LOV and LTV by Justin Schwartz 07 February 2002 06:13 UTC
> >CB: What's the difference between a lawful explanation and a lawlike > >explanation ? ( no fuzzy answers) > > > >The explanations invoked in physics are lawful, i.e., they use preciselt >formulated lawsto generate specific (if sometimes probabilistic) >predictions. > >^^^^^^ > >CB: Of course, admitting probablism admits the very fuzziness that this old >superiority complex of "hard" sciences claims is its superiority to "soft" >social science. Not at all. With quantum probabilities you can predict values down to as many decimal places as you care to write. Quantum is not riddled with exceptions and ceteris paribus clauses. ^^^^^^^^^ CB: Are you saying that probablistic laws are not fuzzier than laws that are more definitive ? The laws of physics are formulated with plenty of exceptions. Take the first law of Newton and Galilei as presented by Einstein below. The clause "removed sufficiently far from other bodies" is a ceteris paribus clause and implies exceptions to the law ( i.e. when the body is not removed sufficiently from other bodies there is an exception). Then his whole discussion about the fixed stars etc. , is one big exception. Albert Einstein (1879*1955). Relativity: The Special and General Theory. 1920. IV. The Galileian System of Co-ordinates AS is well known, the fundamental law of the mechanics of Galilei-Newton, which is known as the law of inertia, can be stated thus: A body removed sufficiently far from other bodies continues in a state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight line. This law not only says something about the motion of the bodies, but it also indicates the reference-bodies or systems of co-ordinates, permissible in mechanics, which can be used in mechanical description. The visible fixed stars are bodies for which the law of inertia certainly holds to a high degree of approximation. Now if we use a system of co-ordinates which is rigidly attached to the earth, then, relative to this system, every fixed star describes a circle of immense radius in the course of an astronomical day, a result which is opposed to the statement of the law of inertia. So that if we adhere to this law we must refer these motions only to systems of co-ordinates relative to which the fixed stars do not move in a cir! cle. A system of co-ordinates of which the state of motion is such that the law of inertia holds relative to it is called a "Galileian system of co-ordinates." The laws of the mechanics of Galilei-Newton can be regarded as valid only for a Galileian system of co-ordinates. >Physics is now a contradictory unity of extreme precision and extreme >fuzziness, just as a dialectics of nature might have expected. What are you talking about? ^^^^^^ CB: I'd say for something to be uncertain in principle is extreme fuzziness. Or what exactly and precisely do you take fuzziness to be ? And then Ian has mentioned some of the imaginings of recent physics whereby , for example, a sort of shadow Napoleon still exists somewhere. That's pretty fuzzy. ^^^^^^^^ >> >On the most charir=table interpretation of laws in social >science, any lawlike generalizations that exist are not like this. > >^^^^^^^^ > >CB: Naw. I overcame my social science inferority complex to physical >sciences long ago. It's not superiority/inferiority thing, it's just different. ^^^^^^^^ CB: If its not superiority/inferiority why would you be talking about being "charitable" ? We don't need your "generalization" charity. Our generalizations are very powerful and useful in practice. Your claim that there are no lawlike generalizations in social science is a sort of echoing of physical science arrogance and an expression of an inferiority complex by social scientists. There are plenty of literally LAWlike generalizations in social science , as you should be aware of now that you are learning more about the law. For example, marriage in the U.S. is endogamous with respect to race. That is generally true LIKE it is generally true that most people obey the law against murder. It should be clear that I have just given you a lawlike generalization in social science. We can use it to predict, although it will be a probablistic prediction. ^^^^^^^ >This won't fly anymore with us social scientists. I'm a Michigan=trained socisl scientists myself, Charles--my PhD is joint polisci and philosophy. ^^^^^^ CB: So you should be well aware of the validity of what I am saying. At any rate, it is mostly social scientists who have the inferiority complex I have discovered ( in a little bit of social scientific generalizing about social science that I did myself). For example , I recall Michael Perelman discussing economics' envy of physics in the first book of his I read. (Can't recall the name). Many efforts at reductionism are per se social science envy. Projects that reduce psychology to biochemistry partake of this envy. >Social scientist generalizations are very lawlike, in the original sense of >"law" , to which physics and certainly biology, have come full circle and >retuned to. Some and some, but more like evolutionary biology, which hardly has any lawlike generalizations at all. That doesn't, I say again, make it worse or inferior. ^^^^^^^^ CB: You do not give an accurate statement about evolutionary biology. Here's an example of a lawlike generalization in Darwinian evolutionary biology: there is no biological inheritance of acquired characteristics by offspring from their parents. There are a number of others. Stephen Jay Gould and an associate have asserted a law of punctuated equilibrium as a generalization concerning the origin of species. Another generalization is that upon the extinction of the dinosaurs, there was an explosion in the populations of mammals. There are lots of generalizations in evolutionary biology. ^^^^^^^ > >To paraphrase the leading anthropologist Leslie A. White (sort of opposite >to postmods) a main reason that social science is rendered "soft" and >impotent in the bourgeois academy is that the best social science today, >Marxism, would overthrow the existing order. I said something like this in The Paradox of Ideology, by way of explaining why therre is no consenus in social science. ^^^^^^^^ CB; We agree on that. But the important point I would reemphasize is that social science is not as soft as has been its reputation in academe. The road to more definiteness in social science is through Marxism. > >Marxism makes very good and lawlike generalizations. > A few, but which are you thinking of? ^^^^^^^^ CB:The one that generates this thread is the law of value. Another one is the inevitability of change in the mode of production based on class struggle , a main generalization underlying _The Communist Manifesto_. >I'm mean you can say that the laws of history are not as mechanical as the >laws of mechanics, i.e. physics. But that's a tautology. So what ? Physics is not the archtype model for all science. > You asked what the difference was. I never said social science should aspire to be like physics. ^^^^^^^^ CB: What I recall asking was what is the difference between laws and lawlike generalizations. Actually , did you address that question. You seem to also claim that social science and Marxism in particular have no lawlike generalizations and physics does. ^^^^^^ > > They are >riddled with exceptions, burdened with ceteris paribus clauses, and >generally fuzzy. > >^^^^^^^ > >CB: There are lots of these in physics, chemistry and biology. > Biology, yes. Name a few in physics and chemistry. ^^^^^^^^ CB: I sent you Einstein formulation of Newton-Gallilei's first law. One exception he describes is that for the law to apply the "body" has to be sufficiently removed from all other bodies. That's an exception or a ceteris paribus. The laws of gravity are formulated concerning bodies in a vacuum. That's an exception. The first ( or second) law of thermodynamics doesn't apply to "open systems". That's an exception. The speed of light ( a law of physics) is always qualified as "in vacuo" . That's an exception, i.e. if not in a vacuum there is an exception to the generalization about the speed of light. Note the big exception relating to the "fixed stars" that Einstein describes regarding Newton's first law in the passage I sent to the list. I'm sorry , I have'nt been studying chemistry as much as physics lately, so I don't have a chemistry example readily at hand. >But that subjectivities play a bigger role in social science does not mean >there are not also objective exactnesses. I agree. There are subjectivities in law situations, but the law manages to put a very precise grid over social situations. Social science can obtain a literally similar _lawlike_ precision. Not a _very_ precise grid. ^^^^^^^^^ CB: So you are saying what, the law is not lawlike ? As far as the precision of the law, didn't you see all those Multistate Bar Exam questions that had one and only one right answer ? How more exact can one get than one and only one correct answer ? ^^^^^ So, natural scientists need a new word. "Lawlike" is closer to what social scientists have. > That's what I said. ^^^^^^^ CB: To be _precise_, that's what I said. What you said was that it would be charitable to call social science laws ,laws. ^^^^^^ > >But not only that, social science has identified satisfactorily , from the >standpoint of knowledge, many generlizations, and laws,that can guide >practice. I reject the physical sciences claims to lawlike superority and >the like. Me too. > >CB: In this sense, Marx's "value" is not heuristic, but a fundamental >theoretical concept. > I'm not persuaded. ^^^^^^^ CB: Give yourself more time and think about a little more.
