• About me (Gary L. Herstein, Ph.D.) / Contact form
  • Furious Vexation (general questions here)
  • Statement of Intent
  • With regard to Comments and Spam

THE QUANTUM of EXPLANATION

~ Science, logic, and ethics, from a Whiteheadian Pragmatist perspective (go figure)

THE QUANTUM of EXPLANATION

Category Archives: Inquiry

“Teach” the “Controversy”

28 Thursday Jan 2016

Posted by Gary Herstein in Critical Thinking, Inquiry, Logic, scientific controversy

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Critical Thinking, Inquiry, scientific controversy, Teach The Controversy

I’ve written on the subject of scientific controversies several times in the past, and have even highlighted this particularly disgusting piece of nonsense (“teach the controversy”) more than once. But state legislatures are coming back into session, and already the push for ideology over inquiry is becoming manifest. Because right-wing ideologues devoid of any particle of intelligence or integrity insist on pushing this piece of manipulative idiocy, I am going to stand here in my little corner of the world and push back.Stooges-as-Scholars

I find the rhetoric behind this phrase especially monstrous. This is because the people who produce this nonsense have no interest in teaching, only in indoctrination; no grasp of controversy, only of ex cathedra declarations; no capacity for inquiry, only for the regurgitation of tediously fatuous twaddle. So let us explore for a moment what it is about this particular meme, “teach the controversy,” that is so singularly despicable. Continue reading →

Test

20 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by Gary Herstein in Critical Thinking, Inquiry, Logic

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Critical Thinking, Narrative

This post can be viewed as a companion piece to my one about “proof.” Proof is a kind of test to which a certain, rigidly constrained, set of ideas can be subjected. While it is important within that limited context, proof mostly stands out as an all-but-unachievable ideal, the kind of ideal that suggests the outside limit for the types of tests that might be applied to ideas, concepts, claims, hypotheses, and so forth. There are a great variety of such tests, and they do not line up along a single unimodal, univocal spectrum. But it does seem to me that they do converge at the far ends of this lattice, this partially ordered set of possibilities, to proof as the highest ideal at one end, and vapid opinion, as the most dispensable example at the lowest (and, sadly, commonest) end.Test F

There are primarily three families of tests for ideas, and each such family breaks out in a variety of ways: logical coherence, empirical adequacy, and narrative intelligibility. Following Whitehead’s argument in the early pages of Process and Reality, I take “logical coherence” to be something that is vastly larger than just proof-theoretic completeness or model-theoretic semantic sufficiency. Both of these latter are formal ideals, part of the above, generalized concept of “proof,” that seldom realize themselves in the real world. Logical coherence is not such a desiccated abstraction; rather, it is the requirement that ideas “hang together,” at least “locally” (in metaphysics, this requirement becomes “globally.”) Continue reading →

Savant?

10 Tuesday Nov 2015

Posted by Gary Herstein in Authoritarians, Carson, Inquiry, Intelligence

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Authoritarians, Carson, Inquiry, Intelligence, On Bullshit

Specifically, “idiot savant.”

I’ve no idea whether the term “idiot savant” retains any currency – it might be considered too pejorative to be acceptable. But it is the term I originally learned, and so I will continue to use it here. (I originally encountered the concept over four decades ago, in a science fiction short story, that I’ve since failed to track down, titled “Idiot Solvent.”) An idiot savant is generally someone who scores very poorly on ordinary measures of intelligence, but is then exceptionally gifted in one particular performative area. Often times, this area is music. Other areas of performance are evidently possible, whether or not we’ve documented them. There might be a great deal of overlap between what is (or, at least used to be) called “idiot savant” and certain types of intense Asperger’s syndrome. (Perhaps it is more than an overlap, but something closer to an identity?)crates14

Regardless, while I am clearly unqualified to offer anything that might be viewed as even remotely “diagnostic,” I continue to struggle to find what seem to be workable analogies for the very public delamination of Ben Carson and his constructed story of self. At the very least, Carson does appear to be a profligate confabulator – in point of fact, Carson is a consummate bullshitter (which might, indeed, be something of a synonym for “profligate confabulator”) – as well as someone with an astoundingly ill-formed grasp of basic history and science. Carson is supposed to be a “brilliant” man; however, I will argue here that that is precisely what he is not. Rather, I wish to use Carson to exemplify how right-wing authoritarians (RWA) and their habits of compartmentalization, completely undermine anything that might genuinely qualify as intelligence. My characterization of intelligence, however, is not the one you’ll find in the dictionary. Continue reading →

Newer posts →
Follow THE QUANTUM of EXPLANATION on WordPress.com

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Blogs I Follow

  • The Shanarchist Cookbook
  • Cote du Golfe School of Fencing
  • Professor Watchlist redux
  • Free Range Philosophers
  • thenonsequitur.com
  • Blog Candy by Author Stacey Keith

Goodreads

Copyright Announcement

© Dr. Gary L. Herstein and garyherstein.com, 2014 -- 2021. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Dr. Gary L. Herstein and garyherstein.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. (In other words, share but acknowledge.)
“But in the real world it is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. The importance of truth is, that it adds to interest.” – Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality

Archives

Spam Blocked

66,933 spam blocked by Akismet

Blog at WordPress.com.

The Shanarchist Cookbook

Cooking up food for thought & Shanarchy. I am a Philosopher, writer, meditation & mindfulness teacher, & artist.

Cote du Golfe School of Fencing

European Sword Arts in SW Florida / Fencing Classes & Lessons Naples, Bonita, Estero

Professor Watchlist redux

Free Range Philosophers

Loving Wisdom Beyond the Academy

thenonsequitur.com

Blog Candy by Author Stacey Keith

Science, logic, and ethics, from a Whiteheadian Pragmatist perspective (go figure)

  • Follow Following
    • THE QUANTUM of EXPLANATION
    • Join 114 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • THE QUANTUM of EXPLANATION
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...