Yeah. Yeah, I now see what you meant about the lack of rigor :) I was amused that I had a very similar reaction to you, right down to the "hmm, this chapter on arousal actually says things that make sense, how about that," except rather more angry, which I attribute to the fact that improper logical reasoning where science is concerned appears to be one of those things that just really, really sets me off. (I think one of the reasons is, as I said in the review, that one can justify anything policy-wise by improper logical reasoning.)
There is no true on the board. And everyone knows that everyone is reasoning from conclusion backwards anyway. It's just who convinces you best until the next guy comes along, with only a few cardinal true things as guides.
Hm. I'll say that I don't actually think that is the case where science is concerned. I think of science as describing the world in a way that has predictive power. So unless one has a fundamentally flawed, and therefore nonpredictive, model of the world (e.g., epicycles, which didn't work to predict planet motion unless you added... more epicycles), scientific theories are "true" descriptions that may need to be modified (e.g., Newton's theory of motion is a true approximation, at low speeds, of Einstein's theory of relativity, which itself may be a true approximation of some Theory of Everything).
If you mean "there is no true" in the sense of "we don't really understand the underpinnings of anything in a fundamental explanatory sense," then, well, yes, I agree.
(I think it should be, at least theoretically, possible to do predictive power of hypotheses in anthropology as well, but obviously a lot harder... too many woobly variables outside of the experimenters' control.)
Anyway, thanks for reccing it -- it made me angry, but it also made me, at least briefly, interested in anthropology (and the lack of rigor thereof), which was entertaining.
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Date: 2012-01-09 04:34 pm (UTC)There is no true on the board. And everyone knows that everyone is reasoning from conclusion backwards anyway. It's just who convinces you best until the next guy comes along, with only a few cardinal true things as guides.
Hm. I'll say that I don't actually think that is the case where science is concerned. I think of science as describing the world in a way that has predictive power. So unless one has a fundamentally flawed, and therefore nonpredictive, model of the world (e.g., epicycles, which didn't work to predict planet motion unless you added... more epicycles), scientific theories are "true" descriptions that may need to be modified (e.g., Newton's theory of motion is a true approximation, at low speeds, of Einstein's theory of relativity, which itself may be a true approximation of some Theory of Everything).
If you mean "there is no true" in the sense of "we don't really understand the underpinnings of anything in a fundamental explanatory sense," then, well, yes, I agree.
(I think it should be, at least theoretically, possible to do predictive power of hypotheses in anthropology as well, but obviously a lot harder... too many woobly variables outside of the experimenters' control.)
Anyway, thanks for reccing it -- it made me angry, but it also made me, at least briefly, interested in anthropology (and the lack of rigor thereof), which was entertaining.