook); The scientist as guru: the explainers (Robert M. Young); Sex selection in India: girls as a bad investment (Les Levidow. SaC 1 'Play it again, Sony': the double life of home video technology (Ben Keen); Alan Turing on stage (Tony Solomonides); Nostalgic naturalism: Granta on science (Sally Shuttleworth); 'Choice' in childbirth (Grazyna Baran); Making chips with dust-free poison (Dennis Hayes); Socially useful production (Pam Linn). SaC 2 The home computer (Leslie Haddon); Science shops in France (John Stewart); Counting on the cards: a blackjack system (Holly Gamble); High-tech mining and the new model miner (Joe Bohen & Nick Wroughton); Science-fiction utopias (Barbara Goodwin); Electronic surveillance -- or security perverted (Bertrand Giraux). SaC 3 Athens without slaves... or slaves without Athens? (Kevin Robins & =46rank Webster); Piano studies (Michael Chanan); Life Story: the gene as fetish object on TV (Sarah Franklin); Non-Western science, past and present (Les Levidow); Romancing the future (Peter Hulme). SaC 4 Wonder stories in Alienland (Michael Shortland); Watching television (Steve Best & Douglas Kellner); The trials of forensic science (Roger Smith); The female in scientific biography (Sylvana Tomaselli); Looking backward at the socialist utopian (Patrick Parrinder); Chernobyl: nobody's to blame? (Les Levidow). SaC 5 Robocop and 1980s sci-fi films (Fred Glass); The embracing vision of Joseph Needham (Joel Kovel); Charles Darwin: man and metaphor (Robert M. Young); TechnoCity: symbolic utopia and status panic (Vincenzo Ruggiero). SaC 6 Nuclear emergency: an 'unusual event (Patricia Kullberg); Turning green: whose ecology? (Mary Mellor); The cult of jargon (Scott L. Montgomery); The operating theatre as degradation ritual (Larry O'Hara); Television: text or discourse? (Roger Silverstone); Black Athena: two views (John Gabriel and George W. Stocking, Jr). SaC 7 The computer metaphor: bureaucratizing the mind (Bruce Berman); AIDS culture (John Fauvel); Science as a reason of state (Ashis Nandy); The telephone as romance in Hollywood film (George Custen). SaC 8: Post-Fordism Post-fordism and technological determinism (Eloina Pelaez & John Holloway); Management-by-stress in the US auto industry (Mike Parker & Jane Slaughter); Foreclosing the future (Les Levidow); Mistranslations: Lipietz in London and Paris (Richard Barbrook); Scientism in the history of management theory (Robert M. Young); Rationalism, irrationalism and Taylorism (Bill Schwarz). SaC 9 Monstrous nature or technology? (Ian Barns); The double helix as icon (Greg Myers); Woman, nature and the international division of labour (Maria Mies interviewed by Ariel Salleh); Repressive tolerance in science policy (Philip Bereano); Nuclear accidents by design (Les Levidow); Darwinism and the division of labour (Robert M. Young). SaC 10 Science as kitsch: the dinosaur and other icons (Scott L. Montgomery); India's human guinea pigs (Vandana & Mira Shiva); 'Mathophobia': Pythagoras and roller-skating (Richard Winter); Women who make the chips (Les Levidow). SaC 11 Cervical screening, medical signs and metaphors (Tina Posner); Chaos and entropy: postmodern science and social theory (Steven Best); Technological cultures of weapons design (Perry Morrison & Stephen Little); Reclaiming experience (Richard Gunn). SaC 12: Deadly science as culture Exterminating angels: morality, violence and technology in the Gulf War (Kevin Robins & Asu Aksoy); Some are mathematicians (Mike Siddoway); Codes and combat in biomedical discourse (Scott L. Montgomery); The culture of Star Wars (Edward Reiss); Postmodern politics in Los Angeles (Don Parson); The anti-nuclear campaign on the Ganges (Dhirendra Sharma). SaC 13: Genes 'n' Greens Alternative agriculture and the new biotechnologies (Jack Kloppenburg, Jr); Green meanings: what might sustainable agriculture sustain? (Christopher Hamlin); Cleaning up on the farm (Les Levidow); The social side of sustainability (Patricia Allen & Carolyn Sachs); Biodiversity and food security (Alistair Smith); India's Green Revolution in crisis (Praful Bidwai); Surviving development (Sarah =46ranklin). SaC 14 The Bird and the Robot at Walt Disney World (Stephen Fjellman); =46IAT's cultural revolution (Sheren Hobson); Otherworldly conversations; terran topics; local terms (Donna Haraway); The virtual unconscious in post-photography (Kevin Robins); Genes and racial hygiene (Deborah Steinberg). SaC 15 Science, ideology and Donna Haraway (Robert M. Young); Science in China and the West (Matthew Gutmann); British radio in the 1980s (Richard Barbrook); The constructed female in women's science fiction (Debbie Shaw). SaC 16 Working for Nissan (Philip Garrahan & Paul Stewart); Why people die (Lindsay Prior & Mick Bloor); Darwin's metaphor and the philosophy of science (Robert M. Young); Roger Penrose and the critique of artificial intelligence (Bruce J. Berman); Social constructivism: opening the black box and finding it empty (Langdon Winner); Agricultural biotechnology: whose efficiency? (Les Levidow). SaC 17: Procreation Stories New reproductive technologies: dreams and broken promises (Maureen McNeil); The gender character of in vitro fertilization (Marta Kirejczyk); Postmodern procreation: representing reproductive practice (Sarah Franklin); Visualizing 'life' (Barbara Duden); The public foetus and the family car (Janelle Sue Taylor). SaC 18 The world according toNational Geographic (Scott L. Montgomery); Japan: panacea or threat? (Ron Mitchinson); Technology assessment in German's biotechnology debate (Bernhard Gill); Powders, pills, bodies and things (Tony Kirman); The new smartness (Andrew Ross); The emperor's new genes (Pat Spallone). SaC 19 Family medicine in American culture (David Pingitore); Evolution, ethics and the search for certainty (Martha McCaughey); Thinking about the human genome project (Jon Turney) Gravity's Rainbow and the Newton/Goethe colour controversy (Megan Stern) SaC 20 Academic research cultures in collision (Stephen Hill & Tim Turpin); Modelling technologies of control (Chunglin Kwa); Desmond and Moore'sDarwin:: a critique (Robert M. Young); De-reifying risk (Les Levidow). SaC 21 Demolition derby as destruction ritual (Stephen C. Zehr); Electronic curb cuts and disability (David Hakken); Te(k)nowledge & the student/subject (James McDonald); The zoo: theatre of the animals (Scott L. Montgomery). SaC 22: Science on Display Making nature 'real' again (Steven Allison); Supermarket science? (Sharon Macdonald); Realism in representing race (Tracy Teslow); Nations on display at Expo '92 (Penelope Harvey). SaC 23 Body wars, body victories: AIDS and homosexuality in immunological discourse (Catherine Waldby); Animal experiments: scientific uncertainty and public unease (Mike Michael & Lynda Birke); Reading the human genome narrative (Josie van Dijck); What scientists need to learn (Robert M. Young); UK Consensus Conference on plant biotechnology (Ian Barns). SaC 24 Haitians, racism and AIDS (Laurent Dubois); The social construction of farm pollution (Philip Lowe and Neil Ward). Brains from space (Jeffrey Sconce); Laughing gas: democracy without feeling (Santiago Colas); Vannevar Bush: an engineer builds a book (Larry Owens). Back issues are =A37.50 each for non-subscribers, =A34.00 for subscribers; =A310.75 for institutions. Available from Science as Culture, 26 Freegrove Road, London N7 9RQ. Tel. +44 171 609 0507 Fax. +44 171 609 4837 A full catalogue of Process Press publications is available at: http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/projects/gpp/process.html It can also be sent via air mail if you have trouble with the web site. Write to pp@rmy1.demon.co.uk __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. +44 171 607 8306 fax. +44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | _Mental Space_: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/rmy.html | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/process.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 12:04:20 EST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Satoru Aonuma Subject: intro Hello all, My name is Satoru Aonuma, a grad student in communication at Wayne State University in Detroit. I did my undergraduate work in Japan, received MA from University of Iowa where I was exposed to a lot of "rhetoric of science" stuff, and I started PhD just this fall here at Wayne. Being a scientifically semi-illiterate myself, I am interested in looking at the working of scientific and expert discourses in public. I previously presented papers on the "Velikovsky affair" and rhetorical dimensions of medical care practice at rhetoric/communication conferences. Right now, I am working on a paper in which I (try to) explore the (potential) role that public museums (Smithsonians, science museums in Boston, Toronto, etc.) play as a discursive, public sphere. Any suggestion or information relevant to this topic would be greatly appreciated. ______________________________ Satoru Aonuma/Wayne State University Tel: 313(832)5778 E-mail: Satoru_Aonuma@mts.cc.wayne.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 12:53:37 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Bernd Frohmann Subject: Introduction In-Reply-To: <199511131731.MAA05824@julian.uwo.ca> I'm very happy that Bob Young has created this list, and I'm looking forward to lively discussions. I come from philosophy (doctorate at University of Toronto) and have been led to literature on science as discourse via teaching the literature of science & technology to graduate students in library & information science. Like some others on this list, I'm a reader of Latour et al, and the journal Social Studies of Science. I'm especially eager to learn from other list participants about issues relating to the many ways in which the discourses of science exercise power through the mediation of social relations. Bernd Frohmann, Associate Professor & Acting Dean Graduate School of Library & Information Science University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6G 1H1 voice: (519) 679-2111 ext. 8510 | fax: (519) 661-3506 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 13:37:04 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Lori Wagner Subject: Re: Introduction In-Reply-To: <199511131716.MAA18753@ccat.sas.upenn.edu> from "Robert Maxwell Young" at Nov 13, 95 04:29:03 pm I just realized, I haven't really introduced myself properly. My field is in 18th and 19th century German/Austrian science and literature, primarily the developing disciplines of mathematical logic and geology in German romanticism and realism. I am also interested in science as cultural study and the relationship between science and literature both in the current 'American school' as well as in the German tradition. Lori Wagner U. of Pennsylvania lwagner@ccat.sas.upenn.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 13:49:44 -0500 Reply-To: John Watt Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: John Watt Subject: Content? Does this list consider (or wish to consider): 1. The impact of food technology or science in the world? 2. The methods of influencing science - is it honest? 3. Teleological factors in science? Thanks John ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 13:50:08 -0500 Reply-To: John Watt Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: John Watt Subject: Re: History of Medicine forum - CADUCEUS Is this list anything to do with the magazine of the same name published in the UK (from Coventry)? John ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 10:58:52 -0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Donald J. Yankovic" Subject: Re: expertise >In a message dated 95-11-11 11:26:38 EST,Jude Hollins writes: > >>Is not the basis of having expertise in society that of having plumbers >>and lawyers and physicists who CARE? > >Sure, but care about what? I hope that my surgeons to worry too much about >me as a person, but care a great deal about themselves and what they profess. > Some years ago I had some surgery in Australia when Holistic Medicine (treat the person, not the ailment) was the fad. I'll never forget what the surgeon said: "Look, I'm only 36 years old and hardly know who I am, let alone you. I'll stick to my knives." Clearly I had placed my trust in an honest professional.> *************************************************************************** Donald J. Yankovic (360)378-2878 P.O.Box 1583 Friday Harbor WA 98250 yankovic@pacificrim.net ********** Its Never Too Late To Have A Happy Childhood ***************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 11:24:47 -0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Greg Nigh Subject: Intro Always looking to arrive fashionably late on any scene, here is my brief introduction. My name is Greg Nigh and I am the co-founder of AIDS Authority, a fledgling non-profit organization which seeks to oppose the use of science and medicine to pursue political ends. More specifically, here is the introductory statement, to be found on the AIDS Authority home page: "AIDS Authority views disease and medical research into its causes and its cures as serving a clear political, economic and ideological function both here in the US and around the globe. AIDS Authority is founded on the belief that the enormously increased prominence of medicine as a social institution is a dangerous trend toward the use of science to infringe upon fundamental individual rights, including the right to biological sovereignty. "And AIDS Authority is committed to resisting this trend in every way possible." My interest in the issue of science is certainly not from any anti-technology position. My belief, and that reflected in the objectives of AIDS Authority, is not that science/medicine is bad, or inherently abusive. But certainly there are dangers in an unregulated pursuit of technology. And as science/medicine become more ingrained in the everyday experience of people, many of those dangers become accepted without scrutiny, as though they are inevitable and even necessary. I think that the most profound exmample of such dangers is to be found within the HIV/AIDS scientific establishment. The vested interests are almost too numerous to enumerate. And AIDS represents not only a scientific problem, but a social and cultural tool. People become laboratories for experimental procedures, foreign countries are testing grounds for drugs and vaccines too dangerous to get past the FDA, etc. The list goes on and on. But it certainly doesn't stop with AIDS. Genetic research, vaccine research and implimentation, and many other activities are now accepted as part of a legitimate scientific enterprise, though many of the implications of these practices are lost in the jargon of progress. The direct impact of "progress" on individuals; the surrendering of privacy concerning various biological states (CD4 counts, various types of 'antibody positive', genetic testing/screening, etc); the *forced* use of medications (such as on homeless people with TB) or the *coerced* use of medications (such as when physicians *strongly encourage* pregnant women to take AZT, experimental in its use as HIV-transmission prevention, which has now caused developmental defects and deaths in babies so exposed); these are all matters of serious concern for those not willing to trust that science will operate in a vaccum, not willing to trust that science pursues its various goals free from ideological leanings or alterior political objectives. I am interested in this list to get ideas of how *hard scientists* perceive their own pursuits. And perhaps even more interesting, I would like to see how the social scientists see their role in bridging the gap between the scientific and the social. Science can go several ways. One option is to pursue technology as an end in itself, and to let the offshoot of those pursuits filter into our culture. Some of these offshoots will be valuable, others probably not so. Alternately, science might go the way of the scientific-industrial complex, driven by larger interests, with research directions that reflect such interests. And, obviously, those other interests are *not* politically neutral. Much of this is apparent already, and to even point it out is almost too obvious to mention. But it seems to me as perilous to neglect to expose these relationships as they form and operate as it would be to neglect to evaluate science as it proceeds overall. By way of background, I am currently working as a computer consultant and manage a consulting lab on the campus of Arizona State University. I received my Master's degree in the Humanities in December, '94. The title of my thesis was "The Study of an Epidemic: Science, Society and the (Re)Presentation of AIDS." I am planning to enroll in naturopathic school in Toronto in the fall of '96. I look forward reading the thoughts on this list. peace greg nigh gnigh@asu.edu -------- AIDS Authority Web Site...... http://www.aidsauthority.org My Tragically Un-hip but Continuously Improving Home Page, Containing The Full Key To The Revolution, Which Due To A Conflict In Scheduling Should Start Around Noon (A Concession To The Late-Sleeping Revolutionaries) Two Weeks From Next Monday.................. http://imagine.inre.asu.edu/~gnigh --------------- "A scientifically ordered society has little room for democracy because rationality is inevitably totalitarian." Mary Dixon 1812 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 12:43:52 PST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Gerald Sussman Organization: Urban and Public Affairs Subject: Introduction Hello, My name is Gerry Sussman. I am teaching at Portland State University in Portland, OR, Depts. of Urban Studies & Planning and Speech Communication. This mix has to do with my joint interests in urban politics (more in international political economy) and communication and information technology. My work has been largely in the area of third world development, focussing on information tech. issues within a transnational context. More recently involved in the political economy of communications and information within the U.S. and am completing a book on the subject (Communication, Technology and Politics) due to be in print next year. I'm developing a new course called The Information City and would welcome any suggestions and discussion in presenting such a construct. Looking forward to discussion on the network. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 09:28:53 +1000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: David Rooney Subject: Introduction Hi, my name is David Rooney and I am a graduate student working on the history of technology in music. It may not tell you much to say this but I am a kind of hybrid historian part cultural and part economic historian. My research is informed by the Seamless Web theorists such as Bijker and also Foucault's discussion of technology in an essay called Technologies of the Self. I'm looking forward to lots of good discussion on this list. David Rooney Faculty of Humanities Griffith Universtiy, Brisbane, Australia ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 15:29:35 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Lisa Rogers Subject: Introduction Hi-all, I am Lisa Rogers, a graduate student in anthropology at U.Utah in Salt Lake City. My undergrad is biology, emph. in evolution and ecology. "Evolutionary ecology" aka "behavioral ecology" is still my field, now applied to humans within my sub-field within anthropology. I am interested in relations of science within society, and I am eager to find more stimulating views and analyses than the anti-science pomo stuff that I keep running into, in some Leftish circles, in archeological theory and other places. Usually, useless and annoying conversation about science and society seems to include _no actual scientists_, which may make it easy to caricature "science." But I'm sure that there is much more and better conversation possible, and here I am, looking for it and ready to engage. Lisa ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 19:13:23 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Judith A. Geiger" Subject: Re: Introduction In-Reply-To: <9511132046.AA27100@is2.NYU.EDU> Hi. My name is Judith Geiger. I'm a grad student in Politics at New York University. My research is in national and regional science policy making in Africa with particular focus on the influence of epistemic communities. I will not be able to participate much as I have my comprehensives coming up in January. I look forward to actively contributing thereafter. regards, Judith ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 20:34:35 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Bob Frost Subject: Re: Introduction At 5:29 PM 11/13/95, Lisa Rogers wrote: > [...] I am >eager to find more stimulating views and analyses than the >anti-science pomo stuff that I keep running into, in some Leftish >circles, in archeological theory and other places. Usually, useless >and annoying conversation about science and society seems to include >_no actual scientists_, which may make it easy to caricature >"science." Hmmmm... didn't take long for the culture wars to start on a new list, did it? Can we dispense with the name-calling and derisive labelling for once, please? (IMHO, it's better to put it civilly in this fashion than to say that the defenders of "big science" tend to be mediocrities who dream of a world "out there" that's as simple as their controlled laboratory situations). My point here is that we can all engage in smarmy rhetorical mud-wrestles, and while it might help raise the adrenaline of our sedentary academic corporealities, it really accomplishes little else. So please, discuss, don't dis. ********************************************************************** * Robert L. Frost * * Department of History rfrost@umich.edu * * University of Michigan (313) 764-2434 * * Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1045 fax: (313) 747-4881 * * * * History of Technology, European Social and Economic History, * * Gender History, Technology Studies, Modern France * * * ********************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 20:02:17 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Jude L. Hollins" Subject: Re: expertise In-Reply-To: <199511130608.BAA24776@mailbox.syr.edu> On Sun, 12 Nov 1995, Iljas Baker - SH replied: > > Is not the basis of having expertise in society that of having plumbers > > and lawyers and physicists who CARE? > > > I think the basis of expertise is having a body of knowledge that will > get the task done whether it be saving our souls, fixing our roof, > mending our pipes, curing our disease etc and a commitment to using that > body of knowledge to the best of one's abilities.Possibly the origins of > the guild system lie in these facts ie designed to ensure transmission > and accountability... yes. For me, i do wonder if professional knowledge is what it is about. Granted, this is what those who ask/claim for the status of expertise espouse. Yet, were guilds simply about skills? (historical experts, enter stage right, please) Likewise, what are the nicely defined tasks and skills? There seems to be a sacred hall, where only professionals can define and critique what comes under their 'tasks', responsibilities, and knowledge. I am not screaming for government regulation, but, simply asking if we have put ourselves in a precarious position, speaking of safety deposit boxes, wherby only experts have the keys... to life, death, sinks, and moral excellence... (the knowledge for dealing with such things). hehehehe likewise, Adam Smith's famous publication The Wealth of Nations (1776!) came in part out of his interest in how humans associate via 'sympathy' (Smith's wording). The work i refer to is The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), and is more interested in people's capacity (or disposition) towards social association, attachment, and sentiments. According to Scott Gordon(history and philosophy of social science.1991.oxford), Smith adopted the rational animal notion in The Wealth of Nations 'for heuristic' purposes. Smith himself notes the limitations of the 'invisible hand' metaphor, while holding onto the notion that human sociability leads to spontaneous ordering beyond individual interests... (did i get this right?) I like the metaphor, but, question the reality of any true "free" market (another discussion). Yes, so i still remain confused about the origins and nature of expertise. Self-interest and utility of vocational organization seem somewhat reasonable, yet, there seems to be more. The professions seem to hold a sacred contract with them, beyond the utility such a contract might offer. It would seem that philosophers would have been out of jobs a long time ago if there was not some sacred dimension to it all (of course, many are out of jobs). It seems that the ideal professional might be some impersonal 'knower'. Are professionals just 'knowers'? Does the professional boil down to association with neatly compartmentalized theory? Clearly, tacit knowledge of using various 'instruments' and professional ethics comes into the picture. However, the picture becomes really muddy. Do professional associations and in-house reflection on the sacred practices reflect such a muddy concept? I don't know, and i apologize for the double-barreled question... jude :) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 10:24:48 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Mr B.P. Larvor" Subject: Re: Introduction In-Reply-To: <199511140929.JAA26523@listserv.rl.ac.uk> from "Bob Frost" at Nov 13, 95 08:34:35 pm In the last mail Bob Frost said: > At 5:29 PM 11/13/95, Lisa Rogers wrote: > > [...] I am > >eager to find more stimulating views and analyses than the > >anti-science pomo stuff that I keep running into, in some Leftish > >circles, in archeological theory and other places. Usually, useless > >and annoying conversation about science and society seems to include > >_no actual scientists_, which may make it easy to caricature > >"science." > > Hmmmm... didn't take long for the culture wars to start on a new list, did > it? Can we dispense with the name-calling and derisive labelling for once, > please? (IMHO, it's better to put it civilly in this fashion than to say > that the defenders of "big science" tend to be mediocrities who dream of a > world "out there" that's as simple as their controlled laboratory > situations). > My point here is that we can all engage in smarmy rhetorical mud-wrestles, > and while it might help raise the adrenaline of our sedentary academic > corporealities, it really accomplishes little else. So please, discuss, > don't dis. Except that there has been no discussion so far, only dull introductions. Of course, we don't want flame wars, but we shouldn't shy away from any trenchently held opinion just because there is a danger things may perhaps get heated. For my part, I think Lisa is right, there is a lot of modish nonsense talked about science. How often do we have to be told, with a knowing look and a worldly smirk that `science doesn't operate in a vaccuum'? In my experience, if you try to move the debate on from that banal fact and ask how we can reconcile that thought with the better realist arguments, you just get static. By the way, my hat is off to a man who can disparage rhetoric by rhetorical means (smarmy mud-wrestles), having in the previous paragraph said what he would not say because it's too rude! Brendan Larvor ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 21:28:30 +0900 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Andrew Barfield Subject: Re dull introductions At the risk of giving a load of modish nonsense, and without wanting to point the finger at anybody, least of all scientists, I am troubled by the fact that at the end of the twentieth century most of the world's popoulation lives in abject poverty, and that our knowledge(s) is/are just as poor at trying to make this situation better. Does this trouble other people interested in science as culture, or have I got the wrong end of the stick ? Andy Barfield ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 12:35:00 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Trenchantly held opinions Brendan Larvor says, Except that there has been no discussion so far, only dull introductions. Of course, we don't want flame wars, but we shouldn't shy away from any trenchently held opinion just because there is a danger things may perhaps get heated. Here are some tranchantly held opinions of mine: All facts are theory-laden All theories are value-laden All values redise in an iideology or world view. Science, technology, medicine and other forms of expertise are the embodiment of values in theories and things, facts and artefacts, procedures, programs and products. __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. +44 171 607 8306 fax. +44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | _Mental Space_: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/rmy.html | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/process.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 20:45:49 +0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Dale Edmonds Subject: Paltry Introduction Um, I actually haven't started varsity yet. I *was* there earlier this year doing political science, but fell asleep in too many lectures, so I dropped out. Next year I'm going to do health sciences or physics depending on which I prefer at Otago University. I'm seventeen, so I'm probably the lurker baby, but I run another mailing list called BloodQuill devoted to novels and readers- as the blurb says, words gone mad. In my year off, I'm working at a cyber cafe setting up their web site and trying to figure out CGI and learn how to set up my own BBS next year. Right, you all look intelligent and educated so I shall slip back into lurking until I have something constructive to say. Dale Edmonds whale@pobox.com http://www.pobox.com/~whale Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not make messes in the house. -Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 19:56:15 +0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Iljas Baker - SH Subject: Poverty of knowlege? In-Reply-To: <199511141228.TAA20222@mucc.mahidol.ac.th> On Tue, 14 Nov 1995, Andrew Barfield wrote: > I am troubled by the fact that at the end > of the twentieth century most of the world's popoulation > lives in abject poverty, and that our knowledge(s) is/are > just as poor at trying to make this situation better. Surely we have enough knowledge to make a pretty big dent in world poverty? Isn't the problem something else.I guess the something else that this particular list might be interested in is the social control of knowledge and its application.Most research for example is carried out not necessarily to improve the human condition but to make vast profits, and knowledge in the form of medicines is distributed only to those who can pay the vast sums demanded by the pharmaceutical companies.I'm sure other list subscribers can point to countless examples. Oh one last thing : our knowledge is applied very selectively eg World Bank and other such overseas development aid funded projects are often designed to bring the recipients into "the club", some times with disastrous affects, rather than designed to truly benefit local populations. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 20:26:10 +0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Iljas Baker - SH Subject: Re: Trenchantly held opinions In-Reply-To: <199511141232.TAA20388@mucc.mahidol.ac.th> On Tue, 14 Nov 1995, Robert Maxwell Young wrote: > > Here are some tranchantly held opinions of mine: > > All facts are theory-laden > All theories are value-laden > All values reside in an ideology or world view. Well we can continue with this sort of thing: all ideologies or world views are shaped(choose a synonym)by(choose a phrase)...We will probably complete the circle. There must be another way to approach this. I am reminded of a quote from Saul Bellow's The Dean's December: " In the American moral crisis, the first requirement was to experience what was happening and to see what must be seen. The facts were covered from our perception. More than they had been in the past?Yes, because the changes, especially the increase in consciousness-and also in false consciousness-was accompanied by a peculiar kind of confusion. The increase of theories and discourse, itself a cause of new strange forms of blindness, the false representations of"communication" led to horrible distortions of public consciousness. Therefore the first act of morality was to disinter the reality, retrieve reality....The language of discourse had shut out experience altogether." p.136 Is anyone troubled by this quote? Inspired by it? I think Bellow(never one for being politically correct) is one of our most perceptive living writers. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 15:54:44 +0100 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Andreas Carter Subject: Introduction Hello all, my name is Andreas Carter, I am 31, and currently on my way to start up a "virtual" company in Sweden, which is where I am born, and currently live. Through my father I am American, though. My interest in science-as-culture could best be expressed by relating it to my interest in, and study of, the works of Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) - although that is only a partial truth. I have here chosen to quote that part of the preface which I have included in the "quite subjectively edited" version of his ethico-epistemological work The Philosophy of Freedom (1894), which can be found on the WWW at http://public-www.pi.se/~the_tank/steiner/preface.htm Cheers, Andreas "A truth which comes to us from the outside always bears the stamp of uncertainty. We can believe only what appears to each one of us in our own hearts as truth. Only the truth can give us assurance in developing our individual powers. Whoever is tortured by doubts finds his powers lamed. In a world full of riddles, he can find no goal for his creative energies." "Today, many people no longer want to merely believe; they want to know. Belief demands the acceptance of truths which one does not fully comprehend. But things not fully comprehended are repugnant to the individual element in us, which wants to experience everything in the depths of its inner being. Knowledge that is subject to external standards, academic or otherwise, cannot really satisfy us." "The realms of life are many. For each one, special sciences develop. But life itself is a unity, and the more deeply the sciences try to penetrate into their separate realms, the more they withdraw themselves from the vision of the world as a living whole. There must be a knowledge which seeks in the separate sciences the elements leading back to the fullness of life. The scientific specialist seeks through his findings to develop awareness of the world and its workings. In this book the aim is a philosophical one - that knowledge itself shall become organically alive." "Philosophy is, in one sense, science. In another sense it is art. All real philosophers have been artists - in the realm of concepts. For them, human ideas were their artists materials and scientific method their artistic technique. Abstract thinking thus takes on concrete individual life, and the ideas become powerful forces in themselves. How philosophy as an art is related to human freedom, what freedom is, and whether we do, or can, participate in it - this is the main theme of my book. Any other scientific discussions are included only to the extent that they throw light on these questions, which are, in my opinion, the most immediate concern of mankind." "All science would be nothing but the satisfaction of idle curiosity if it didn't strive to raise the value of existence for human individuals. The sciences attain their true value only by showing the human significance of their results. The ultimate aim of the individual can never be the cultivation of a single faculty, but only the development of all the capacities that slumber within him. Knowledge has value only in so far as it contributes to the allround development of the whole nature of man." _________________________ andreas.carter@pi.se ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 10:19:56 EST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Duncan Watts Subject: Intro Dear science culture-vultures: my name is Duncan Watts and I'm a 3rd year (Australian) grad student currently immersed in mathematical modelling of biological rhythms, at Cornell. However, my interests extend to modelling of social/economic/ecological systems as well as to the philosophy and sociology of science (not to mention the sociology of philosophy, which seems to attract a lot less attention). One thing I've noticed about the blurbs so far is how few practicng scientists there are (one, that I've counted so far) participating in a list which concerns itself with the social impact of (practicing) scientists. I don't wish to start off any rounds of chest-poking, but I find this absence of scientists to be a consistent feature of many science and technology studies-type departments / discussions. More than anything, it seems an indictment of the introverted nature of scientific inquiry, and philosophers / historians / commentators of science really can't be blamed for that. But I can't help but wonder how productive any discussion about science and society can be, without active and widespread interaction BETWEEN scientists and society. Are we all just preaching to the converted? Cheers, Duncan. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 21:25:45 -0600 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Matthew Weinstein Subject: Re: expertise >I am not screaming for government regulation, but, simply asking if we >have put ourselves in a precarious position, speaking of safety deposit >boxes, wherby only experts have the keys... to life, death, sinks, and >moral excellence... (the knowledge for dealing with such things). That's good, since it seems that government is very involved in the credentialing and preservation of (post)modern guild societies from teachers (where there is enormous debate about what is the body of knowledge they possess, to lawyers, doctors, et c.) While some of this may regulate the quality of work done, much of it merely provides rituals to demarcate institutionalized expertise: simple entrance exams which have only marginal relation to the practice, bureaucracy qua bureaucracy. One metaphor I come back to again (borrowed from Haraway, no doubt borrowed back further) when I reflect on academic disciplines, which constitute at least one subgenre of expertise, is that of a "power charged conversation." These conversations are carried out through journals, conferences, email networks (like this one), and are constituted and regulated through various modes of power: the money to found journals, or set up computer networks, the credentialing power to designate people as being in or out of particular disciplines, and so forth. --evolving (non teleological) thoughts Matthew Weinstein ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 11:00:03 EST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "AUDREY B. DAVIS" Organization: UNIVERSITY OF MD DENTAL SCHOOL Subject: introduction Audrey B. Davis began as a student of the sciences in college and tuaght secondary school science for five years before discovering the history of science. I studied hist. of science and medicine at Johns Hopkins University receiving a Ph. D. in 1969 just before the more skeptical look at science and scientists took off in the academic world. My thesis, which explored the rise of science and its relation to medicine in the 17th c., introduced me to the alchemical and other "non-scientific" ideas which have since been so closely linked with science through a number of scholarly studies. Thus it is easy for me to enter into discussion about the many aspects of science and the questions these raise. I spent 27 years as Curator of Medical Sciences at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, a humbling experience in facing the many issues of educating "the public" and responding to their many requests, etc. Presently I am happily engaged in preparing the inaugural exhibition for the National Museum of Dentistry located in Baltimore, Maryland. The museum and the exhibition opens April 27, 1996. Briefly what I have read on the internet so far seems ad hoc and reflects the age and experience of the mailers. Sure science is not the bible of life, nor does "idle curiosity" have to be defended and turned into a useful product. None of us experience reality as everyone else does at the same time and we can only hope that what we say will be understood by a few and acted on by even fewer. However one thing I did learn in all my associations with scientists is that there is a vast gap between what a scientist learns and does everyday and what historians, sociologists, etc. learn and do. What seems obvious usually is not. I believe most scientists are horrified to think that they are believed by their research and treatment to intentionally make life more difficult for HIV-AIDS patients. Scientists would do anything to find a cure. They can only react to this disease as they do to every other infection, which calls for precaution and measures to limit its spread. Scientists know that no one group of people create and spread disease, although it may seem like this occurs during a short period of time. Question as you must, but listen very carefully to responses. Audrey B. Davis, National Museum of Dentistry, 666 West Baltimore St., Baltimore, Maryland 21201-1586. FAX: 410 706-8314. Tel: 410 706 8314. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 11:04:36 EST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Annette Gough Subject: Re: Intro While I share Duncan Watts' bemusement at the small number of "practising scientists" on this list - which of course begs the question as to what such an entity is anyway - I find solace in a quotation from Marion Namenwirth (1986) which, for me, explains a lot about the silence, or unconsciousness: "Scientists firmly believe that as long as they are not _conscious_ of any bias or political agenda, they are neutral and objective, when in fact they are only unconscious." Our task is perhaps to be more like Donna Haraway, Sandra Harding, Andrew Ross and others and endeavour to stir consciousnesses. This may not happen through lists like this, but then again perhaps, asa result of lurking on such lists, each of us may be inspired in some way to attempt to raise scientists' consciousness levels in other forums. ________________________________ Dr Annette Gough >From 1 September - 1 December 1995 Royal Bank Fellow MSTE Group Faculty of Education Queen's University Kingston Ontario K7L 3N6 Canada Ph +613 545 6000 1 7242 (office) Ph +613 542 6275 (home) Fax +613 545 6584 Internet: gougha@educ.queensu.ca Normal address Faculty of Education Deakin University Geelong Victoria 3217 Australia Internet: aggough@deakin.edu.au ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 15:59:39 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "John Soyland (Dr A J Soyland)" Subject: Re: expertise Hi Jude (or should that be Hey Jude? - guess you've never heard that one before...), and others, No, I don't think professionals are just 'knowers' - for one can be one and perhaps not the other. The formation of a profession is about the creation of a category, and one with ethical, financial, and educational implications. Let me try myself as an example (and say hello to the clinical psychologist in Sydney while I'm at it). Professional associations to do with psychology (and psychoanalysis, Bob will point out) are recent, and a good test-case for watching the development of affiliation. I am a member of the British Psychological Society (BPS), and can flash a couple of titles after my name to go along with it. How did I get here? Well, I could have taken an entrance exam to show that I was worthy of membership, but my Australian degrees in Psychology seemed to the panel at the BPS to allow me to avoid this route. That is, my previous education could satisfy the demands of qualification. On becoming a member, I had to read and sign a declaration of ethical conduct in any thing I do whilst calling myself a psychologist (which I never do, but am able to), and I had to pay an amount of money. A few years later, I applied to be a Chartered Psychologist - what that took was additional education in psychology, more money, and the signing of something that looks rather like an oath of professional conduct. I then recived a certificate, to display my professional status - in the same way that medical doctors have various certificates on the wall behind their desks. At the same time, I applied to become an Associate Fellow of the Society: more money, 7 years of additional work in psychology after recieving my first degree, nomiation from 2 people who were already Fellows of the Society and had to write testimonials on my work. Of course, not all of these regulations and procedures existed in the original documents of the society: the profession has gradually become more professional, with more rungs in the ladder to be passed - but there is a kind of 'grandfather clause' such that people who are already members, or associate fellows, or fellows do not have to qualify to the new standards (a bit like professors from earlier generations). That help any? Cheers, John or rather: A.J. Soyland, BA, MA, PhD, CPsychol, AFBPsS __________________________________________ A. J. Soyland Lecturer in Culture & Communication __________________________________________ Department of Psychology | Email: psa003@cent1.lancs.ac.uk Lancaster University | Phone (office): (01524) 593887 Lancaster, LA1 4YF | Fax (department): (01524) 593744 UK | ___________________|______________________ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 12:26:40 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Jude L. Hollins" Subject: Re: expertise In-Reply-To: <199511141631.LAA09419@mailbox.syr.edu> Yes, lots of help. I am as interested in the qualifying of plumbers as i am in physicists. The casting of Scientists vs. philosophers might miss an historical dimension. How can we get more 'scientists' onto this list (if it is going to come up as a topic for shooting ourselves/others in the foot)? As i make my way through my doctoral program in sociology and philosophy of education, i get a more complicated view of the nature of this ladder (may i generalize?). Methods and skills seems to be the real emphasis, given vague ethical commitments. Are there other, more experienced than I, professionals out there who could append their introductions with narratives on in-house reflections and training? I would be fascinated to hear the differences and overlaps between professional associations, across seas and disciplines. My gut intuition is that there is more acknowledgement WITHIN scientific/proffesional associations of the politics of knowledge and certainty than in the general discourse within societies at large... ok, a bit more than an intuition... I always wonder why it is fine for Ph.D's to ask the troublesome questions, while 15 year olds (in my experiences) are told to just accept the simplified presentation of science-in-a-vacuum, with expiremental models as Facts. Does one need the big Badge (phD) of a discipline to be legitimately skeptical or critical? How do we think scientific inquiry evolves, anyway? seems the mystics and marginal folks make the best scientists...historically. jude (trying to provoke..) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 18:05:33 -0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Don Slater Subject: Introductions In-Reply-To: <199511130633.GAA06820@listserv.rl.ac.uk> LIke a lot of other people I suppose I've been following these intros with great interest -- so...my turn, I guess. I'm a sociologist, though I tend to work on the boundary with economics on the one hand and cultural theory on the other. My main focus is theories of consumer culture. I've been interested in science and technology from a number of angles. These include: 1. Debates about advertising and scientific persuasion (the Vance Packard-type conspiracy arguments)in which advertising is seen to be a problem only when it possesses scientific knowledge/power along a positivist model. 2. At the moment I'm doing some research on boys, men and hobbies which has involved me in Sherry Turkle's work (among others) on relations to objects and games as well as specific technologies like computers, internet, photographic equipment etc. Its partly about hobbies that fetishise technology (trainspotting anyone?) On the second item, I've actually got a query: there seem to have been some discourse in the interwar period and also in the 1950s (particularly US, I think) in which the weight of scientific expertise (mainly psychology) was used to argue that men should take up hobbies firstly (in the 1930s) to mitigate the stress of unemployment, then in the 1950s to mmitigate the stress of employment! Does any have any references or expertise ;-) on this? Along the same lines, does anyone have some critical references on occupational therapy (where I gather hobbies also loom large)? Don Slater Department of Sociology Goldsmiths College University of London Lewisham Way New Cross London SE14 6NW ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 13:08:32 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Mark L Gilbert Subject: Re: Introduction In-Reply-To: <9511132333.AA29904@osf1.gmu.edu> Where is the Foucault essay "Technologies of the Self" published? mark gilbert ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 12:29:05 -0600 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Jon S Miller Subject: Introduction In-Reply-To: <199511140014.SAA42550@mail-hub1.weeg.uiowa.edu> Hello sci-cult e-community. I'm Jon Miller, a graduate student (soon to be ABD) in American literature here at the University of Iowa. I plan to be here on the mailing list, but probably won't have a great deal to contribute. But consider me a member of the audience. (If things get dull, perhaps I'll heckle.) The dissertation I'm working on now is a literary/intellectual/cultural history of drinking in America. I'm here because I'm also interested in the history of science and science culture in written accounts of life in America, and particularly interested, this week at least, in the history of evolutionary thought in North America. And I'm wondering to what degree the latter is the former, at least in literary narratives and their advice for happy living. Jon Stephen Miller University of Iowa jon-s-miller@uiowa.edu "Life is sweet as nitrous oxide" -- Ralph Waldo Emerson ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 13:38:27 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Mark L Gilbert Subject: Re: Trenchantly held opinions In-Reply-To: <9511141237.AA09124@osf1.gmu.edu> Boring Intro: I'm a grad student working on philosophy of culture and philosophy of science. Now for the trenchant stuff: On Tue, 14 Nov 1995, Robert Maxwell Young wrote: > Here are some tranchantly held opinions of mine: > > All facts are theory-laden > All theories are value-laden > All values redise in an iideology or world view. > > Science, technology, medicine and other forms of expertise are the > embodiment of values in theories and things, facts and artefacts, > procedures, programs and products. I agree with the basic constructivist premise as long as it doesn't mindllessly lead to what Lisa Rogers on Mon, 13 Nov 1995 was concerned about: > I am interested in relations of science within society, and I am > eager to find more stimulating views and analyses than the > anti-science pomo stuff that I keep running into, in some Leftish > circles, in archeological theory and other places. Usually, useless > and annoying conversation about science and society seems to include > _no actual scientists_, which may make it easy to caricature > "science." I am not suggesting that Young or his assertion is mindless; far from it, I essentially agree with what he says as far as it goes. In response to his list, I would have to ask, How would we pick out a fact without a theory? Why would we pursue theory if we perceived no value in it? What could a value be without a worldview? In other words, except for a dead myth of god-like objectivity that some may still believe in, where's the trenchancy? None of the above rule out scientific activity that is objective, rational, and efficacious for the production of valued knowledge, as Rogers observes the pomo crowd doing. These points in themselves are no condemnation of science at all, only a rebuttal of certain philosophers and politicians views and uses of science. So any temptation to disparage science on the above grounds (which again, I take it that Young is not) is equally a temptation to disparage all human activity, since it is equally constrained. Nonetheless, given that it is so constrained, it does not at all follow that it is therefore equivalent in all essential features to any other cultural activity, like literature, politics, etc. If you want to argue that position, it will need to be done on other grounds. And I for one, do not believe it can be done. mark gilbert..............................................| mgilbert@osf1.gmu.edu |Need to examine | MarkGil@aol.com |Uncritical times | | -Stereolab| |..................................... "...a major advance in quality." -Automotive News ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 10:51:35 PST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Jose Morales Subject: Re: Introduction Folks, Here's my Intro... I'm Jose Morales, grad student at New York University (matriculated)/UCal San Fran (thesis work) in Environmental Oncology (mostly molecular biology). I coordinate a network for Puerto Ricans called BoricuaNet (on our host IGC). I've been an activist for civil and human rights for years and I've specialized on the issue of environmental racism in urban centers (Latinos in NY). I'm interested in all these issues you folks raised. I got one I'll raise later, right now I'll deal with this one: I particularly like the post... All facts are theory-laden All theories are value-laden All values redise in an iideology or world view. I don't have any problem with the 3 statements, I just want to move from semi-rhetorical statements to actual examples to shove in scientists faces. However, I want to know how that translates in particular instances that you can use with actually practicing scientists--- like fact: TFIID is part of the basal transcription machinery for producing mRNA from most genes--how is this theory laden, where are the values and what is the resulting ideology/world view? Jose ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 14:16:08 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: schwartz Subject: Re: Trenchantly held opinions X-To: Robert Maxwell Young In-Reply-To: <199511141239.HAA07677@jupiter.acs.oakland.edu> Introductions on this list clearly require some art. Mine will have to wait. Meanwhile, let me complete Bob Young's circle. He has written: >All facts are theory-laden >All theories are value-laden >All values redise in an iideology or world view. I would add: All ideologies have a predictive component. All predictions are judged confirmed or disconfirmed in accordance with whether they correspond to or contradict the facts. Howard Schwartz Schwartz@Jupiter.ACS.Oakland.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 14:52:04 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: David Frayne Subject: digest how does one set this list to digest format? i mean so each days postings come as one email rather than multiple? thanks ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 13:43:29 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Lisa Rogers Subject: Re: expertise -Reply The true history of guilds is indeed informative on this point, and illustrates a process which operates within other groups of people as well. The formation of guilds I see as a profit-seeking strategy. Guilds acquired power to require any, say, silversmith to belong to the guild or else he could not open shop. Not to mention the women, of course. They were ruled out entirely - got to keep down the competition, right? Only the widows of guild-members in good standing were allowed to continue in the silver business, in which, of course, she was often already running the whole thing. It was about "special interests" politics and lobbying, partly in the form of lavish gifts to the queen and such, which no one artisan/ financier/ rich owner could afford to do alone. This is the way in which Queen Elizabeth got a lot of her fanciest gowns, all embroidered in real pearls and so on. The guilds competed for her favors, such as laws that increased their power to make money! Nowadays it takes a different form, but it still looks partly the same, and there are many examples. The real expertise of having a skill is one thing, but the trappings that are built upon that single difference are another thing altogether. It is when it is mystified and celebrated, invested with power and such, it is no longer just a matter of specialized knowledge, training, experience. Then it becomes much more capable of abuse. And any time those with the social power find it profitable, they are able to hurt others. Lisa Rogers >>> Jude L. Hollins 11/13/95, 06:02pm >>> [snip] i do wonder if professional knowledge is what it is about. Granted, this is what those who ask/claim for the status of expertise espouse. Yet, were guilds simply about skills? (historical experts, enter stage right, please) Likewise, what are the nicely defined tasks and skills? There seems to be a sacred hall, where only professionals can define and critique what comes under their 'tasks', responsibilities, and knowledge. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 14:25:55 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Lisa Rogers Subject: world poverty >>> Andrew Barfield [snip]... I am troubled by the fact that at the end of the twentieth century most of the world's popoulation lives in abject poverty, and that our knowledge(s) is/are just as poor at trying to make this situation better. [snip] Andy Barfield L: Are you sure that is a "fact"? Do we [any/all of us] not _know_ what would help, or isn't it a problem of just not getting it done? The lack of "political will" or power or willingness to spend money? or to truly rock the boat and change the power structure? I suspect that "social science" has several good things to offer in terms of understanding the causes of poverty and therefore implying some treatments that may be worthwhile. Of course, we all probably wouldn't agree on what the cure is, so we could compete for funding to see which of our theories will get to be tried out... So I guess I'm suggesting another question, i.e. _is_ it a problem of a lack of "knowledge"? Or something else? Lisa Rogers ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 14:51:48 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Lisa Rogers Subject: evolution? >>> Jon S Miller 11/14/95, 11:29am [snip]... I'm also interested in the history of science and science culture in written accounts of life in America, and particularly interested, this week at least, in the history of evolutionary thought in North America. And I'm wondering to what degree the latter is the former, at least in literary narratives and their advice for happy living. L: Do you mean the history of thought about "Darwinian" evolution? I'm a neo-darwinian biologist by training, so I'm curious and interested if that is what you are referring to. Lisa ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 09:53:20 GMT+1000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Rob Greig Subject: Re: world poverty >>> Andrew Barfield [snip]... I am troubled by the fact that at the end of the twentieth century most of the world's popoulation lives in abject poverty, and that our knowledge(s) is/are just as poor at trying to make this situation better. [snip] Andy Barfield Lisa Replied Of course, we all probably wouldn't agree on what the cure is, so we could compete for funding to see which of our theories will get to be tried out... So I guess I'm suggesting another question, i.e. _is_ it a problem of a lack of "knowledge"? Or something else? Lisa Rogers Lisa/Andy I do not believe that the original question posed (re poverty etc) is a question of science, social science etc. As a scientist and a sociologist of science, I see the "poverty problem" as a multifaceted problem which will not be solved by throwing more science at it or sending in more social scientists. I also do not believe that the "problem" is a knowledge problem. I have worked for many years in Asia and New Guinea where poverty and hunger are daily occurrences and all the science and social science in the world is not going to correct the poverty/hunger trap until there is a significant amout of political will. Finally - please Lisa - I hope you were being cynical. Let's not turn the problem into a competition for research grant funding. That would be the ulimate obscenity. PS What a great list and great discussion!! Regards Robert Greig School of Science University of Ballarat Ballarat, VIC 3353,Australia E-mail: rig@fs3.ballarat.edu.au ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 22:54:52 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Constructivism id not opposed to objectivity: it frames it Mark speculated: So any temptation to disparage science on the above grounds (which again, I take it that Young is not) Correct, accurate, factual, objective. true. Bob Y __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. +44 171 607 8306 fax. +44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | _Mental Space_: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/rmy.html | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/process.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 09:32:05 +1000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: David Rooney Subject: Re: Introduction In-Reply-To: <199511141851.EAA10213@ngriffin.itc.gu.edu.au> Foucault's essay is in L. H. Martin, H. Gutman & P. Hutton (Eds) Technologies of the Self: a seminar with Michel Foucault, tavistock: London 1988. David Rooney Faculty of Humanities Griffith Universtiy, Brisbane, Australia On Tue, 14 Nov 1995, Mark L Gilbert wrote: > Where is the Foucault essay "Technologies of the Self" published? > > mark gilbert > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 17:24:30 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Lisa Rogers Subject: Re: world poverty -Reply >>> Rob Greig 11/15/95, 09:53am >>> [snip] I also do not believe that the "problem" is a knowledge problem. I have worked for many years in Asia and New Guinea where poverty and hunger are daily occurrences and all the science and social science in the world is not going to correct the poverty/hunger trap until there is a significant amout of political will. Finally - please Lisa - I hope you were being cynical. Let's not turn the problem into a competition for research grant funding. That would be the ulimate obscenity. L: Cynical? I never use the word, partly because it's meaning is unclear to me. Ironic? yes, I sometimes forget to put out the "irony alert" sign, but you've got a good eye. Point is, such competition is part of what is already going on, along with the lack of "political will" that you and I both flag. All this and more are in service of the larger point we are agreeing on, that world poverty is not a "lack of knowledge" problem. Is that the same as saying that it's not a "scientific problem"?? Etiquette note: Is everybody okay with the casual use of first names here? Unless requested to do otherwise, that is my preference, or last names when needed to avoid confusion, or either one interchangeably? [Just trying to be polite by asking ...] Lisa ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 19:56:57 -0600 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Jon S Miller Subject: Evolutionary thought In-Reply-To: <199511142237.QAA43176@mail-hub1.weeg.uiowa.edu> Lisa: By the time evolutionary thought gets into novels, it's really watered down -- I'm looking at, for example, Edith Wharton's "Descent of Man" (short story) and all the "tribe" metaphors for the hierarchical and close-knit New York society in \The Age of Innocence\ (1920). Although I think most early 20th-century Americans learned evolutionary thought from Herbert Spencer (who reconciled it to Christianity), the specific type of evolution doesn't really matter, for what I'm looking at. Just a hunch -- how much "evolution" does America at large really know, or understand? (How about Europe? Australia?) Beyond the "ape-man" jokes, is there any understanding or appreciation of the far-reaching implications of Darwinism, of natural selection? Personally I was quite startled by Robert Wright's popular summary of current evolutionary thought (in \The Moral Animal\), but even more surprised to notice that Americans living from 1880 to 1930 were far more "evolutionary" in their thought than, I think, Americans are today. [But this is judging from the fiction -- which may or may not be representative of the larger "currents of thought," in each era.] Jon Stephen Miller University of Iowa jon-s-miller@uiowa.edu "Life is sweet as nitrous oxide" -- Ralph Waldo Emerson On Tue, 14 Nov 1995, Lisa Rogers wrote: > >>> Jon S Miller 11/14/95, 11:29am > [snip]... I'm also interested in the history of science and science > culture in written accounts of life in America, and particularly > interested, this week at least, in the history of evolutionary > thought in North America. And I'm wondering to what degree the > latter is the former, at least in literary narratives and their > advice for happy living. > > L: Do you mean the history of thought about "Darwinian" evolution? > I'm a neo-darwinian biologist by training, so I'm curious and > interested if that is what you are referring to. > Lisa > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 21:39:36 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Fred Grinnell Subject: INTRODUCTION/QUESTION Hi! My name is Fred Grinnell, and I am a practicing scientist -- as long as NIH keeps funding my laboratory. Also, I'm interested in science studies. I've written a book about what doing science entails (The Scientific Attitude, 2nd Edition, Guilford Press, 1992) and am working on a sequel. I have not activately participated in one of these lists before but was very interested in a question that already has been posed, at least indirectly. Namely, why should practicing scientists be interested in this list? I think that people usually do things -- even if they don't admit it -- that are in their own best interest? In what way might participating in such a list advance a scientist's own best interests? For me, this is a personal matter as well as a general question. Except for my closest friends, most of my colleagues in science take my interest in science studies to be eccentric, something that should be done after one retires, not midstream in one's research career. So what should I say to convince my colleagues to want to discuss questions such as meaning of science for culture and vice-versa. Fred Grinnell Dept of Cell Biol and Neuroscience UT Southwestern Med Ctr Dallas, TX ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 22:43:03 -0500 Reply-To: apattana@tikva.chem.utoronto.ca Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Arjendu Pattanayak Subject: Introduction + Hi, First, here's a delayed introduction. I am post-doc in the Chemical Physics Theory Group at the University of Toronto, with a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Texas, Austin. I work in the field known by its buzz-words ``quantum chaos". As for what I am doing on the list, let me just quote myself from something that I tried out on some of the newsgroups a couple of months ago. And apologies for the length of the message. Arjendu ******************** Some of the most fascinating stories I used to read/hear as a kid were creation myths of various sorts. These were the kind that started with "Once .." and finished with "And that's why [insert observed phenomenon, example eclipses] happen". Some were cosmological, some biological, some related to relationships between animals (ecological?!) and so on. Later, as I climbed the education ladder (to ?!), finding out the "scientific" explanation for the phenomenon in class never did detract from the poetry of the original "myth" that I had read/heard. But then, as I got deeper into science (in "gradual" school), I discovered some truly beautiful theories, elegant and imaginative : stuff that really made the mind tingle if one allowed oneself to think about things in a receptive frame of mind, [especially, oh, say sometime around 4:00 in the morning when the caffiene you pumped into yourself to stay awake during the afternoon seminars was finally wearing off and the damn assignment was about as much done as it was likely to get] and there was a rightness and poetry to it that made all the doubts about working in such a "dry" and jargon-filled world lift. And I would try to communicate some of this to my friends from the other side of campus, in excited gestures at the Black Hole (actually, the local pub with great beers on tap -- you got sucked into it if you were within ummm, sightning distance) or over coffee at the friendly neighbourhood cafe or whatever. Sigh. Rarely worked. I discovered that while it was very possible to communicate the rigour and the efficacy and some of the elegance of a given scientific theory, the beauty seemed cloaked behind the years of "technical" training that it seemed I was bringing to my aesthetic response. "It seems", 'cos I dont believe that. But ... So. The point is as follows: what has happened to the poetry of science, of explanations, of the scientific imagination ? Some of the pop--science books that I have read are remarkably good at getting one excited about an idea, or communicating the essence of some complicated thinking with very clever imagery, there are very few that seem to tread the line between poetry and scientific theories where most of the excitement and motivation lies. The best of them explain the ideas pretty well, and some manage to convey the spine-tingling nature of the ideas with which (well, some) scientists live on a daily basis. And more power to that particular genre. But what they rarely do is reach into the ideas themselves and play with them. Part of the [my] scientific experience is the sensation of the mind opening up, of seeing the world in a wholly novel manner. Suddenly, there is an intellectual space that you inhabit (if only for a few moments before lapsing into the mundane world of tracking down that crucial factor of 2 that's bugging you) that has a different look, a different feel from all that you have entered before. [Stuff about personal experiences in this regard witheld, on grounds it would probably make no damn sense: ya hadda BE there]. And your way of thinking and perceiving is altered, albeit with a pretty high decay rate. And that is what most "science writing" does not do: Use the literary/mythological/poetic imagination to inhabit and then populate that world. With stories, with poems, with whatever you please, but with beauty. And that is where (quite a few) scientists live, I am pretty sure, but they are rarely the most articulate of the breed. Perhaps what is bothering me is not the scarcity of poetically explained science (though that's bad enough, I suppose) but more like the absence of a mythology of modern science. Perhaps I should be reading more SF, but most of the time that bores me half to tears (and I am a scientist and an avid reader so I should be a pushover, right? :-)). Sometime one runs across a Primo Levi or an Alan Lightman or Annie Dillard or ... maybe a Timothy Ferris, but not too often. And then I realize that perhaps I know why the people over in sci.research and so on are carrying on about the nerdy depiction of scientists in the media; perhaps I even know why there are those who hate technology. And science along with it. Perhaps not. So. Are there any science poets out there ? Or anyone who can tell me that I have been looking on all the wrong bookshelves ? Or tell me that they have been working on project that includes the mythology of quantum chaos (yep, that's my field. wonderfully catchy term, dont you think ? tends to get all the new-agers and the lotus heads gravitating towards me though. probably doesn't help that I was raised in mysticism land itself -- India) ? I realise that I am struggling to articulate stuff here; perhaps my note/thinking doesn't hang together. So, thanks for lending an ear/eye. I will now resume lurk mode while crunching some more code on the Quantum Cat Map. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 20:04:48 PST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Gerald Sussman Organization: Urban and Public Affairs Subject: Re: world poverty I'd like to respond to Robert Grieg's inviting comments, below, about the role of science in the "poverty problem." I agree that it's not simply a problem of science, but I do think that science, that is, the scientific "establishment." has had a very profound effect on the distribution of income in third world countries (and in the U.S.). I would also say that it's not simply a matter of "political will" but the distribution of political power, itself linked to the organization of scientific capital in the United States and elsewhere, that best speaks to the question of social change. The World Bank employs science and pseudo-science on its side, but it can count real success stories and a lot of social and ecological disasters. In other words, as Joe Weizenbaum of MIT said in his earlier writing, the scientific community has to bear some of the responsibility for the uses to which their research and applications are being put. And the fact that few members of the physical sciences choose to join lists like this one is a reflection of the way that industrial science is divorced from social analysis in American university curricula (the same is generally true of most economics programs in the U.S.). I hope this offers some food for thought and opportunities for further discussion. Gerry Sussman Re: > Lisa/Andy > I do not believe that the original question posed (re poverty etc) is > a question of science, social science etc. As a scientist and a > sociologist of science, I see the "poverty problem" as a multifaceted > problem which will not be solved by throwing more science at it or sending > in more social scientists. I also do not believe that the "problem" > is a knowledge problem. I have worked for many years in Asia and New > Guinea where poverty and hunger are daily occurrences and all the > science and social science in the world is not going to correct the > poverty/hunger trap until there is a significant amout of political > will. > Finally - please Lisa - I hope you were being cynical. Let's not > turn the problem into a competition for research grant funding. That > would be the ulimate obscenity. > Regards > Robert Greig ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 16:04:29 GMT+1000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Rob Greig Subject: Re: world poverty I agree totally with Gerry Sussman's analysis and considered response to my comments. The scientific establishment cannot wipe its hands of the problem because, in many instances, the root causes can be traced back to the science itself and the total lack of any form of social analysis of the science in question. And it is not also the hunger problem - this lack of social analysis and social impact can be found in much of the work undertaken by my scientific colleagues here in Australia. We have as an example here the recent "accidental" release of a rabbit virus on the mainland of Australia despite all the assurances from the scientific community that it could never happen (that may be a topic for a future discussion). I also agree that scientists, for one reason or another, do avoid the social and cultural implications of their work. In fact, I never even considered it until I "discovered" the sociology of science. As a scientist, I went through a very "painful period" when I undertook graduate studies in the sociology of science and technology (although, I firmly believe that my science is much better off because of the further studies and reflective process that I have undergone). Frankly, I think that many scientists are frightened of the sociology of science and technology (I am treated like a social outcast in my department). I also firmly believe that aspects of the sociology of science and technology as well as the philosophy of science should be a mandatory part of all scientific training. As a "young" scientist who has made the cultural leap (well before mid-life or retirement), I have an understanding of why there are so few scientists on this list (or other lists of this type) - the sociology of science and technology shakes the very foundations of the "faith" that we scientists had deluded ourselves into believing were immovable, inviolate and totally isolated from the world around us. Regards Robert Greig School of Science University of Ballarat Ballarat, VIC 3353,Australia E-mail: rig@fs3.ballarat.edu.au ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 16:14:26 GMT+1000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Rob Greig Subject: Re: INTRODUCTION/QUESTION FROM FRED GRINNELL Fred Grinnell wrote..... Except for my closest friends, most of my colleagues in science take my interest in science studies to be eccentric, something that should be done after one retires, not midstream in one's research career. So what should I say to convince my colleagues to want to discuss questions such as meaning of science for culture and vice-versa. Fred Fred, I do not think it is possible to convince our science colleagues - my experiences have been very similar to yours (in fact, my former Dean actually stated that there was no room for ethics in science when he found out that I was writing a thesis on the ethical considerations of bioengineering). I think that you have to wait for the proverbial light to come on like some form of gestalt switch. Anyone else out there with any suggestions - I believe that Fred (and I) would like to see some workable solution (if there is one). Regards Robert Greig School of Science University of Ballarat Ballarat, VIC 3353,Australia E-mail: rig@fs3.ballarat.edu.au ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 14:39:48 +0900 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Andrew Barfield Subject: Poetics of knowledge Arjendu posted: >I realise that I am struggling to articulate stuff here; perhaps my note / >thinking doesn't hang together. On the contrary! What good new knowledge if it can't be communicated ? For me, Arjendu posted an uplifting message about the beauty of discovery, and the aesthetic thrill of seeing the world in a new way - if ever there was an underlying link between art and science, that's it - a poetics to reinterpret the world by. I've felt the same excitement in linguistics, and also experienced the bedevilling boredom of dry academic discourse. Span. One of the problems is that sounding academic and being remote in what you say has become part of the power structure of the university. It somehow confers status and rank, but from my point of view such a way of communication confuses the complexity of the knowledge with the supposed complexity of communication ... Stepping stones cross deep water. How do people bridge this gap ? As far as I know, discourse studies of lectures, for example, show that there are two streams to what ever is being lectured .... Two planes of discourse, if you like ... One is, for want of a better word 'informational', and the other is the lecturer's commentary on the information ... That commentary will include anecdotes, stories, exemplars, metaphors, images, and so on ... and it is there that the bridge is being made - constructed is a good word - between the audience's exisiting knowledge/expectations and what new information that the lecturer is intending to explain .... in other words, learning is often populist and informal ....and does work at the level of imagery and metaphor and all the other wonderful experiences that we connect with myths and stories ... Andy e-mail: andyman@sakura.cc.tsukuba.ac.jp ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 01:49:41 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: John Giacobbe Subject: Evolutionary Significance of Science Dear Listmembers, Lisa Rogers recently mentioned discussing the role of science in society, and the name of this list clearly implies that others on the list have similar interests. Perhaps I could start off a round of discussion with a specific concept. I am a physical anthropologist and archaeologist and, perhaps predictably, I am interested in the role that science as a cultural attribute has played in the evolution of human culture, and therefore humans themselves. Science, more narrowly defined by its representative technology, is one of the principle means by which archaeologists evaluate a society. Technological development and morphology are even attributes we use to ascribe chronological affiliation to cultures. I realize that science is not strictly limited to the development of technology, but I do think that few would argue that much of sciences "success" as a cultural mode is due to the advancements that the byproducts of its efforts result in, namely technology. My field devotes much energy to the study of change over time. A significant body of work has gone into the refinement of a theory that incorporates a Darwinian model in the elucidation of the significance of cultural attributes in the overall fitness of a cultural group. I believe that any study of culture should try to develop an evolutionary framework because, to me at least, the universe appears to run that way. Humans are life forms that exist within the same sphere as all other life forms, and are therefore effected by evolutionary effects, such as natural selection, as much as any other animal. Natural selection is a force, perhaps a random and mathematically defined force, but a force none the less. I believe culture is humans primary adaptive mechanism. All of the products of culture are created within a universe permeated by selective forces, and must at some level be affected by them. That does not mean all cultural attributes originate as the result of selective pressure, or are even strongly influenced by selection whatsoever. But all culture is subtly influenced by selection. I would define cultural adaptation as a process of alteration of a cultural system in response to change in its coupled environmental and/or somatic systems. Culture is a special kind of adaption that is transmitted via learned, non-genetic behavioral patterns. Sorry this is a bit long, but I wanted to clearly define my argument and open the floor for comment. Well, thanks for listening, and let me know what you think John A. Giacobbe catalinus@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 02:39:15 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Mark L Gilbert Subject: first name basis In-Reply-To: <9511150135.AA09420@osf1.gmu.edu> On Tue, 14 Nov 1995, Lisa Rogers wrote: > Etiquette note: Is everybody okay with the casual use of first names > here? Unless requested to do otherwise, that is my preference, or > last names when needed to avoid confusion, or either one > interchangeably? [Just trying to be polite by asking ...] > > Lisa Fine by me, mark ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 10:20:37 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Mr B.P. Larvor" Subject: Re: Trenchantly held opinions In-Reply-To: <199511150221.CAA12258@listserv.rl.ac.uk> from "Robert Maxwell Young" at Nov 14, 95 12:35:00 pm In the last mail Robert Maxwell Young said: > > Here are some tranchantly held opinions of mine: > > All facts are theory-laden > All theories are value-laden > All values redise in an iideology or world view. > > Science, technology, medicine and other forms of expertise are the > embodiment of values in theories and things, facts and artefacts, > procedures, programs and products. 1) Is this a definition? Do you think that expertise is _nothing but_ an embodiment of values? Or do you think that expertise is _inter alia_ such an embodiment? In other words, do you regard this last paragraph as giving the essence of expertise? 2) What do you mean by values? Your second dictum is often brandished as a means of opening a route to an ethical critique of scientific activity ("scientists must take responsibility for the social consequences of their work" etc). I've never understood how this move works (of course, you are not obliged to explain it if you don't make it yourself). 3) What does your third dictum amount to? Of course my values `reside in' my `worldview'. All that means is that I believe my own ethics. Or have I missed the point? 4) Does all this apply to pure maths? If so, how? Brendan. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 13:28:15 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Re: first name basis >On Tue, 14 Nov 1995, Lisa Rogers wrote: > >> Etiquette note: Is everybody okay with the casual use of first names >> here? Unless requested to do otherwise, that is my preference, or >> last names when needed to avoid confusion, or either one >> interchangeably? [Just trying to be polite by asking ...] >> >> Lisa > >Fine by me, > >mark My understanding is that first names are normal on the net. Bob Y (Moderator of forum) __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. +44 171 607 8306 fax. +44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | _Mental Space_: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/rmy.html | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/process.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 09:10:15 -0500 Reply-To: ad201@freenet.carleton.ca Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Donald Phillipson Subject: Poetry of science Arjendu Pattanayak wrote introducing himself to recipients of list SCIENCE-AS-CULTURE > The point is as follows: what has happened to the poetry of science, > of explanations, of the scientific imagination ? . . . Part of the > [my] scientific experience is the sensation of the mind opening up, of > seeing the world in a wholly novel manner. . . .Perhaps what is > bothering me is not the scarcity of poetically explained science > (though that's bad enough, I suppose) but more like the absence of a > mythology of modern science. A possible answer: the poetry of science is not actually experienced according to its notional availability (in the library or in subjective experience) but mediated by relationships between its ideas and our psycho-social environment that no one knows how to measure or "murder to dissect". In other words, our personal environment governs our capacity to experience the poetry of science. Some authors, e.g. Hubert Reeves find this no great problem. Crudely, in reverse, you probably cannot enjoy the DNA adventure or the starry universe when you have painful piles. > So. Are there any science poets out there ? Or anyone who can tell me > that I have been looking on all the wrong bookshelves ? For me at least, excitement and inspiration come from the literature of science itself (including popularizations as by Reeves, James Gleick or Garrett Hardin) much more often than from literature about science (fiction or "criticism.") The universe discovered by science is so intrinsically wonderful that its description by its explorers is more exciting than 95 per cent of the versions by its exterior fans and critics. -- | Donald Phillipson, 4180 Boundary Road, Carlsbad Springs, | | Ontario, Canada, K0A 1K0, tel. 613 822 0734 | ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 09:23:20 -0500 Reply-To: ad201@freenet.carleton.ca Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Donald Phillipson Subject: Science in popular culture Jon S Miller wrote Nov. 13 re: Evolutionary thought to: Multiple recipients of list SCIENCE-AS-CULTURE > By the time evolutionary thought gets into novels, it's really > watered down -- I'm looking at, for example, Edith Wharton's "Descent > of Man" (short story) and all the "tribe" metaphors for the > hierarchical and close-knit New York society in \The Age of Innocence\ > (1920). Although I think most early 20th-century Americans learned > evolutionary thought from Herbert Spencer (who reconciled it to > Christianity), the specific type of evolution doesn't really matter, > for what I'm looking at. This may be no more than half right. Writers 1895-1920 notably H.G. Wells (Time Machine) and E.M. Forster (The Machine Stops) attempted deliberately to present a SF projection of current science, in order to enrich readers intellectually as well as please them, and I'd say they succeeded. > Just a hunch -- how much "evolution" does America at large really > know, or understand? (How about Europe? Australia?) Beyond the > "ape-man" jokes, is there any understanding or appreciation of the > far-reaching implications of Darwinism, of natural selection? > Personally I was quite startled by Robert Wright's popular summary of > current evolutionary thought (in \The Moral Animal\), but even more > surprised to notice that Americans living from 1880 to 1930 were far > more "evolutionary" in their thought than, I think, Americans are > today. [But this is judging from the fiction -- which may or may not > be representative of the larger "currents of thought," in each era.] Miller's question may be unanswerable but at least two things can be noticed. In the related but distinct domain of psychology, Freudianism has obviously diffused widely throughout all current culture. (I'm one of those who thinks Freudian theory a sadly defective total system, but stuffed with individual ideas that are new in history and perhaps intrinsically valuable.) Secondly, since the 1930s, the genre of non-fiction has recaptured a reading audience it had earlier lost, i.e. we now read non-fiction for pleasure as intensively as the Victorians did but probably not those of 1920-60. The trajectories of scientific discovery and newly-published non-fiction seem to be close to each other while, in the 1990s, I see the trajectories of scientific discovery and fiction as diverging (fiction in more than one direction, e.g. Brett Easton, Norman Mailer, Danielle Steel, probably normal for much of the last 150 years.) -- | Donald Phillipson, 4180 Boundary Road, Carlsbad Springs, | | Ontario, Canada, K0A 1K0, tel. 613 822 0734 | ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 15:33:00 +0100 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Bo Dahlin Hello, I am working at a small Swedish University (Karlstad), teaching and doing research in educational science. Having a background in philosophy I tend to be interested in everything related to it, e.g. the interactions of science and culture. Concerning the thesis that all facts are theory-laden, Jose Morales asked: "However, I want to know how that translates in particular instances that you can use with actually practicing scientists--- like fact: TFIID is part of the basal transcription machinery for producing mRNA from most genes--how is thi= s theory laden, where are the values and what is the resulting ideology/world view?" Well, first of all, how do we know that what goes on on this level of living cells is accurately described as a "transcription _machinery_"? Isn't it a (non-verified) theoretical assumption that the biochemical processes in living cells are analogous to the mechanical processes in a machine? This leads me to the thought that natural science has certainly contributed a lot to what Rorty calls our "naturalistic" image of ourselves. I find it worth quoting him: "The fear of science, of 'scientism', of 'naturalism', of self-objectivation, of being turned by too much knowledge into a thing rather than a person, is the fear that all discourse will become normal discourse [i.e. discourse about objective facts only]. That is, it is the fear that there will be objectively true or false answers to every question we ask, so that human worth will consist in knowing truths=8A" (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, p. 388-89, Blackwell 1993 edition) Isn't this one fundamental influence of science on culture: the "naturalisation" of the human subject? But Rorty continues: "But the dangers to abnormal discourse [i.e. philosophical, edifying, non-systematic discourse] do not come from science or naturalistic philosophy. They come from the scarcity of food and the secret police. Given leisure and libraries, the conversation which Plato began will not end in self-objectivation [=8A] simply because free and leisured conversatio= n generates abnormal discourse as the sparks fly upward." (ibid., p. 389) Science is not to be feared, because as long as we can leisurely converse we will resist naturalistic self-objectivation. I wonder. Why then is so much of our conversations characterised by just this naturalistic self-objectivations? "One reacts like that=8A" "Its only natural to feel tha= t way=8A" And how much do people actually appreciate leisurely abnormal conversations in our culture? My experience tells me such appreciation is rather rare. Why? Because we don't see the point. Why? Becuase we have been used to the idea that science has the facts, the answers, or will get them. One last point: J W Goethe, in his aphoristic comments on philosophy of science actually said "Facts are their own theory". But by that he didn't mean quite the same as the constructivist slogan "all facts are theory-laden". Rudolf Steiner, referred to by Andreas Carter, developed Goethes philosophy of science into a theory of knowledge which still awaits appreciation from modern thinkers. Steiner is actually one of the first philosophers (after Descartes) to have successfully avoided what Bernstein calls "the cartesian uncertainty", and which is Rorty's main argument against traditional epistemology. Cheers Bo Bo Dahlin University of Karlstad S-651 88 Karlstad SWEDEN ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 08:47:06 -0600 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Gerhard Werner Subject: Professions and Expertise It seems to me that the reference to guilds in the discussion about expertise and professionalism was particularly felicitous since it put the issues under discussion in the appropriate historical context. Coincident with the establishment of guilds, society as a whole acknowledged that certain groups of people are distinct by virtue of having certain skills and knowledge not commonly possessed by the majority of citizens. This gave rise to a largely implicit contractarian agreement that such clusters of people would be granted certain privileges in exchange for a commitment to make their skills available, and monitor internally certain standards of performance, including training of apprentices. The privileges were prestige and independent financial management, both implying a certain power status in society. This is historically the origin of the relative autonomy of professions, an arrangement that persisted unchallenged for a couple of centuries. The #contract# became subject to criticism by society when questions concerning the internal monitoring arose, and when society (probably because of rising standards of education) demanded to be included in the previously unquestioned delivery of the services, and the decisions underlying such delivery. Of course, other factors also contributed. Amongst these, I suggest, the rising awareness of the role of power in society, not in the least associated with Foucault,s work, and other post-modern trends. The Health Professions (at least in US) are a most illuminating example: those of us who are in this profession have seen the dramatic effects of the revocation of the long-standing contract. In part at least, Insurance companies and Governments have led the attack from the commercial side, while patients demand explanations for the previously authoritatively handed down decisions. Consider just as one overt expression of the change in climate: in many health agencies, Patients are now considered customers. In short: society is revoking the old contract, and new ground rules are being developed which will certainly be of more egalitarian nature. Again, consider the HealthProfessions: an increasing number of Physician in US are becoming employees of one organization or another, and are no longer free-standing entrepreneurs. And I take it that in UK, most physicians work under some contractual arrangement with the Government. One more word on expertise:consider how much of our daily language is based on second-hand knowledge which we adopt from others whom we credit with #expertise#. I think that this is a deeper issue than meets the eye, at first glance. But that may be for another time. Gerhard Werner, M.D. Austin, TX. gwer1@bga.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 08:48:22 -0600 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Gerhard Werner Subject: Ideology and world view Dr. Young has thrown out some #hot potatoes#. While I am not ready to catch them, I would like to at least slightly touch them. I suggest that ideology is a compound notion, strongly colored by social, cultural factors and power alignments. However, any ideology rides on the top of much deeper and all-pervasive presuppositions. These presuppositions are ontological: i.e. the world view; the way the world is construed to be. In Western Thinking, notably since the 17th Century, the dominant ontology is that of objectivism (i.e. there is a world independent of a perceiving subject), of Cartesian Representationalism (we know the world as its (reflected) image in our mind, as surrogate. The objects of this representation are can be manipulated (transformed) by the classical logic that prevailed since Aristotle and shares with all its derivatives the essential aspect of being two-valued (dont be mistaken: fuzzy logic, modal logic etc. are all at bottom two-valued in the sense of having only two logical places available for occupancy). What is the consequence ? The thinking-perceiving-acting subject has no place in this ontology. In fact, we -in the age of rationality and science- pride ourselves of our objectivity, to the point that -if we wish to speak of a subject (including ourselves) we need to address it as if it was an object: our Ontology (and its language games) can accommodate only objects, and we need to objectify ourselves if we wish to occupy a place in it. The moment we wish to #reflect# on ourselves, we trespass into the land of logical paradoxes: two-valued logic cannot accommodate self-reflection. Not only must we think of ourselves as objects, we also must think of other subjects as objects. So, we do live in a world without subjects, i.e. entities than can think about themselves, think about thinking about themselves, and grant others the same privileges. Is this not enough to construe an ideology which is congruent with this ontology ? Gerhard Werner, M.D. Austin TX, gwer1@bga.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 10:14:27 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Ellen Herman Subject: response to Don Slater and Jon Miller for Don Slater: On men and hobbies, you might try Barbara Ehrenreich's THE HEARTS OF MEN. It's not a recent book, but if my memory serves me correctly, it links your two stated interests: masculinity and consumer culture. for Jon Miller: You might be interested in contacting Sarah Tracy, who wrote a dissertation on the medicalization of drink and the emergence of what we now think of as alcoholism. Last I knew, she was on a postdoc at the Rutgers Institute of Health. If she's no longer there, they may have a forwarding address. best, Ellen Herman Social Studies, Harvard University ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 09:44:09 -0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Donald J. Yankovic" Subject: Poverty >I suspect that "social science" has several good things to offer in >terms of understanding the causes of poverty and therefore implying >some treatments that may be worthwhile. Of course, we all probably >wouldn't agree on what the cure is, so we could compete for funding >to see which of our theories will get to be tried out... > Ever since there have been humans people have investigated the "causes of poverty". As a result of those investigations, we have been able to create a whole bunch of that stuff. It was Adam Smith who turned the question on its head. He wrote a book titled "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the WEALTH of Nations". Once we know how wealth is created, then we can go out and create a bunch of that stuff! For what it's worth... ....Yank *************************************************************************** Donald J. Yankovic (360)378-2878 P.O.Box 1583 Friday Harbor WA 98250 yankovic@pacificrim.net ********** Its Never Too Late To Have A Happy Childhood ***************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 09:44:14 -0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Donald J. Yankovic" Subject: Re: SCIENCE-AS-CULTURE Digest - 13 Nov 1995 to 14 Nov 1995 >Most research for example is carried out not >necessarily to improve the human condition but to make vast profits, and >knowledge in the form of medicines is distributed only to those who can >pay the vast sums demanded by the pharmaceutical companies.I'm sure other >list subscribers can point to countless examples. Oh one last thing : our >knowledge is applied very selectively eg World Bank and other such >overseas development aid funded projects are often designed to bring the >recipients into "the club", some times with disastrous affects, rather than >designed to truly benefit local populations Lest we forget, that pursute of profit in the petrochemical industry made possible the production of very cheap plastic buckets. What a miricle. Think of how may years are added to the life of a poor woman in, e.g. Chaiapas. The well is a half mile or more from her house. A clay pot likely weighs more than the water it contains, and every few months it gets broken and time or money must be used to replace it. With a cheap plastic bucket she can carry much more water with fewer trips, or perhaps entrust the task to an eight year old. Result: beter levels of hygene, sanitation, and free time to devote to other tasks. I am sure that the people who invented and produced those ugly cheap plastic buckets had no intention to either enhance that woman's life, or, for that matter, to enrage the environmentalists who find the whole idea of petrochemicals repugnant. Whatever... ....Yank *************************************************************************** Donald J. Yankovic (360)378-2878 P.O.Box 1583 Friday Harbor WA 98250 yankovic@pacificrim.net ********** Its Never Too Late To Have A Happy Childhood ***************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 14:02:20 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Ed Morman Subject: Re: response to Don Slater and Jon Miller In-Reply-To: <9511151541.AA25471@welchgate.welch.jhu.edu> On Wed, 15 Nov 1995, Ellen Herman wrote: > for Jon Miller: You might be interested in contacting Sarah Tracy, who > wrote a dissertation on the medicalization of drink and the emergence of > what we now think of as alcoholism. Last I knew, she was on a postdoc at the > Rutgers Institute of Health. If she's no longer there, they may have a > forwarding address. Sarah Tracy is spending this academic year at the Wood Institute for the History of Medicine at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. The telephone number there is 215-561-6050. Ed Morman Institute of the History of Medicine The Johns Hopkins University ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 10:12:35 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Lisa Rogers Subject: Re: world poverty -Reply I have a few questions, as raised by Gerald's post. I hope that anyone may like to expand on these questions, for the sake of my education. >>> Gerald Sussman 11/14/95, 09:04pm >>> I agree that it's not simply a problem of science, but I do think that science, that is, the scientific "establishment." has had a very profound effect on the distribution of income in third world countries (and in the U.S.). L: How? In what way? I would also say that it's not simply a matter of "political will" but the distribution of political power, itself linked to the organization of scientific capital in the United States and elsewhere, that best speaks to the question of social change. L: How are these linked? In other words, as Joe Weizenbaum of MIT said in his earlier writing, the scientific community has to bear some of the responsibility for the uses to which their research and applications are being put. L: What is the "scientific community"? In what way is it "responsible for the "uses" of its product? What exactly do you want us to do? I really want to know. Lisa Rogers ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 09:49:29 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Lisa Rogers Subject: science / ethics in/of >>> Rob Greig 11/15/95, 04:14pm >>> Fred Grinnell asked: So what should I say to convince my colleagues to want to discuss questions such as meaning of science for culture and vice-versa. Robert Grieg replied: ...my former Dean actually stated that there was no room for ethics in science when he found out that I was writing a thesis on the ethical considerations of bioengineering... Lisa adds: Maybe it's a little different in anthropology, because we have to pass ethics committees in order to study "human subjects". Not that there is any coursework required on ethics, but it is included in the required proposal-writing course, in terms of what you have to do to get funded. I think it is obvious to most of us that we don't want to hurt anybody, I'm a tender-hearted person with some kind of conscience, after all. But we certainly were not looking deeply into all the implications of our possible research in the way I see people doing here, for instance. I think I got even less ethics training in biology undergrad. You had to go over to the philosophy department for that, as an elective. Just a shared reflection upon my own experience, Lisa ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 13:07:41 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Lisa Rogers Subject: Anti-science >>> Mr B.P. Larvor 11/14/95, 03:24am >>> How often do we have to be told, with a knowing look and a worldly smirk that `science doesn't operate in a vaccuum'? Brendan Larvor Well put, Brendan. If I chuck a boot at anti-science, I don't expect anybody to put it on unless it fits. I really didn't intend to start a brush-fire with my first post. Instead, perhaps my previous, unrewarding experience with anti-science can be taken as an example of what keeps some scientists out of places like this list. I just don't care for more of the same uselessness, and I'm dodge-headed because of my experience. My ideal of science includes the position that we must question everything and be open to all examination. That is part of the truly scientific method and philosophy of science itself. [With the caveat that if I spend most of my time doing or answering such questions then I won't be a scientist anymore, I'll be a philosopher. Which is ok, except I want to do science.] Anti-science I see as doubting everything forever, to the point of nihilism, sometimes including scape-goating "science" or "technology", blaming it for some or all ills inappropriately, and other useless or harmful things. I could describe more, bad, anti-science, but I expect that everyone here will understand me already. Haven't you all seen unsupportable anti-science, with which you would disagree? The point I'm getting to is that I expect that thoughtful and responsible people are not likely to spout some hateful, unreasonable anti-science. And that if science/scientists are asked to examine every assumption, to plumb their own interiors, so must our interrogators. As I try to communicate science to those outside my own field of "expertise" in a way that is clear and accessible, so I presume that others will try to explain their ideas to me. Then a dialog exists! And we can work on some issues together. Which is exactly the way that things are looking here so far, so I'm happy. No problem, right? No flames, no firetrucks... Lisa ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 02:14:02 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Mark L Gilbert Subject: Re: expertise In-Reply-To: <9511141746.AA13677@gmu.edu> On Tue, 14 Nov 1995, Jude L. Hollins wrote: > The casting of Scientists vs. philosophers might miss an > historical dimension. What do you mean? There has in fact been something of an opposition, although an ambivalent one. Scientists were at first impressed with the logical positivists attempts to purify philosophy (and science), but came to see it as completely out of touch with actual scientific practice. Philosophers, for their part, are also divided, which cautions us to not apply too sweeping a label, for either 'philosophy' or 'science'. Anglophone philosophers, on the whole, have been strongly attracted to science as a paradigmatic case of rational, objective knowledge. In fact, some might even suggest that for some sub-disciplines, specifically philosophy of science in the late 50s and 60s, philosophy went from being the 'handmaiden of science' to its whore. In the program dubbed 'naturalized epistemology', philosophy was to give up all pretensions to determining, identifying, or initiating knowledge on its own, to merely commenting on knowledge as it was produced by science. In so doing, this philosophical program abandoned any positive role for philosophy and any responsibility for its material. On the Continent, on the other hand, philosophy has had less interest in worshiping the products of science, that attempting to understand how science integrated with and affected society. Of course, this is a generalization, for there were philosophers who were interested in science more for its own sake, like Bachelard and Canguilhem (Foucault's teacher). Things have taken quite a turn since the publication of Kuhn's _Structure of Scientific Revolutions_. Many scientists have remarked on the accuracy of his representation of science. That book has opened the door to studying science as a human, social activity, as opposed to the objectivist, universalistic and a-social description pushed by the Positivists. > My gut intuition is that there is more acknowledgement WITHIN > scientific/proffesional associations of the politics of knowledge and > certainty than in the general discourse within societies at large... This is why scientists came to distrust philosophy, or more specifically, the positivist tradition in philosophy. *They* knew how it worked; it's taken the philosophers a little longer. > I always wonder why it is fine for Ph.D's to ask the troublesome > questions, while 15 year olds (in my experiences) are told to just accept > the simplified presentation of science-in-a-vacuum, with expiremental > models as Facts. Unfortunately, education thoroughly and completely swallowed the positivists' program, and then never noticed when things changed. Philosophy tends to be two or three decades behind science, and education two or three more behind that. > seems the mystics and marginal folks make the best > scientists...historically. > > jude (trying to provoke..) Oh? Science, like any human endeavor is conservative (hence the inertia of a Kuhnian 'paradigm'). Hence, by definition, substantial changes will come from 'marginal folk.' But mystics? Okay, so Kepler and Newton were into astrology, and Copernicus worshiped the sun, but that was awhile ago. mark |Need to examine | |Uncritical times | | -Stereolab| ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 09:15:14 +0100 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Kjell Jonsson Subject: Gross only/sorry Sorry for this. I can't reach Charles G. Gross directly. He wrote: >I have been working on Swedenborg's views on the brain..have you seen >anything on this subject since Norrving and Sourander in Rose 1989..or >anything good in Swedish, which my wife reads, in the last ten or twenty >years? This is a new work in the field of history of science and ideas: Hall, Jan,_I Swedenborgs labyrint: studier i de gustavianska swedenborgarnas liv och tankande_ Atlantis Stockholm, 1995, Diss. Uppsala Univ, 511 s. This old piece you must have seen: Ramstrom, Martin, _Emanuel Swedenborg's investigations in natural science and the basis for his statements concerning the functions of the brain_ Uppsala, 1910, 59 s. In english I know of these, biased perhaps: _Swedenborg and his influence_, editors, Erland J. Brock, general editor / E. Bruce Glenn (Bryn Athyn, Pa. Academy of the New Church 1988) _Swedenborg researcher's manual: a research reference manual for writers of academic dissertations, and for other scholars_ / by William Ross Woofenden with a foreword by Wilson Van Dusen ( Bryn Athyn Swedenborg Scientific Association 1988). Best, Kjell kjell.jonsson@idehist.umu.se ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 10:04:22 +0100 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Andreas Carter Subject: Re: Ideology and world view Steiner on human thinking and its relationship to subjectivity and objectivity: "Thinking is the subjective activity of relating the concepts of observed objects (phenomena) to each other, and, through this activity, to oneself. Thinking as an object of observation is an exceptional instance of this process since subject and object there become one. In ones thinking one observes something in which one is very intimately and personally involved - it is ones own activity. This is the point from which one must seek the further explanations of the phenomena of the world." http://public-www.pi.se/~the_tank/steiner/chap3.htm More on this can also be found in a possibly somewhat more humane form at http://shr.stanford.edu/shreview/4-2/text/foerster.html Heinz von Foerster: Ethics and second-order cybernetics I'm sorry I'm not verbal enough to do this subject justice myself. It *is* most important, though. On Nov 15 1995 Gerhard Werner wrote: >The thinking-perceiving-acting subject has >no place in this ontology. In fact, we -in the age of rationality and >science- pride ourselves of our objectivity, to the point that -if we wish >to speak of a subject (including ourselves) we need to address it as if it >was an object: our Ontology (and its language games) can >accommodate only objects, and we need to objectify ourselves if we >wish to occupy a place in it. The moment we wish to #reflect# on >ourselves, we trespass into the land of logical paradoxes: two-valued >logic cannot accommodate self-reflection. Not only must we think of >ourselves as objects, we also must think of other subjects as objects. >So, we do live in a world without subjects, i.e. entities than can think >about themselves, think about thinking about themselves, and grant >others the same privileges _________________________ andreas.carter@pi.se ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 20:54:18 +1030 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: philip dearman Subject: Re: intro 16.11.95 Satoru, Hi, my name is Philip Dearman. I'm a PhD student at Flinders Uni in South Australia. I saw your email on the Science-As-Culture, and thought I could help you with a reference or two about museums. My undergraduate and honours work was in communication studies here in Adelaide, and I remember doing an hons course on Cultural Institutions and Policy. Read a couple of articles in that course on museums. They're written in Australia, and to some extent on Australian policies and practices re museums, but might be useful if you can get hold of them through ILL... 1. Tony Bennett (1988) 'Out of Which Past? Critical Reflections on Australian Museum and Heritage Policy', Occasional Paper No.3, Institute for Cultural Policy Studies, Griffith University, Queensland (Aust). 2. Tony Bennett (1988) "The Exhibitionary complex", in _New Formations_, No.4, pp.73 - 102. 3. J. Mulvaney (1986) "A Question of Values: Museums and Cultural Property", in I McBryde, (ed) _Who Owns The Past_, Oxford University Press, London, 86-98. Hope they're of some help!! >Hello all, > My name is Satoru Aonuma, a grad student in communication >at Wayne State University in Detroit. I did my undergraduate >work in Japan, received MA from University of Iowa where >I was exposed to a lot of "rhetoric of science" stuff, and >I started PhD just this fall here at Wayne. > Being a scientifically semi-illiterate myself, >I am interested in looking at the working of scientific and >expert discourses in public. I previously presented papers on >the "Velikovsky affair" and rhetorical dimensions of medical >care practice at rhetoric/communication conferences. > Right now, I am working on a paper in which I (try to) explore >the (potential) role that public museums (Smithsonians, science >museums in Boston, Toronto, etc.) play as a discursive, public sphere. >Any suggestion or information relevant to this topic >would be greatly appreciated. >______________________________ >Satoru Aonuma/Wayne State University >Tel: 313(832)5778 >E-mail: Satoru_Aonuma@mts.cc.wayne.edu > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 07:32:55 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Bertram Rothschild Subject: Re: Poverty of knowlege? In a message dated 95-11-14 08:04:01 EST, Baker writes: >Surely we have enough knowledge to make a pretty big dent in world >poverty? Sure we do, but assigning blame to some nasty group misses the reality that human beings rarely do the rational thing. The food supply has reached the point at which it cannot keep up with the world population. Are people willing to reduce the birth-rate? Not a chance. Of all the solutions, that is the last acceptable to many religions, Western and Eastern. The Malthusian balance no longer pertains. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 07:32:59 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Bertram Rothschild Subject: Re: Trenchantly held opinions In a message dated 95-11-14 15:30:18 EST, you write: >How would we pick out a fact without a theory? When it hits you on the head? I simply mean that evolution has designed us to engage reality, that's in large measure what our nervous system is about. Animals know all about reality without "theories." We do all sorts of things with that engagement, but the rock landing on my head is perceived and my body takes action quite apart from my thoughts about it. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 12:57:29 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Search engines for email forums and newsgroups I have recently learned about two extremely useful tools. The first, LIZST, searches 23,213 email discussion forums and finds the one(s) concerned with the topic you specify. It is at: http://www.liszt.com/ It is not altogether reliable in areas known to me, but I will update its files when I have a moment. The second, DEJANEWS, searches newsgroups for items mentining the topic you specify. Newsgroups are a whole other ball game, which I have yet to explore, but Netscape 2.0b2 (which you can download from ftp://ftp.netscape.com/ )makes it easy: http://www.dejanews.com/ __________________________________________ | Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk | 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ England | tel. +44 171 607 8306 fax. +44 171 6094837 | Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, | Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, | University of Sheffield: r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk | Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ | _Mental Space_: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/rmy.html | Process Press, _Free Associations_, _Science as Culture_: | http://rdz.stjohns.edu/gp/process.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 09:34:26 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Val Dusek Subject: Re: Introduction My name is Val Dusek. I teach Philosophy (and ocassionally Humanities, history of science, elem. Biotechnology, and history of econ. thought) and Univ. of New Hampshire, Duham, NH 03824 USA. My interests are in the social epistemology of science, the politics of science, philosophy of biology (critique of sociobiology, etc., genetic engineering and biotechnology, issues of reductionism and complex systems.) I am a member of the Genetic Screening Study Group in Cambridge, Mass. I am currently working on a book, The Holistic Inspiriations of Physics: an Underground History of Electromagnetic Theory, (perhaps too 1970s or new-agist title) about the influence of Chinese medieval Taoism, renaissance occultism and hermeticism, and German Romanticism on the technology, theory, and experiments of the pre-history of electro-magnetic theory (Chinese compass and magnetic declination discoveries, Gilbert's "mother earth" theory, African origins of parts of the hermetic doctrines, role of witchcraft in hermeticism, alchemy as developing a gender-equaliity theory of nature, role of China in thought of Leibniz, mesmerism and electric medicine in late 1700s, Marat, role of women and French revolution in Romantic thought, role of Schelling's nature philosophy in thought of Oersted and through Coleridge in theory of Faraday) emphasizing role of cultural undergrounds of peasant and women;s thought as borrowed, coopted and covered over by formalistic, atomist, high culture of science. I am also interested in information metaphor in molecular biology and deconstruction thereof, role of psychological theories in theories of founders of quantum mechanics (Bohr, Pauli, Jordan, de Broglie, etc.), and in generally demystifying the human origins of scientific theories. I am more influenced by Lukacs and early Frankfurt School than by post-modernism, though sympathetic to parts of Foucault and Latour, but not uncritical thereof. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 09:56:58 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Val Dusek Subject: Re: Mark Gilbert Foucault Q I think Foucault's "technologies of the self" is in a volume of lectures given in Vermont (!?) USA called The Final Foucault, which also contains a big bibliography. But this is just off the top of my head and may only show my ignorance as I ain;t a Foucaultian. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 11:14:17 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Val Dusek Subject: Re: expertise In a message dated 95-11-16 02:16:29 EST, you write: On Tues Nov 16 Mark Gilbert wrote: >Oh? Science, like any human endeavor is conservative (hence the inertia >of a Kuhnian 'paradigm'). Hence, by definition, substantial changes will >come from 'marginal folk.' But mystics? Okay, so Kepler and Newton were >into astrology, and Copernicus worshiped the sun, but that was awhile >ago. true there was more of this centuries ago, but if you look at the wacko theories founders of quantum mechanics ,i.e.Pauli (Jungian archetypes alchemical mandals and synchronicity), Pascual Jordan (parapsychology, expanding earth, etc.), de Broglie (Bergsonian intuition and duree) Schroedinger (Yoga, atman=braman, etc.) etc., one finds more of this in 20th century's fundamental theory of matter than is often realized ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 09:31:38 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Lisa Rogers Subject: is biochemistry like machinery? Jose Morales asked: [snip] fact: TFIID is part of the basal transcription machinery for producing mRNA from most genes--how is this theory laden, where are the values and what is the resulting ideology/world view?" Bo Dahlin asked: Well, first of all, how do we know that what goes on on this level of living cells is accurately described as a "transcription _machinery_"? Isn't it a (non-verified) theoretical assumption that the biochemical processes in living cells are analogous to the mechanical processes in a machine? Lisa's answer to that last question only: No. In fact, I think it is more than analogous and far from an assumption. There are stacks of evidence, in my view. But I'm curious as to what Bo or anyone would think an alternative assumption/analogy could be? If not "mechanical", then what? Or does the term mechanical mean something specialized here that I'm not getting? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 10:44:58 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Susan Crites/Caroline Hedge Subject: Re: Introductions >Thanks, Susan and Caroline--appreciate your comments. I understand what >you are saying--maybe a different kind of Second Renaissance will come. >I still get a little worried about the remnants of the First Renaissance! >Do notice-- there is no personal, human connection even in this exchange! Well, not yet, certainly. But would you feel especially connected to be if we met on the street, or at a seminar, and exchanged about 5 minutes of conversation? I have to say it usually takes me just a LITTLE longer. :) To get somewhat metaphysical about it, the important part of connection is not physical contact, but emotional/mental interaction. If we exchange houghts and ideas and so come to know each other better, we have made a human, personal connection, and we do not have to be in the same room, or even on the same continent, to do so. >What concerns me in the broader picture are issues such as those >discussed in books such as (1) Albert Teich, TECHNOLOGY AND THE FUTURE; >AND (2) Rudi Volti, SOCIETY AND TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE. I have to say I have not read them, so can't comment. But I can imagine that other forms of communications media, say for example telecommunications, can have a negative effect on human interaction because of the way it sometimes creates a false sense of connection. This IS something to worry about! Susan ...Applying computer technology is simply finding the right wrench to pound in the correct screw. >From Susan (the Neon Nurse) Crites and/or Caro Hedge, At The Sign of the Three White Cats aka House of Unruly Fish aka House of 1,000 Unfinished Projects. Accept No Substitutes! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 12:43:51 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Val Dusek Subject: Re: Trenchantly held opinions In a message dated 95-11-15 05:23:00 EST, you write: >4) Does all this apply to pure maths? If so, how? Certainly much of the rhetoric concerning the status of the infinite in pure math is theological. i.e. Cantor was influenced by Augustinian theology of heirarchies of angels. Kronecker who rejected Cantor used theological metaphors to say "God made the integers and man made everything else." Hilbert said "We shall not be expelled from the paradise into which Cantor led us." in claiming that Cantor's formalism of higher order infinities if not his metaphysics must be retained. Others use theological metaphors as dismissive, as when Gordan "the king of invariants" said of Hilbert's work which made his particular numerical solutions irrelevant by setting them in a general theory of scope and limits, "This is not mathematics, it is theology." You could claim these are all dead metaphors, but I think their prevelance suggests certain themes from traditional theology were transferred into transfinite pure math. Of course other value issues could be found in the debates between people like von neumann vs. the pure mathematicians about how close pure maths has to stay to its physical and scientific inspirations in order to remain creative and interesting. Similarly arguments about the importance or irrelevance of geometric imagry or motivation between geometrically inclined mathematicians or physically oriented mathematicians and formalistic or anti-pictoroial mathematicians show value-orientations related to preference for sensate or imageless thought which has broader psychological and historical style manifestations (i.e. Sorokin trances oscillations between these two modes in different cultural formations through history but not in math.) I suspect that geometrical emphasis in the renaissance and French revolution vs. algebraic and formalistic trends during the post-revolutionary era , in pre-WWI Vienna, and in depression era logical positivism which espoused formalism and rejected diagrams in mathematics have to do with larger social trends of sensuality vs. repression of the visual and voyeristic. Other examples come to mind, but I must check my laundry. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 12:52:11 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Val Dusek Subject: Re: is biochemistry like machinery? Certaintly there are several metaphors running around in molecular biology. Certainly the machine one is the dominant one. Zippers, locks and keys (with private property as well as mechanical associations) etc. abound. But there are also functional metaphors about macro-molecules. Freeman Judson in Eighth Day of Creation quotes several founder of molecular biology who claimed that the talk about the functions (purposes?) of macro-molecules is what distinguishes molec. biol from biochem. Also there is the information metaphor, which uses words, stops, letters, texts, misreadings, etc. All these are metaphors, and in conflict ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 13:09:39 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Val Dusek Subject: Re: is biochemistry like machinery? In a message dated 95-11-16 12:13:18 EST, you (Lisa) write: > If not >"mechanical", then what? Or does the term mechanical mean something >specialized here that I'm not getting? Certainly the term mechanical has changed in meaning and been contrasted with different things over the centuries. Often mechanical is used in constrast to purposive or teleological in biology or psychology. But, as I noted in last post (JB Shaw says it gives one spurious authority to quote onesself) the functional language of molecular biology in talking about functions of proteins, etc. has a quasi-teleological ring. In the 1600s mechanical meant push-pull causality of colliding atoms or other objects. Force's such as Newton introduced (borrowed from his alchemical and magical researches on which he spent far more time and effort than his math and physics) was not considered mechanical by Descartes and Leibnitz and other European critics but "occult." Action at a distance was not mechanical but magical, and for this reason Galileo rejected the crazy magical notion that the moon might attract the tides as espoused by Kepler (who had his own quirky astrological theory in the background.) During the eighteenth century mechanism (which now included gravity and acton at at distance from Newton) was contrasted with materialism. (See Paul Schofield, "Mechamism and Materialism," bkk 1967.) Mechanists were the more mathematical formalistic newtonians, emphasizing the calculus and calculations. Materialists were the more qualitative Newtonians who did chemistry and material science and emphasized Newton;s hypotheses about various electrical, vegetative, fermentation, etc. forces. In the late 18th mechanism was contrasted with the "dynamical" world view. The mechanical world view emphasized space-time located particles while the dynamical world-view emphasized point-centers of repulsive force fields (Boscovich and Kant) or multi--dimensional abstract spaces such as momentum space or phase space which were not the 3D space in which we live. (See Hendry bk on Maxwell, Ch 2). In the late 19th C mechanical worldview was contrasted with the field view of Faraday and the Maxwellians (though Maxwell and Kelvin and Boltzmann used mechanical models). In the very late 19th C mechanical was contrasted with the "electro--magnetic worldview" of Lorentz and Abraham which claimed that mass was of electromagnetic origin. In the early 20th C quantum mechanics called itself mechanical because of association with the HAmiltonian abstract spaces which had earlier been called dynamical, yet many though later quantum mechanics because of rejection of determinism and simple location was "the decline of mechanism" (d'Abro) and the "dematerialization of matter" (Hanson and others) as causality, hardness, simple location, etc. got messed up or blurred. So molecular biology is based on quantum mechanics in molecular structure and x-ray crystallography, which are non-mechanistic in certain respects. But the tinker toy models that biologists use are certainly mechanistic in the crudest sense. So there seems a contradiction. If pure molecular orbitals, as opposed to localized bonds play a role in any biochemical mechanism, then it is not mechanistic in the old sense. But insofar as stick diagrams (modelable by a bonding algebra) are adaquate then it is mechanistic in the old sense. However if one takes information theory seriously and believes that genes or gene pools are primarily information structures, and are not identical with the particular individual molecules that instantiate them, then one is led to a sort of theory of Platonic information structure or Aristotelean substantial forms (essences of individuals, DNA as info. as :essence of life) which is not really mechanistic. Delbrueck the founder of molec. biol., founder of the school that included Stent, Watson and Lederberg, wrote two articles claiming that Aristotle discovered DNA, meaning that the purpose essence model really fits with the informational account of DNA ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 14:34:57 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Mark L Gilbert Subject: Re: Trenchantly held opinions In-Reply-To: <9511161235.AA07396@osf1.gmu.edu> On Thu, 16 Nov 1995, Bertram Rothschild wrote: > In a message dated 95-11-14 15:30:18 EST, you write: > > >How would we pick out a fact without a theory? > > When it hits you on the head? I simply mean that evolution has designed us > to engage reality To help pay my tuition, I work part-time in a restaurant. I was busy doing something in the kitchen, and I felt something hit the back of my neck. I couldn't tell what it was. It did feel slightly warm, and spread out in something of a warm glow around the point of impact. What was it? Where did it come from? I looked up and did a quick survey of my surroundings. There was no one around (scratch theory number one), nothing was falling off the ceiling (scratch theory number two), then I realized I was standing next to the ice making machine. The fan was blowing cold condensation off in occasional, small droplets. So, that was what it was! The warm glow I felt was in fact a drop cold water. I reached up and touched the base of my neck, and sure enough, it was wet. I believe it was Aristotle who said we have the (theory-driven) mind we do to make up for the fact that we lack the instinctual capacities that regulate animal behavior. This has been the line taken by much of modern research and thinking in science (and those animal instinctual responses are very finely tuned sometimes. A mouse does not have time to learn by trial-and-error whether that shadow passing overhead is a good or bad thing...). Regardless whether you want to swallow that one whole, it does point up an important issue. Animals react to the world in a "straightforward" fashion in a way that is usually specific to or characteristic of their species, and in a way that is adapted to surviving in the environment in which they find themselves. If that environment doesn't include rocks falling on their head, they are not going to "know" what to make of it nor are they likely to have behavioral protocols that will enable them to design means of avoiding (or exploiting) further rock droppings (unless there is a source of the rocks that falls within their capacities to deal with it). What animals *won't* do is develop a science to deal with falling bodies. Now that we have assumed falling bodies are non-problemmatic, let's back up a step. What is "falling"? What is a "body"? Do we really know what these mean? The history of philosophy and science reveal an amazing range of speculation and theory on these two notions. Recently, philosophers like Wilfred Sellars have identified something they call "the myth of the given." In short, like the water droplet that hit my neck and the rock, phenomena do not come pre-labeled with instructions for use or meaning, well-tuned nervous systems notwithstanding. Our nervous system can develop models of the world, but those are as much a construction as any theory (see the work of Goldman-Rakic, for example). While something may strike my head, what it is, how it happened, and even those very questions, are subject to a long process of theoretical activity. So when it comes to facts of the sort that interest in us science, a lot goes into developing theories that a) pick out what is to considered a fact, and what is not--i.e., is irrelevant; and b) how to deal with those facts. Note here, that since the theory is involved in picking out a fact in the first place, what to do with it is already partly determined. What evolution has equipped organisms to do is to exploit certain eco-niches in order to persevere. Anything beyond that (like this list, for instance) will require something more. Theory anyone? best, mark gilbert |Need to examine | |Uncritical times | | -Stereolab| p.s. Robert Young hit on another side of this that I have slighted in this post (what, I should have written a longer one?), when he wrote: > Science, technology, medicine and other forms of expertise are the > embodiment of values in theories and things, facts and artefacts, > procedures, programs and products. The second term of his pairs is just as important as the first. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 14:49:44 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Mark L Gilbert Subject: Re: Trenchantly held opinions In-Reply-To: <9511151022.AA05194@osf1.gmu.edu> On Wed, 15 Nov 1995, Mr B.P. Larvor wrote: > 4) Does all this apply to pure maths? If so, how? In addition to Val Dusek's Nov 16 post, if you're interested, you might also consult David Bloor's _Knowledge and Social Imagery_ (U of Chicago, 1991) and Morris Kline's _Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty_ (Oxford, 1980). Both argue a constructivist position for mathematics. Ernst Cassirer's _The Problem of Knowledge_ (Yale, 1950) may be helpful here too. While I'm not answering your question now (no time to play, *sigh*), I think these sources argue pretty persurasively that pure math (if there is such a thing; Kline doubts it), is not exempt from human activity any more than any other human pursuit. It reminds me of a story Cassirer used to like to tell. He was friends with David Hilbert (now *there's* a pure mathematician if there ever was one). Hilbert had a grad student Cassirer knew, and he asked Hilbert how the student was doing in his math education. Hilbert responded, "Not too well. He didn't have enough imagination for mathematics, but he's doing poetry now and is doing fine..." This story may not be directed specifically at your question, but I think it points in the right direction. Besides, it's a great story. :-) best, mark gilbert |Need to examine | |Uncritical times | | -Stereolab| ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 13:24:41 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Lisa Rogers Subject: is molecular bio like machinery? -Reply Wow, thanks for efforts in my education, Val, seriously. I'd never have thought there were so many meanings to "mechanistic". I think my view of inter-cellular processes [molecular biology if you like, tho my bio BS did not distinguish between that and biochem] is indeed mechanistic, but in yet another way that you don't describe, and maybe not as a metaphor, or not only as a metaphor. Imagine an enzyme. It is a "chain" of amino acids linked by covalent bonds. Imagine the model of it as a 3-D, space-filling plastic one, yes tinkertoy, but maybe not very crude after all. Every covalent peptide bond is a pivot point, as the portion of the molecule on each side of each bond can rotate relative to the other. These bonds form at angles, as determined by the number and arrangement of electrons in outer orbitals. These angles are built into good physical models. So, given all the bonds and angles, there are a finite number of ways that this string of amino acids will fold up. This structure is further limited and the most thermodynamically stable one is defined by the physical/ electrical/ chemical properties of the side chains found on each amino acid. Hydrophobic bits tend to stick to each other, negatives stick to positives, big side-chains prevent the chain folding towards them, some side-chains bond with each other, hydrogen bond and sometimes covalent sulfur bonds. Proteins generally "de-nature" under a little heat, as the folded molecule loses that structure and therefore loses all function. Let them cool down, and the folds reassemble themselves [for simple ones anyway]. This is why one aa off can prevent the function of the whole protein, because the substitution of the wrong aa will affect the 3-D folding of the chain. Once the enzyme is finished, it's function is performed by the physical movement and electo/physical/chemical patterns and properties of the molecule. A substrate molecule must literally fit into an actual template for it that is presented by the surface of the enzyme. This is not only a metaphor of puzzle pieces to me, it really must fit, neg to pos, hydrophilic spot to hydrophilic, physical space for a protrusion, etc. in order for the enzyme to work on the substrate. Or rather, it almost fits. When the fit is very close, this brings key parts close to each other, so a part of the substrate is further attracted to a specific part of the enzyme. This puts physical force on a specific bond in the substrate, which makes that bond easy to break. That is acting as a catalyst, to ease and speed a chemical reaction which is thermodynamically favored anyway. There are many variations on this, it works for creating bonds too, just as enzymes, tRNA and ribosomes that function in mRNA translation bring amino acids together in just the right positions and proximity so that the formation of a peptide bond but the point is that the enzyme has a mobile structure, the movement of parts of the chain can be part of this active puzzle piece. Some of them require energy to break or create a bond. This is done by first binding an ATP or ADP molecule to the enzyme. This changes the folded structure of the enzyme, opening or closing cavities within by moving a part of the chain. This is what I call a mechanism, referring to the devices/machinery that work for some function, or the method of the working. Is my view "mechanistic"? I'd have thought yes, but I don't see anything wrong with that, at least not in molecular biology. Of course it is functional, because it is a product of darwinian evolution. Which is not a teleological process at all. What do you think? Lisa >>> Val Dusek 11/16/95, 11:09am >>> But, as I noted in last post (JB Shaw says it gives one spurious authority to quote onesself) the functional language of molecular biology in talking about functions of proteins, etc. has a quasi-teleological ring. So molecular biology is based on quantum mechanics in molecular structure and x-ray crystallography, which are non-mechanistic in certain respects. But the tinker toy models that biologists use are certainly mechanistic in the crudest sense. So there seems a contradiction. If pure molecular orbitals, as opposed to localized bonds play a role in any biochemical mechanism, then it is not mechanistic in the old sense. But insofar as stick diagrams (modelable by a bonding algebra) are adaquate then it is mechanistic in the old sense. However if one takes information theory seriously and believes that genes or gene pools are primarily information structures, and are not identical with the particular individual molecules that instantiate them, then one is led to a sort of theory of Platonic information structure or Aristotelean substantial forms (essences of individuals, DNA as info. as :essence of life) which is not really mechanistic. Delbrueck the founder of molec. biol., founder of the school that included Stent, Watson and Lederberg, wrote two articles claiming that Aristotle discovered DNA, meaning that the purpose essence model really fits with the informational account of DNA ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 15:43:33 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Sue Ellen Fishalow UNSUBSCRFIBE SCIENCE-AS-CULTURE ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 14:20:34 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Lisa Rogers Subject: evolution, of thought and sociality >>> Mark L Gilbert 11/16/95, 12:34pm >>> On Thu, 16 Nov 1995, Bertram Rothschild wrote: > I simply mean that evolution has designed us > to engage reality LR: I like it! Of course, not to engage perfectly, only as well as or in ways that have paid off through evolutionary time. Mark: What evolution has equipped organisms to do is to exploit certain eco-niches in order to persevere. Anything beyond that (like this list, for instance) will require something more. LR: Darwinian evolution creates organisms that try to survive and reproduce as much as possible, it's true. I wonder what you mean by "something more". What is it in general that you see as being or requiring "something more" than what? I suggest that a key aspect of human adaptation is our sociality. Which is all about talking, knowing people, making friends and contacts, professions, social status, etc. etc.... This is a result of evolution, that we are social, and that we are specialists in being social. Human ancestors were probably quite social since before bipedality. The two species most closely related to us are both quite social as well. Lisa ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 16:00:42 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Lisa Rogers Subject: Evolutionary Significance of Science -Reply Very interesting! Please tell me more. A few questions below. >>> John Giacobbe 11/14/95, 11:49pm >>> ...I am interested in the role that science as a cultural attribute has played in the evolution of human culture, and therefore humans themselves. L: About when do you think this got started? Is there a point that you regard as human after, not human before, in human ancestry? [snip]... a theory that incorporates a Darwinian model in the elucidation of the significance of cultural attributes in the overall fitness of a cultural group. L: Anything related perhaps to the Boyd and Richerson type of approach? Or what theory? Is it contradictory to use a darwinian model to address _group_ fitness? How do you define "overall fitness"? [snip] Natural selection is a force, perhaps a random and mathematically defined force, but a force none the less. L: Random? Perhaps you don't intend the way this reads, because selection is not random, by definition, no? [snip] I would define cultural adaptation as a process of alteration of a cultural system in response to change in its coupled environmental and/or somatic systems. L: "Coupled" is interesting, please expand a bit. It makes me think of dynamical systems, coupled differential equations and dialectics. Thanks for any reply, Lisa Rogers evolutionary ecology in anthropology, grad stu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 18:17:23 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: David Frayne Subject: Re: Poverty whenever intelligent & educated people talk about poverty, especially global poverty, i always get excited. and frustrated. i always want to DO something, constructive. then i recall a whole bunch of horror stories about people who were trying to help and completely messed up some poor village or something. so i calm myself down again, and tell myself not to worry. everythings gonna be alright. no one you personally know is going to go hungry or die of exposure this week. then i think, gee, but there are so many people out there who ARE going hungry. and i get excited again. i mean, theyre people too, just like me. i imagine what it might feel like to be trapped in a collapsed mine, where your oxygen is running out, and you have to just hope that someone is trying to dig you out quickly. and then i think of the people trying to dig me out quickly, and they look at the cave-in and say, are you sure anyone was down there? if they are then theyre probly dead by now, theres no sense in wasting all this time & effort trying to dig them out. after all, its my turn to pick up the kids from daycare and i have to get going if im gonna beat traffic. my cpr instructor said that people administering emergency cpr generally tire out after about an hour. unless its a family member or loved one. then they can go on for hours and hours, and they often save the persons life thereby. im thinking thats how it is with abject poverty. if it were my mother dying of starvation in india, id fly over there and save her. but since its not, i give $5 to catholic charities or united way and hope that someones mother is being saved. two angles i can see on this. (1) is it possible to make people feel related so they save eachother? (2) is it better to simply build from strength and try to take over the world slowly, beginning in a wealthy part of a wealthy nation and spreading? or maybe we should just mind our own business and let everything else fall apart. hmm. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 17:25:37 PST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Gerald Sussman Organization: Urban and Public Affairs Subject: Re: world poverty -Reply Re. Lisa's questions: > > > I have a few questions, as raised by Gerald's post. I hope that > anyone may like to expand on these questions, for the sake of my > education. > > >>> Gerald Sussman 11/14/95, 09:04pm >>> > I agree that it's not simply a problem of science, but I do think > that science, that is, the scientific "establishment." has had a very > profound effect on the distribution of income in third world > countries (and in the U.S.). > L: How? In what way? Lisa, Thanks for your response and invitation to elaborate. Without getting too long-winded, I hope, let me suggest one example. Take the Rockefeller Foundation-sponsored International Rice Research Institute, for example. Introducing hybrid rice seed varieties also required heavy use of pesticides, fertilizers, fungicides and other petroleum based additives to the soil. The new rice varieties also depended reliable sources of irrigation, hence the need for water pumps. All of this expensive equipment required expensive imports. (Exxon was the main source of the petroleum-based elements, suggesting possible side benefits for the Rockefeller interests.) Politically, this meant large scale land ownership, which led to land confiscations, driving out fishing and small-scale agriculture in the areas where IRRI introduced the new strains. It meant, among other things, redistribution of land. > I would also say that it's not simply a matter of "political will" > but the distribution of political power, itself linked to the > organization of scientific capital in the United States and > elsewhere, that best speaks to the question of social change. > L: How are these linked? I simply mean here that what constitutes "will" has to do with who owns the political process. > In other words, as Joe Weizenbaum of MIT said in his earlier writing, > the scientific community has to bear some of the responsibility for > the uses to which their research and applications are being put. > L: What is the "scientific community"? In what way is it > "responsible for the "uses" of its product? What exactly do you want > us to do? The scientific community are those, particularly at empowered institutions, such as MIT, Carnegie-Mellon, Bell Labs, etc., who engage in scientific product. If you know your research is intended for use in weapons guidance systems, for example, Joseph Weizenbaum argues that it's your responsibility to find out and to assume responsibility for the outcome. Technology that destroys people's habitat and lives can't ultimately be blamed on the technology per se but on those who designed and developed it. The language of science should not be divorced from the language of politics (i.e., in terms of who stands to lose and benefit from this or that kind of research). Gerry Sussman > I really want to know. > Lisa Rogers ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 21:28:24 -0600 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Sheryl S. Gallaher" Subject: Re: Poverty of knowlege? In-Reply-To: <199511161447.IAA13794@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu> I think it is a generalization to suggest that the food supply has reached the point at which it cannot keep up with population. You underestimate the potential of technology for good. At the time of the industrial revolution, who could have predicted the productivity of farms in the U.S. or the robotics of modern factories? There is arable land yet untilled; there are livable areas yet without residents. 75% of the world's population lives on only 25% of viable land. I do not believe we have reached the saturation point yet --- nor will we ever. We must remember that extinction is the natural end for every species. Sheryl Szot Gallaher Governors State University University Park, IL 60466 On Thu, 16 Nov 1995, Bertram Rothschild wrote: > In a message dated 95-11-14 08:04:01 EST, Baker writes: > > >Surely we have enough knowledge to make a pretty big dent in world > >poverty? > > Sure we do, but assigning blame to some nasty group misses the reality that > human beings rarely do the rational thing. The food supply has reached the > point at which it cannot keep up with the world population. Are people > willing to reduce the birth-rate? Not a chance. Of all the solutions, that > is the last acceptable to many religions, Western and Eastern. The > Malthusian balance no longer pertains. > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 10:26:13 +0100 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Bo Dahlin Subject: biochemical machinery Lisa wrote: "There are stacks of evidence, in my view [that biochemistry is mechanical]. But I'm curious as to what Bo or anyonewould think an alternative assumption/analogy could be? If not"mechanical", then what? Or does the term mechanical mean something specialized here that I'm not getting?" I would like to see some of the evidence (biochemistry is not my field). As for alternative metaphors, what about "organic" as *different* from "mechanical"? I think the distinction between internal and external relations is a starting point. "Machinery" works with external relations between parts, organisms work with internal relations between parts. An internal relation between A and B means, that A and B "define" each other. That is, the nature of A is dependent upon the nature of B, and vice versa. In external relations this does not hold. A and B then interact in various ways, but each is what it is independent of the other. How's that for a start? Bo Bo Dahlin University of Karlstad S-651 88 Karlstad ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 07:38:36 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Bertram Rothschild Subject: Re: Poverty of knowlege? In a message dated 95-11-17 00:36:53 EST, you write: >I think it is a generalization to suggest that the food supply has >reached the point at which it cannot keep up with population. You >underestimate the potential of technology for good. While while you say may very well be true, it is also true that the amount of land under cultivation is decreasing, top soil is blowing away, and the amount of food produced per year, for the first time, just about balances the world population (though badly distributed). If the world population continues to grow, there is nothing but disaster ahead. While it might be true that technology can produce more food, there is every reason to believe that we have reached the asymptote. If the world populationd doesn't shrink we are in big trouble. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 07:38:34 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Bertram Rothschild Subject: Re: Trenchantly held opinions In a message dated 95-11-16 15:22:47 EST, you write: >What animals *won't* do is develop a science to deal with falling bodies. Yes, we surely think about events (reality), but that is quite different from saying that the reality itself is a theory. We develop ideas about what has occured, but the reality was that your sensory system detected something happening. You found a way to define it. It could just have well have been an angel touching you, as some might argue. But, you agree that the event occured? > Now that we have assumed falling bodies are non-problemmatic, let's back >up a step. What is "falling"? What is a "body"? Do we really know what >these mean? Other animals don't worry about such things yet try to avoid being struck by falling objects they have learned cause them pain. If it is real to them, it is real to use, only we think about it and (presumeably) they don't. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 14:01:19 GMT Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Ben Toth Subject: Introduction Friday 17 November Hello.. My name is Ben Toth; I am an 'early joiner' of the list but a slow communicator. So here goes.. My interest is in the development of clinical trials in the UK - clinical science/medical research as a cultural resource to parts of the medical profession, the public, the British state, and to pharmaceutical manufacturers. I am concentrating on clinical trials between 1910 ish and 1950, in particular the development of the randomised controlled trial, and the work of the Medical Research Council. I'm a bit peripheral to some of the concerns on the list, but I hope I can make the odd intervention. My broad methodological concerns are: how much probability and statistical theory do you need to have to write about statistical methods from a cultural perspective? (probably lots!) how to write about science without being either pro- or anti-science? best wishes ********************************************************************** Ben Toth Department of Social Medicine University of Bristol Canynge Hall Whiteladies Road Bristol, BS8 2PR, U.K. Tel: 0117 928 7223 Fax: 0117 928 7204 E-mail: Ben.Toth@bris.ac.uk ********************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 09:37:28 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: John Giacobbe Subject: Re: Evolutionary Significance of Science -Reply Recently, Lisa Rogers (L) responded to a post of mine (J) with some interesting questions that I would like to attempt to address. (J)....I am interested in the role that science as a cultural attribute has played in the evolution of human culture, and therefore humans themselves. (L) About when do you think this got started? Is there a point that you regard as human after, not human before, in human ancestry? I would take the slightly prosaic premiss that being human is an arbitrary term dependent upon the philosophical stance of the society and the individual. We (and past societies before us) define being human with our own criteria that appear very important to us at the time. My idea was primarily concerned with the development of a cultural mode, and I would state that from a scientific point of view, there was no clear event horizon after which culture and humanity appeared. We might be able to speciate selected fossil remains and classify them as members of the genus Homo, but I would consider that the possession of culture is not a human only behavioral pattern. So, from this perspective, while the presence of culture may define how we act, it does not define us as human. This is only the tip of a much broader discussion, but I would throw out that Chimpanzees (among other "non-human" primate groups), display all the attributes that one would generally define as criteria of culture. I believe it not too much of an extrapolation to consider that our pre-hominoid ancestors displayed similar behavioral patterns, and while not strictly taxonomically human, they were in possession of the character that I wish to review in this discussion. Sorry, that got a bit winded... (J) ... a theory that incorporates a Darwinian model in the elucidation of the significance of cultural attributes in the overall fitness of a cultural group. (L): Anything related perhaps to the Boyd and Richerson type of approach? Or what theory? Is it contradictory to use a Darwinian model to address _group_ fitness? How do you define "overall fitness"? I am not familiar with the Boyd and Richardson approach, perhaps you could tell me about this. I have fashioned my ideas after many researchers in both the anthropological (Dunnell, Leonard, Kirsch, Rindos, et al.) and biological (Mayr, Dawkins, Suzuki, and a bunch of guys I can't remember now working on meme theory) fields. About fitness, I would think we need to expand fitness from the biological Darwinian definition, somewhat along the group fitness lines. I would say that it is not contradictory, but that we are only changing the unit of selection from the individual to the culture group. Group selection theories put up red flags for many, so I hate to use this term, but it is clear that a cultural mode requires a group to succeed. There is no culture without the group, and that is its strength. Hence selective forces must act on the group, even supersede those acting on the individual. Briefly, I would define cultural fitness as the differential ability to access resources, capture energy, and survive as an intact cultural group. Fitness would be an environmental specific thing, and no developmental stages need apply. A group is fit for the local environment at a specific time, by being well adapted to survival in that environmental system. (J) Natural selection is a force, perhaps a random and mathematically defined force, but a force none the less. (L) Random? Perhaps you don't intend the way this reads, because selection is not random, by definition, no? I would agree that you are right that the process of selection is not random, but its application flows from so many causal sources that it will often appear to influence cultural development in that way. That is the reason we see so much equifinality in forms that cultures take to deal with the same basic problems, such as subsistence, group organization, technology. So many minute factors are involved in applying the selective pressures that resulted in a particular form of cultural expression that it may appear to be a randomly applied force. (J) I would define cultural adaptation as a process of alteration of a cultural system in response to change in its coupled environmental and/or somatic systems. (L) "Coupled" is interesting, please expand a bit. It makes me think of dynamical systems, coupled differential equations and dialectics. Well, I didn't mean quite as much as that, only to remind that we must consider that although many selective forces are environmentally derived and survival-related, there are also selective forces that are applied from within a cultural system, such as sexual selection, exogamy and endogamy rules, tradition, conservatism, all those things that may not appear to ascribe any selective advantage with regard to biological fitness, but are none the less necessary for fitness within a given cultural system.. peer pressure! I appreciate all of Lisa's well thought comments, and would invite others in the list to ring in with their opinions. Thanks for your time, John A. Giacobbe catalinus@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 13:29:06 EST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Rob Goldbort Subject: testing just testing, since I haven't gotten through in previous tries ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 13:02:26 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: STUART NEWMAN Subject: Re: Introduction -Reply Val Dusek wrote: <<... I am currently working on a book, The Holistic Inspiriations of Physics: an Underground History of Electromagnetic Theory... about the influence of Chinese medieval Taoism, renaissance occultism and hermeticism, and German Romanticism on the technology, theory, and experiments of the pre-history of electro-magnetic theory ...I am also interested in information metaphor in molecular biology and deconstruction thereof... and in generally demystifying the human origins of scientific thought.>> I am a developmental biologist with similar interests. I have recently published an essay, "Carnal Boundaries: The Commingling of Flesh in Theory and Practice" in "Reinventing Biology" (eds. Lynda Birke and Ruth Hubbard) Indiana Univ. Press, 1995, that analyzes Darwinism and the "genetic program" paradigm in relation to Western religious concepts, and comes to certain conclusions about the relationship of science and ideology in biotechnologies involving gene modification. It is possible that this piece contains material that would be helpful to you. Stuart Newman New York Medical College Valhalla, NY 10595 newman@nymc.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 15:31:49 EST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Rob Goldbort Subject: intro. Greetings. Having read the intriguing posts thus far, I thought I'd add a note of my own. I teach technical/scientific writing and sometimes a Literature and Science seminar. I'm interested in rhetoric of science generally, but also with particular reference to how scientists linguistically (re)construct their own world of ideas, "facts," and professional values (yes, I do believe that human values do operate in important cultural ways in day-to-day scientific activity, on both micro- and macro-levels). My own academic background is mixed--a BS in Biology (SUNY-Stony Brook), MS in Biology (Indiana U. of PA), MA and PhD in English (Michigan State U., 1989). My biology thesis and published papers (late '70s) were on alcohol- drinking behavior/physiology in mice; my dissertation was on the evolution of "plain" scientific prose, from the ideas of Peter Ramus (late 16th century) to their impact on Bacon's and the Royal Society's rhetorical strictures. Thus far on the list I've seen unsurprising but nonetheless interesting concerns about such matters as: (a) scientific "fact" vs. theory (my own view is that "facts" are made, not merely found), (b) why more scientists aren't on this list, (c) the ethical responsibility of scientists regarding what they discover/produce/develop. My current work is on the images, ideas, activity, and values of experimental science/scientists as seen in fiction--at the moment in contemporary fiction by scientists themselves (e.g., my article in J. Medical Humanities, Summer 1995). The fact that in our century one can find at least a couple of dozen scientists (doctorally-trained) who also have produced fiction (e.g., Snow, Asimov, R. McCormmach, T. McMahan, B. F. Skinner, C. Sagan, D. Brin, G. Benford, R. Cook, M. Crichton, M. Palmer, Alan Lightman) makes a statement about the relation between fiction and scientific discourse and about the current status of Snovian cultures-- is the chasm really there other than politically? There are times when I feel that works of fiction by scientists represents the HIGHEST form of "scientific writing," since it makes a direct connection between the lab and the fundamental concerns of our culture, though I'm quite aware that most scientists (not all) would deride such a view, or, worse, yet, it just wouldn't compute--their eyes would glass over with impatience and even annoyance. Fiction about science (contary to S. J. Gould's recently expressed views) does not "water down" or even "dumb down" (Gould's words) scientific information or ideas, but in my view intensifies and contextualizes how our culture responds to the advancement of science and its 20th century ethical dilemmas (see the late molecular biologist L. Isaacs' ambitious 1987 essay, "Creation and Responsibility in Science: Some Lessons from the Modern Prometheus" in the essay collection titled Creativity and the Imagination (U. Delaware Press, Ed. M. Amsler) titled. In any case, to use a familiar image/metaphor, I believe that the scientific and the literary/rhetorical "need" one another like the two "opposing" strands of a DNA double helix--so that full expression of what it is to be human can occur. It will not do, for instance, for a scientist to say in effect something like, "I just design my experiments, collect my data, publish the results, and what "society" does with my work is none of my concern." We could revisit discussions of Oppenheimer and The Bomb, or just take a look at the potential and likely irreversible effects of bioengineering (more powerful than any bomb in the long run). I draw attention to something Quintilian said long ago in his Institutio Oratoria ("The Education of an Orator") about rhetoric and rhetors which I believe applies wholly to scientists as well as to anyone else: "I do not merely assert that the ideal orator should be a good man, but I affirm that no man can be an orator unless he is a good man." This must also be true of scientists. One's personal ethos--scientist or not--is inextricably entwined with WHATEVER one does professionally (see also psychiatrist/educator R. Coles' The Call of Stories, 1989). Scientists are, after all (just like the rest of us) first and foremost humans--and to suggest that they and their science are so priveleged as to justify a disconnection or isolation of their work from the rest of culture is plainly naive and simplistically convenient. I could ramble on, but duties of the day call . . . Robert Goldbort Department of English Root Hall A-212 Indiana State University Terre Haute, IN 47809 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 19:01:35 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: David Frayne Subject: Re: population >75% of the world's population lives on only 25% of viable land. its also interesting to note that people like to put their houses right onto the best farming land. here in the san francisco bay area, where just about every food known to man will grow, we keep covering up the land with buildings and streets. even so, in my small yard (4000 sq ft) i am growing roughly the amount of food i need to sustain myself (except that it doesnt all come at the right time and i dont have adequate packing & storing facilities, so i still have to buy groceries). ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 20:45:40 EST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Satoru Aonuma Subject: thanks Hi Philip, Thanks for your info about museum stuff. I really appreciate your help because this topic is new to me. I try to finish this project sometime in the middle of December. I will be more than happy to (e-)mail the paper when it's done if you are interested (and I would like to entertain your comments and critiques, too). Satoru Aonuma Wayne State University ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 00:56:27 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Mark L Gilbert Subject: Re: evolution, of thought and sociality In-Reply-To: <9511162125.AA01979@osf1.gmu.edu> On Thu, 16 Nov 1995, Lisa Rogers wrote: > >>> Mark L Gilbert 11/16/95, 12:34pm >>> > On Thu, 16 Nov 1995, Bertram Rothschild wrote: > > I simply mean that evolution has designed us > > to engage reality > > LR: I like it! Of course, not to engage perfectly, only as well as > or in ways that have paid off through evolutionary time. > > Mark: What evolution has equipped organisms to do is to exploit > certain eco-niches in order to persevere. Anything beyond that (like > this list, for instance) will require something more. > > LR: Darwinian evolution creates organisms that try to survive and > reproduce as much as possible, it's true. I wonder what you mean by > "something more". What is it in general that you see as being or > requiring "something more" than what? Well, I thought "something more" is about as general as one can get, so I'll get a *little* more specific instead. Part of the answer you have already intimated: "not to engage perfectly" is the opening that requires something more. What we have going on in our attempts to use evolutionary theory to explain human behavior is a reductive effort. While I'm entirely sympathetic with using Darwinian theory to *illuminate*, it is not going to effect a complete translation. We cannot fully translate all human activity into the language of evolutionary science. The argument I'm fielding here is the same one leveled against efforts to explain all phenomena to the mechanical action of atomic or subatomic particles. In either case, it leaves the higher order explanation as either mere epiphenomena (the eliminative move) or just a shorthand that can be replaced by the more technically precise language of whatever science (physics, molecular genetics, etc.) is currently in vogue (the substitutive move). In other words, reality is ultimately simple and fully explicable (can be both explained and made explicit). The translation can be complete (given enough time and effort) without remainder. The "imperfection" you allow for is the little thing that makes all the difference. On the positive side, it is getting more acceptable in biological science (and information science, for that matter) to speak of "emergent properties"- -properties that appear at more complex or higher orders of analysis that are specific to the *relations* of those lower order units. In other words, properties and behaviors of systems appear that are not predictable on the basis of knowing the properties of the units themselves. Now, I would extend that argument to the interaction of whatever units we want to discuss not only in terms of internal relations--i.e., interactions between those units themselves--but also the units alone--or in combination--with their respective environment(s). To be more specific, an exhaustive knowledge of molecular genetics and evolutionary biology would not automatically give you knowledge of or even the ability to predict our kind of sociability, except perhaps on a very trivial or mundane level (e.g., cooperation enhances survival: ants have us beat though). Most, if not all, of our behavior on a meaningful level is an emergent property that cannot be reduced to a lower level of analysis. To put it more informally, biology will never replace the social science if we hope to have an adequate understanding of human behavior. A further note on making explicit: I believe there is good reason to believe that no science can ever make any topic fully explicit (e.g., Uncertainty in physics, Incompleteness in mathematics, intentionality in the social sciences, the historicity of evolutionary theory). This is not a criticism of science, but an argument for "divergent realism" over the "convergent realism" of proposals like physicist Steven Wienberg's so-called "Final Theory." > I suggest that a key aspect of human adaptation is our sociality. > Which is all about talking, knowing people, making friends and > contacts, professions, social status, etc. etc.... Definitely... > This is a result > of evolution, that we are social, and that we are specialists in > being social. ...not. We have a sociality that is fundamental to who we are; but *biological* evolution is not the sole reason why. Cultural evolution and social life are as, and I believe, more important. > Human ancestors were probably quite social since > before bipedality. The two species most closely related to us are > both quite social as well. > > Lisa Cockroaches are extraordinarily social creatures. The children (or would that be calves, chicks, roachlings??) are raised by the parents into "adulthood", and the fathers stick around to help in the rearing. And of course, ants and bees have been held up for at least a couple of millennia as exemplars of cooperations and sociability. I would hold that the "something more" that gets short shrift in our natural science-dominated culture is, well, culture. sociably yours, mark |Need to examine | |Uncritical times | | -Stereolab| ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 01:06:22 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Mark L Gilbert Subject: Re: Evolutionary Significance of Science -Reply In-Reply-To: <9511171438.AA07806@osf1.gmu.edu> I thought John and Lisa's comments were insightful. But how about something specific to the thread name. Science studies, constructed/constructs the terminology and techniques, and "discovered" evolution (careful there). But what about the return move: how has evolution constructed or discovered science? mark |Need to examine | |Uncritical times | | -Stereolab| ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 02:03:02 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Mark L Gilbert Subject: Re: Trenchantly held opinions In-Reply-To: <9511171241.AA18327@osf1.gmu.edu> On Fri, 17 Nov 1995, Bertram Rothschild wrote: > Yes, we surely think about events (reality), but that is quite different from > saying that the reality itself is a theory. To deny "reality" is incoherent. I can't imagine how one would go about arguing such a claim in a totalizing fashion. All we do/think starts from where and what we are. So, of course i would not say there is no "reality itself." Of course, how one argues all this is not quite so straightforward, but I wanted to at least get any potential silliness out of the way. > We develop ideas about what has occured, My contention, exactly. > but the reality was that your sensory system detected something > happening. You found a way to define it. Ah, and there's the rub. How did I find it, and what was it? > It could just have well have been > an angel touching you, as some might argue. Some might, but I'll forego that explanation. > But, you agree that the event occured? See above. > Now that we have assumed falling bodies are non-problemmatic, let's back > >up a step. What is "falling"? What is a "body"? Do we really know what > >these mean? > > Other animals don't worry about such things yet try to avoid being struck by > falling objects they have learned cause them pain. If it is real to them, it > is real to use, only we think about it and (presumeably) they don't. I claimed earlier that for many such events, animals don't always get the chance to "learn" and "avoid" these events. Behavioral Psychologist Clark Hull argued a similar position to yours. He recognized It is important for animals to avoid predators (and presumably, falling rocks). The way this occurs is a) they get a warning signal like a scent, a visual cue, or pain. Following the cue, an attack (or blow to the head) occurs. Thus, all of this begins with and is dependent on a smooth functioning sensory system. Lucky for our hapless animal, it escapes and lives to avoid on another day. See the problem? Nature does not arrange the helpful kinds of contingencies necessary to learn all these things. Especially the number of times under a variety of circumstances that would be needed. What the animal would be under this kind of regimen is dead, and its relatives extinct. What they have a very well-tuned innate response system (what Animal/Motivation Psychologist Robert Bolles calls Species Specific Defense Responses, or SSDRs). Of course, animals do learn too, but there's a couple of interesting problems. First, if a cat gets burned by jumping up on a hot stove, it won't jump on a hot stove again. In fact, it won't jump on a cold stove either. Second, using Bolles' research, animals tend to learn some things very easily, and other things not at all. Moreover, what they learn well--or not--is specific to their species (hence, "Species Specific"). For example, you can get rats to freeze when they are scared, but you can't teach them to bar press or run out into an open space very well (to avert or stop some aversive stimulus). Moreover, they may very well freeze when it is not in their best interests to do so. For instance, rats from the plains who must deal with flying predators are good at freezing, rats in the woods good at climbing trees to escape snakes. Freezing in front of a snake is not the best of strategies, but rats will do it when they are from a group where freezing is the predominate SSDR. The point of this long-winded discursion is that a simple "respond to the way the world really is" explanation is woefully inadequate when it comes to understanding something as "simple" as rat behavior, even more so when it comes to human. Reality does not come pre-labeled with the proper response to events. Nor does our sensory system. Something intervenes between the two. With animals, it is for the most part an instinctual intervention. With humans, we come up with a cognitive mediation most loosely described as cognition, and on a more sophisticated level, theory. Perhaps you might be more comfortable with the term "cognition," where we might reserve "theory" for when we thematize and make that cognitive activity more explicit. Be that as it may, the cognitive activity is certainly neurological, but it is also unavoidably shaped, and I would say, to a greater extent, by cultural or social structures and dynamics. Hence, theory. mark |Need to examine | |Uncritical times | | -Stereolab| ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 07:31:35 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Jeffrey Kramer Subject: Re: emergent properties In a message dated 95-11-18 00:57:59 EST, you write: > >On the positive side, it is getting more acceptable in biological science >(and information science, for that matter) to speak of "emergent >properties"- -properties that appear at more complex or higher orders of >analysis that are specific to the *relations* of those lower order units. >In other words, properties and behaviors of systems appear that are not >predictable on the basis of knowing the properties of the units >themselves. Now, I would extend that argument to the interaction of >whatever units we want to discuss not only in terms of internal >relations--i.e., interactions between those units themselves--but also the >units alone--or in combination--with their respective environment(s). i am delighted to come across the phrase "emergent properties" and hope we can start a thread on the meaning of this notion. it is one that i have found so appealing as an antidote when you feel yourself slipping into reductionistic mud. but the more attractive and seductive it feels,the more it makls me wonder whether it isn't the old ghost in the machine in new dress.( wow that's a kind of cross dressing i had never thought of ;-) ) is it simply the latest and thus currently mostly acceptable way of returning to descartes dualism. any thoughts anyone jeffrey kramer jefkmd@aol.com > > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 11:23:14 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Jeffrey Kramer Subject: okinawan rape to all the following vignette is absolutely current. that, and its subject matter make it an extremely provocative matter to discuss. but i want to talk about it, and i think the notions both of science and culture,which form the heading of this list are crucial to thinking about it. so i am going to ask you all (and am prepared that you may as a group turn me down which i will absolutely accept) to think of this as a matter which deserves to be discussed,is relevant here and finally that this group is up to the job of discussing it enlighteningly.... end of defensive preamble four american servicement were convicted of raping a 12 year old Okinawan girl, inflicting pain and provoking fury at every level you might imagine. the new york times on saturday 11/18/95 reported that the commander of US forces in the Pacific was forced to step down peremptorily after making the following statement "I think it (the rape) was absolutely stupid,I've said that several times. For the price they paid to rent the car they could have had a girl." The immediate public outcry against him seems close to unaninmous. Before I ask my question I would like to add one clarifying point for our purposes. And that is that I say we can assume agreement on the point that rape is primarily about power rather than sex and particularly the potential to exercise degrading power over women. It is horrible! Nevertheless I ask whether it is as clear to people on this list that this admiral...and i know not another thing about him other than that he made this statement (perhaps further biographical data would change the frame considerably)...made such a dreadful blunder as is being put out. unfortunately i find myself unable to stop without making one more point. please remember that one of his primary obligations at this point is to decrease the likelihood of a recurrence of this horror. thanks jeffrey kramer jefkmd@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 10:29:26 -0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "S.M. Ghazanfar" Subject: UNSCRIBE please UNSCRIBE Thanks for putting me on the list, but I am afraid I just can't keep up--too many other demands on my time. Thanks again. Dr S M Ghazanfar College of Business and Economics University of Idaho Tel: (208) 885 7144 Fax: (208) 885 8939 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 18:39:35 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Mr B.P. Larvor" Subject: Pure maths In-Reply-To: <199511162101.VAA24444@listserv.rl.ac.uk> from "Mark L Gilbert" at Nov 16, 95 02:49:44 pm In the last mail Mark L Gilbert said: > > On Wed, 15 Nov 1995, Mr B.P. Larvor wrote: > > 4) Does all this apply to pure maths? If so, how? > In addition to Val Dusek's Nov 16 post, The question with Val's examples (and there is plenty more where that lot came from) is whether any of this rhetoric was effective, and what effects it had. It is always possible to reread this stuff (as Kitcher does in _The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge_). We can always say, what this mathematician really means here is... Then the question becomes a matter of evaluating these re-readings. In other words, the examples Val cites are only the start of the argument. > if you're interested, you might > also consult David Bloor's _Knowledge and Social Imagery_ (U of Chicago, > 1991) Read it. Traduced both Wittgenstein and Lakatos. Silly argument about witches and the Azande. Bloor also wrote a paper called something like "polyhedra and the abominations of Leviticus". > and Morris Kline's _Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty_ (Oxford, 1980). Read it years ago. I don't remember much sociological detail, but it was a while back. > Both argue a constructivist I.e. social constructivist? (beware this word has another meaning in phil. of maths.) position for mathematics. Ernst Cassirer's > _The Problem of Knowledge_ (Yale, 1950) may be helpful here too. > > While I'm not answering your question now (no time to play, *sigh*), I > think these sources argue pretty persurasively that pure math (if there is > such a thing; Kline doubts it), is not exempt from human activity any more > than any other human pursuit. Well, mathematics-the-body-of-knowledge _is_ a human activity. The question is, what moves it? I read a paper in which it was argued (more or less) that Hamilton developed quaternions for reasons to do with his being an Irish Tory. Now, I can see that this sort of explanation might be attractive, but on the whole that sort of stuff fails, on mundane historical grounds. > It reminds me of a story Cassirer used to > like to tell. He was friends with David Hilbert (now *there's* a pure > mathematician if there ever was one). Hilbert had a grad student Cassirer > knew, and he asked Hilbert how the student was doing in his math > education. Hilbert responded, "Not too well. He didn't have enough > imagination for mathematics, but he's doing poetry now and is doing > fine..." > > This story may not be directed specifically at your question, but I think > it points in the right direction. Besides, it's a great story. :-) > Indeed. By the way, lets not run away with the idea that the positivists were stupid. Reichenbach knew perfectly well that `science is a human activity and does not take place in a vaccuum'. He explains at the beginning of Experience and Prediction (I think it's called) that epistemologists should treat it as if it were `in a vaccuum' as a matter of philosophical method. Since scientists make idealising assumptions, he thought, why can philosophers not do the same. Now, I don't follow Reichenbach in this, but lets treat these chaps with the respect they deserve (e.g. lets read their books before we get too snide). Indeed, writers of rationally reconstructed history from Hegel onwards knew and know now that such histories are idealisations. That is their point. Brendan. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 14:18:11 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Val Dusek Subject: Re: Pure maths In a message dated 95-11-18 13:42:15 EST, Mr. Larvor writes: > I read a paper in which it was argued (more or less) >that Hamilton developed quaternions for reasons to do with his being an >Irish Tory. This paper is by Andrew Pickering in South Atlantic Quarterly, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 417 - 466. Spring, 1995. It is reprinted in The Mangle of Practice Book by same fellow. I don't agree with Pickering's one-sided ideological analysis of Hamilton, but Hamilton was influenced by romantic idealist strains. He traded poetry with Wordsworth and Coleridge, and read Kant's 1st Critique in German, when it was so rare in England it took him years to find a second copy after he lost his first one. Hamilton combine Berkeley's idealism with Boscovich's point-atom fields to combat materialism, and his Hamilton function was in some senses a Platonic answer to Newtonian solid-ball materialistic atomism. There is discussion of Hamilton in Hendry, J. C. Maxwell book, on the dynamical vs. mechanical conception of physics, and an article on "algebra as the science of pure Time" in Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, discussing his Kantianism in relation to his quaternians, I think also by Hendry. I think Hamilton recognized the connection between the Hamiltonian and quaterions which comes out in quaternion quantum mechanics of spin, and also in the symplectic group as having quaterions as natural objects, with the symplectic group tied to the physical Hamiltonian version of mechanics. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 15:01:11 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Tim Smith Subject: Re: okinawan rape And that is that I say we can assume agreement on the point that >rape is primarily about power rather than sex and particularly the potential >to exercise degrading power over women. We might want to be careful about saying that rape is inherently about degrading the power of women. It is quite common in the male gay community as well. It seems then to be the mixture of sex with aggression/power that is pleasurable to the rapist.The sex of the victim seems to vary by rapist. Aggression and sex acts seems to combine very powerfully for some males (and I imagine for some females) but it may directed toward whatever happens to be rapists sexual preference (women, other men, young boys). I think to assume that rape has as its agenda to degrade the power of women is not a good assumption. This is not to say, of course that rape is not used very deliberately by some cultures, groups and individuals as an attack on womanhood. IN these cases though, rape is being used as a tool. To assume that most rape has such "high ideals" is probably not correct. -- Tim Smith (tws@neurocog.lrdc.pitt.edu) University of Pittsburgh Learning Research and Development Center (412)624-7055 -office (412)688-8351 -home Personal Web address: http://neurocog.lrdc.pitt.edu/~tws Neural Processes in Cognition address: http://neurocog.lrdc.pitt.edu/npc/ Also check out: http://neurocog.lrdc.pitt.edu/neuroscape/ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 15:22:32 EST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "A. H. Brush" Subject: emergent properties On emergent properties: There are those who would argue that emergent properties, in the sense that one cannot predict properties of one level based on the properties of another. For example, the shape and behavior of a single protein cannot be prediced by the information stored in the base sequence of the gene or genes that produce the protein. In proteins that form filaments, or perhaps other multi-molecular structures the properties of the structure (eg filament) cannot be prediced from the information contained in the filamenting molecules. This idea is not new, nor limited to living systems. You can't explains the behavior of a watch from its components. The idea, however, is very handy and helps us to think about complexity and the nature of biological organization. Alan Department of Physiology & Neurobiology Brush@uconnvm.uconn.edu University of Connecticut, Storrs 92 High St., Mystic, CT ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 15:25:40 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Ned Muhovich Subject: Re: Rob Goldport's intro. Robert-- Since I have a similarly odd background (B.A. in math, M.A. and A.B.D in English), I like the idea of the mixture of science and rhetoric producing something positive, rather than something negative. (And it sometimes seems to me that rhetorical analyses of scientific writing often focus, implicitly at least, on how rhetoric "warps" the science.) My own favorite author/scientist is Primo Levi, who, like the authors you mention, combines his rhetoric and science in mutually reinforcing structures. (I'm thinking particularly of _The Periodic Table_, which isn't actually a work of fiction but a memoir.) My own research looks at the complementary issue: how people we think of primarily in literary terms use science. (My dissertation is on Poe, Twain, and Faulkner.) One comment about the scientists-just-like-the-rest-of-us thing: hearkening back to the list's on-going discussion of expertise, the best of the writers you mention take their scientific, formal training and integrate it with their social experiences. For some reason, it seems harder for novelists to do the reverse, to take their humanities training and integrate that with scientists. In centuries past, perhaps, Donne and Milton could use science effectively, but examples like that strike me as rare in this century. The most obvious perhaps, Pynchon, has always seemed too juvenile: science as one more toy to play with. Any thoughts or writers I'm overlooking? Ned Muhovich University of Denver emuhovic@du.edu >There are times when I feel that works of fiction by scientists represents the >HIGHEST form of "scientific writing," since it makes a direct >connection between the lab and the fundamental concerns of our >culture... In any case, to use a familiar image/metaphor, >I believe that the scientific and the literary/rhetorical "need" one >another like the two "opposing" strands of a DNA double helix--so >that full expression of what it is to be human can occur. >Scientists are, after all (just like the rest of us) >first and foremost humans--and to suggest that they and their science >are so priveleged as to justify a disconnection or isolation of their >work from the rest of culture is plainly naive and simplistically >convenient. >Robert Goldbort >Department of English >Root Hall A-212 >Indiana State University >Terre Haute, IN 47809 > Ned Muhovich emuhovic@du.edu (303)871-2879 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 19:19:24 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Bernd Frohmann Subject: Science Wars? (fwd) This might be of interest to this list. Bernd Frohmann, Associate Professor & Acting Dean Graduate School of Library & Information Science University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6G 1H1 voice: (519) 679-2111 ext. 8510 | fax: (519) 661-3506 ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 11:50:36 -0800 (PST) From: Tom Athanasiou To: Recipients of conference Subject: Science Wars? From: Tom Athanasiou **** SCIENCE WARS? ... A Book, a Conference, and a Bit of a Polemic HIGHER SUPERSTITION The Academic Left and its Quarrels with Science Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt (Baltimore: John Hopkins University, 1994) THE FLIGHT FROM SCIENCE AND REASON Conference at the New York Academy of Sciences May 31 - June 2, 1995, New York Tired of the culture wars? Get ready for the science wars. Get ready, too, to imagine some proper limits for the all-encompassing ambitions of discourse theory. With HIGHER SUPERSTITION, a gauntlet has been thrown down, and we should not assume that we are altogether ready to pick it up. HIGHER SUPERSTITION was published in 1994, and reviews have either praised it as a defense of science against a rising irrationalism or excoriated it as a shrill conservative attack on multiculturalism, feminism, "the postmodern academy," and indeed, democracy. THE FLIGHT FROM SCIENCE AND REASON funded in part by the right-wing Olin Foundation, aimed to showcase the authors and ideas of HIGHER SUPERSTITION. It didn't ignite a full-blown science war, but it was not a failure. FLIGHT brought several hundred scientists, academics, and miscellaneous "rationalists" together and invited them to feel outraged and besieged. It did not win the massive press coverage its organizers had hoped for, but it was not altogether ignored. And, certainly it was a warning. FLIGHT offered a grim view of a sterile pseudo-debate we should try desperately to avoid. If the science wars do spread, HIGHER SUPERSTITION will figure large in their myths of origin. It will be their founding manifesto, as FLIGHT will be remembered as their call to arms. Spare a moment, then, if only as preparation for battle, to consider the situation, indeed the danger, as Gross and Levitt see it. To wit, that science -- and indeed the whole Enlightenment tradition of precise, disciplined critical-empirical thinking -- is being battered by endless waves of "irrationalism." Among the people, this irrationalism takes various forms -- New Ageism; a belief that angels walk among us; faith in "non-Western" medicine; woo-woo ecofeminism and more broadly "Edenic" environmentalism; and on the right, creationism and the hard assertion of fundamentalist moral verities. Among the "academic left," where cultural/professional dynamics make specific stylistic demands, "irrationalism" centers on the fad for "the overpriced vaporware of postmodern skepticism" and on claims for an "epistemological democracy" in which it is affirmed by both polite and politically correct necessity that all claims to truth are equally marked by culture and contingency. This apocalypse of relativism, of course, has its horsemen, and if one judges by the bile and rhetoric at THE FLIGHT FROM SCIENCE AND REASON, Sandra Harding (a key feminist critic of science) and Bruno Latour (a leading light of post structuralist "science studies") head their ranks. But Harding and Latour are hardly alone. All the stars of left science studies won their share of the day's vitriol, as did friends of acupuncture, psychoanalysis [!], and UFOlogy; a few select freelance "neo-Luddite" intellectuals like Jeremy Rifkin and the Unabomber; the Nazis (of course); and all of the long columns of barbarian epistemologists that threaten to lay waste to the towers of reason. HIGHER SUPERSTITION is thick with references, and quite comprehensive. It even cites SOCIALIST REVIEW, critiquing both Steven Epstein and myself. (We are both dismissed during larger polemics, yet notably by way of backhanded compliments that are not altogether unfair.) Gross and Levitt, in other words, have done their homework. They know the left science-studies literature or have at least picked over it with care. This makes HIGHER SUPERSTITION an ambitious book by any measure. It is also intermittently a fair one, and this despite being ill-spirited, prone to self-serving caricature, and sharply conservative in its overall thrust. It's tough to suggest, with anything like focus and brevity, the overall stakes in the science wars. It may help, though, to note a key word in these debates -- "technoscience" -- and to wonder at the deliberate conflation at its core. This conflation is, after all, heavy with ramifications. "Technoscience," to make a very long story short, is, in today's left academy, almost invariably taken as the proper object of study whenever science is at issue. And why not? "Technoscience" (rather than, say, "rationality") is what we EXPERIENCE--cars, power plants, computer networks, etc.; it is the proper object of cultural studies; it is what binds "science" to industry, to culture, to ideology, and to history. Feminist and left critics of science concern themselves, first of all, with science embodied, science as power. "Rationalists" like Gross and Levitt are more than irritated by this move, for they seek to save "reason" and even, still, to insist that it is neutral. That is not my problem, though I agree that "irrationalism" -- e.g., the recent rapid increase in the number of Americans who say they believe in reincarnation -- is very much a significant and worrisome matter, and though I suspect that the habits of "epistemological democracy," in biasing us to forgive even overt mysticism as a form of resistance to "scientific expertise," do not serve us well. My question is rather why radical critics of science feel compelled to push beyond the rich fields of "weak" constructivism -- that "science" as we know it is deeply marked by the logic and metaphor of expertise and domination, and by its servitude to capital -- and to claim as well that there can never be anything like an objective knowledge of nature, that all we know as scientific is, in reality, socially constructed in some absolute sense. Now, obviously "nature" is socially constructed in the sense that only social beings can "know" anything about it. This is true, and it remains true even if it is not always interesting. Also, and just as obviously, the insistence that scientific "facts" are socially and often politically constructed remains key to the liberationist agenda -- THE BELL CURVE demonstrated, if further demonstration was necessary, that the right finds enduring use for determinism and reductionism. But this is only the problem; it does not follow that the solution lies in ideological antis-reductionism, at least not if anti-reductionism is understood (as it often is) as a denigration of "empirical truth." The best and the brightest in the pomo academy, of course, do not indulge such a crude view. Though literary and scientific facts are both constructed, it is taken for granted that they are constructed differently. In pomo culture in general, however, this subtlety gets lost in the popular notion that all "facts," marked as the suspect claims of "experts," are self-serving and subjective. What concerns me, in other words, is how the claim that all truths are constructed fades into the sense, pervasive and corrosive, that all claims are crooked. The ecologist claims that amphibians are in trouble; the developer does not agree, or says that it doesn't matter. Children, given a chance, will generally remember that it matters to the frogs, but how often do their parents, hearing tell of such dispute, shrug off both views as punditry and rubbish? Left critics of science have long taken it for granted that their proper and most radical vocation is to go beyond critiques of "bad science" to stress the social and political construction of all science, and indeed of all knowledge. This move is profoundly emancipatory, and I do not refuse it, but we should not imagine that the question of "good" and "bad" science has become irrelevant. The right, in fact, has discovered anew the utility of science as political weapon, as is clear in their attacks on the environmental movement. A sophisticated school of critics has made advances by systematic caricature, painting greens as apocalyptics enthralled to (in Gross and Levitt's term) "ecotopian enthusiasms" and altogether out of touch with the realities of nature. Science, anti-green science, says there is no problem. The battle for ecology is one in which "good science" is claimed by all, a battle in which greens must not simply deconstruct the claims of the right, but do so in a particular way: greens must show that anti-environmental science is not only politically motivated, but also is generally WRONG. The green movement, in other words, must know the power of both science and ideology, and how to tell the difference. It must be able to dissect corporate pseudo-science in clear, colorful English and to do so without gesturing at relativism. It must enjoy and continually re-earn a reputation for having the "best" science in town. We don't have such a movement today, and it is not obvious that a theory of science structured by "hard" constuctivist claims that treat "scientific truth" as entirely subordinate to culture and power will aid in its emergence. That said, I would make a plea for learning from HIGHER SUPERSTITION. It is the perfect object of study, for while it is thick with leaden caricature and cheap shots, it also contains passages that frankly ring all too true. There is much in Sandra Harding that is provocative, but this hardly means that her mix of polemic and analysis is unimpeachable; sometimes it is merely overdrawn. There is nothing wrong with philosophy by polemic, but should we be surprised that Harding's claim, in THE SCIENCE QUESTION IN FEMINISM, that the queen of the sciences is not physics but anthropology, eventually produced an equally polemical response? [1] And though Bruno Latour's case studies of laboratory science have been quite useful, his boundless confidence in the post-structuralist challenge to all hitherto existing forms of reason strikes me, for one, as just a bit overweening. [2] And when we leave the academy and consider popular critiques of technoscience, honesty compels at least ambivalence -- there is much here that is actively debilitating. [3] Distinctions are necessary. In this dark time of dying cultures, languages, and ecosystems, friends of justice are necessarily drawn to what anthropologist Arturo Escobar calls "civilizational pluralism." How difficult, though, when "Western civilization" identifies itself so strongly with the pretensions of science, to admit that "epistemological democracy" is a different matter. How difficult, in this time of technology and monoculture, to consider that there might be moments of autonomy, and even of innocence, in science and its claims to "truth." We are disarmed by the sloppy, abstract thinking in our ranks. Just before FLIGHT, I had a review in The NATION that attacked Martin Lewis, a young liberal academic that has spent considerable time carrying water for the anti-environmental right. Lewis was a featured speaker at the conference, and I rose to criticize him, identifying myself as one who was taken to task in HIGHER SUPERSTITION. Then something curious occurred. Levitt rose in response and charged me with a damning juxtaposition -- the very issue that contains my review contains as well a load of blather by Kirkpatrick Sale, and this, insisted Levitt, perfectly illustrated the justice of Lewis's attack on environmentalism. At the time I could not reply. Here I will only say that I had found Sale and his glib decentralism an embarrassment long before that warm afternoon. Caricature is a favorite weapon of the right. When it comes to ecology, it figures large in attacks by not only Gross, Levitt, and Lewis, but also Julian Simon, Gregg Easterbrook, anti-environmental think tanks like the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and dozens of corporate PR departments. About the science wars in general, Andrew Ross is quite right -- we should "be prepared for another season of asinine anecdotes about feminist algebra, queer quantum physics, and Afrocentric molecular biology." [4] He's right, of course, but this is hardly the end of the story. There's a lot of garbage around -- like, say, THE TAO OF PHYSICS -- and I fail to see why we should not admit it. Caricature does not clear the way to a better understanding of "irrationalism," but neither does silence. Why should we not admit that the WORST of ecofeminism is very bad indeed? [5] Does democracy demand it? Solidarity? And do we really intent that, in the end, epistemology shall be annexed to Cultural Studies? 1) Sandra Harding, THE SCIENCE QUESTION IN FEMINISM (Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986). 2) Try an experiment. Pick up a copy of Latour's latest, WE HAVE NEVER BEEN MODERN (Harvard, 1993) and read it with a critical rather than a sympathetic eye. 3) The "neo-Luddite" literature is, shall we say, uneven? Consider, for starters, Jeremy Rifkin, Wendell Berry, Bill McKibben, Jerry Mander, Kirkpatrick Sale, and, of course, the Unabomber. 4) Andrew Ross, "Science Backlash on Technoskeptics," THE NATION, October 2, 1995, p. 346. 5) Here's an unfashionable book that deserves revisiting -- Janet Biehl's RETHINKING ECOFEMINIST POLITICS (Boston: South End, 1991), republished as FINDING OUR WAY (Montreal: Black Rose, 1994). *** Tom Athanasiou is the author of DIVIDED PLANET: THE ECOLOGY OF RICH AND POOR, forthcoming this winter from Little/Brown. He has lots of people to thank for the coherence of the piece, such as it is. But will be parsimonious and thank only The Lorax -- the oldest running red-green study group in the Bay Area. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 22:26:45 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Mark L Gilbert Subject: Re: Pure maths In-Reply-To: <9511181842.AA24288@osf1.gmu.edu> On Sat, 18 Nov 1995, Mr B.P. Larvor wrote: > It is always possible to reread this stuff > (as Kitcher does in _The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge_). We > can always say, what this mathematician really means here is... > > Then the question becomes a matter of evaluating these re-readings. > In other words, the examples Val cites are only the start of the > argument. Careful there, this is starting to sound dangerously like a pomo or deconstructionist critique! ;-) But, yes. That these things can be and should be re-read, and their questions re-opened, is part of the point here. I think that the typical view, at least outside of professional mathematics, is that it is a closed system that is unaffected by social processes. And I mean social forces in the actual *production* of or doing mathematics. The process itself is unavoidably a social endeavor (which is Bloor's point). I suspect things are not nearly so neat and tidy within mathematics, however (Kline deals with this). In fact, if I recall correctly, the formalist movement at the turn of the century was an attempt to grapple with that very problem -- and to close it . But much of the rest of this century has been about the failure of that effort and other's trying where the earlier formalists failed (Bourbaki, for instance). > > Both argue a constructivist > > I.e. social constructivist? (beware this word has another meaning in > phil. of maths.) > > > position for mathematics. Yes, social (sorry). At this I'll admit my ignorance of mathematics except on an informal level. So, for example, I don't know what's involved in constructivism in phil of math. > Well, mathematics-the-body-of-knowledge _is_ a human activity. I'm not sure I get you here. I claimed it is the activity of production that is human creativity (cf. the Cassirer-Hilbert exchange in an earlier post) at work. How is a "body-of-knowledge" an activity? I'm not saying it's not, I'm just not clear here what you mean. > The question is, what moves it? Hmm, could you be a little more vague? Sounds interesting though (vaguely). > I read a paper in which it was argued (more or less) that > Hamilton developed quaternions for reasons to do with his being an Irish > Tory. Now, I can see that this sort of explanation might be attractive, > but on the whole that sort of stuff fails, on mundane historical grounds. I don't know about mundane historical grounds, but I'll admit I have problems with "historical-social forces" explain *everything*. Bloor is employing an underdetermination of theory argument here: the principles and the data publicized by the field as being solely causally important in fact do not adequately account for the actual choices and directions the field has taken. Now, if underdetermination is a problem for the usual view, I don't see how Bloor's argument can escape the same fate. Namely, how do we know historical forces can exhaustively account for the actual historical development to the exclusion of internal forces (rationality, accretion of knowledge, objectivity, etc.)? Even worse: the historical-social determination argument can be leveled at Bloor himself. Namely, the reason Bloor is mounting this argument is he has such-and-such a religious commitment or social context that makes him say these things. In other words, an extreme social or historical constructivism makes hash of anything we can say about anything. All of this is to go back to your comment that "the question becomes a matter of evaluating these re-readings." That re-evaluation will need to take into account a balance of externalist and internalist explanations, without trying to exclude the other. best, mark gilbert |Need to examine | |Uncritical times | | -Stereolab| ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 23:30:00 PST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Ben Gardiner Subject: "Introduction" Introducing myself: The subject of science-as-culture interests me from the culture end. I had a very good education but it was not in science. Harvard 1943 with an A.B. degree, plus some graduate work in health (alcoholism) and in computer science. Largely self-educated in a computer crash-course that has been going on in my home-office the past 17 years. As anyone can imagine, this has led me into logical and mathematical thinking far removed from my school-and-college time 50-60 years ago, when history and foreign languages was my field. (French, Latin, Spanish, German -- the ones then considered to be important). Like a couple other readers of this list, I am concerned that present day trends increasingly widen the gap between the cognoscienti who are relatively rich, and the simple people who have trouble finding a job and staying out of jail. Around 1950 it was clear that the means of feeding and clothing all the peoples of the world was at hand. "We" knew how. Yet now it is also very clear that it is not happening. IMHO (in my humble opinion) it is because the motivation to make the necessary changes is not there. Those who need to won't, and those who need it can't. Science-As-Culture I am very glad this discussion has begun, but am almost convinced that it will not lead to anything. We have had such discussions before. Recommendations have been made but not put into effect. We know what to do. We just don't do it. In another sense, this kind of discussion takes place on campuses in nearly every college. What ensues is not new action but brighter and more capable minds. I truly hope that such may be the result here. Ben From: Ben Gardiner Return address: ben@maggadu.queernet.org AIDS Info BBS 1-415-626-1246, fax 1-415-626-9415 8-N-1, 2400 baud (free) also voice 415-626-1245 at itsa.ucsf.edu by gopher homepage for AIDS: http://itsa.ucsf.edu/~beng/aidsbbs.html homepage for BOOKS: http://sibyllineofbooks.com homepage for PLAYS: http://playwrights.org ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Nov 1995 07:53:46 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Jeffrey Kramer Subject: Re: okinawan rape X-cc: "tws@neurocog.lrdc.pitt.edu" <"Tim Smith"@emout06.mail.aol.com> In a message dated 95-11-18 15:08:24 EST, you write: JK And that is that I say we can assume agreement on the point that >rape is primarily about power rather than sex and particularly the potential >to exercise degrading power over women. TS We might want to be careful about saying that rape is inherently about degrading the power of women. It is quite common in the male gay community as well. It seems then to be the mixture of sex with aggression/power that is pleasurable to the rapist.The sex of the victim seems to vary by rapist. Aggression and sex acts seems to combine very powerfully for some males (and I imagine for some females) but it may directed toward whatever happens to be rapists sexual preference (women, other men, young boys). I think to assume that rape has as its agenda to degrade the power of women is not a good assumption. JK you are absolutely right of course. addendum accepted jeffrey ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Nov 1995 08:36:31 -0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Bill Howland Subject: Re: INTRODUCTION/QUESTION IMHO, your colleagues are reluctant to discuss metascientific and moral issues because of a common perception that people only resort to such discussions when they are no longer able to do "real science". In my own field (mathematics), discussions about teaching and learning mathematics are perceived the same way, ie that the only people interested in such issues are those not capable of proving esoteric theorems in Banach spaces. Bill Howland -- Houston BHowland@eWorld.com howland@basil.stthom.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Nov 1995 08:36:29 -0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Bill Howland Subject: Good Questions X-cc: EJGOLD@root.indstate.edu In his introduction, Rob Goldbort raised three good questions. >Date: Fri, Nov 17, 1995 3:40 PM CDT >From: SCIENCE-AS-CULTURE@SJUVM.STJOHNS.EDU >X-From: EJGOLD@ROOT.INDSTATE.EDU (Rob Goldbort) >Sender: SCIENCE-AS-CULTURE@SJUVM.STJOHNS.EDU (Sci-Cult >Science-as-Culture) > (a) scientific "fact" vs. theory (my own view is that "facts" are >made, not merely found) Could you clarify this please? Do you mean that facts are sometimes made, always made, or have no existence outside the maker (observer)? > (b) why more scientists aren't on this list This is not yet established. Maybe the scientists on the list (however we define "scientist") are simply less inclined to write intro pieces. Maybe we need a poll. > (c) the ethical responsibility of scientists regarding what they >discover/produce/develop. Aren't you asking here that scientists have a prescience (advance knowledge) of the way that others may use their results before they develop those results? Or should we limit scientific inquiries to areas which could never be used in a destructive or immoral fashion? Bill Howland -- Houston BHowland@eWorld.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Nov 1995 14:44:49 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "GINA M. CAMODECA" Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Re: okinawan rape Am I alone in having a difficult time following Mr. Kramer's logic? First, what is the point, exactly, of relating the admiral's "job" (reducing rape--?) to his statements regarding the servicemen's' "stupidity--Is your point, Mr. Kramer, that the admiral was merely trying to keep his boys out of trouble by giving them directions as to procuring less-risky victims for child exploitation? I'm not sure that would get the ol' admiral out of hot water, even if I were to take your point, since I assume that soliciting 12-year-old prostitutes would be, at the very least, illegal activity for american military personnel. And that, of course, does not address the issue of the admiral's encouraging thus American representatives to seek out and exploit the most vulnerable faction of that foreign population for their own gratification. And that, of course, does not address the issue of there being "acceptable" ways for men to break women-children for sport. Furthermore: "And that is that I say we can assume agreement on the point that rape is primarily about power rather than sex" No, we can't. I personally find this Oprah-esque refrain alarmingly reductive. Rape is not mugging, or college football. I don't think it's much of a stretch to notice that when a victim's body is violated by penetration, repeatedly and rhythmically, and that when this violation itself functions as titillation for perpetrators (and their admirals for that matter) that sex has something to do with it. Assuming that "power" and "sex" are mutually relegated terms just because you stick a "rather than" between them is the sort of presumption of critique that many of us are trying to deconstruct. Gina Camodeca SUNY @ Buffalo ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Nov 1995 16:36:18 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Michael Thompson Subject: Re: emergent properties In-Reply-To: <199511181233.HAA17187@orion.sas.upenn.edu> from "Jeffrey Kramer" at Nov 18, 95 07:31:35 am As posted by Jeffrey Kramer: : : In a message dated 95-11-18 00:57:59 EST, you write: : : i am delighted to come across the phrase "emergent properties" and hope we : can start a thread on the meaning of this notion. it is one that i have found : so appealing as an antidote when you feel yourself slipping into : reductionistic mud. but the more attractive and seductive it feels,the more : it makls me wonder whether it isn't the old ghost in the machine in new : dress.( wow that's a kind of cross dressing i had never thought of ;-) ) is : it simply the latest and thus currently mostly acceptable way of returning to : descartes dualism. : any thoughts anyone Emergent properties is not a new concept, as Alan Brush noted in the original post for this thread. The name is different, but the concept is nearly identical to the "Gestalt" as was first described by Christian von Ehrenfels in his article: "Ueber Gestaltqualitaeten" (Vierteljahresschrift fuer wissenschaftliche Philosophie, XIV (1890) 249-92). Von Ehrenfels used the melody in music as an example of something which arises from a collection of smaller elements yet which exhibits a character that is qualitatively different from the mere sum of its parts. Carl Stumpf and three of his graduate students in Berlin (ca. 1906-1908) experimented with Gestalt-forming properties of optical illusions. These students were Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and Wolfgang Koehler, the developers of Gestalt theory and experimental Gestalt psychology (as opposed to the more recent Gestalt 'therapy'). These gentlemen were of a decided ANTI-METAPHYSICAL slant. They were interested in linking physics, physiology, and psychology and hoped to root psychology firmly in the natural sciences. Koehler published an important book to this effect: _Die physischen Gestalten in Ruhe und im stationaeren Zustand: eine naturphilosophische Untersuchung_ (Braunschweig: Friedr. Vieweg & Sohn, 1920). I share your interest in the more recent term "emergent properties", but, while I'm not sure exactly how this modern term corresponds with the older concept of "Gestaltqualitaeten", I'm almost certain that it has little if anything to do with the more metaphysically oriented "ghost in the machine" or traditional dualism. * For those interested in the science-literature connection: The Austrian author Robert Musil (Mann ohne Eigenschaften / Man without Qualities) was also a student of Carl Stumpf and well aquainted with Wertheimer, Koffka, and Koehler. He praised Koehler's book highly -- precisely for its anti-metaphysical approach. I believe that Stuart A. Kauffman deals with emergent properties and related issues in _The Origins of Order--Self-organization and Selection in Evolution_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). Is anyone familiar with this book? It'd be great to hear more about it. -mt <:>:<:>:<:>:<:>:<:>:<:>:<:>:<:>:<:>:<:> Michael Thompson mthompso@sas.upenn.edu <:>:<:>:<:>:<:>:<:>:<:>:<:>:<:>:<:>:<:> ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Nov 1995 16:30:39 -0600 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Sheryl S. Gallaher" Subject: Re: population In-Reply-To: <199511180002.SAA18785@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu> I agree. And what about those who choose to construct lush, green golf courses in the desert? Some management seems to be in order. On Fri, 17 Nov 1995, David Frayne wrote: > >75% of the world's population lives on only 25% of viable land. > > its also interesting to note that people like to put their houses right onto > the best farming land. here in the san francisco bay area, where just about > every food known to man will grow, we keep covering up the land with > buildings and streets. > > even so, in my small yard (4000 sq ft) i am growing roughly the amount of > food i need to sustain myself (except that it doesnt all come at the right > time and i dont have adequate packing & storing facilities, so i still have > to buy groceries). > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Nov 1995 16:38:03 -0600 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Sheryl S. Gallaher" Subject: Re: okinawan rape In-Reply-To: <199511181654.KAA10346@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu> Let's not turn this list into an Oprah or Donahue forum!!! On Sat, 18 Nov 1995, Jeffrey Kramer wrote: > to all > > the following vignette is absolutely current. > that, and its subject matter make it an extremely provocative matter to > discuss. > but i want to talk about it, and i think the notions both of science and > culture,which form the heading of this list are crucial to thinking about it. > so i am going to ask you all (and am prepared that you may as a group turn me > down which i will absolutely accept) to think of this as a matter which > deserves to be discussed,is relevant here and finally that this group is up > to the job of discussing it enlighteningly.... end of defensive preamble > > four american servicement were convicted of raping a 12 year old Okinawan > girl, inflicting pain and provoking fury at every level you might imagine. > > the new york times on saturday 11/18/95 reported that the commander of US > forces in the Pacific was forced to step down peremptorily after making the > following statement > "I think it (the rape) was absolutely stupid,I've said that several times. > For the price they paid to rent the car they could have had a girl." The > immediate public outcry against him seems close to unaninmous. > Before I ask my question I would like to add one clarifying point for our > purposes. And that is that I say we can assume agreement on the point that > rape is primarily about power rather than sex and particularly the potential > to exercise degrading power over women. It is horrible! > Nevertheless I ask whether it is as clear to people on this list that this > admiral...and i know not another thing about him other than that he made > this statement (perhaps further biographical data would change the frame > considerably)...made such a dreadful blunder as is being put out. > unfortunately i find myself unable to stop without making one more point. > please remember that one of his primary obligations at this point is to > decrease the likelihood of a recurrence of this horror. > thanks > jeffrey kramer > jefkmd@aol.com > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Nov 1995 14:48:29 +0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: janet atkinson-grosjean Subject: Re: the poetics of science I think what Arjendu describes as a *spine-tingling moment* is as personal and individual as the reader. Some texts seem to find us when we're ready to read them. They are meaningful to us then in a very specific way. William James was my catalyst. He reached down through the years and grabbed me; sent me back to 'gradual school' at a relatively advanced age (mid-forties) to get a *real* education and find out about this thing called consciousness. Similarly, I edged into science and values through the simple prose of Jacob Bronowski,, and the world of ideas through Isaiah Berlin. I do not aspire to an academic career. I've had several careers already. I'm a writer/editor now. My ambition is to cultivate the common touch--to present scientific ideas to the intelligent lay reader in such a way as to spark the *spine-tingling moment* in others. That would be worthwhile for me.The best science writing is as good as writing gets. Thanks to Arjendu for raising this. Brief intro: I'm preparing my graduate liberal studies thesis on the cultural impact of metaphors in postmodern science--particularly focusing on chaos/complexity theories and consciousness studies. I'm preparing an application to undertake interdisciplinary doctoral work in history/philosophy of science/mind, to focus on what I see as the *Qualitative Turn* in science and culture. This is a terrific list. Jan Atkinson-Grosjean, Graduate Liberal Studies Program Simon Fraser University at Harbour Centre, Vancouver, BC or ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Nov 1995 20:20:23 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Jeffrey Kramer Subject: Re: okinawan rape my reading on several of the responses i've gotten to this post replete with references to phil donahue and oprah confirm my concern that the topic would generate more heat than light and i have less than no interest in encouraging that. so,enough. to reassure you that the message was not meant frivolously,what i was initially bothered by was the following.it seemed to me at least arguable that the admiral's comments might have the effect on the target audience, namely undisciplined,chaotic,out of control kids in his command, that would decrease the likelihood of this dastardly act being repeated.If that were true...and to repeat, i know not that that it is...what kind of value could one attach to that outcome. secondly i think there is often some value in situations which are marked by such a rush to judgement to see if a different frame of reference is enlightening. that was all,and i have no interest in defending it further and becoming increasingly identified with the topic. jeffrey kramer ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Nov 1995 17:35:27 -0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Monica J. Casper" Subject: Re: okinawan rape First, instead of an either/or position with respect to rape as power or sex, why not look at it as both? Rape is sexualized violence, non-consensual violent sex, enactment of power through sex, and all together a dehumanizing experience. To say that it is simply power is, as Gina Camodeca rightly points out, is to imply that the sex part doesn't matter. Rape is a very different crime than mugging, non-sexual assault, etc. That said, my second point is that the Admiral's comments were incredibly outrageous and offensive for the following reason: (and I am only letting you know why I found them so, and cannot really speak for others here). By asserting that the rape could've been avoided if the sailors had "merely" purchased sex instead implies that women and girls are positioned in a political economy of sex in which they are always seen as accessible to men, whether paid for or not. The "not" is less acceptalbe, in some circles, than the "paid for." I interpreted the Admiral as saying that on a continuum of sexual accessibility, it would have "simply" been less of a hassle for "all concerned" had the idiotic sailors chosen to pay for their access. The boys (and I use the term deliberately) in this case debated "hiring" a prostitute, but decided they couldn't afford to do so. Hence, their kidnapping and rape of a 12-year old girl, who in their minds was accessible to thyem, with a little subterfuge and hard work. What outraged me about the Admiral's comments was the assumption about women's accessibility to men, a view consistent in this instance with the three sailors who did the deed. This position ignores the relationship between sex and power, and instead sees rape as only sex. Read: If the sailors had a "healthy" (i.e., paid) outlet for their sexual feelings, then the rape could've been avoided. By framing the crime in this way, two ideas are perpetuated: rape is only sex, but not paid for; and women and girls are accessible to men who want them. As to whether these comments by the Admiral were serious enough to warrant his early retirement? Absolutely. Monica Casper ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Nov 1995 19:57:24 -0600 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Bonnie Blustein Subject: most of the world in poverty, and science too In-Reply-To: from "Andrew Barfield" at Nov 14, 95 09:28:30 pm Andy, it troubles me, too. Except that I think those of us who care about the situation of most of the world's population often make the mistake of rejecting wholesale the experience garnered (at a terrible cost) through the great revolutionary movements of this century (and especially the Soviet and Chinese revolutions). Sure, if big mistakes hadn't been made, we'd be better off now. But if we don't have the knoweldge(s) we need, we have at least a huge supply of experiences from which to construct them. When most of the world's population fights its way from poverty to power, we can expect a huge surge of creative energy in other spheres, too, whether "culture," "science," or both. Bonnie Blustein > > At the risk of giving a load of modish nonsense, and without > wanting to point the finger at anybody, least of all > scientists, I am troubled by the fact that at the end > of the twentieth century most of the world's popoulation > lives in abject poverty, and that our knowledge(s) is/are > just as poor at trying to make this situation better. Does this > trouble other people interested in science as culture, or > have I got the wrong end of the stick ? > > Andy Barfield > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 00:37:24 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Mark L Gilbert Subject: Re: emergent properties In-Reply-To: <9511182033.AA03309@osf1.gmu.edu> In a message dated 95-11-18 00:57:59 EST, Jeffrey Kramer wrote: > i am delighted to come across the phrase "emergent properties" and hope we > can start a thread on the meaning of this notion. it is one that i have found > so appealing as an antidote when you feel yourself slipping into > reductionistic mud. but the more attractive and seductive it feels,the more > it makls me wonder whether it isn't the old ghost in the machine in new > dress.( wow that's a kind of cross dressing i had never thought of ;-) ) is > it simply the latest and thus currently mostly acceptable way of returning to > descartes dualism. > any thoughts anyone This is certainly the traditional objection to emergence; or to put it in the terminology of that era, this is the question of "vitalism." Until recently, most of this century (and much of the last) were spent fighting this bugbear. Without going into that history, I think it is safe to say we can now talk about emergent properties without having to fear this metaphysical quagmire, at least if we believe Ernst Mayr. Mayr is a leading proponent of a holism that is also anti-vitalistic. So, like the Gestalt school that Michael Thompson wrote about, this is an anti-metaphysical approach. Mayr asserts that the study of biological systems will always contend with a level of indeterminacy that is unavoidable. One of the reasons for indeterminacy is "Emergence of new qualities at higher levels of integration" (Mayr, 1988, _Toward a New Philosophy of Biology_, p. 34). He explains, When two entities are combined at a higher level of integration, not all the properties of the new entity are necessarily a logical or predictable consequence of the properties of the components. Mayr recognizes this is also a feature of the inorganic world, but there is a difference in degree and importance of emergence for biological systems. Unfortunately, he does not go into any further detail here. In an article in _Evolution at a Crossroads: The New Biology and the New Philosophy of Science_ (eds. Depew and Weber, 1985), Mayr goes a little further. First, living organisms are highly complex; far more so than inorganic systems. It is a feature of complex systems that they "have a hierarchical structure, the entities of one level being compounded into new entities at the next higher level" (p. 57). He continues, Systems at each hierarchical level have two characteristics. They act as wholes (as if they were a homogenous entity), and their characteristics cannot (even in theory) be deduced from the most complete knowledge of their components, taken separately or in other partial combinations. In other words, when such systems are assembled from their components, new characteristics of the new whole emerge that could not have been predicted from a knowledge of the components (p. 59). These emergent wholes are efficacious in that their properties contribute in their own "atomistic" fashion to the next level of organization. Not only that, their is a reflexivity to these levels in that they may reciprocally modify or effect the lower levels. Interestingly, Francisco Ayala (who wrote one of the seminal texts in genetic/evolutionary biology) in _Evolution at a Crossroads_, seems to agree with Mayr for the most part, without wanting to use the term emergent. He extends the definition of the properties of an entity to include the associations they can enter into and the structure of those associations. But this seems to merely give the game away to Mayr while quibbling over terminology. On Sun, 19 Nov 1995 Michael Thompson wrote: > I believe that Stuart A. Kauffman deals with emergent properties and > related issues in _The Origins of Order--Self-organization and > Selection in Evolution_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). > Is anyone familiar with this book? It'd be great to hear more about > it. Given what Mayr says regarding complexity and emergence, this is probably a good bet, but I haven't read it either. To tie this back into the other half of this list's name, i.e., culture, I would hold that social dynamics are clearly emergent from the lower-level structures of genetics, next higher level of brain structure (neurophysiology and neurochemistry), individual psychology, and even small group behavior. To understand the higher order of society and culture certainly requires knowledge of these prior hierarchical levels, but they do not fully account for what we find on the more complex scale of culture. mark gilbert |Need to examine | |Uncritical times | | -Stereolab| ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Nov 1995 20:05:05 -1000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Mark Burch Subject: Re: emergent properties In-Reply-To: <95Nov19.194024hst.11465(7)@relay1.Hawaii.Edu> Mark Gilbert's comments reminded me of Koestler's idea of the holarchy which he described in his book "Janus." A holarchy is comprised of wholes within wholes. Each whole, or holon, is two-faced, a whole comprised of parts and a part of a more inclusive whole. The title of the book refers to the dual nature of the holon. Janus, as you recall is the origin of both January and janitors. Janus, the guardian of the doorway, looks both forward and backward in time. Other guardians of the doorway are Papa Legba in the voudoun religion, also known as Eshu in the Yoruba pantheon. Their central role in ritual may reflect their bivalence, necessary to mediate heaven and earth, and to guide the initiates across their threshold (Turner's liminality). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I am rhythm. I am the juice of all your religions. I am the slippery foundation of all your scientific laws. I am the pulsation which drives the drumwork of creation. I am eternally self-renewing and you are free to dance in and out of my grasp."--Principia Rhythmystica _____________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 01:05:55 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Mark L Gilbert Subject: Re: emergent properties In-Reply-To: <9511182033.AA03309@osf1.gmu.edu> In my last post I ended with the importance of considering emergence in the study not just of inorganic and biological systems, but even more for its importance to social-cultural levels. Interestingly, Ernst Mayr (1985) in _Evolution at a Crossroads_ contends that another aspect of emergence is the higher level can impact the lower: what he calls, following D. Campbell, "downward causation." This notion has striking implications for the study of culture: it may in some fashion be critical in studying the *lower* levels if we hope to understand them adequately! There are may be some unproblematic examples of downward causation, but most do look a little strange because it's such a (for us) counter- intuitive way to think. In genetics, Lamarkian genetics is an example of downward causation, but is not too popular, *except* that there are now some studies that seem to be explicable in no other fashion. For instance, some bacteria were engineered with the ability to produce certain amino acids necessary to life removed. If put in a bath of these aas, they did fine. Then some of them were removed and put in an environment that lacked the necessary aa, and not surprisingly, many died. But not all. Some *mutated* to begin producing the aa again, and at a rate much faster than would be predicted my normal rates of mutation. In other words, they seem to have the ability to modify their own rates of mutation in response to environmental stimuli! So far, this has been a very robust study, and it is not an isolated one. Sorry, I don't have the reference right now, but I think it appeared in both Nature and Scientific American. Barbara McClintock's research also points in this direction. Another example: our own brain. Is consciousness just epiphenomena, sort of a scum that floats to the surface of neuronal activity? Or do we have the ability to modify our own brain states, e.g., initiate action, change or responses to habitual stimuli, etc? And what about Neils Bohr's complementarity? He avers an objective, i.e., exhaustive account of the experimental situation cannot be attained unless the observer and the instruments are factored into the physical system. The observer and what s/he does is a property of the physical (quantum mechanical) system that is the object of study. Maybe we, like Francisco Ayala in _Crossroads_, hesitate to call this emergence; but it is also the case that the specific effects of quantum mechanical activity in the lab are only in evidence when they are associated with the observer-instrument apparatus. Finally, culture takes on "a life of its own" (oops -- just kidding; too much like vitalism there), or has emergent properties that are downwardly causal. Of course, this is what quasi-idealists like Ernst Cassirer and Emily Durkheim would argue, not to mention full blown idealists like Hegel. Cassirer argues that cultural forms evolve that determine much of the way we think. Durkheim wants to go for a full-blown group or societal mind. And of course, Marx asserts the importance of a class' consciousness in determining the individual's form of thought. The implications for other concerns on this list regarding society and science also become clearer in this context. Namely, it is not a surprise at all society would exercise a causal influence on some of its "parts" like science and pure mathematics. I am going out on a limb here, but I think it's a pretty strong limb, nevertheless. This pairing of emergence and downward causation gives credence to both the lower level and higher level hierarchical structures and entities. Neither pure reductionistic nor extreme holistic/idealistic accounts are adequate alone. mark gilbert |Need to examine | |Uncritical times | | -Stereolab| ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Nov 1995 20:35:57 -1000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Mark Burch Subject: Re: biochemical machinery In-Reply-To: <95Nov16.232852hst.13749(7)@relay1.Hawaii.Edu> The issue of mechanism in biology is an excellent example of perceptual selection. The current metaphor is that organisms are machines, so naturally the sort of evidence that accumulates is the mechanisms of organisms. From having done lots of biochemical experiments, I know the elation that comes when you can stimulate or inhibit something. Any other result is a failure, due to a bad prep, contamination, etc. Basically the only publishable results are when you observe component A controlling the behavior of component B. This is fine, except that all you can observe is control. One can say that biochemistry is the result of control studying itself. If proteins had free will and had a wild weekend, we would not be able to observe it, because it would be indistinguishable from "experimental error." This may sound silly, but it is significant against the wider social backdrop of why our vast program in molecular biology was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation in the first place, and that is to come up with more successful programs of social control, to avoid further "crises of democracy." It is difficult to understand how mechanistic thinking continues to persist in biology, given that it is 1) bad poetry and 2) bad science. By 1) I mean that organisms do not even closely resemble machines on aesthetic grounds (and I consider aesthetics to be the electromotive force of evolution, not survival). Machines are ugly, organisms are beautiful, but most importantly, organisms are self-tuning, whereas machines require an external agent to tune them. Bo Dahlin's excellent comments about external and internal relations is another way of saying this. To convince yourself why mechanism or functionalism is bad science, read Eugene Yates' book, "The Logic of Life," wherein he and other physiologists refute these positions, as well as the digital/computational metaphor. In case you wonder what I mean by aesthetics, I am most familiar with John Dewey's aesthetic theory in "Art As Experience." Organicism would be a nice place to return to, before biology became like a can of paint left open, leaving us with a gummy mechanism and an ethereal vitalism, with no way to recombine the two. There is an interesting book called "Tissues, fabrics, and Fields" which talks about organic metaphors. The word tissue itself incorporates organic metaphor because in french, "tisser" means "to weave" and tissue is that which is woven. My own version of organicism is called rhythmatism, but more on that later. Mark Burch ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I am rhythm. I am the juice of all your religions. I am the slippery foundation of all your scientific laws. I am the pulsation which drives the drumwork of creation. I am eternally self-renewing and you are free to dance in and out of my grasp."--Principia Rhythmystica _____________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Nov 1995 20:46:18 -1000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Mark Burch Subject: Re: emergent properties In-Reply-To: <95Nov19.113740hst.11416(10)@relay1.Hawaii.Edu> Michael Thompson wrote: > I believe that Stuart A. Kauffman deals with emergent properties and > related issues in _The Origins of Order--Self-organization and > Selection in Evolution_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). > Is anyone familiar with this book? It'd be great to hear more about > it. While this is a remarkable compendium, I believe that Kauffman tries too hard to truncate life on the Procrustean bed of digitalism, the belief that everything is a binary code waiting to be cracked. I hope this adolescent fad of technofascism will soon pass. Kauffman even committed the egregious error of claiming that all enzymes, despite their elegant curves of smooth regulation, are really "trying" to be on-off switches. Apparently digitality is the new Platonic ideal to which imperfect, buggily-coded organisms can aspire, but never achieve. What is silly about this, is the lack of common sense it entails. Can you imagine going 0 to 60 in zero seconds, and what that would do to your engine? Mark Burch ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 10:22:32 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Mr B.P. Larvor" Subject: Re: Pure maths In-Reply-To: <199511181919.TAA02993@listserv.rl.ac.uk> from "Val Dusek" at Nov 18, 95 02:18:11 pm In the last mail Val Dusek said: > > In a message dated 95-11-18 13:42:15 EST, Mr. Larvor writes: > > > I read a paper in which it was argued (more or less) > >that Hamilton developed quaternions for reasons to do with his being an > >Irish Tory. > This paper is by Andrew Pickering in South Atlantic Quarterly, vol. 4, no. > 2, pp. 417 - 466. Spring, 1995. The paper I had in mind was older (I read it before Spring 1995!) and in a collection called something like "the Social Construction of Mathematics" BL ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 10:53:17 GMT+0 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "J.PRITCHARD" Organization: University of Central Lancashire Subject: rape Date sent: Sun, 19 Nov 1995 07:53:46 -0500 Subject: Re: okinawan rape Jeffery brings gay men into the rape oppressed group. This tends to imply that rape follows sexual preference rather than the more likely argument that rape is primarily about power and not sex. In a book called Male Rape (I can find but cannot remember reference) it states quite categorically that male rape (i.e the rape of men) is almost always perpetrated by heterosexual men. It may be the 'victims' are gay but the attackers usually are not. It hardly needs mentioning that the victors in war 'rape and pillage' again as a demonstration of power. It is strange that men (and it is almost always men) use so intimate a part of their body to vent hate-there is no question but that it illustrates a uncivilised want of self-control and rationality. Can men really understand themselves why men rape? >Jane Clearly from a woman In answer to what Jeffery wrote >In a message dated 95-11-18 15:08:24 EST, you write: JK And that is that I say we can assume agreement on the point that >rape is primarily about power rather than sex and particularly the potential >to exercise degrading power over women. TS >We might want to be careful about saying that rape is inherently about >degrading the power of women. It is quite common in the male gay community >as well. It seems then to be the mixture of sex with aggression/power that >is pleasurable to the rapist.The sex of the victim seems to vary by rapist. >Aggression and sex acts seems to combine very powerfully for some males (and >I imagine for some females) but it may directed toward whatever happens to >be rapists sexual preference (women, other men, young boys). I think to >assume that rape has as its agenda to degrade the power of women is not a >good assumption. JK you are absolutely right of course. addendum accepted jeffrey ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 10:32:37 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Mr B.P. Larvor" Subject: Re: Pure maths In-Reply-To: <199511190329.DAA23826@listserv.rl.ac.uk> from "Mark L Gilbert" at Nov 18, 95 10:26:45 pm In the last mail Mark L Gilbert said: > > Well, mathematics-the-body-of-knowledge _is_ a human activity. > > I'm not sure I get you here. I claimed it is the activity of production > that is human creativity (cf. the Cassirer-Hilbert exchange in an earlier > post) at work. How is a "body-of-knowledge" an activity? I'm not saying > it's not, I'm just not clear here what you mean. Guilty as charged. Of course you're right, I was just trying to distinguish what is produced (i.e. a body of texts, a culture, etc.) from the subject matter (which is a whole other question). > > The question is, what moves it? > > Hmm, could you be a little more vague? I expect so. All I meant was, Bloor doesn't begin to show that the features he points to are effective in directing the growth of maths. > > I read a paper in which it was argued (more or less) that > > Hamilton developed quaternions for reasons to do with his being an Irish > > Tory. Now, I can see that this sort of explanation might be attractive, > > but on the whole that sort of stuff fails, on mundane historical grounds. > > I don't know about mundane historical grounds, but I'll admit I have > problems with "historical-social forces" explain *everything*. Bloor is > employing an underdetermination of theory argument here: the principles > and the data publicized by the field as being solely causally important in > fact do not adequately account for the actual choices and directions the > field has taken. Part of the reason he can do this is because he borrows from positivism a very narrow conception of reason. > Now, if underdetermination is a problem for the usual > view, I don't see how Bloor's argument can escape the same fate. Namely, > how do we know historical forces can exhaustively account for the actual > historical development to the exclusion of internal forces (rationality, > accretion of knowledge, objectivity, etc.)? Even worse: the > historical-social determination argument can be leveled at Bloor himself. > Namely, the reason Bloor is mounting this argument is he has > such-and-such a religious commitment or social context that makes him say > these things. In other words, an extreme social or historical > constructivism makes hash of anything we can say about anything. Absolutely. > All of this is to go back to your comment that "the question becomes a > matter of evaluating these re-readings." That re-evaluation will need to > take into account a balance of externalist and internalist explanations, > without trying to exclude the other. I like to put it this way: the relation between data and explanations is as subtle in history and philosophy as in physical sciences. It is remarkable how many people in this area are skilled at unpicking the latter, but fall into crass falsificationism in the former. Brendan. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 07:32:34 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Bertram Rothschild Subject: Re: Trenchantly held opinions In a message dated 95-11-18 02:20:50 EST, you write: >To deny "reality" is incoherent. I can't imagine how one would go about >arguing such a claim in a totalizing fashion. All we do/think starts >from where and what we are. So, of course i would not say there is no >"reality itself." Of course, how one argues all this is not quite so >straightforward, but I wanted to at least get any potential silliness out >of the way. I thought that some were denying the above. We are in total agreement. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 07:32:51 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Bertram Rothschild Subject: Re: okinawan rape In a message dated 95-11-18 11:55:40 EST, you write: >And that is that I say we can assume agreement on the point that >rape is primarily about power rather than sex and particularly the potential >to exercise degrading power over women To argue that rape is primairly about power misses the point that men can have power over women in many different ways. To choose one over the others is to value one over the others. I cannot understand the insistence that a sexual act is not sexual, nor can I understand what difference it makes. Is it somehow that if rape is a sexual act it is less heinous? Not so! The admiral, alas, was correct. According to some of the newspaper reports I have read, the young men didn't have enough money for prostitutes. Raping the girl was their second choice. He understood clearly enough that mindless young men will have sex, whatever the consequences. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 13:38:57 +0100 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Bo Dahlin Subject: Re: biochemical machinery Thankyou Lisa for your precise description of the mechanisms of biochemistry! And thankyou Mark for your high-spirited critique of mechanicism in bio-logy/chemistry! For me, Lisa's account is an illustration of Mark's thesis, that the dominating mechanistic metaphors allows us to see mechanisms, but that which is NOT mechanistic is simply not seen or considered worthwhile to study. One example is "morphology", which is a rather periferal discipline and considered to be only descriptive. FORMS are not particularly interesting phenomena from a mechanistic point of view. It is not that mechanistic explanations are wrong: they are ONE-SIDED, and they miss the point of LIFE. There ARE processes explainable from the "external relations" point of view, but they are not the *essential* processes of life. Indeed, Life is much more characterized by rythm, as Mark hints. What about DANCING or MUSIC as root-metaphors for life-processes? The participants in a dance are internally related: I do what I do because you do what you do, and vice versa. The dance itself is primary, the people dancing are only helping the dance to manifest. In a musical composition, each note is internally related to the other notes. A "c" in one piece is not the same as in any other, even though its sound-wave-frequency is. These remarks are of course only vague poetics, not exact biological science. I am not capapble of the latter. But there are researches in biochemistry and related areas based on the "alternative" metaphor of rythm, e.g. homeopathic medicine and the "goetheanistic phenomenology" approach within Anthroposophy. And this research produces useful results! If anyone is interested in a deeper study of these question, I recommend the following texts by Henri Bortoft, an english quantum physicist: 1) Bortoft, H. (1985): "Counterfeit and authentic wholes: Finding a means for dwelling in nature." In D. Seamon & R. Mugerauer (Eds.), Dwelling, place and environment. Towards a phenomenology of person and world (pp. 281-302). Dordrecht/Boston/Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff. 2) Bortoft, H. (1986): "Goethe's Scientific Consciousness". Turnbridge Wells: Institute for Cultural Research. (Can be ordered through Octagon Press, London) Finally, I would like to address Lisa's statement that "mechanism" refers to "the devices/machinery that work for some function", and they do so because they are products of darwinian evolution, "which is not a teleological process at all". So here we have "function" without "purpose" (in itself a contradiction in terms, it seems). But the function is a result of survival of the fittest or natural selection. The orgnanisms having a particular "function" in their system survived, simply because it enabled them to survive. Those who lacked this function died out. There was no "telos" involved. And how did the function arise? Presumably out of anything, i.e. nothing in particular. So basically out of "accident". Well, there are many biologists even today not accepting this way of thinking, and pointing to some basic anomalies within darwinism (sorry, no references at hand). Darwin himself was well aware of the shortcomings of his theory. Natural selction may certainly explain SOME things, but not the WHOLE of biological evolution. (Why would such a precarious thing as life evolve out of dead matter? Because of "survival of the fittest"? Of course not. So: by accident.) I am NOT trying to introduce any fundamentalist Christian creationism. But I believe we have to recognize non-human creative intelligences (yes, plural) at work in all phenomena of life. And that means accepting teleological processes as well. Bo ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 08:09:50 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Howard Schwartz Subject: Re: okinawan rape Monica Casper wrote: >The >boys (and I use the term deliberately) in this case debated "hiring" a >prostitute, but decided they couldn't afford to do so. I have no doubt that Ms. Casper was unaware that the alleged perpetrators of the rape were all African-American. Nonetheless, quick to take offense at what others say, she may have given some herself. Under the circumstances, she may wish to reflect on her belief that such verbal indiscretions, by themselves, should be sufficient cause to terminate careers. Howard Schwartz ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 07:56:01 EST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "A. H. Brush" Subject: emergent properites To follow on Mike Thompsons query: I have read Kauffman "The origins of Order" and it is tough going, but well worth the effort. He deals thoughtfully with emergent properties and and also discusses the processes (real and portnetial) of self organization in living systems. BTW he has a 'popular' version out, but I son't have the reference handy. It is worthwhile, in my opinion to think about these ideas at a variety of levels. They come up in some places in evolutionary theory (is everything selected?), but are of great proctical value as well. The type of question I have been interested in recently has to do with quantifying and comparing avian plumage patterns. Overall patterns are dependent on the nature of the pattern of individual feathers. How they are colored, patterned and displayed produce the overall pattern. Even though we know lots about the biochemistry of the pigments and somtehing about the mechanisms that produce the patterns on individual feathers (no simple task) we cannot (yet) predice the overall appearance of the birds from a single feather (but we do have clues). BTW the music metaphore is lovely. I had not known of it previously. Finally, at least part of what folks are thinking about regarding emergent properties (and this is especially true of Kaufmann, is the concept of complexity. For example. pick up a feather in the part and it is immediately recognizable. It even appears simple with a central shaft and uniform branches t hat seem to all lie in the same plane. Despite its overall curvature it can be considered a 2-dimentional structure. Yet, nothing about that structure, can be deduced from the materials that produce it, their interactions and understanding the mechanisms of assembly (some of which are dependent onourside forces and geometry and part of which are inherent in the material. Fun to think about Cheers, Alan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 09:04:34 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Jeffrey Kramer Subject: Re: emergent properties X-cc: Mark L Gilbert mark i am going to reread mayr as carefully as i can,and see if it does the trick for me of standing tall without metaphysical or vitalist crutches. i've gone over your very instructive posting several times,particularly in respect to mayr's view and still stumble at that point. you know,like the magician who shows you very slowly the trick of the trick he is doing and how you follow and follow and then somehow you missed the critical moment. reminds me also of the 68 election (no jokes,please!) where than newscaster every 15 minutes or so would tell you that nixon was so many votes ahead of humphrey but it was tooearly to read any significance into it and then after a bunch of these came the one in which he said nixon was so many votes ahead (pretty much the same number as before!) and was clearly the victor. where was the moment i missed?? jeffrey kramer p.s. i just saw your second post. this is truly an essay in itself. i'll let mayr wait and wrestle with yours,the sweep of which is quite breathtaking to me. let me expand on breathtaking...it covers a wide domain...proceeds sensibly...and remains comprehensible what a pleasure thanks! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 09:04:38 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Jeffrey Kramer Subject: Re: emergent properties X-cc: Mark Burch In a message dated 95-11-20 01:06:45 EST, you write: > >Mark Gilbert's comments reminded me of Koestler's idea of the holarchy >which he described in his book "Janus." A holarchy is comprised of wholes >within wholes. Each whole, or holon, is two-faced, a whole comprised of >parts and a part of a more inclusive whole. is this also the origin of mandlebrodt's fractal or am i playing too loose? jeffrey kramer > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 09:04:32 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Jeffrey Kramer Subject: Re: okinawan rape X-cc: "Monica J.Casper "@emout04.mail.aol.com monica: In a message dated 95-11-19 20:36:49 EST, you write: > >First, instead of an either/or position with respect to rape as power or sex, >why not look at it as both? Rape is sexualized violence, non-consensual >violent sex, enactment of power through sex, and all together a dehumanizing >experience. To say that it is simply power is, as Gina Camodeca rightly >points out, is to imply that the sex part doesn't matter. Rape is a very >different crime than mugging, non-sexual assault, etc. clearly you are right. my post in this regard was not put well at all. of course the sexual aspect is significant. >That said, my second point is that the Admiral's comments were incredibly >outrageous and offensive for the following reason: (and I am only letting >you >know why I found them so, and cannot really speak for others here). By >asserting that the rape could've been avoided if the sailors had "merely" >purchased sex instead implies that women and girls are positioned in a >political economy of sex in which they are always seen as accessible to >men, whether paid for or not. The "not" is less acceptalbe, in some circles, >than the "paid for." I interpreted the Admiral as saying that on a continuum >of sexual accessibility, it would have "simply" been less of a hassle for >"all concerned" had the idiotic sailors chosen to pay for their access. The >boys (and I use the term deliberately) in this case debated "hiring" a >prostitute, but decided they couldn't afford to do so. Hence, their >kidnapping >and rape of a 12-year old girl, who in their minds was accessible to thyem, >with a little subterfuge and hard work. What outraged me about the Admiral's >comments was the assumption about women's accessibility to men, a view >consistent in this instance with the three sailors who did the deed. This >position ignores the relationship between sex and power, and instead sees >rape as only sex. Read: If the sailors had a "healthy" (i.e., paid) >outlet for their sexual feelings, then the rape could've been avoided. By >framing the crime in this way, two ideas are perpetuated: rape is only sex, >but not paid for; and women and girls are accessible to men who want them. > >As to whether these comments by the Admiral were serious enough to warrant >his early retirement? Absolutely. > monica, neither the cogency of or the emotion behind your feelings escapes me. still i must ask you this...given that not just this one kind of transaction but all transactions in a situation or in a society which is run according to rules you dont like...specifically in this instance that might makes right all transactions in such a place will be tainted by similar qualities .what is the category difference between a person selling her body under a duress,another person selling her mind under duress,a farmer selling her wheat under duress i see a profound difference in our emotional responses to those situations,but i have a harder time seeing category differences and i think that must count for something. or put another way the repulsion that feels like it attaches to prostitution in such a circumstance really should,as i see it attach to the system and thereby taint every act within it. i suppose i'm not doing much more than arguing for the legalizing prostitution,but i do think that there is an argument to be made in this regard,that it can and should be made and responded to reasonably. jeffrey kramer > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 22:16:53 +0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "ap palma, philo@CCU" Subject: Re: emergent properties X-To: Jeffrey Kramer In-Reply-To: <9511201415.AB01441@phil.ccu.edu.tw> please unsubscribe me nur Brot und Wasser essen, Vater und Mutter vergessen ap palma@CCU to have a complete address please finger palmaa@phil.indiana.edu On Mon, 20 Nov 1995, Jeffrey Kramer wrote: > In a message dated 95-11-20 01:06:45 EST, you write: > > > > >Mark Gilbert's comments reminded me of Koestler's idea of the holarchy > >which he described in his book "Janus." A holarchy is comprised of wholes > >within wholes. Each whole, or holon, is two-faced, a whole comprised of > >parts and a part of a more inclusive whole. > > > is this also the origin of mandlebrodt's fractal or am i playing too loose? > jeffrey kramer > > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 14:18:51 GMT+0 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "J.PRITCHARD" Organization: University of Central Lancashire Subject: Re: okinawan rape Both Germaine Greer and Camille Paglia have both argued recently that to make a fuss about rape gives too much power to the men who would wreak it. I should like you to expand upon what you do not understand about a sexual act not being a sexual act because far from being simplistic your reply may give some insight innto how men view rape. It may be true to say that not all acts of rape are merely acts of power. Many women are raped by men who are known to them. In such cases rape may reflect men's conceit in assuming that all women must want sex with them and in finding that it is not willingly given, take it anyway. Other acts of penetration are not sexual but can be seen as acts of power-eg a man for some reason hates women per se and decides to victimise them to show his own (clearly, perverted) superiority Some men talk as though once stirred , sexually or powerfully, they cease to have any control over themselves and become, as the song goes 'a man with a prick where his brain ought to be'. Clearly only men can comment on this. The point that men have power over women in a number of other ways is hardly a point of pride. Clearly it is true but what is also true is a tendency (not only in men) to react violently when intellectually frustrated. Rape would seem to come into a different category, even so because to resort to using his sexual organ as a means of violence, whether or not the act is sexual, is above a powerful symbol of how man defines himself and his own power. His appeal is not to his 'hailed male logic' or to his 'superior physical strength' although this may aid him, his true self emerges through his penus. Poor fellow, poor animal! If this is not a fair representation, then please provide counter arguments. Jane > Bertram Rothschild replied > >To argue that rape is primairly about power misses the point that men can >have power over women in many different ways. To choose one over the others >is to value one over the others. I cannot understand the insistence that a >sexual act is not sexual, nor can I understand what difference it makes. Is >it somehow that if rape is a sexual act it is less heinous? Not so! The admiral, alas, was correct. According to some of the newspaper reports I have read, the young men didn't have enough money for prostitutes. Raping the girl was their second choice. He understood clearly enough that mindless young men will have sex, whatever the consequences. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 16:08:17 +0100 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Arie Dirkzwager Subject: Re: Trenchantly held opinions Hello you all. I'm just new to this list. Let me try my 0.02$ contribution: At 07:32 20-11-95 -0500, Bertram Rothschild wrote: >In a message dated 95-11-18 02:20:50 EST, you write: > >>To deny "reality" is incoherent. I can't imagine how one would go about >>arguing such a claim in a totalizing fashion. All we do/think starts >>from where and what we are. So, of course i would not say there is no >>"reality itself." Of course, how one argues all this is not quite so >>straightforward, but I wanted to at least get any potential silliness out >>of the way. > >I thought that some were denying the above. We are in total agreement. -------What about us human beings being PART of "reality itself" and saying that nothing we know about (including ourselves as "observators") is outside reality (and what else is "reality itself"?). If so, could we say that reality's thinking and theorizing takes place in our brains? And that the larger part of reality's development as a self-organizing system is human responsibility? And that love and justice (or the lack of them) are important characteristics of this reality, not less important than the infrastructure studied by physicists and biologists? So far so good - I'll wait and see if these remarks belong to this list. Arie ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 16:47:52 +0100 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Andreas Carter Subject: Re: okinawan rape On Nov 20, 1995 Jane Pritchard wrote: >If this is not a fair representation, then please provide counter >arguments. The presentation is fair enough of one side, namely that of male violations of women. The power that women have to completely deny a man his masculinity on the other hand, especially in their roles as mothers, is rarely mentioned in this context. Obviously it is difficult for a woman to understand the level of aggression that that can arouse in a man. But it is also obvious that this aggression exists. Rape, and other acts of unspeakable violation happens again and again. But every time a specific case comes up as the focus of a public discussion there is the same surprised outrage on the part of many women. As if these things actually don't happen. As if the world actually looks different from what we see on the news every day. But it did happen - again. And although the world on the news is not the whole world, it is still from the news that we get most of our image of the world of today. The forces that lie behind the act of rape cannot be grasped by the intellect - they have to be perceived intuitively by going quite deep into the darker regions of the soul. Only by going there and really getting into the feeling of violating someone else's individuality can one also develop forces which could, eventually, somehow, create a society where things like that don't happen. Actually, maybe this is why this subject is pertinent to this high-level-intellectual list. In the phenomenon of rape we come in touch with an area of human life which really cannot be subjected to plain intellectual speculation effectively. I think it would be hard to find a man who is prepared to intellectually defend the act of rape in general. And in any case, no one would take him seriously. Rape is something that most of the time "just happens". And when it is planned, the planning mind most certainly is not troubled by moral concerns. The feeling, emphatizing side of the human being has already been disconnected. The interesting thing is, how does this disconnection come about? I don't want to take any blame away from men, but I think that if women (any woman) is really interested in finding out the true causes behind rape, then they should look very carefully at _themselves_ as women to see what role, if any, the (stereo)typically feminine plays in this phenomenon. Because general outrage obviously has no effects on rape statistics. When I hear women discussing rape I always have the feeling that they just wish it wouldn't happen anymore, that it would just go away, and that we could have a nice and peaceful world where nothing bad happens, tomorrow, if only men stopped with their ununderstandable businesses. This is not a constructive or realistic approach. Shit happens, and the only way to stop it from happening is to go to the source, to really dig into how it comes about. This might not always be flattering or enjoyable. I still miss women participating in the whole of world events as individuals. Women want equal rights, but they don't want to get dirty under their nails - psychologically speaking. The proverbial ostrich, head in the sand, easily comes to mind. One more thing: remember that in any act of violation of humanness, both the victim and the perpetrator lose their humanity - the latter actually even more so. It is useless to blame, left or right. It is useful to remember that humanness is something precious that can be lost. Best regards, Andreas __________________________ andreas.carter@pi.se ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 08:53:48 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Lisa Rogers Subject: "population vs. food" I have no desire to see every inch of "arable" land on the planet crowded with as many people as possible. At some point, is a discussion of quality/ humanness of life appropriate? It is also more than a question of "distribution" of food. I mean, the production of food by many modern methods is itself a terribly costly thing. Both in terms of environmental degradation and in terms of the capitalist exploitation that pushes out little farmers to create "unemployment", misery and starvation in the name of "increased agri. productivity". Lisa >I think it is a generalization to suggest that the food supply has >reached the point at which it cannot keep up with population. You >underestimate the potential of technology for good. While while you say may very well be true, it is also true that the amount of land under cultivation is decreasing, top soil is blowing away, and the amount of food produced per year, for the first time, just about balances the world population (though badly distributed). ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 09:14:04 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Lisa Rogers Subject: neither "pro" nor "anti" >>> Ben Toth 11/17/95, 07:01am >>> My broad methodological concerns are: how much probability and statistical theory do you need to have to write about statistical methods from a cultural perspective? (probably lots!) how to write about science without being either pro- or anti-science? Ben Toth Ben, on the first, I'm interested, but I'm not sure what you mean by "a cultural perspective." Do you want to be able to understand the stats methods in order to detect their misuse? Then yes, lots of study is required. I still can't even evaluate the use/applicability of many stat methods that I see in journals, which means that sometimes I can't make an informed judgement on the validity or importance of the conclusions, unless I find some other good reason for tossing it out. How to write about science? What I hope for in general is "good" analysis, good as defined in part by scientific standards. Include analysis from the point of view of those who are most affected by outcomes, without assuming that science producers themselves are entirely responsible for the acts of transnational corporations, other big capitalists and their supporters in governments and elsewhere. I mean, don't leave out important parts of the picture. Give "science" just what it deserves, no more and no less. I don't know if this is helpful in terms of specific instructions, it is just my wishlist, or reaction to your post. Lisa ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 15:27:45 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Mr B.P. Larvor" Subject: Science? Culture? In-Reply-To: <199511201451.OAA04228@listserv.rl.ac.uk> from "J.PRITCHARD" at Nov 20, 95 02:18:51 pm In the last mail J.PRITCHARD said: > > I should like you to expand upon what you do not > understand about a sexual act not being a sexual act because far from > being simplistic your reply may give some insight innto how men view > rape. False assumption: all men view rape the same way. > It may be true to say that not all acts of rape are merely acts of > power. Many women are raped by men who are known to them. In such > cases rape may reflect men's conceit in assuming that all women must > want sex with them and in finding that it is not willingly given, > take it anyway. False assumption: all men share said conceit. > Other acts of penetration are not sexual but can be seen as acts of > power `can be seen as'--oddy ambivalent expression > Some men talk as though once stirred , sexually or powerfully, they > cease to have any control over themselves and become, as the song > goes 'a man with a prick where his brain ought to be'. Clearly only > men can comment on this. This one is harder to diagnose. Possibly the assumption is that rape by men is so singular that nothing women do could serve as an analogy. Or that women are never driven by violent or irrational urges. These suppressed premises do not seem self-evident. > Rape would seem to come into a different category, even so because to > resort to using his sexual organ as a means of violence, whether or > not the act is sexual, is above a powerful symbol of how man defines > himself and his own power. His appeal is not to his 'hailed male > logic' or to his 'superior physical strength' although this may aid > him, his true self emerges through his penus [sic]. Poor fellow, poor > animal! Which man is this? Are you talking about rapists, or men generally? To see what these errors come to, consider this: "Baby-snatching would seem to come into a different category, even so because to resort to using children as an object of theft, whether or not the act is maternal, is above a powerful symbol of how woman defines herself and her own power. Her appeal is not to her `feminine intuition' or `physical beauty' her true self emerges through her womb. Poor girl, poor cow!" The point is not to trade insult for insult. It's about the fallacy of hasty induction. Brendan. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 08:33:36 PST Reply-To: michael@mb1.misc.pdx.edu Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Michael Flower Subject: Kauffman's latest For those interested in a less daunting account of complexity than that in Kauffman's earlier book, his new one (recently mentioned) is entitled AT HOME IN THE UNIVERSE: THE SEARCH FOR THE LAWS OF SELF-ORGANIZATION AND COMPLEXITY (Oxford University Press, 1995). +++++++++++++++++++++++++ Michael Flower University Honors Program (HON) Portland State University P.O. Box 751 Portland, OR 97207-0751 E-mail: flowerm@pdx.edu Voice: (503)725-5362 Fax: (503)725-5363 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 11:36:26 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Tim Smith Subject: Re: rape >Date sent: Sun, 19 Nov 1995 07:53:46 -0500 >Subject: Re: okinawan rape >Jeffery brings gay men into the rape oppressed group. This tends to >imply that rape follows sexual preference rather than the more likely >argument that rape is primarily about power and not sex. In a book >called Male Rape (I can find but cannot remember reference) it states >quite categorically that male rape (i.e the rape of men) is almost >always perpetrated by heterosexual men. It may be the 'victims' are >gay but the attackers usually are not. > It hardly needs mentioning that the victors in war 'rape and >pillage' again as a demonstration of power. It is strange that men >(and it is almost always men) use so intimate a part of their body to >vent hate-there is no question but that it illustrates a uncivilised >want of self-control and rationality. Can men really understand >themselves why men rape? > >>Jane > >Clearly from a woman Jane, Actually it was I not Jeffry who brought gay men into the picture. And frankly, I find the statement that most male-male rapes tend to be perpetrated by hetersexuals very hard to beleive (and not just because of the mechanics involved). It may be true, but I would very much like to know what the statistics are and how the researchers define the issue. So if that book is handy to you ... -- Tim Smith (tws@neurocog.lrdc.pitt.edu) University of Pittsburgh Learning Research and Development Center (412)624-7055 -office (412)688-8351 -home Personal Web address: http://neurocog.lrdc.pitt.edu/~tws Neural Processes in Cognition address: http://neurocog.lrdc.pitt.edu/npc/ Also check out: http://neurocog.lrdc.pitt.edu/neuroscape/ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 10:18:08 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Lisa Rogers Subject: protein synthesis >>> A. H. Brush 11/18/95, 01:22pm >>> For example, the shape and behavior of a single protein cannot be prediced by the information stored in the base sequence of the gene or genes that produce the protein. Alan Um, not at all? Cannot be predicted? Does it not give us a very big clue? Or why not? Considering what I've already posted on protein structure, I'd appreciate more explanation here. Otherwise, the above makes no sense to me. And, what's the point? Lisa ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 10:40:06 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Lisa Rogers Subject: definition of rape Rape is a violent crime, in which the motivation is violence, power, humiliation of another, in which some element of sexuality is used as one of the weapons. It's "about sex" insofar as sex is seen as violent, coercive and dehumanized/ depersonalized, and as far as sex is used as an excuse, an opportunity and a tool for domination. It is true that some twisted persons do find violence and degradation sexually stimulating. This is generally a result of twisted training, that abuse becomes associated with sexual gratification. More normal people are turned off by such horror. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 10:52:40 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Lisa Rogers Subject: Re: biochemical machinery -Reply >>> Mark Burch 11/19/95, 11:35pm >>> If proteins had free will and had a wild weekend, we would not be able to observe it, because it would be indistinguishable from "experimental error." L: Fine, okay. It is difficult to understand how mechanistic thinking continues to persist in biology, given that it is 1) bad poetry and 2) bad science. By 1) I mean that organisms do not even closely resemble machines on aesthetic grounds (and I consider aesthetics to be the electromotive force of evolution, not survival). L: Bad science? How? Sorry I don't have time right now to do much more reading such as the books you mention, could you, would you give us a paragraph or two? Organicism would be a nice place to return to, before biology became like a can of paint left open, leaving us with a gummy mechanism and an ethereal vitalism, with no way to recombine the two. L: "Vitalism"??? What vitalism? Lisa Rogers ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 10:57:52 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Lisa Rogers Subject: Re: biochemical machinery -Reply >>> Bo Dahlin 11/20/95, 05:38am >>> I believe we have to recognize non-human creative intelligences (yes, plural) at work in all phenomena of life. And that means accepting teleological processes as well. Bo Like What?? And what in the world do you mean by "purpose" ? Lisa ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 11:00:52 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Lisa Rogers Subject: Re: okinawan rape -Reply >>> Howard Schwartz 11/20/95, ...Under the circumstances, she may wish to reflect on her belief that such verbal indiscretions, by themselves, should be sufficient cause to terminate careers. L: "Verbal indiscretions" are never "by themselves". Don't you expect that what comes out somebodies' mouth is revealing of the assumptions, attitudes, etc that pervade that person's life and all decisions, such as disciplinary ones within his command? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 13:09:29 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Leon F. Shartsis" Subject: Re: okinawan rape X-cc: Alana Suskin , Amos Levi , Andy Bartalone , Lara Levin , Ellen Mann , Cliff Becker <74044.175@compuserve.com>, Robert hall In-Reply-To: <9511201548.AA39960@umabnet.ab.umd.edu> On Mon, 20 Nov 1995, Andreas Carter wrote: > On Nov 20, 1995 Jane Pritchard wrote: > > >If this is not a fair representation, then please provide counter > >arguments. > > The presentation is fair enough of one side, namely that of male violations > of women. The power that women have to completely deny a man his masculinity > on the other hand, especially in their roles as mothers, is rarely mentioned > in this context. Obviously it is difficult for a woman to understand the > level of aggression that that can arouse in a man. But it is also obvious > that this aggression exists. Is this the old shibboleth of blaming the rapist's mother for the rape? What about the rapist's grandmother? First grade teacher? I don't know about you, but I live in world that routinely and customarily supports and reinforces the worst aspects of my masculinity. > Rape, and other acts of unspeakable violation happens again and again. But > every time a specific case comes up as the focus of a public discussion > there is the same surprised outrage on the part of many women. As if these > things actually don't happen. As if the world actually looks different from > what we see on the news every day. But it did happen - again. And although > the world on the news is not the whole world, it is still from the news that > we get most of our image of the world of today. I don't understand the import of the above. It is a positive turn of events that folks are still shocked and moved by r