Bah.  Was looking at a build problem.  Didn't mean to send that, meant to 
iconify that!

My objection was to your claim that nothing is for sure so might as well 
equivalence activism+science vs. science.   I see this group of people as 
lowering the bar for scientific inquiry in their field, and at once diluting 
the efforts of social workers and other kinds of advocates.   In my book that's 
a far worse offense than whatever benefit they think they'll get from coupling 
their inquiry to their advocacy.   I guess if that's what they want, they can 
have it.    As for the rest, whatever, I was just killing time until my tests 
came back.  

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2015 4:15 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A New Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution

"So, your claim that it's not about objective reality is simply false.  Take 
away your assumption of objective reality and your precise terminology argument 
falls apart."

The point is it doesn't matter if the scientific method reveals a model that is 
precisely what nature is.   The "illusion" of objective reality is fine if it 
works.  

>> Just like it isn't clear what climate change deniers are willing to nail 
>> down.
>
> "But it is NOT "just like ... climate change deniers".  Are you seriously 
> making that equivalence?"
>
> People on the left move the goal posts around to serve their argument just 
> like people on the right.
> Sometimes people remove several words and replace them with "...", gosh, I 
> don't know why!

Why?  Because removing the distracting text clarifies your analogy.  You're 
claiming that the methods of the SSCE are just like the methods of climate 
change deniers.  They're not just alike.  Yes, they probably both "move goal 
posts around", because everyone does that, especially as they grow and evolve, 
learn from what does and does not work, change membership, etc.  Not nailing 
down exactly what you'll do from now till the year 3015 doesn't imply that 
you're not nailing things down just like climate change deniers aren't nailing 
things down.  Your "just like" analogy is so vague it's mind-bending.

> Collect some like-minded folks, create a distinguished board of directors and 
> start arguing  from authority.  The premise that there are any particular 
> "positive" goals has not been demonstrated.   It's just some 
> randomwish-it-were-so thing they are throwing around -- it's not a hypothesis 
> it is an assertion.    At some point in their "inquiry" there exists the 
> possibility that their goals can be falsified.   So lose the goals and follow 
> the evidence.    The voting booth is good place for this kind of activity.

OK.  What you're doing is _predicting_ what the SSCE will do.  That's fine.  
But it's bad faith of you not to be clear that this is merely your prediction.  
Or perhaps its (even weaker) your expectation.  To some extent, I expect the 
same.  But I'm usually wrong, which means I'm interested in seeing if it 
happens.

--
⇔ glen

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