Daniel,

In your paper, you seem to be against the idea that science is a social construction. It is not an idea that can be totally rejected. There is a social aspect of science and there is personal aspects of science and also objective and universal aspects. Polanyi has fought the idea that science could be completely objective as Popper tried to establish. Polanyi argued that science is a system of belief that needs to be socially regulated by the scientific community in a responsible way.

Hi Daniel,

I took a look at your paper and stopped “dead in my tracks” when I read the following in your abstract:

“The analysis of these examples strongly suggests that demography NEEDS TO REMAIN FAITHFUL TO THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD whilst looking for new insights and inspirations.” (Emphasis Added.)

This made me lose my enthusiasm for plugging through the article because in my field, Sociology, all the problems start with remaining “faithful to the scientific method.” It is indeed the delusion that what we are going about is “making science” that causes us to commit the absolute worst of the “errors of thinking and judgment”; to-wit, the Idols of the Tribe (i.e., false assertions that the sense of man is the measure of things).

And, I mean to include demographers among sociologists because they are the most likely to be unknowingly influenced by their own backgrounds – personal histories, cultural biases, unrecognized prejudices, unrealized faulty assumptions, worldviews, inherited value systems, etc. -- when reporting on their “scientific findings” such as why “economic migrants” are entering a host country illegally.

Gwen

Hi Gwendolyn,

Your reaction about the use of a scientific method in sociology may be valuable and I was very interested by your reaction to my question. However the purpose of demography is different from the purpose of sociology. While working on a specific set of parameters (i.e. fertility, mortality and migration) we are trying to understand the basic form of growth, decline of stabilization of any given population. The power of demography is prediction not at the individual level but at the aggregate one, even if we use individual data. Such a predictive power leaves much of the social sciences aside because their focus is typically more on explanation than prediction. About prediction in demography, you can read the joint paper from Wolfgang Lutz on Demographic metabolism: a theory of socioeconomic change with predictive power, presented at the PAA 2013 meeting. Even if some of its theses may be open to criticism, it can show you the predictive power of demography in different areas.

I however wonder if you are accepting such approaches to social phenomena as behavioural genetics, postmodern theory, hereditarism and modern hermeneutics, as they may be also applied to sociology. This was the main point of my question.

Daniel

Daniel,

Thanks for the additional input; however, I don't find your arguments persuasive enough to alter my thinking as originally stated in my post. For one thing, I cannot accept your attempt to lift demography above the field of Sociology. A large segment of sociologists (myself included) are involved in Migration Studies, "demography" by another name. In short, I stand with my original statement that rather than being "saved" by the application of "scientific methods," sociologists (demographers included) are able to delude themselves into believing that they are not bowing down in worship before the Idols of the Tribe by touting what they are doing as engaging in "science."

Gwen

Yeah, what he said!

Gwen

Charles,

I was one of the many contributors who had already received your furious and religious arrows about the question: Is mathematics a human contrivance or is it innate to nature?

I did not answer to them as they were so confuse, but I will have here to recall the answer from H.E. Lehtihet about the very interesting discussion we had on the previous thread and on your attacks against many of us:

‘On the other hand, speaking of "well placed arrows", perhaps I should not complain too much considering that you have addressed your message, not only to me but also to several other contributors, including one who also happens to be the author of this thread, asking him in a way to respect ... himself’.

This answer was for me, and I think for all of us, sufficient to calm your wild delusions. So that I don’t think necessary to spend uselessly some time to answer to your new comments but only to see that you seem in perfect agreement with Gwendolyn…

Charles,

If you don’t know where to find the “book of the buddy Bacon”, as you call him, you can read it for nothing in original Latin:

http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/bacon.html

, or in English:

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/bacon/francis/organon/complete.html

There are evidently many other translations of this book in English, French, etc.

Daniel,

In your paper, you seem to be against the idea that science is a social construction. It is not an idea that can be totally rejected. There is a social aspect of science and there is personal aspects of science and also objective and universal aspects. Polanyi has fought the idea that science could be completely objective as Popper tried to establish. Polanyi argued that science is a system of belief that needs to be socially regulated by the scientific community in a responsible way.

Louis,

I never said in my paper that I am against the idea that science is a social construction, but only that Bacon tells us that scientific thinking may not be based on preconceived ideas, as well individual as social, but only on the analysis of what we observe. Some of these preconceived ideas may in fact be verified by the analysis, but we cannot use them in our research of a formal structure of the studied phenomena.

On the contrary, science will have to be a social construction when we try to confirm the advanced formal structure to the observed properties or to find that we need to revise it. It needs, as you say to be socially regulated by the scientific community in a responsible way. On this point I entirely agree with you.

Rohan,

Thank you for your reaction, but I think it is better to come back to the question about Baconian Idols or Phantoms, as Kitchin translated the Latin term in English?

The Idols of the Cave:

‘’He gave the example of chemists which out of few experiments of the furnace, have built up a fantastic philosophy, framed with reference to a few things.’’

A few years later it is exactly what Newton will do, he will build the whole structure of mechanics on three simple laws. Illustrating in a margistral way the power of the idol of the cave: the axiomatic method. The axiomatic method is based on the incredible fact that it is possible to explain a large amount of phenomena as consequences of a very small numbers well chosen simple facts. The idols of the cave is a very powerfull idol! We should pray this idol every day for helping us choosing these important facts under our eyes.

4. Idols of the market place : – idols which have crept into the understanding through the alliance of words and names.

Much before genetics, before modern scientific method emphasis on quantitative measurement came into being the word ‘’intelligence’’ had come into use.

intelligence (n.)

late 14c., "faculty of understanding," from Old French intelligence (12c.), from Latin intelligentia, intellegentia "understanding, power of discerning; art, skill, taste," from intelligentem (nominativeintelligens) "discerning," present participle of intelligere "to understand, comprehend," from inter- "between" (see inter-) + legere "choose, pick out, read" (see lecture (n.)).

As any word, it naturally comes into contact with other word and particularly with adjective and adverb and naturally sentences with expression such as :

Great intelligence, less intelligent, very intelligent, not intelligent, etc…

come into being in the social life and from there given the propency of human (especially men) to establish relations of power among them (power idol) , then comes in existence a notion of linear ranking of human along an intelligence scale. This will be evidently reinforced by the scientific measurement idol combines with the idol of the cave in making this hierarchy simple then it degenerates to become linear. Then comes into being a genetic theory combined with an biological evolutionary theory based on a survival of the fittest. The general economic insecurity of the 1930 createrd a powerful fear climate which push all the idols to reinforce each other to create a perfect storm and the ‘’science’’ of eugenic was created. In the 30’s, this was a meta idol wich has a lot to do with atrocities that will soon start on a large scale.

I am glad that some of the scientific work feeding the eugenic meta idols are being breaked down. But like any idol, this one can always reincarnate itself into another body. So lets keep on breaking them. Thank Daniel for doing some of this work.

Louis,

Thank you to put back the discussion on the right track, but this does not mean that I would agree with all the points you raised.

For the Idols of the cave, their power may be dangerous. I think that we must restrict to give them full audience as they may be also very misleading as the example of postmodern theory, I gave, shows it clearly. The example of Newton, you gave, is clearly a bad one. He described us his method which consist in:

‘making Experiments and Observation, and in drawing general Conclusions from them by Induction, and admitting of no Observations against the Conclusions, but such are taken from Experiments, or other certain Truths. For Hypotheses are not to be regarded in experimental Philosophy.’

The last sentence is clearly against the Idols of the cave. The induction method he proposes is exactly the same as proposed by Bacon. This ‘induction’ consists in discovering a system’s principle from the study of its properties, by way of experiment and observation, and is not the one put forward by John Stuart Mill as a generalization from particular facts, which is familiar to us.

For the Idols of the market place, I entirely agree with you and I think that they will unfortunately reincarnate themselves into another body and that we always have to keep on breaking them.

Manuel,

Your papers contrary to Bacon’s thoughts are very confusing and your conclusions are in fact finally unexplained. Like Dagan Pavlovic, Barry Turner, and many others, for the question asked by Derek Abott on Is mathematics a human contrivance or is it innate to nature? and your answers to it which are very near to your answer to my own question, I will say that it is necessary to make clear what you want to say in order to discuss a precise point.