Twitching
As B and W gets ever more popular, I find myself cringing at times. So many right-wing blogs seem to like us. Fortunately so do a lot of left-wing ones, as well as less-politically-classifiable ones, but all the same, I do cringe. But as my colleague likes to remind me, the left has only itself to blame (or, when he’s being ruder, it serves the left right). If they will insist on being woolly, if they will insist on ignoring evidence they don’t like – then they’re just giving away ammunition, that’s all. The more leftish voices there are trying to keep the left honest, the better, and if that’s a gift to the right too, so be it.
But then again. It’s not always quite that simple. People do have agendas, after all, and can use evidence for their own purposes. So I do cringe, and hesitate, and doubt, and ponder, sometimes when I find an article on a site belonging to the Cato Institute, or the American Enterprise Institute, or the Competitive Enterprise Institute (we should start calling ourselves the Butterflies and Wheels Institute, I think, it sounds so much more important). Getting the facts right is one thing, and using them to try to make a case for profit as the ultimate decider of every question is quite another. But then I shake the water out of my ears and remember that if the article is good on its own terms, if it makes its case, I should link to it and let readers draw their own conclusions. So that’s what I do – cringing all the while.
My colleague’s colleague (Julian Baggini) talks about this in an article at Open Democracy.
But it would be as wrong to dismiss Bradley’s claims because of their provenance as it would be to accept them because of a prior commitment to free trade. Bradley backs up his claims with plenty of evidence, and some of his recommendations are as eco-friendly as any green could wish…But there is little chance of Bradley or Beckerman getting a sympathetic hearing from greens or their leftist allies. This isn’t just because of willful narrow-mindedness. The problem is that there is a wider ideological war going on and in war, propaganda is more valuable than the truth. What people say is not as important as how their words will be used.
That’s just it, you see. How will the words be used. But then if that worry becomes a reason to hide or dismiss or ignore or conveniently ‘forget’ evidence or arguments that we don’t like – the result is obvious. Everyone will be systematically lying all over the place and any hope of getting policies based on reality instead of wishful thinking is gone.
Our ideological enemy’s enemy is our ideological friend; loyalty to a position, deserved or not, blinds us to the merits of our opponent’s case…A tract like Bradley’s can be readily dismissed – since it emanates from a free-marketeer, ‘he would say that’. But this game can be played on both sides: when greens dismiss Bradley’s thesis, the neo-liberals can just as easily say ‘they would say that’. Yet we should judge arguments on the basis of their premises and reasoning, not on the predictability of their conclusions.
He’s right you know. The other way only leads to Down the memory-hole. We’ll just have to get used to the odd cringe.
I think it is an interesting point, OB. For what it is worth, even though I greatly admire your site I’d still have some criticisms of it. For instance, while I believe you when you say you are left wing, I don’t think that B&W is in any meaningful way. For instance, I think you are essentially intolerant of religion and you are elitist (I know what you will make of that) in your views on education and popular culture. Your criticims of the abuses of “rights” and minority positions to deflect criticism barely acknowledges that the flip side of bigotry and racism exist. Perhaps you intend your abhorrence of discrimination to be understood? In which case, a change of context is all that is required to remove your leftist slant. Moreover, I think your distaste of sloppy thinking is sometimes a way for you dismiss opinions you see as extreme, even when they are tenable. Opposition to the Iraq war and GM crops spring to mind.
You see, while I agree that the left is in a poor state, I don’t think that the right does any better. And while the right is dominant in much of the first world, one can’t help feeling that you are choosing easy targets. Easy targets that cannot cause your content to be associated with the left wing.
Apologies if that sounds harsh. If it is any consolation, I am a devoted reader.
I’d like to point out that your “Science Studies” article is, even by the standards of the genre, outrageously bad.
What you claim Hayles to be saying, she does not in fact say. It’s not even close. I’m embarrassed for you, frankly. I can only assume that your implied reader is so swayed by the general silliness of what she happens to believe that “science studies” is about that she doesn’t feel compelled to actually read the quotations.
Your sober assessment of Higher Superstition as “witty and eloquent and lucid beyond the wildest dreams of their literary opponents” is, I’ll just say, another datum for taste not being disputable.
I’m not sure what the audience for your blog is, or what in general you seek to accomplish; but while it’s no secret that a lot of pretentious and often silly work has been done investigating the interconnections of science, sociology, and literature, ill-informed denunciations (what you write about Shapin and Schaffer’s book shows that you either didn’t read it or didn’t understand it–same goes, mutatis mutandis for Gross & Levitt) aren’t going to do much to encourage understanding of the very real issues at stake.
“And the pigeons have still not recovered from the shock of that particular cat.” This is awful in at least two ways: 1) very few people in the field (but of course this bears no weight since they’re all fools) have taken Gross & Levitt’s book seriously, except as a symptom of funding anxieties in early 90s (of which Weinberg’s The Search for a Final Theory is the best example). 2) The sentence-in-itself.
Armando,
Well I’m not sure B and W is particularly intended to be left wing in any meaningful way. You’re absolutely right that I’m intolerant of religion – but I don’t take that to be necessarily a non-left wing stance. I can think of one or two leftists in history who were not notorious for their tolerance of religion. As for ‘elitism’, you’re certainly right that people tell me that, but I don’t know what they mean by the word, frankly. Thinking something is better than something else? That’s all it ever seems to mean. If that’s elitist, then yes, I’m elitist. I think that, oh, I don’t know, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is better and funnier than, say, Rush Limbaugh.
No, actually, I’m not at all opposed to extremism. That’s one charge I do dispute. If there’s anything I don’t aspire to be, it’s ‘mainstream’. I like extremism. It’s silliness I can’t abide, also dishonesty.
I don’t think the right does any better either, with the possible exception (in the US at least) of education, where wool is really piled high. On many many subjects I think the right does a hell of a lot worse. Our particular beat is lefty error, that’s all. One follows one’s bent.
And the targets may be easy, but what of that? They’re there, after all.
Chun,
Thanks for the comments, I’m glad you’ve been enjoying yourself. No, I don’t know why you would be sure what the audience for the site (it’s not a blog, by the way) is, or what we’re trying to accomplish (though you could have read about the latter in ‘About B and W’). I can tell you the audience for the site is large, and enthusiastic, and well-supplied with people who write good articles for us, but beyond that it’s a mystery. But in any case please don’t bother feeling embarrassed for us. That must be so uncomfortable for you, and it’s so entirely unnecessary. Thanks for the thought though.
I did read the “about” section. This here, what I’m commenting on, is it a blog? A web log? A web journal? Peer-reviewed journal?
The reason I’m embarrassed for the author of that particular essay (and whoever among you decided to print it) is that, as I indicated, it’s very bad. I’d be very interested in hearing the author or whomever defend the description of the Hayles quotation or the so-uncritical-as-to-be-fellatory citations of Gross & Levitt (the sleepy nod that they, perhaps, might be a bit too hasty in their generalizations about feminism was another favorite bit).
Rush Limbaugh’s audience is even larger and more enthusiastic, but I doubt that you would use that as an example of the correctness of his views.
I think there’s a lot of interest that can be said about the academic study of science, and I think it would be great if your site did (as advertised) that; but it most certainly does not.
I could debate with you endlessly I suspect, OB. But this is your space and there is a point at which criticism becomes impolite.
I find B&W increasingly useful as a source of links and opinions to subjects I am interested in. I can only imagine that will continue.
“Opposition to the Iraq war and GM crops spring to mind.”
Speaking for myself, it isn’t so much the positions which some leftists take on these issues which are irritating, it is the *reasons* which lead them to take these positions.
The Iraq War and GM crops are excellent examples of this. The left is irritating on the Iraq War because it so often fails to recognise that there is a prima facie case for toppling a barbaric regime, even if one’s conclusion in the end is that it isn’t justified.
Similarly with GM crops. Ed Wilson has the correct view, in my opinion. It might turn out that we don’t want to make too much of GM crops, but at the moment the balance of the evidence doesn’t justify this conclusion. The trouble with radical greens is that they start with the conclusion (i.e., that GM crops are bad) and then seek out the evidence.
Chun,
“is it a blog? A web log? A web journal? Peer-reviewed journal?”
Why so anxious about the label? Of course it’s not a peer-reviewed journal, nor does it claim to be. What an odd question. B and W is what it looks like – an Internet resource: part portal, part blog, part magazine, part less-classifiable thing.
Yes, I got the part about bad. You did as you say ‘indicate’ that – or rather, you asserted it. The part I don’t get is not your opinion about the badness, but why you should feel any embarrassment. Another odd reaction. You don’t know us, why should you feel embarrassed? I don’t feel embarrassed for you, for example. Why would I? I don’t know you. (To spell it out for you, since it seems necessary, I don’t actually think you are embarrassed for us, I think that’s a rather lame and over-familiar piece of rhetoric.)
I didn’t say the size of our audience was ‘an example’ (odd word to use – I suppose you meant ‘evidence’) of the correctness of our views, I was simply offering a few facts in answer to your stated lack of knowledge about our audience.
I wrote the essay. The Hayles quotation is there; anyone can read it and judge it; no one needs to take my word for it. As for Levitt and Gross – what, you want me to defend my failure to share your opinion of them? Sorry. You’ve done nothing to defend your own assertions, you’ve merely shouted a lot.
“Yet we should judge arguments on the basis of their premises and reasoning, not on the predictability of their conclusions.”
Is it just me that thinks that while this is the ideal, in practice things can be a little different. I find that on a range of issues, from the environment to GM foods it is simply too difficult to decide between two equally well argued and seemingly well supported theses and I often resort to crude labelling and motivation questioning. While it is sometimes possible to detect suspicious rhetorical tricks and bending of evidence often those arguing for something you agree with, and have independent and sound reasons to believe, use questionable logic and dodgy evidence. When the questions become very finely balanced and depends on more subtle and nuanced reading of the evidence you really need to become quite expert in the field to reach a satisfactory conclusion – the only alternative is to rely on factors outside the evidence and argument, from the perceived trustworthiness of the source and beyond – and for many of the articles linked to by butterflies and wheels I find this to be the case.
To take an example on something I’ve banged on about before, I’m currently reading Richard Bentall’s ‘Madness Explained’ and Peter Breggin’s ‘Toxic Psychiatry’ – both argue that psychiatry, and particularly ‘biological psychiatry’ are flawed approaches to mental health. Breggin’s book is fairly obviously polemic interspersed with randomly selected facts that fit his story while Bentall’s account of what he perceives as some of the failings of medical psychiatry is much more measured and deploys scientific evidence in a much less partial way. To take the other side, the kind of definitive pronouncements that ‘schizophrenia is a chemical imbalance in the brain’ or suchlike on behalf of the psychiatric and scientific establishment are disingenuous readings of a contradictory field. But my point is that, in my judgement, you could take the exact same evidence as presented by Bentall in his book and rearrange it to provide an argument in the opposite direction – in fact there is one point where he uses almost identical statistics to reject one set of theories and to accept another set. It seems that when arguments are this nuanced deploying evidence in support of your thesis becomes just another sort of rhetoric.
PM,
Oh sure, definitely. I think I’ve droned about that in N&Cs more than once. In the case of Lomborg, for example. I certainly don’t know enough about the subject to judge it myself. So all I could do was try to present the case, by looking in science magazines rather than political ones – rely on authority, in short. Scientists themselves (as they will freely tell you) have to rely on authority outside their own fields. And so it goes.
Which of course is not to say that anything goes. Just that it’s all very difficult. Truth is hard to find because it’s at the bottom of a well, as Xenophanes or some such fella said.
I’ve written a longer piece about this here, which I’d encourage any interested reader to check out.
For now, I’d like to look more closely at the Hayles quotation. You write, “We see N. Katherine Hayles claim that the Zeitgeist did Einstein’s work for him:” And then quote
I think there’s a lot that you can argue with about what Hayles writes in this book (and this passage), but she does not subscribe to the crude historicism you attribute to her. Her first claim cannot be contradicted unless you accept that it is not significant within the hypothesis of relativity and logical positivism being attempts to “ground representation in non-contigent metadiscourse” that the most important work in these areas appeared before WWI. You disagree about the validity of her description, but it’s not an argument that can be assertively dismissed (ahem) by an appeal to the Zeitgeist. The next sentence states uncontroversial facts. The final statement follows from her earlier hypothesis: it is uncontroversial that public distrust of propaganda (and thus all “official discourse) was higher after WWI.
Hayles is not saying that the these scientific advancements were caused by changing public opinion, but rather that the reception of them was affected. This is not your strawman version.
All of your examples are borrowed from Gross & Levitt, so it’s really they who deserve most of the criticism. I’d recommend Michael Flower’s review in Contemporary Sociology (24.1 Jan 1995) for a more detailed account of the problems with the book.
Chun
But she says:
“and logical positivism had its heyday in the closing decades of the nineteenth century.”
And that’s complete bollocks. Here’s the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy on logical positivism:
“Logical positivism originated in Austria and Germany in the 1920s.”
I can only assume that she is confusing the work of people like Comte and Durkheim with logical positivism, but it is such an amateur mistake that she loses all credibility.
And frankly, the fact that you didn’t notice the mistake doesn’t do a lot for your credibility. I hope you’re not a social science student…
She’s, as obvious in context (even in the context of the quote, not the book itself, which its safe to assume that the author of the original piece, Gross & Levitt, and 99% of the readers of this site have never read), referring to Russell & Whitehead, Frege, and Hilbert. What label you choose to affix to their program is more of a matter of pedantry (and less, the Vienna circle had different ambitions, etc.–still irrelevant to the actual point) rather than engagement with her actual argument (which, again, I think is more than debatable–but there’s no effort to do so in the article in question).
Sorry Chun, but this is just nonsense. Nobody thinks Russell, Whitehead, Frege, etc., are logical positivists (though, of course, they influenced LP).
And anyway, Hayles talks about logical positvism as having its heyday at the *end of the nineteenth century*. It’s just rubbish.
Stop making a fool of yourself.
Jerry
Well, Jerry, I don’t mean to be a pedant, but we’ve already noted that Hayles does.
The argument you’re making is equivalent to me saying that you don’t know English because you don’t know the difference between “somebody” and “nobody.”
Err – no. If you are for instance speaking as a linguist and discussing the subtle points of indefinite pronouns, then if you don’t know the difference between ‘somebody’ and ‘nobody’ you’ve disqualified yourself. Since Hayles is talking about ideas and their relation to their period, her mistake is more than just incidental.
(You know – you don’t write very clearly, or very precisely either, for someone who sets up to critique other people’s writing. ‘we’ve already noted that Hayles does’. Really, now!)
I know better than to use “critique” as a synonymy for “criticize.” You know who else doesn’t? Literary theorists.
The previous correspondent wrote that “nobody thinks that [pedantic irrelevance],” when we had “already noted that Hayles does.”
Chun
“Nobody thinks Russell, Whitehead, Frege, etc., are logical positivists”
But I don’t think that Hayles did think this. It doesn’t make sense. Russell did most of his work at the beginning of the twentieth century, for example.
I think that she was talking about *positivism* (rather than logical positivism), which did have its heyday at the end of the nineteenth century.
OB,
I probably shouldn’t, but since you make this point quite frequently, I thought I’d respond to,
“As for ‘elitism’, you’re certainly right that people tell me that, but I don’t know what they mean by the word, frankly.”
I don’t know about others, but I mean that your concern for education, for instance, is largely to do with maintaining the standards of what was and still is education for a minority. Facing growing student numbers, we should expect education to change, not be framed around the concerns of only the top achievers (who also tend to be the most financially privileged).
In popular culture, you are free to think that one book is better than another. Complaining about some best seller which you think is inadequate rather misses the point that lots of people don’t read at all. You seem more concerned that they should read something you like, than that they should read at all.
I’d call you elitist because so many of your points are written from the point of view of an educationally (and otherwise) privileged elite, which sees the world in terms of the equally privileged. Not that there is anything wrong with being part of that elite, just that one should be aware of it as a minority.
No, on the contrary, Armando, you should, I was going to ask you to. I really was and am curious.
Okay, why should we expect education to change because we are facing growing numbers? What should we expect it to change to? Why do you think it’s only the top achievers who need to learn whatever it is they’re learning now?
Those are also not rhetorical questions; I’m really interested.
I’ve seen that argument a lot, and it’s been around a long time, at least in the US. It was behind a major change in US educational policy early in the 20th century. But I utterly fail to see how it can be considered non-elitist. I think what’s non-elitist is to maintain that what is good enough for the people on top is good enough for everyone.
Your point about the best seller and non-readers. So – what? Talking about books makes one an elitist? Do you really think that?
Of course I am aware that I have more education than a lot of people – though I also have less than a lot of people. Why, there are ‘elitists’ who refuse to talk to people who have fewer than two degrees, and who save their real conversational prowess for people with three! But does having a BA automatically make one an elitist?
And then there’s the issue of the conflation of education with privilege. Education is a kind of privilege, to be sure, but it doesn’t quite follow that education and [class] privilege are one and the same. And the conflation of the two leads all too easily to anti-intellectualism.
Let me sum up my position. I think education and knowledge and intellectual curiosity and open-ended learning are absolute goods, that they’re good for everyone, that the right way to achieve equality is to educate everyone equally well, not to educate everyone equally badly. I hate to say it but what you’re saying seems to me to imply the latter.
Big questions there, OB.
Why should education change when broadened? One reason is that one is likely to broaden, in a pejorative sense, the ability range and educational attainments (if we are concerned with higher education) of the student intake. To insist that standards stay the same is at odds with wanting the intake to broaden.
An important point to note here is that education really is affected by class and wealth. I don’t equate the two, but it is hardly “anti-intellectual” to notice the correlation. Part of the effect (in the UK which I know about best, but I think the point holds more generally) is that the prior narrow intake of students correlated with those students who went to better schools, and that same correlation still exists.
So what do you do with bright students from poor backgrounds, with possibly poor schooling? Is it fair to have, for instance, a high failure rate when students have to pay for education and the poorest may be disproportionately discouraged?
One answer is to reform the school system so that better schools don’t exist. A rather more realistic answer is to accomodate the new students by spending more time teaching basic skills.
So while I do believe that what is good enough for the top achievers is good enough for everyone I think this is, at best, naive. Unless one protests at least as hard for increased funding, one is essentially calling for a de facto entrenchment of a class system in education. And what of those people who are unable to meet the highest standards? I think they deserve an education too. Realistically, taking reasons of finance and skills base into account, it doesn’t make sense but to send many of them to current Unis. Unless, of course, we decide to spend a lot less on them.
So does that mean I want to educate everyone equally badly? Yes, if it is the only politically viable way to educate the many. Skills that people really need to know will be learnt and the high achievers will achieve – I worry about those who might not be educated at all.
Well so do I, Armando. Really I do. But for one thing I’m not just talking about ‘skills’ – I’m not talking about an instrumental version of education, at least not exclusively. I’m talking about real education, for everyone.
And for another thing I’m not talking about ‘standards’ – it’s a word I detest, and I strongly doubt you’ve ever seen me use it. So…I’m not sure you don’t have a straw person here. Could you be thinking I’m saying things that I’m not in fact saying?
But either way, thanks for the elucidation, this whole subject really is one I want to get more understanding of, and you’re helping.
“One answer is to reform the school system so that better schools don’t exist.”
Why not do the very opposite, and enhance the differences between schools? Kind of like how they sometimes ‘stream’ classes (at least that’s what we call it in New Zealand, i dunno if US/UK are the same, but i mean when you have different classes to which students are allocated, based on their ability), just on a bigger scale.
Allocate students to different schools, based on their ability (assessed from general aptitude tests or something). That way, you can teach the basics to those who need it, without holding back the more able students.
It’s terribly un-PC, i know, but still… inequality in itself is not a bad thing. If you could either educate everyone to the same, mediocre, level, OR educate some to that very level, and others to an even higher level… surely the latter option is preferable?
Even though it’s less “equal”?
Of course, i’m sure this plan has a million and one problems which render it totally impractical. It’s more the *idea* i’m getting at.
Teaching to the ‘bottom’ is as unfair on the able students as teaching to the ‘top’ is on the less able students.
If it is naive to think we bring up all the bottom students to the top level, and undesirable to pull the top students down… teaching the two groups separately seems to be the only decent option remaining.
Ophelia,
I mean “skills” broadly, I don’t think the specifics affect my argument. And I wasn’t consciously using the word “standard” as a slur, it just seemed like a fair and accurate way to summarise your position.
I still think B&W should have a message board to debate these things.
Richard: Streaming is ok, but is seen as socially divisive. Not without cause, in my opinion.
Armando, no, I didn’t think you meant it as a slur, I was just disavowing the word ‘standards’ on my own account.
You have a point about the message board. We have an offer to set one up on another site. I might decide to accept the offer, if things go on being this busy.
You sum up my position in your last two sentences, really.
‘Streaming is ok, but is seen as socially divisive. Not without cause, in my opinion.’
Just so. I think that’s the essence of what I said in the In Focus on university admissions. There are benefits and harms on both sides of that debate, and I can’t unequivocally choose either side. That is, I can choose one, but then I’m stuck with very real and troubling misgivings and reservations. Not a very helpful stance, but at least a truthful one.
As a lowly moderator of a messageboard myself, I completely understand your reluctance to have a messageboard. Still…
As for the education question. This is a little simplistic (but ultimately, justifiable) but I think it is a choice between a socially divisive education of excellence and a broad based education which is as good as political will via resources allows it to be. No contest, in my mind, even if the short term effect is a slightly poorer quality of education.
Oh are you! A moderator, interesting. Yes, I do have some qualms on that score. As well as others.
Well, I’m afraid I think your formula on the education thing is too simplistic. And the ‘no contest’ view is just the kind of view I want to avoid – because it leaves too much out. I prefer discussions that acknowledge the drawbacks and benefits of both (or all) possibilities, rather than those in which partisans of either view pretend their preferred approach has no drawbacks at all. How can one have an honest discussion that way?
I agree about having an honest discussion but, to be fair, I did a reasonable job of outlining my position upstream there and my simplification is really a summary of what I see as the core of the issue.
Still, I see nothing wrong with thinking that an issue is clear cut. Seeing all the benefits and drawbacks does not prevent a conclusion that one view is much better than another. You may not agree with me, but I’m expressing my own evaluation rather than trying to stifle debate.
You’re right. I was actually thinking that yesterday, after I got off the computer. Thought to myself, wait a minute, what am I saying? That one can never pick one side or another? Just because I see problems either way doesn’t mean that everyone has to. So I concede the point.