Posted on 12/10/2010 2:44:56 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Anthropologists have been thrown into turmoil about the nature and future of their profession after a decision by the American Anthropological Association at its recent annual meeting to strip the word “science” from a statement of its long-range plan.
The decision has reopened a long-simmering tension between researchers in science-based anthropological disciplines — including archaeologists, physical anthropologists and some cultural anthropologists — and members of the profession who study race, ethnicity and gender and see themselves as advocates for native peoples or human rights.
[snip]
Dr. Peregrine, who is at Lawrence University in Wisconsin, said in an interview that the dropping of the references to science “just blows the top off” the tensions between the two factions. “Even if the board goes back to the old wording, the cat’s out of the bag and is running around clawing up the furniture,” he said.
He attributed what he viewed as an attack on science to two influences within anthropology. One is that of so-called critical anthropologists, who see anthropology as an arm of colonialism and therefore something that should be done away with. The other is the postmodernist critique of the authority of science. “Much of this is like creationism in that it is based on the rejection of rational argument and thought,” he said.
Dr. Dominguez denied that critical anthropologists or postmodernist thinking had influenced the new statement. She said in an e-mail that she was aware that science-oriented anthropologists had from time to time expressed worry about and disapproval of their nonscientific colleagues. “Marginalization is never a welcome experience,” she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Which is the reason why physics is more scientific than either biology or chemistry.
I don't know about that. As a biochemist, I measure things all the time, and I seem to recall making all kinds of measurements throughout my biology classes. True, most life scientists don't engage in the heavy calculus like physicists do--for some reason, most of the biological functions that I am familiar can be nicely analyzed with logarithmic equations. But we certainly use the math and make predictions (otherwise, how could we do hypothesis-driven research?).
The problem, in my view, about the dominant modern approach of most anthropologists is that they make far too much, far too broad, far too detailed pronouncements about the meaning of what they find, for what is often the scanty, slim evidence that they actually find.
If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion. Doth saith Robert Heinlein
Excellent exerpting & comments too!
Thank you kindly.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2640914/posts
The Problem: Most scientists in this country are Democrats.
The Party of Irrationality has taken over “science”.
Economics is a social science. The attempt to mathify it and make it a science has made it dismal.
Individual chemical bonds are pretty well understood and mathematically modeled - though not perfectly or chemistry would be at and end as a science. Complex interactions are not, which is why chemistry and biochemistry remain sciences and not just branches of engineering.
The most progressive Union of Concerned Scientists:
Got Science?
Sean Hannity is failing science. Send a letter (along with Sean’s report card) to his parent company—Fox News—to let them know that he needs to stop talking about global warming until he can get the science right.
I’ve followed those idiots for decades. Their Doomsday Clock is such a joke.
They hate America and they’re the kind of intellectual cowards that would lay down and die rather than fight and live.
The first person who identifies life from somewhere other than the earth will be famous forever.
There’s plenty of motivation.
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