Paradigms

[Desert Dweller]

This thread is a split from "porn addiction and relevance to the ungodly".

Currently the dominant paradigm is Western Experinental, also known as reductionist or quantitative. It comprises a set design whereing a questioner poses a question.
The question is refined.
An experiment is designed to measure some of the variables apparent in the Q
The experiment is run
Statistical analysis is applied to the results, which are data
If the hypothesis holds up: then
the Qer sends his/her findings off in a paper they have written; it is sent to Journals where other Qers in the same field can (a) do the experiment themselves and see if they get similar data and (b) start a shit-fight, tearing the hypothersis to pieces; or support the hypothersis.

If it's repeated (with comparable results) and supported (by peers through their critical analysis) then it is absorbed by the dominant paradigm.
-----------------------------------------

OK to start let's refine this statement until everyone is happy with it:- is that oK? :yup:

[Zoot]

I think perhaps "then it is absorbed by the dominant paradigm" is a bit simplistic.

[Desert Dweller]

Zoot you're pissed, come back after the hangover.

[ceptimus]

I would say that people propose arguments rather than questions. Many new theories are dismissed without any experiment just because the argument is judged inferior. I'm using the words theory and argument interchangeably here. Only when an argument is judged has having sufficient merit is it put to the final arbiter of test by experiment.

[JoeP]

Good split.

Now that I'm done with the positive reinforcement, let's get on with the criticism and nit-picking. :wink:

Firstly, the dominant paradigm in what? Any field of human thinking can have a paradigm. Are you talking about the fundamentals of scientific method, or deeper, the metaphysics of what we can determine to be true; epistemology? I assume so.

The real purpose of this thread would seem to be something you didn't copy from the other thread, so I will:
how to resolve the differences in logical type between quantitative research and experiential knowledge.

You state
Currently the dominant paradigm is Western Experinental, also known as reductionist or quantitative.
I assume you meant experimental ... it's close to experiential too.

OK to start let's refine this statement until everyone is happy with it
Not happy at all. :no2:

What you've described is the science-book way of doing science; what kids are taught in school; how science is dressed up afterwards.

In reality knowledge moves forward by any number of means - intuition, hunches, insight, blind stubborn insistence on something being possible, etc etc. The real crunch is once you've got an idea - or an argument, as ceptimus says - how do you test it? If someone else presents you with an idea, backed up by argument or theory or sometimes nothing, how do you test it? Is this idea or person on the button, half-right, honestly mistaken, dishonestly pursuing a hidden agenda, or any number of other shades of justification?

That's what repeatable experiments are about. Do the following steps under the following conditions, and you'll see the same facts as I did. (The other dimension is explaining why those facts are so, and that's another thing altogether: I guess this is the art of devising experiments that test predictions of one theory against another. Whole new post needed for that.)

So, when Angus McBoffin publishes a paper claiming that babies fed formula suffer more childhood diseases, I (as Head of Pediatrics at the city hospital) want to know if it's true. I conduct an experiment, or at least, I study the results of experiments already done so that I'm sure they were correctly conducted and correctly reported.

But wait. I've got myself confused. Seems to me there is no difference between experimental knowledge and experience. If I do the experiment, I have the experience; if I experience something and I know the conditions, it's as good as an experiment. If I read up on, or wait for, somebody else's experiment, then I do not have direct experience, I have to trust some other people's honesty in working and in reporting. If I listen to somebody else's experience, same problem. But it's impossible to demand direct experience of everything (I don't think we need to elaborate on this).

The issue then is, which kinds of reported experience can we trust more? Which kinds of reported experience should we specifically distrust unless certain risks are checked?

I need to close now (hopefully I will get some time to read up on the "Western Experinental, also known as reductionist or quantitative" paradigms), so I'll just assert this: controlled scientific experiments are intended to be and successfully are much more reliable than other means of gaining indirect experience (and there are many, I suppose).

One more thing: what is "experiential knowledge" as distinct from quantitative experimentation? Please offer up a definition of that as well!

joe

[Desert Dweller]

Seems to me there is no difference between experimental knowledge and experience Thank you Joe you've just dealt a huge blow to the nonsense that experimenters hold to which is that their experiment is objective.

Firstly, the dominant paradigm in what? In what is described by the 'scientific method' which is applied equally to chemistry and sociology. Remember all the so called sciences (Psychology. sociology...)arose in the 19c and modelled themselves on the methods of physics and chemistry. So it's clear in the literature that there is one method (although clearly it has levels from strict laboratory control (at the top) to observation (at the bottom). The former is at the top because it is viewed as 'objective'. So WSEM (western scientific experimental method) IS the dominant paradigm.

what is "experiential knowledge" as distinct from quantitative experimentation? I suspect a trap in this question. Why? Because as the term suggests, experiential is exactly that. It is subjectively experienced and does not rely on statistical verification of repetition or crunching numbers.

Joe and Ceptimus, you've played with the detail but not substantively changed the opening attempt at a description of wsem.

[godfry n. glad]

Firstly, the dominant paradigm in what? In what is described by the 'scientific method' which is applied equally to chemistry and sociology. Remember all the so called sciences (Psychology. sociology...)arose in the 19c and modelled themselves on the methods of physics and chemistry. So it's clear in the literature that there is one method (although clearly it has levels from strict laboratory control (at the top) to observation (at the bottom). The former is at the top because it is viewed as 'objective'. So WSEM (western scientific experimental method) IS the dominant paradigm.


Y'know.... You may want to clean this up. It's a bit difficult to follow, what with that extra bracket in there and all.

I'd say on one count I agree with you. Trying to apply "scientific methodologies" to the studies of social interactions is misplaced. The biggest problem I've seen is that initial assumptions are mistaken and the populations adapt to the knowledge proliferated by studies and react differently in subsequent studies. There is a huge equivalent to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in human studies, and the process of testing, studying or sampling changes the whole sample set. The population is not static in regards to the knowledge about the population...quite the opposite.

That said, I rather suspect that a new paradigm within the study of humanity will be of little or counterproductive use in the sciences.

I took my undergraduate degree in economics. This is, as John Kenneth Galbraith proclaimed, the "queen of the social sciences". Indeed, during my years of penance to the higher mind, econometrics was the reigning paradigm. From my view, the whole field suffered from their acceptance of a naive presupposition; one of the first things they teach every economics student - the lie which underlies the whole edifice.....Humanity is made of rational animals who make rational choices.

In short, it's bullshit. Many humans may make rational choices, but there is a sufficiently large minority that do not to throw off all predictability using the models developed.

All in all, the foray into "scientific methodology" in the study of humanity has been helpful in highlighting the limitations of our measuring tools in regards to ourselves.

godfry

[Desert Dweller]

Y'know.... You may want to clean this up. Fair nuff; but remember Godfrey, I'm just sitting here, pulling brain our of long storage on these matters.

OK good, we're clear that "scientific methodologies" are not appropriate to social research.

I wonder how far way we are on agreeing that the wsem (of the hard sciences) is not suitable for social research at all. (I posted in the lst thread three points about this, may need to pull them here again: )

1- researchers are themselves active participants in the situation researched and that the researcher - situation relationship deserves to be studied. Also that

2- the framework and variables of studies themselves change in the course of the study: and

3- that an important way of attesting the validity and significance of social knowledge is to feed-back into the situation researched studying how this feed-back influences further action .

If you agree with these 3 statements then we can proceed.

[godfry n. glad]

Y'know.... You may want to clean this up. Fair nuff; but remember Godfrey, I'm just sitting here, pulling brain our of long storage on these matters.

Uh...yeah...I guess.

OK good, we're clear that "scientific methodologies" are not appropriate to social research.

I'd say more woefully inadequate than inappropriate. I don't know for sure. What other alternatives have I? Case books? Fiat?

I wonder how far way we are on agreeing that the wsem (of the hard sciences) is not suitable for social research at all. (I posted in the lst thread three points about this, may need to pull them here again: )

1- researchers are themselves active participants in the situation researched and that the researcher - situation relationship deserves to be studied. Also that

There's actually two statements here. The researchers are themselves active participants in the situaiton research, is one. To this my response would be "can be" but "need not".

The other is the need for researcher-situation relationship study, which I agree would be most interesting. But if were denying these guiding precepts of how to study it, what shall we use?

2- the framework and variables of studies themselves change in the course of the study: and

Can and frequently do. I believe there is a lot of "fudging" in social research. Agendas interfere with what "counts" and what doesn't.

3- that an important way of attesting the validity and significance of social knowledge is to feed-back into the situation researched studying how this feed-back influences further action .

First, I'm not sure what you mean by "attesting the validity and significance". For me, the feedback occurs whether you want it to or not. Anything beyond straight observation is immediately fed back into the situation and changes the trajectory. If the researcher interacts with the subject, in any way, the feedback takes place. That's the problem with researching humans...they're researching you right back.

I suspect an infinte regress somewhere along here...

If you agree with these 3 statements then we can proceed.

I don't know...

Does it involve Paul Feyerabend?

godfry

[Desert Dweller]

woefully inadequate than inappropriate fiddeldy dee!

Oh, it's Christmas Morning here so HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

[Desert Dweller]

To this my response would be "can be" but "need not". Difficult to imagine people researching people without being involved.

"fudging" in social research. Agendas interfere with what "counts" and what doesn't. Absolutely. And IMO the reason is that the situation being researched is being forced to 'fit' into a woefully inadequate method.

"attesting the validity and significance" quote comes form 'Human Inquiry, Reason and Rowan. Lon. c.1983
There are 2 logical types operating here. No1. you have described feedback occurs whether you want it to or not. No.2 occurs at another time, after reflection and notation. It is deliberate. The attesting comes from the group researched.
eg after tests it looks like your icecream preferences are chocolate. vanilla and strawberry. No 1 feedback has occurred.
So I come back to you and say, "this is what your preference looks like, is it in the right order.?" You say, "No I prefer vanilla best".
I go away, change notation, and on the next meeting I say. "your pref. are vanilla first, then chocolate and strawb.". You say, "that's right". Which comprises clear, positive confirmation of the data. You have attested the validity...signifiicance requires other checks on same lines.

I suspect an infinte regress somewhere along here... That's probably because you are thinking inside the dominant paradigm, ie reductionist, quantitative, math.representation.

Does it involve Paul Feyerabend? This is a closed question. A digital provocation with 0 and 1 (yes and no) being the only options.
How do you feel about Paul Feyerabend? What do you know about P.F? PF is a total jerk, whatdya reckon? PF is a great spokesman, eh?
I know, let's leave him out for the moment. When and if we establish something then we can philosophise about it and bring him in then.

[Clutch Munny]

Seems to me there is no difference between experimental knowledge and experience Thank you Joe you've just dealt a huge blow to the nonsense that experimenters hold to which is that their experiment is objective.

First, I have no idea why you'd call what you described "reductionist".

Second, you give no argument whatever for this claim about the "nonsense" to which experimenters hold. The best explanation for the lack of argument, in this case, is that your claim is simply false.

You can make this fact clear to yourself by answering the following question: Why did you suppose that experimental scientists are so hung up on repeatability?

Hint: It has something to do with recognizing the propensity for any particular trial to be an outlier, and any particular experimenter to be biased (in the most neutral sense of the term).

In short, experimental scientists, and the system of practices they apply, embody a carefully considered worry for the details of problems of subjectivity and variation in observing the world. Rehearsing some Science-Officer-Spock cultural stereotype, on the other hand, demonstrates no such careful consideration or grasp of detail.

[JoeP]

Thank you, Clutch. You've just dealt a huge blow to the confusion that onthedole is peddling.

Onthedole, it seems like you've misunderstood what I said. I wasn't attacking experimental method (quantitative or not - there's some distinction I've failed to grasp). And I wasn't questioning experience; first-hand experience is the best. Clutch added the need to validate once-off experiences; they may be flukes or illusions. I was questioning reported experience (whether experimental or not). Your formula-milk example is a case in point - who has first hand experience of thousands of babies being given breast vs formula milk, and the effects as they grow up? You have to use other people's experiences and you need some way of validating them.

I agree that "soft" or social sciences need a somewhat different experimental approach, but they still need one. I also agree that the experiment and the experimenter have an influence on the subject, and this needs to be taken into account. This is just another dimension to validating second-hand results. But it should lead to improving the quantitative experimental method, not rejecting it.

There are a lot of other points you've made that I need to address but I'm not sure I'll have the energy.

joe

[Desert Dweller]

If everyone is willing I'd like to give this thread a direction.

1)Let us assume that there are no technical or mechanical problems, on the surface of the earth, which can't be dealt with (resources permitting).
2)Let us also assume that humankind is not in a happy state; in short there are too many wars and conflicts; along with maldistribution of wealth..
3)Western experimental science has not aleviated these conflicts.
4) Thus we need a new means of dealing with social science in order to improve happiness, or reduce conflict. In general we might call this communication.

This is the basic rationale I want to pursue. How to find a methodology which works in the difficult arena of studying ourselves (people).
It is notable that the social sciences as they stand do not have a single law.
Yet providing laws and predictability is a main function of science.
So I have no choice but to think that social sciences while based on the hard science paradigm, are not able to provide advances comparable to say splitting the atom, going into space or having trains which can travel at high speed.

Currently hard science dominates western thinking because it is testable, repeatable etc. The assumptions inherent permeate human thinking; so we must question these assumptions when dealing with people research. It is not good enough any longer for the hard sciences to have a pooh hoo attitude to anyting which is different.

I accept the first 3 assumptions of classic science as self-evident.
These are that:-
1. A true universe exists.
2. This universe is primarily an ordered system.
3. All knowledge is tentative and may change in
the light of future knowledge.

At this point all new paradigm science must diverge from classic science. This is because classic science is no longer viewed as the only and best way of knowing about nature. Quantity (maths) is not the only way to establish truth; and it is not possible to understand the whole from a study of the parts. The new assumptions are:

4. All nature is relational and all relationships are reciprocal.
5. Mind and nature are inseparable and we require only one
explanatory principle.
6. Living systems are structurally determined.
7. Nature exhibits unity in its diversity.
8. A rigorous criteria must be met before a statement can
claim to be truly scientific. These criteria have been described by
Maturana et al.

If we can strengthen this then we may find an appropriate means to study and report on the study of ourselves. Through this means we have a chance of improving the lot of humanity. If we stick with hard science as the dominant way of knowing and dealing with problems then we are doomed to more conflict, misunderstanding and inequality and our future would look bleak.

ps Clutch I haven't answered your post because I feel it would take the thread into quibbling and that would not be helpful. Here we need a degree of suspension of disbelief. And Joe if I am at times confusing I hope you might support me to gain clarity as this whole question is much bigger than I am.

[Clutch Munny]

ps Clutch I haven't answered your post because I feel it would take the thread into quibbling and that would not be helpful.

If for 'quibbling' and 'not be helpful' we substitute 'factual accuracy' and 'lethal to my various assertions', respectively, what you say here is unimpeachable.

But if you are serious about not answering, I'm happy to part ways for this thread.

[Farren]

Onthedole I don't think there's a need for an overall paradigm shift. While I agree the social sciences are indadequate they're also extremely young as formal sciences so all the doom and gloom, is, I think premature. There are profoundly good reasons why so many fine minds have clung to the bedrock of "Western" scientific philosophy and continued to build new sciences on it, rather than restructure it entirely from the ground up.

The only limitations it imposes are limitations put in place to prevent hubris, poor observation, religious and cultural indoctrination, personal mood et al from muddying the waters. The oft-trumpeted "reductionism" of Western science is no more than a necessary artifact of communicating clearly. In order to do so we must name things and equip those names with unambiguous meaning.

There is knowledge outside of what can be named and pinned down, certainly, but as Taoism and Buddhism have been reminding people for centuries, naming and discussing that knowledge in words is an exercise in absurdity. All we can do with that knowledge is construct verbal cues that act as signposts to the experience, then experience it.

And Western science is "aware" of that knowledge outside of its limits and generally where the limits are. Sure, there are individuals within the scientific community, even famous ones, who seem to have a scientistic view. I read on a thread somewhere recently that Richard Dawkins, for instance, has a scientistic philosophy. But on the same thread it was noted that the other participants in the debate where this became evident (including the equally well-known evolutionary theorist Stephen Jay Gould) were astonished at his naivete and narrow view, illustrating the fact that many scientists fully comprehend these limits.

Certainly it can be said that the limits and shortcomings of science are well-known to the worldwide scientific community as a community. The limits themselves have been the subject of lengthy papers. Issues such as confounding factors in statistical analysis, confirmation bias, non-computable problems, the distinction between logical consistency and truth, qualia (the experience of being as opposed to the experience of examining) are all acknowledged and examined.

In other words, science itself fully acknowledges knowledge and wisdom from sources other than itself. That said, it is a collection of profoundly useful tools that reach into the examination of most knowledge, regardless of its source.

Take logic, for example, a widely misunderstood concept. Logic is not about moral right or wrong. Its not about absolute truth or falsity. Its simply about the consistency of sets of ideas. A man can say to a judge "Your honour, I may have had 15 accidents in one year but I'm not a bad driver" and still be logical despite being unreasonable, because the ideas are consistent inasmuch as there is a possible (though unlikely) combination of circumstances in which all of the premises stated are true together.

"This is a dog and this is not a dog" is more the kind of comment that is thoroughly illogical. There is no circumstance where both propositions can be true. Of course, the lack of logic in many sets of ideas is hard to discern where complex world views are concerned because often no one premise contradicts another. Its more often the implications of some premises that end up contradicting others or their implications. For example "There is no afterlife. My grandmother, who died last year, contacted me yesterday" contains no explicit contradictions but its direct implications contradict its premises. Most logical inconsistency is more subtle, still, than this example, which is why it has grown into an entire body of science studied by programmers and lawyers alike.

The reason I'm rambling about logic is because it is effectively a culture-invariant, language invariant tool and it is as hard as "hard science" gets. Also, it can be applied to any set of ideas, in or outside of formal scientific enquiry. Someone can say "You can keep your science. My intuition is a better guide", but when they attempt to convince others of the knowledge that intuiton imparts to them, that wisdom is instantly vulnerable to logical appraisal.

If it's as simple as "I think we should do this, now", without qualification, logic is useless, but if it takes the form "Always to X in such-and-such a situation and always do Y in such-and-such a situation" and it turns out that certain situations qualify as both X and Y and that the two instructions contradict each other then is is wrong. End of story. Because it is a set of ideas that refutes itself.

It doesn't matter if its someone's personal intuition or religious belief or deeply-felt conviction based on anecdotal experience. Its wrong because its contradictory. Nothing that takes the form "X is true and X is false", however winding the route by which it gets there, can be held to be a truth because it is a self-refuting statement, a non-statement.

Because of this, logic reaches into every system of human thought, be it mystical, transcendental, personally experienced, whatever. One can rage against the machine of science and say "science cannot refute the enlightenment I have experienced!" but that is simply self-delusion if that enlightment is logically inconsistent. Far better to reconsider the insight in the light of logic and determine if one has not mistranslated a nonverbal experience when putting it into words, or assumed that a special exception was, in fact a universal truth. That is how a person that understands and accepts the clarity of logic responds and they are the wiser for it.

This is just one pillar of Western "reductionist" science and until I've seen good reasons for abandoning each of them, rather than vague statements (that imply a god's-eye view of the world) about human suffering not diminishing, I'd rather stick with the old paradigms.

If anything, I think the social sciences in the last century have suffered from the latitude and consequent fluffiness with which many theorists approach subjects, on account of the youth of the sciences in question and the relative paucity (compared to, say, physics) of data about the subjects being studied. Freud's obsession with the role of sexual neurosis in everything and Jung's kooky departures into all sorts of fluffy stuff (which doesn't diminish the profound insights he did provide) are reminiscent of a time before alchemy and chemistry were seperated and people freely mixed the ravings of dubiously-sourced occult tomes with more honest and accurate transcriptions of experiments in their chemical education.

[Desert Dweller]

If for 'quibbling' and 'not be helpful' we substitute 'factual accuracy' and 'lethal to my various assertions', respectively, what you say here is unimpeachable. Hey Clutch...lighten up cobber. I said above why I delayed responding, why wasn't that acceptable?

the "nonsense" to which experimenters hold. It was named...'objectivity'.
Why did you suppose that experimental scientists are so hung up on repeatability? I think this is a rhetorical question, yes?
Just now can't see the context of 'reductionist comment'..however by its nature the CP (current paradigm) or Classic Science(CS) do reduce complexity to studyable parts..or variable. It is the nature of the beast and I can't understand why you'd object to use of 'reductionist.'

Farren said they're also extremely young as formal sciences Oh come on Descartes dabbled with psychology...by and large Psych, Sociology.Anthrop were established as disciplines in the 19c
While much of what yo say is reasonble and I would agree with it I disagree that the social sciences are weak because of immaturity. They are weak because they exist on the CP which is suitable for mechanical and physical matters. The basis of the method is not suitable for the study of people. It does not 'fit' the subject matter.

Earlier Godfrey said I suspect an infinte regress somewhere along here... which I pointed out was due to his experience with CP.
In fact, consensus can and does arise, often after one or two feed-back loops. Now consensus may be difficult to represent say mathmatically but it exists. In the realm of human affairs it is sufficient to remove obstacles, conflicts and the consequences of diversity. Say YellowStone National Park; there were neighbouring ranchers, foresters, tin miners, tourists, hydrologists (for the aquifers)
and nature conservationists (protecting wildlife), Now each group has a very different context and expectation of what it requires from the park. This conflict and diversity could not be resolved scientifically (as we know prejudice doesn't respond to logic). A new way of thinking was required.

This is a small example of the problems of conflict and divertiy world wide and clearly technical solutions do not help, no matter how rigorous the theory.
Thus I am exploring here what could be changed to suit this new need, a need to study ourselves knowing that each of us is no predictable and we change from time to time, unlike a physical elelment which carries the same properties there as here.
For a start reductionist methods do not help. People need to be treated holistically so Systems Thinking (emerging from ww2 and early cybernetics) has emerged to provice for this, to give a 'fit'.
This is what we need to develop, this new paradigm with different assumptions and different methods.

[Farren]

Onthedole I'm not so much criticising the need to resolve some human conflicts with less than formal methods. Rather I disagree with sweeping and vague sentiments about reforming social science being a requirement of doing so.

"Dabbling" in psychology (via, one presumes, discussing the mind) is hardly establishing a formal science with its own university departments, library sections, qualifications and so on. The modern social sciences are indeed young, unless one stretches the definition of what constitutes a "science".

Obviously a rigidly formal method is going to be substantially slower in arriving at solutions to urgent issues, but thats not a good reason to throw out all our formalism. As I said earlier, much of what is perjoritively labelled "reductionist" is simply an artifact of the need for clear communication of ideas. Tossing it out, of necessity, means muddled thinking and poor communication.

And in fact conflicts such as the one you mentioned at Yellowstone can and increasingly are resolved with the aid of science. In my own country, a company called RMB wanted to surface mine unique wetlands on the east coast. Before doing so, they commissioned a four year study by a panel of experts on ecological impact, effect on local inhabitants and renewability of the wetlands after the projected ten-year mining venture was done.

When they publically made their bid, they not only provided the relevant national economic benefits but the benefits to locals (via local employment), mechanisms to localise and minimise disruption of the ecological system and profit allocation to a subsequent project (after the short term mining operation) to completely restore the wetland environment to its former state, along with a detailed plan for how that would be achieved. Needless to say the idea still met with tremendous reflex opposition from some green groups, but after perusing RMB's extensive and publically available report as well as various objections, I arrived at the conclusion that they'd made a compelling case that adequately addressed environmental concerns.

You're right in saying that the human heart cannot be easily swayed by science and that is where most conflict is rooted. But should we really be revising the social sciences to be less formal? I think not. I think we should increase the communication between humans who are in conflict and encourage tolerance. This is already recognised within the sub-science of conflict resolution.

Your preceding post seems to imply that the social sciences attempt to resolve conflict by presenting the participants with data and logic, which is curious because to the the best of my knowledge most modern social science attempts to determine the best way of resolving the conflict, then do that.

Usually the selected method involves very little formal scientific reasoning being presented to the participants. The formal part of science is in arriving at such conflict resolution methods by analysis of existing knowledge of what motivates people and formal analysis of the history of conflicts and efficacy of various resolution methods, not in coalface interactions between those in conflict and hard science.

I say formal and less formal because any system that relies on symbols, logic, repeatability, peer review and so on must, by its nature, be "reductionist". So any system that breaks away from that system is less formal. Any less formal system is, as I said before, vulnerable to "hubris, poor observation, religious and cultural indoctrination, personal mood et al".

Its all well and good to make sweeping statements about holistic solutions but how do you go about creating a coherent system of thought that is holistic, if by holistic you mean non-reductionist and consequently bereft of unambiguous symbols?

I think an issue here is where reductionism is applied. Just as scientism is an essentially irrational belief that afflicts some hard scientists, reductionism can be taken too far. For example, if one doesn't acknowledge so-called "emergent" patterns one can fall into the trap of thinking a thing can only be explained in terms of its smallest components. This has happened often enough that many critics of science (both in and outside of science), lament the reductionist nature thereof.

Aside from his dualistic philosophy of mind, Descartes was essentially a reductionist. He believed that, given enough data, we could create a model that would predict everything. Modern complexity and chaos theory have shown this to be naive. Many Victorian scientists, astonished and delghted with the rapid march of science in their lifetimes, came to think in the same terms. When Aflred Boole wrote "How Humans Think", which contains the basis of all modern boolean algrebra and was certainly massively valuable to the nascent science of machine computation, he truly believed he'd figured out 90% of the process and the rest was just tidying up. In fact he'd formalised a tiny, though important piece of emergent behaviour.

Zoom forward to today and one only has to look at the likes of biologsts like Gould ("Life's grandeur") and Goodwin ("How the leopard changed it's spots"), atmospheric chemists like Lovelock (Gaia Hypothesis, along with Lynn Margulis) and even physicists like Gell-Mann ("The quark and the jaguar") to see a massive shift in thinking. All of these writers are holistic thinkers.

Mind you, they use the language of reductionism to both define the limits of what can be formally stated and at the same time clearly demonstrate the real limits that formal analysis imposes on what lies outside of its reach.

Thanks to it being a so-called NP-complete problem, you can't 100% accurately predict the weather in two weeks time, but you can say, with a lot of supporting math, that all the air in our atmosphere won't be on the far side of the universe in two weeks time. Similarly, its fair to say you can't accurately predict, say, the HIV infection rate of a given population in ten years time, but you can, through formal knowledge of the disease, say that everybody won't be dead and that a proportion will be unaffected by it.

This illustrates both the useful bounding effect of formal analysis and its capacity to recognise its own limitations. One can be both reductionist and holistic at the same time.

[Clutch Munny]

If for 'quibbling' and 'not be helpful' we substitute 'factual accuracy' and 'lethal to my various assertions', respectively, what you say here is unimpeachable. Hey Clutch...lighten up cobber. I said above why I delayed responding, why wasn't that acceptable?

No, what you said was that responding to my observations would "take the thread into quibbling and that would not be helpful". That's not explaining a delay in responding.

the "nonsense" to which experimenters hold. It was named...'objectivity'.
Why did you suppose that experimental scientists are so hung up on repeatability? I think this is a rhetorical question, yes?

I think you're evading the question, yes?

In fact it was not rhetorical, but even had it been -- why don't you actually respond to the point? Why go to the trouble of appearing to respond, without actually saying anything?

Just now can't see the context of 'reductionist comment'..however by its nature the CP (current paradigm) or Classic Science(CS) do reduce complexity to studyable parts..or variable. It is the nature of the beast and I can't understand why you'd object to use of 'reductionist.'

Let's set aside these unargued and unfathomable references to "CP" and "CS". The term 'reductionist' is highly ambiguous, and nothing you've said suggests any particular interpretation -- nor, indeed, that you're cognizant of the ambiguities. The definition you give above is uselessly vague, saying nothing whatever about science. (If a person is bleeding to death, and you bandage the part of the person that's bleeding, have you practiced "reductionist" medicine?)

Again: "experimental scientists, and the system of practices they apply, embody a carefully considered worry for the details of problems of subjectivity and variation in observing the world. Rehearsing some Science-Officer-Spock cultural stereotype, on the other hand, demonstrates no such careful consideration or grasp of detail."

[Hugo Holbling]

Where did you get your understanding of paradigms, onthedole?