> bill fancher said:
>
>> That the suggestion to push this theory on the list was to have been
>> secret, so as to have it appear that "We (the marxist tradition)"
>> was not behind the effort, illustrates the sort of political methods
>> that I find reprehensible.
>
> this seems like the type of argument more appropriate to the
> witchhunts of Sen. McCarthy back in the 50's.
>
I objected to backroom maneuvering to direct public discussion to lines more
congenial to a given ideological position, i.e. to a political tactic.
Imputing McCarthyism based on a percieved hostility to Marxism is another political tactic that I object to.
> For the Congressional Record, Carrol tries to be quite careful about
> the scientific statements he makes on e-lists (in my experience). He
> likes to get confirmation of ideas from people he knows works in
> related scientific fields. so he writes off-list to check his
> thoughts.
>
> the notion that he's doing this as some kind of secret conspiracy to
> shower well-heeled-marxist scientific propaganda on the unsuspecting
> leftists on the lbo-talk list is ridiculous.
>
>> The idea that we should espouse scientific theories based on whether
>> they lend support to an ideology, rather than their conformity to
>> facts, expanatory usefulness, and conceptual simplicity is one that
>> I find repellant.
>
> whats so wrong with seeing whether edelman's views on neural darwinism
> jibe with a marxist view of social relations? its an fascinating line
> of thought it seems to me. i can't imagine what you have against
> it. do you see this brew of neural darwinism and marxism something
> like racist's use of genetic research for its own ideological
> purposes? i believe you can;t make that argument here.
>
To the extent that racists epsouse "scientific racism" because it supports
their ideology, regardless of the truth of "scientific racism", I think
Carrol's position here is quite similar.
As for Edelman's views, I have no objection to a discussion of their possible merits. What I do object to is the attempt to dismiss a scientific theory with broad emirical support on ideological grounds and to turn the discussion elsewhere.
Since the theory in question has languished for 40 years as the result of just such maneuvering, and millions have suffered needlessly in the interim, this is not merely an academic issue.
> Lots of times, when new scientific theories and techniques (its pretty
> rare that a whole new line of theory actually emerges) comes into the
> larger scientific and popular conciousness, people sit around and
> "play" with it, see what its made of, how is it relevant to what their
> work is, how does it look and feel philosphically, epistomologically
> (sp???). what can it do, not do???
>
True, but irrelevant as far as I can tell.
> in this light, your criticism of Carrol seems empty to me.
>
> les schaffer
-- bill
p.s. While this didn't seem worthy of a separate post, in an earlier discussion you described Cantor's function as "a function which is a constant (flat) almost everywhere on the interval 0 to 1, yet manages to rise from 0 to 1 in the same interval."
Didn't you omit the very thing that makes Cantor's function so remarkable? (Hint: f(0) = 0, f(x) = 1 for x>0 fits your description.) That you subsequently referred to "qualitative leaps" in the function makes me suspect that the omission was due to misapprehension rather than oversight.