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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: thames_sider who wrote (18021)	7/11/2001 9:04:22 PM
From: average joe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

...hard science - chemistry, physics, geology, biology etc. - does not depend on the interpretation of motives or thought: I guarantee I could show any type of geophysical profile of an anomaly to a group of geo-scientists and get a different interpretation from each one.

To: thames_sider who wrote (18021)	7/11/2001 10:44:37 PM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 82486

I'm confused as to how you're still on the topic I was originally making. The post you first responded to said "Since everything is written by someone with a point of view, then, there can be no truly independent corroboration of anything." You responded "Only if you believe that people will always misreport what they see, hear or do to meet that point of view - knowingly (lying) or subconsciously (through a wish to see a particular end)." I responded with the sociology example, and saying that people who watch a film "which is clearly identical for all the observers, [will] report seeing very different things, usually depending on their own point of view or experiences. Not intentionally misrepresenting, just seeing differently." You replied "And it's very hard to fool a camera, or a computer. I agree, witnesses differ - on something they've seen once, probably unexpectedly, without reason to memorise: but a camera recording doesn't." I came back with the Rodney King example, where the jury and the public saw very different things in the movie. Now you write "Ah, but the camera showed the same thing every time. " Of course. I earlier said that everybody saw the same thing. We're agreed on that. But you haven't at all responded to my concern that the MEANING people attach to the identical clip of film varies depending on where the person is. You haven't disputed that at all, at least yet. You say "You obfuscate, sir. The fact that the camera showed was the beating. That's the science. " But I don't obfuscate at all. My point was that there is not and cannot be any independent, totally neutral REPORT of the film clip. The film clip stands on its own. But what people WRITE OR SAY OR THINK about it differs dramatically. That was my point. Do you disagree with it, and if so why and on what basis? There are many photographs of the universe to which different astronomers attach very different interpretations. The facts are the same. The photos are there. But even scientists who presumably have no axes to grind (though many do!) disagree about what they mean. The earth was here for millennia. But only recently did the people who studied it have any idea that the "solid land" they were standing on was really just islands of rock floating around on a sea of molten rock. And that theory may change, too, over time. People saw the same land. But some thought it was flat, some thought it was curved. The land was the same. The understandings of it were not. Where do we differ??