Ian, you should really like this one.

[billydkid]

http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=39

"......But there is a new kind of animus that has become conventional wisdom in many universities over the past three decades. It goes by the name of perspectivism or situatedness or social constructionism . This view purports to show that science is neither universal nor peculiarly well equipped to arrive at the truth; that on the contrary it is local, Western, socially and culturally embedded, and therefore, merely one form of knowledge among many. Its claims of objectivity and dispassion are an illusion, rationality is window dressing for power, evidence a matter of negotiation and agreement, and truth an outdated metaphysical word that should be confined to the dustbin of history. Indeed, in this view science is not only no better at discovering the truth about the world than any other method, it is worse. Some epistemologies are more unequal than others. Science is crippled by its blind infatuation with reason, its foolish insistence on evidence before believing something, its tiresomely pedantic insistence on replicability, peer review, statistics, falsifiability, distinguishing correlation from causation, and all such nit-picky hair-splitting rules that impede a good imaginative hypothesis......"

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by billydkid
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=39

"......But there is a new kind of animus that has become conventional wisdom in many universities over the past three decades. It goes by the name of perspectivism or situatedness or social constructionism . This view purports to show that science is neither universal nor peculiarly well equipped to arrive at the truth; that on the contrary it is local, Western, socially and culturally embedded, and therefore, merely one form of knowledge among many. Its claims of objectivity and dispassion are an illusion, rationality is window dressing for power, evidence a matter of negotiation and agreement, and truth an outdated metaphysical word that should be confined to the dustbin of history. Indeed, in this view science is not only no better at discovering the truth about the world than any other method, it is worse. Some epistemologies are more unequal than others. Science is crippled by its blind infatuation with reason, its foolish insistence on evidence before believing something, its tiresomely pedantic insistence on replicability, peer review, statistics, falsifiability, distinguishing correlation from causation, and all such nit-picky hair-splitting rules that impede a good imaginative hypothesis......"

Isn't this postmodernism? They have some good insights, but they take it to far. Human nature you see. People have the propensity to take extreme positions. Thus on this topic people will either hold the view that science completely explains reality, and is the only tool we need (scientism), and on the other hand we get people who think that all truth is relative and witchcraft has as much validity as science etc.

I try to adopt a rational perspective and recognise that the reality of the situation is much more complex than the naive perspectives these 2 extreme views represent.