> From: andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com>
> These were not the science-free ignoramuses of today's
> science studies crowd
bad luck in the timing of picking this particular week to repeat this rather dull slur on sociologists of science; Harry Collins of Cardiff University recently passed a version of the Turing Test for physicists; he submitted answers to seven questions on gravity waves which convinced a panel of independent judges that he was a physicist (and that the physicist who also submitted answers wasn't). He was able to do this because he's spent the last thirty years hanging around the gravitational waves community in order to carry out science studies on the sociology of new discoveries. I suppose this falls under the heading of "no true Scotsman" (which it does; he's a Welshman).
http://www.slate.com/id/2150974/fr/rss/
It is actually incredibly interesting, because it confirms a prejudice of mine; that it is possible to understand all of this science stuff at the highest level without going through the details of how to calculate the equations, as long as you keep a clear head and are prepared to apply yourself. Scientists aren't demigods and Master of Reality - they're just people who did a science degree. Lots of them seem to have very little understanding of the underlying science, as opposed to the manipulation of particular fashionable calculations; there are plenty of "science-free ignoramuses" holding down jobs in physics departments, just as the economics departments are chock full of people who don't know anything about economics.
best dd
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