For what it's worth, Cosma Shalizi once wrote in a paper, "Wimberly et al. raise an important issue...", which had to do with lack of sychronization of cells in a sample when trying to apply algorithms to infer genetic regulatory net works.
As for whether science offers a monolithic royal road to the truth: I earned an MS in psychology during the confusion of my youth and I've studied enough physics (e.g. Symon) to realize that those two disciplines share very little methodologically. Frank ----------------------------------- Frank Wimberly My memoir: https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly My scientific publications: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2 Phone (505) 670-9918 On Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 11:36 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <geprope...@gmail.com> wrote: > Because I failed to precisely satisfy what I inferred from EricS's post > [†], I've engaged in a little self-criticism regarding what I thought when > Dave wrote the phrase "postmodern methods". My intro to postmodernism was > from Umberto Eco, who circumscribed postmodernism nicely in the following 2 > links: > > > https://alittlefish.wordpress.com/2008/03/03/umberto-ecos-definition-of-postmodernism/ > > https://artsfuse.org/141261/fuse-interview-a-talk-about-postmodernism-with-umberto-eco/ > > Then Feyerabend's Against Method convinced me that any claims to Truth are > suspicious at best. Further, any claims to any kind of One True Method are > similarly suspicious. (We all know there is no The Scientific Method... but > we can't help our tendency to Grand Unified Models and even the best of us > slip and refer to science as if it has a singular method.) > > In any case, I came across this document (preserved by our friend Cosma > [‡]): > > http://bactra.org/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html > > And I find myself in complete agreement with Chomsky's distrust ... but > not his dismissive stance, assuming it really is written by him. It seems > like much of his complaint could be mitigated if we think of > post[modern|structural] hooha as "method" instead of "theory" or > "philosophy". *That's* what was triggered in my head when Dave wrote > "postmodern methods". I then traded "method" for "analytics" in classifying > world-interaction as power vs. truth analytics. Subconsciously, I think I > can't/shouldn't call what little I know of post[modern|structural] ways of > cutting up the world as "method" at all. (Though this book < > https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14618961-the-transformative-humanities> > challenges that conclusion to an extent, in spite of Epstein's apparent > disappointment with postmodernism.) > > So, y'all have, again, helped me be a little more judicious with my > language. Thanks very much! And Happy New Year! > > > > [†] A plea for (some, any hint of a) constructive/generative and scalably > testable framework for interacting with the world, put forth by a > *postmodernist* pragmatist. If it wasn't clear, Rescher's *not* a > postmodernist. > > [‡] Cosma's got a *lot* of content related to postmodernism. I'm not smart > enough to parse out just *how* disapproving he is of it all, though. 8^) > Maybe he's mostly rubber-necking. It's difficult to pull your eyes off > horrible catastrophe. > > -- > ☣ uǝlƃ > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/FRIAM-COMIC> > http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove >
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
