Your latest essay speaks to me on a personal level, Asa. Since March 2020, I've had to give up on a few textbook-indoctrinated, paint can-reading charlatans of scientism formerly known as friends.
It took me a while to acquire the discipline to stay calm when they tried to upset me with personal attacks so as to "win the argument." When they realized that their stratagem wouldn't work, they often flew off the handle themselves. Not long ago a former friend of 30 years did this during a heated discussion about overpopulation. When he saw that he couldn't anger me after insisting that a literary writer had no business opining on a scientific matter like the "population bomb," he shouted from a familiar script: "We need to bring down the population! Our childrens' future depends on it!! You obviously don't care about their future!!!"
That said, I do think it's important to try to mend broken friendships. So for Christmas I've fashioned a homemade spitoon for him out of a paint can. I call it a 'Regurgidor', and I've wrapped it in textbook pages.
Sweet! The problem often seems to be that paint can readers forget to open a window after opening the can and are subject to all manner of hallucination. And of course it should be scientists who decide who lives and who dies. I mean God's out of the picture now and scientists are the most brilliant people to ever walk the earth... so obviously it follows that we ought to depopulate. Please oh great white coat, please dispense your divine judgement on us sinful, meat eating, climate change machines who deserve to die and live only at your mercy.
Great riff on Kuhn, Asa! I'll set aside my preferred tangent (Kuhn and Foucault's related epistemologies) and make a point more in line with your thread here. Kuhn created only a minor scandal by subjecting the sciences to historical analysis, because most of the zealots don't consider history to be part of the Temple of Science, and therefore Kuhn could be dismissed as quaintly misguided. The real scandal, therefore, came when Latour and Woolgar turned the eye of sociology onto scientific practice in 1979 - and then the accusations of heresy abounded!
Thank you, Chris. Much appreciated. I am unfamiliar with Latour and Woolgar. So thanks for that lead. I would be interested in hearing about Foucault's epistemologies.
Laboratory Life was the 1979 book. I know Latour's later work far better, personally, but I know there was a stir about this one at the time. As for Foucault, I must offer a raincheck for now! No short topic, alas. 😉
Your latest essay speaks to me on a personal level, Asa. Since March 2020, I've had to give up on a few textbook-indoctrinated, paint can-reading charlatans of scientism formerly known as friends.
It took me a while to acquire the discipline to stay calm when they tried to upset me with personal attacks so as to "win the argument." When they realized that their stratagem wouldn't work, they often flew off the handle themselves. Not long ago a former friend of 30 years did this during a heated discussion about overpopulation. When he saw that he couldn't anger me after insisting that a literary writer had no business opining on a scientific matter like the "population bomb," he shouted from a familiar script: "We need to bring down the population! Our childrens' future depends on it!! You obviously don't care about their future!!!"
That said, I do think it's important to try to mend broken friendships. So for Christmas I've fashioned a homemade spitoon for him out of a paint can. I call it a 'Regurgidor', and I've wrapped it in textbook pages.
Sweet! The problem often seems to be that paint can readers forget to open a window after opening the can and are subject to all manner of hallucination. And of course it should be scientists who decide who lives and who dies. I mean God's out of the picture now and scientists are the most brilliant people to ever walk the earth... so obviously it follows that we ought to depopulate. Please oh great white coat, please dispense your divine judgement on us sinful, meat eating, climate change machines who deserve to die and live only at your mercy.
You vill eet ze bugs!
Great riff on Kuhn, Asa! I'll set aside my preferred tangent (Kuhn and Foucault's related epistemologies) and make a point more in line with your thread here. Kuhn created only a minor scandal by subjecting the sciences to historical analysis, because most of the zealots don't consider history to be part of the Temple of Science, and therefore Kuhn could be dismissed as quaintly misguided. The real scandal, therefore, came when Latour and Woolgar turned the eye of sociology onto scientific practice in 1979 - and then the accusations of heresy abounded!
Stay wonderful!
Thank you, Chris. Much appreciated. I am unfamiliar with Latour and Woolgar. So thanks for that lead. I would be interested in hearing about Foucault's epistemologies.
Laboratory Life was the 1979 book. I know Latour's later work far better, personally, but I know there was a stir about this one at the time. As for Foucault, I must offer a raincheck for now! No short topic, alas. 😉