Newsgroups: bit.listserv.qualrs-l
Date:         Tue, 28 Jul 1992 21:10:00 CDT
              <QUALRS-L@UGA.BITNET>
From:         "tk0jut1@mvs.cso.niu.edu jim thomas" <TK0JUT1@NIU.BITNET>
Subject:      Science vs. Fiction

BOEHLEFELD@WISCSSC.BITNET writes:

   >everything deleted

Sharon Boehlefeld expanded the issues that Nicholas, Dr. Bud and I
have bantered about by challenging the vagueness of our nuances and
asking for more clarification. At the risk of distorting her comments
(deleted to save space), a few of her points included:

1. For those such as Dr Bud (and, to some extent, me) who are not
willing to accept the "arrogance of certitude" that something called
"science" offers, what do we offer instead?  For me, the answer is
"nothing!" I don't judge fictional (or other) narratives to *replace*
science (by which I mean the conventional norms by which empirical
inquiry proceeds in most disciplines). I think Nicholas made the
distinction between "context of discovery" (to borrow from R. Rudner)
and "context of validation." The former refers to the process of
pulling together meaningful observations and statements into some
sense-making framework, and the latter refers to the process of
applying some pre-established and presumably widely accepted criteria
for accepting or rejecting truth claims derived from that framework.
Fiction, hallucinogenics, bonks on the head, or higher-order orgasms
may be part of the context of discovery.  My sense from the literature
on the philosophy of science (I'll spare long cites and/or biblio) is
that most would agree that the process of discovery is neither bound
by pre-established rules nor amendable to some pre-defined criteria
that would distinguish quantitative and qualitative research.

2. Sharon then lays out her view of science as a particular way of
establishing truth claims in ways that other "knowledges" do not.  She
raises (and I apologize if I misrepresent her here) the issue of
whether non-scientific discourse can challenge the power of normal
(ie, proceeding from accepted norms and logic shared among a community
of scholars) science in a way that challenges its "privileged" status
in establishing truth claims.  My response: I'm not sure other forms
of discourse challenge the process of validation as "privileged."
Rather, they challenge the "process of discovery." At the risk of
simplification, I understand method to be the *LOGIC*  by which we
accept or reject the accuracy (or "truth") of a claim. It is a common
misunderstanding to use "method" as a label defining the *techniques*
(eg, observational tools such as microscopes, analytic tools such as
statistical or hermeneutic procedures).  I've argued (perhaps
unclearly) in previous posts that I consider ethnography to be as
rigorous, "hard," and scientific as any of the so-called "hard"
sciences, because the *LOGIC* of procedures overlap dramatically.  To
answer Sharon's question, I don't see different discourses (eg,
science, literature, mystical experience) as *necessarily*
incompatible in advancing understanding.  If I'm conceptually or
theoretically stuck in trying to understand a conceptual or
theoretical question relating to a subset of my data, I generally turn
to literature or music and offer up a few human sacrifices to Erato.
To "verify" any conceptual or theoretical claims stimulated by
whatever source, I revert to normal science.

This is all a long-winded way of saying that the gaps between
quantitative and qualitative research, although in some ways
significant, are too-often exaggerated to our peril. It is not that
they are different, which they are, but these differences are often
misplaced leading some to see qual research as "less scientific" and
somehow not to be taken as seriously.  This would be a good place to
re-read Nicholas Sturm's last post.

jt
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