January 6th, 2011 / 11:20 am
Power Quote
Lily Hoang
Power Quote
Geography Thursday #I lost count
“Science is not about verification, it is about falsification. And science is therefore the art of being precisely wrong!” -David Livingstone, The Geographical Tradition: Episodes in the History of a Contested Enterprise
Tags: Livingstone, science
You can use a pithy phrase to reduce anything to zero.
Reminds me of Bacon’s essay on the origin of error, but not in a good way. It amazes me how the rhetoric improves, but the will to reductionism remains. Also amazes me that any prestigious professor would say this in the post-Popper era.
Negation is not about being right or wrong; it’s simply about falsifiability–nothing else.
I don’t understand the purpose of citing this quote. Is it some type of pledge of allegiance to science? One of those cryptic statements of worldview? A shameful confusion over the expression which you conceal by citing it, as if a teacher chalking up a final exam question on the blackboard? All of the above. The subtext of your post & the structures of thought which surround it are all weak-gruel. Isn’t this the big time? Are you choking on stage? Performance anxiety? This shit’s weak.
Khakjaan- This particular statement was in agreement with Popper, actually. And why would I not cite it? What is the value/purpose in that?
Are you saying HTML Giant is “the big time”?
The quote is absolutely true – Science does not look to prove something (when it does it is bad science) but to disprove everything around the premise.
Lily, I guess you’ve made it to the big time! is your next stop Oprah or Disney?
I was trying to think of something/one bigger than Oprah but I couldn’t. Mars, maybe?
Livingstone is obviously using the word “wrong” as a playful synonym for “false,” you moron.
When I read this I thought “Oprah needs a planet”… then I realized “Earth is Oprah’s planet”.
i was also thinking how playful ‘precisely’ seems there too.
‘Wrong’ is a judgment. ‘False’ is an observation.
I’m not surprised you can’t differentiate one from the other. The word ‘wrong’ is theory-laden and its use is pernicious.
Sure is if you consider your webstats & compare to APR’s circulation.
The statement was not in agreement w/ Popper. From Page 49 of Karl Popper’s _In Search of A Better World_: “1. There are no ultimate sources of knowledge [notice he doesn’t negate the concept of knowledge, just the idea of a source of it–the OPPOSITE of Livingstone’s argument]. Every source, every suggestion, is welcome; but every source, every suggestion, is also open to critical examination… 2. The proper questions of epistemology are not actually concerned with sources at all; rather, we ask whether an assertion is true–that is to say, whether it agrees with the facts.” And as for my favorite part “5. Knowledge cannot start from nothing–from the tabula rasa–nor yet from observation. The advance of our knowledge consists in the modification and the correction of earlier knowledge.”
I object to Livingstone’s predicate statement, which I see as a self-serving bit of crap that reduces the complexity of both epistemology & scientific method. It is charged with the language of judgment.
I would think if you were going to cite a real thinker on science, you’d use Gould, Kuhn, Popper–you know, someone who isn’t some mindless drone/cheerleader for the discipline. I find the whole Dawkins Atheist Politburo to be untrustworthy & am surprised you just let Livingstone have his intellectually dishonest statement (which he couches in a knowing tone so he may purport to be a centrist voice on the topic, when in fact, he is making a statement that would provoke and inflame supposed ideological allies–which is why I say there is the flavor of a Stalinist purge to his quote & your cite of it) without challenging it.
I won’t even get into how dishonest I find this sort of method of dialectic to be, even though it’s a worthy topic, because I don’t think I’ll find an intellectually honest interlocutor on this thread.
Like I said, he is using is as a *playful* synonym.
*it
You are simply misreading the quote. He states “Science … is about falsification,” and then he restates the same in a playful way. Do you not see this? There is no value judgement implied in the word “wrong” here. He is trying (and perhaps failing, although his use of “precisely” is vaguely humorous) to be funny.
I thought this quote was nice.
Oh man…”Stalinist purge…”
Add this to another day I am glad I’m not a geography theorist, though I do think they could break black bread with us CW folks–neither know our purposes, aims, or direction.
Am the only one wanting to blanket this thread with stanley jokes?
bring it, sean.
for the record, i’m also glad to be a “CW folk” as opposed to a geography theorist. and novels are much more fun to read than geography texts. i’ll take proust over harvey any day, except tomorrow, when i have to read harvey. (that’s a lie. tomorrow, i am reading the situationists on psychogeography.)
Your logic = fail. You being completely oblivious to the cues in the text that he’s attempting to couch his supposed witticism (cop out for sloppy thinking) with the language of rigorous logic? Now THAT is humor.
Amazing how easy it is to find some academic bootlicker who mistakes his obsequiousness for intelligence.
you don’t get laid often do you?
Shortly before the first (of eight) “theses” (“1. There are no ultimate sources.”; emph. mine), Popper writes:
Popper does not “negate […] the idea of a source of [knowledge]”. He denies the existence of “ultimate sources” of knowledge, while, in those same “theses”, identifying “tradition” as the locus of most “sources” of “scientific knowledge” – tentative “sources”, awaiting “critical examination”. The distinction between “ultimate” and “tentative” is Popper’s own; he does not abandon the idea of sources of knowledge.
In addition, Popper equivocates – in my view, with scarce ‘intellectual honesty’ – in his use of the word “source(s)” in that chapter.
In “theses” 1., 2., 3., and 4., when writing about “sources” of knowledge, Popper is explicitly talking of “historical” “sources”, not epistemic “sources” – that is, “sources” to be found in the history of “facts”, not in “facts” themselves.
In “thesis” 6., Popper switches to talk of “other sources” and “main sources” of “theories” in the sense of their epistemic provenance.
Khakjaan, in addition to confusing “ultimate” with ‘provisional’, have you also confused “source” in the epistemic sense with Popper’s use (in “thesis” 1.) of “sources” of knowledge in the historical sense?
tinyurl.com/2c7p8hm
“If we thus admit that there is no authority beyond the reach of criticism to be found within the whole province of our knowledge, however far we may have penetrated into the darkness, then we can retain, without risk of dogmatism, the idea that truth itself is beyond all human authority.” (p50)
Popper is talking about the epistemic method (which is the lecture pivots on Carnap)(p45). Livingstone is flippantly saying that we can’t know anything, just build better ‘wrong’ models. It’s an ignorant statement (his, not yours) and I’m sick of scientists playing amateur philosopher without major challenges from the people who should be challenging them.
I didn’t exactly ignore the whole ‘knowledge is embodied’ argument, I was rather, trying to illustrate that Livingstone & Popper are on opposite ends of this epistemic debate. I obviously don’t think it’s an issue of splitting hairs & it appears neither do you or you wouldn’t have replied w/ thoughtful effort.
Anyhow, you overreach w/ your argument, as I made no claims about ultimate knowledge. I merely stuck to Popper’s method & negated Livingstone’s statement. As far as I can tell, animus drives the 2nd half of your response, as I made no claims which address his tangential argument (which he himself parses before offering his epistemic checklist). I think if you read him carefully, you’d see that the method is the ‘source’ of knowledge (that’s how he treats it… unless you’re saying speech acts can contradict the contents of speech & still be valid)–but even that’s disposable.
Anyhow, ‘wrongness’ is a concept of judgment–theistic leftovers that keep the medieval concept of God, but without the God (objectivity, etc). I think it was pretty obvious what use of ‘source’ I intended.
ps: very good! You use helter skelter quotes in lieu of rebuttal. Petty AND obscurantist.
“If we thus admit that there is no authority beyond the reach of criticism to be found within the whole province of our knowledge, however far we may have penetrated into the darkness, then we can retain, without risk of dogmatism, the idea that truth itself is beyond all human authority.” (p50)
Popper is talking about the epistemic method (which is the lecture pivots on Carnap)(p45). Livingstone is flippantly saying that we can’t know anything, just build better ‘wrong’ models. It’s an ignorant statement (his, not yours) and I’m sick of scientists playing amateur philosopher without major challenges from the people who should be challenging them.
I didn’t exactly ignore the whole ‘knowledge is embodied’ argument, I was rather, trying to illustrate that Livingstone & Popper are on opposite ends of this epistemic debate. I obviously don’t think it’s an issue of splitting hairs & it appears neither do you or you wouldn’t have replied w/ thoughtful effort.
Anyhow, you overreach w/ your argument, as I made no claims about ultimate knowledge. I merely stuck to Popper’s method & negated Livingstone’s statement. As far as I can tell, animus drives the 2nd half of your response, as I made no claims which address his tangential argument (which he himself parses before offering his epistemic checklist). I think if you read him carefully, you’d see that the method is the ‘source’ of knowledge (that’s how he treats it… unless you’re saying speech acts can contradict the contents of speech & still be valid)–but even that’s disposable.
Anyhow, ‘wrongness’ is a concept of judgment–theistic leftovers that keep the medieval concept of God, but without the God (objectivity, etc). I think it was pretty obvious what use of ‘source’ I intended.
ps: very good! You use helter skelter quotes in lieu of rebuttal. Petty AND obscurantist.
You like to hang around conversations you don’t understand, don’t you?
You like to hang around conversations you don’t understand, don’t you?
I’m just saying if you had someone in your life that could give your turkey neck some care, you might not be so hostile.
lily posted a fucking quote and this is your response?
drain your balls and chill out.
That would be a nicely trenchant capsule of Popper’s slippery epistemology: slipperepistemology.
(I can’t stand Popper; I think he’s inartfully devious and his righteous belligerence a transparent concealment of his constant scrambling to cover his argument-ass. He’s the kind of conversation partner who has to be told what his arguments actually argue before he can figure out what point of view to defend.)
Khakjaan, I didn’t mention your “claims about ultimate knowledge”; I indicated how you’d gotten Popper’s ‘negation’ wrong.
To repeat: Popper does not “negate […] the idea of a source of [knowledge]” (your earlier statement). He denies that there are “ultimate sources” of knowledge, while acknowledging provisional, “historical” “sources” of knowledge.
He also uses the word “sources”, as in “sources” of knowledge, in two different ways in those “eight theses” – at least, as I read them.
Your insults, inaccurate though they be, are funny. It’s too bad your facility for picking up invective isn’t matched by your analytical rigor.
Deadgod,
On one hand, it’s a delight to argue with someone who actually owns books & reads them carefully; on the other hand, it’s frustrating to respond to some of your points, because I think your most aggressive points are stretches at best–misreadings at bad… and willful misreadings at worst. Ok, I’ll just assume you blow a cloud of irritable smoke wherever you go–that’s what I do. I’ll assume you’ve intellectual honesty & just address your points.
1) Popper makes two general categories of knowledge–inherited knowledge (‘tradition’ in his use) and everything else. I didn’t ignore ‘tradition’ because I conflated it w/ the other form of knowledge–I ignored it because it wasn’t relevant to my posit & my use of half of Popper’s argument didn’t (in my opinion) undermine his whole stance.
2) Livingstone’s posit, as I said earlier, presupposes objectivity. Popper’s stance doesn’t.
3) Rewind & look at the Carnap questions he challenged: “How do you know that? What is the source of your assertion? What observations underlie your assertion?” (p45) He basically says below that most are satisfied with a very expanded version of ad vericundium: “The (often unconscious) metaphysical idea behind the question is one of a racially pure knowledge, an untainted knowledge, a knowledge which derives from the highest authority, if possible from God Himself, and which therefore incorporates the authority of an independent nobility.” This is _precisely_ Livingstone’s position, & it’s why I harped on the quote in the first place–it’s represents itself as something it’s not. It attempts to disarm a controversial claim with some supposed humor–which as you can see from the thread, served as a very effective red herring for willing dupes.
4) Maybe he is the kind of guy who doesn’t know what his arguments mean, but that’s because he approaches knowledge by negation, not by constructivism.
5) So I didn’t mix up the two categories of knowledge, I just dismissed one out of hand. We’re all very belligerent here, so I fully understand why you would think I did so. Remember where he talks about antitraditionalism being no more useful than traditionalism? So the arc of his rhetoric is to first negate the position traditionalism purports to represent & then he negates antitraditionalism. This leaves us with his method.
In short, I don’t really think you misread Popper, but I do think you were hoping I did. Just because he doesn’t call his method a dialectic of negation doesn’t mean it isn’t. Call it applied determinate negation if you want.
Hopefully we can reach some common ground here, I don’t really think you’re a dolt anymore–but I do think you’re bored & impatient & assume the worst of your interlocutors… not that you care. But this was fun. A good enemy is better than a good friend. I’ll hit the ball back again if you persuasively argue my position still has unaddressed weaknesses.
I’m just saying if you didn’t hang around conversations you don’t understand, you might not feel so insecure as to presume that everybody who threatens you needs to get laid.
That’s not what the quote says. That’s what you’d like for it to say.
Livingstone inserted the detritus of theism sans God and you gobbled it up, thinking it was an atheist sacrament.
I see you are paying close attention! You didn’t threaten me. Read above.
Seriously, try rubbing one out next time you feel like implying someone is a shitty human being for posting a quote.
If words have so little meaning to you, why do you hang out in a literary venue? Your speech act defies the content of your speech.
This is on your twitter: Applied more smackage at @htmlgiant. Learn my method, called: “Read Some Fucking Books And You’ll Be Right More Often You Oafish Jackass”
Do you talk like this to people face to face? You are rude.
Lily, remember the letter writing thing? You never wrote me back.
Because I do as I fucking please.
What don’t you understand tiny minded one?
The “cues in the text,” “the language of rigorous logic”? Are we reading the same quote? I am reading the quote right below the picture, the cute quote that isn’t really saying much of anything….
Oh, man, I owe three letters to people. I had a killer semester. Those letters are coming. Part of the pleasure in letters is waiting? (No, really, my apologies. I’m getting there, promise.)
I’m afraid so, JLN! All these fireworks for a petty, pithy quote, which, for the record (not that anyone asked), I disagree with. I put it up to start a conversation about science and “truth,” or, rather, science masquerading as truth (an old idea, sure). It’s a simple quote with a simple message. Quite frankly, I’m not sure what’s made people (or one person) so angry.
tinyurl.com/2c7p8hm
Because of all the possible quotes, you chose that one. Establishes (imo, see above) a false choice in a condescending manner. I’m sorry for thinking you cited it as a sly endorsement–as I said before, I’m very sensitive to the whole Dawkins Atheist Politburo.
Anyhow, it’s more fun to be antagonistic (with limits of course). Generates a more emotional discussion and that makes for a more intellectually honest one. We all know how to play A+ student in here (at least I hope we do), but that (imo) isn’t going to yield as much fruit as engaging an interlocutor’s emotions.
So don’t take it personally. I’m just irritable by nature.
tinyurl.com/2c7p8hm
I don’t like you jereme dean. i don’t like khakjaan wessington.
I don’t like you jereme dean. i don’t like khakjaan wessington.
This is the worst argument that I have paid attention to in a long time.
Worst because of the tone, pedantry, or do you think it’s sloppy?
When there are no emotional stakes, everybody plays for the best bon mot–like you for example. I oppose that sort of shit in general.
Yes, I do–notice how well practiced I am at it?
Literary salons like htmlgiant should deal with literature, not circle jerking (or its female equivalent). Feelings are a small price to pay for getting in a good conflict. I liked it that deadgod got in my face & brought his/her top game. Would I have gotten that sort of response if I was another cloying sycophant? No way.
Anyhow, where’s your writing? Am I rude, or are you just boring?
No, this point is being very rigorously argued. I can’t fault anyone there. It is a real demonstration of
the strengths that logic and analytic philosophy can bring to an argument.
I do feel, however, like one of the weaknesses of this strategy is that it literally strangles literature and artistic production. It strangles them and then it smothers them with a couple of pillows just in case there is any life left in them. And it delights in having made something that potentially could have affected us to think differently on a subject, into a cadaver. We have enough cadavers.
I really liked Lily’s quote because it was a kind of productive impasse, an aporia. It conveyed a feeling.
And then you tried to kill it. But Lily’s idea lives on in those of us who didn’t take first year philosophy and think it was the best that we could do. We kept reading.
Great points. I disagree, but that was a good response.
I think there’s a clash between language & reason and that bothers me, because language can be versatile but can also transmit bullshit. I think wit is often used when the writer can’t think of how to drive at the core of the concept s/he is investigating.
Scientists imposing their bad philosophy to epistemic method in general are dangerous. Livingstone’s quote has a ‘ha ha, I’m not accountable to you’ aspect which contradicts its supposedly humble tone.
Sorry you didn’t connect the quote to the whole ‘science/atheism’ war taking place; I forget how these things look to people who aren’t paying as close attention to the issue. There’s a whole ‘you’re either with us or against us’ tone in scientific ideology lately; a tone I think Sagan would have despised. So I might be a joykill, but I think of my response as an antibody reaction to a pathogen. You might not like pus & pimples, but organ failure’s worse.
So… you want to teach antagonists?
The Oprah is clearly its own planet. Once somebody gets caught in its gravitational field — be it James Frey or Jonathan Franzen — god help ’em.
Lily: Steer clear!
I can respect this. Thank you for your generous reading. I am going to try and live with the pus and pimples a little more. Organ failure IS the worst.
One follow-up, though. While I think that many contemporary continental philosophers could stand to value clarity and readability a bit more, I’m not sure about the allocation of language and reason to entirely different domains. Sure, language can be imprecise and sophistic, but is there such a thing as reason uncontaminated by similarly unsavoury things? I’m not a postmodernist, but isn’t reason a very human thing to start with? Can we admit this and still be pro-reason? I’d like to think so.
I guess my argument is that all those things that technically fall under the category of ‘bullshit’ are often my most favourite things. But I get where you’re coming from on the subject of ‘wit.’
brava, downtown d.
emotional discussions are more intellectually honest ones? is this like saying the more emotional you are the more rational you are? (note: i understand the difference between intellect and rationality and am conflating here in a problematic though not entirely incorrect way.)
i’ll be honest: your attacks – perhaps because i am *too* emotional – do not encourage an intellectual discussion, at least not with me. i’m glad you were able to find a few playmates in my sandbox though.
Not sure which “strategy” can be seen doing such a terrible thing on this thread.
The (decontextualized) quote, as far as I can tell, is about science’s claims of reason and to ‘truth’, about what the ‘scientific method’ can reasonably disclose about objective, or intersubjectively shared, reality.
In what ways would an argument about such claims have any effect on “literature and artistic production”?
Where, on this thread, do you read philosophical speculation being imposed on “literature and artistic production” at all??
Re: your followup point: yeah, I like bullshit too, but I don’t like bullshit disguised as a clever phrase designed to intimidate a skeptic from investigating its premise more deeply. I like honest dishonesty–unabashed satire por ejemplo. But Livingstone’s statement is exactly that kind of ideological-drift-without-consensus thing that really bugs me. It’s the same crap political parties do. I’m wary of the use of language to insert toxic concepts into the discourse–humor is a great way to do this. And if a toxic concept lays around unchallenged long enough, the dogmatists pick it up & then it becomes almost impossible to kill. Just by me freaking out about this whole topic, I’ve ensured that at least my point of view is on record & that those who would ordinarily pass by such a claim without a 2nd take are going to think, ‘this reminds me of a post I read by a shithead on htmlgiant…’ and that’s a good thing.
Threaded my response in the wrong place.
Threaded my response in the wrong place.
I don’t think there’s such a thing as being too emotional. We have emotional reasons for believing what we believe. All a cool-headed discussion does imo is make it easier for interlocutors to hide their motives behind formalism. The ‘why’ behind a belief is more interesting than the ‘what…’ and it’s also more literary. I use reductio ad absurdum when I test a posit; how would I feel if some nutty fascist was making evenhanded arguments? I’d want to see what motivation is behind them; not see how carefully the argument has been constructed.
I think the emotional neutral buoyancy of people inclined to argue carefully is rife with emotional charge & emotional dishonesty. It’s why we have an ‘inner’ life. One of literature’s chief concerns is with investigating the differential between internal and external life.
I don’t think there’s such a thing as being too emotional. We have emotional reasons for believing what we believe. All a cool-headed discussion does imo is make it easier for interlocutors to hide their motives behind formalism. The ‘why’ behind a belief is more interesting than the ‘what…’ and it’s also more literary. I use reductio ad absurdum when I test a posit; how would I feel if some nutty fascist was making evenhanded arguments? I’d want to see what motivation is behind them; not see how carefully the argument has been constructed.
I think the emotional neutral buoyancy of people inclined to argue carefully is rife with emotional charge & emotional dishonesty. It’s why we have an ‘inner’ life. One of literature’s chief concerns is with investigating the differential between internal and external life.
No, but I think conversations are more interesting when they occur outside one’s comfort zone.
tinyurl.com/2bk3gkl
Well, I thank you kindly for going so far out of your way to make us uncomfortable. I know I’ve learned a lot, and I’m eager to hear more on your theory of how negative emotional manipulation can factor in favorably with the common cognitive processes.
Well, I thank you kindly for going so far out of your way to make us uncomfortable. I know I’ve learned a lot, and I’m eager to hear more on your theory of how negative emotional manipulation can factor in favorably with the common cognitive processes.
“liking” a person is for the young.