From: dr@ducvax.auburn.edu (David Roller)
Newsgroups: news.groups,sci.bio
Subject: Re: sci.anthropology (LONG) (long response, too)
Date: 17 Apr 92 04:11:15 GMT

In article <1992Apr16.162918.25461@lgc.com>, cl@lgc.com (Cameron Laird) writes:
> In article <yz0tb8l@rpi.edu> mccombt@cs.rpi.edu (Todd McComb) writes:
>>In article <1992Apr15.120841.2357@ducvax.auburn.edu> David Roller writes
>>about some unpopular usenet behavior, ending with:
>>
>>>In a _science_ culture, such attacks and pollution would be considered
>>>deviant; ...
>>
>>You expect us to believe that those things are directly related to
>>science (or the absence thereof) rather than individual maturity?
>>
>>Science is over-rated.  (IMHO, of course -- though I spent a substantial
>>piece of my life to get a phd in applied math just to be able to make that
>>statement as an insider.)
> 			.
> 			.
> 			.
> What point are we discussing, now?  I sure thought I
> understand Mr. Roller's comments, but I didn't react
> to them as you did.

I should mention for the benefit of sci.bio readers, that this
thread originated in news.groups wrt the creation of sci.anthropology.

I wish I had had the insight to denote the culture consciously
created by the scientific community as, say, "science culture"
rather than _science_ culture.  I tried to indicate that I was
introducing a new term when I wrote:

>>>        ... I think there should be a conscious, concerted effort to 
>>>establish and maintain a convival, _science_ (I'm not sure what else to
>>>call it) culture...                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
   ^^^^^^^
But, I did use the same underscore character to denote emphasis earlier;
(perhaps the emphasis was unnecessary):

>>>When you open a new news group on the net, you are in effect opening it to the
>>>whole world, and a lot of people out there don't have a _science_ education,
>>>or an appreciation of conventions and worldviews that people with a science 
>>>education take for granted...


> I like examples.  I offer this one:  sci.bio has a
>  ...
> Is there some succinct way to make clear the dif-
> ference between (a)-(d) and (e)?  Neither "science"
> nor "maturity" seems effective with some readers.

"Science culture" is as good as I can come up with, and it does
have attractive advantages: 
  - I don't have to invent a new set of cultural values whole cloth.
  - I then don't have to convince people to accept those proposed values. 
  - It's accessable; many people do know what "science culture" is.
  - It has a reasonable track record, far better than I can expect any
   system I would create to have (I mean, I can't even unambigiously
   denote "science culture" :-)).
  - Well, it does have enough aura/mystique and fuzzy understanding
   that a polluter might actually listen and perhaps reform if told
   they were violating the norms of science (emphasis optional).

> 
> Incidental remarks:  the overratedness of science
> would certainly be a fit topic for sci.anthropology
> discussions, either in terms of the relativism of
> "ethnoscience", or as an investigation of the method-
> ological grounding of ethnography.  And "I [too]
> spent a substantial piece of my life to get a phd in
> applied math just to be able to make [such] state-
> ment[s] as an insider."

I can only claim a guest status; many of my friends are biologists
or ex-biologists (money problems, now they're programmers).  I've 
found biologists, as a rule, to be notoriously good-natured, helpful
and informative - getting to hobnob with them is always a pleasure.
I did get invited to the reading society recently (meet once a week 
and discuss a paper).  Hadn't done that for years; even got invited
back - made my day.

	D.R.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Roller  |  Internet = dr@ducvax.auburn.edu   |  "Because we're all
Auburn Univ.  |    Bitnet = dr@auducvax            |   in this together."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------