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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (35738)	4/24/1999 12:04:00 PM
From: jbe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Blue, on this point I think you are 100% right. I agree that what you speak of is, of course, ideal. It may even be common.* I suggest that it is far more common in fields where facts may be verified independently, and far less common in others.* It demonstrates that your own point of view has evolved since you wrote this: >>>>>Any scholar/thinker/scientist/etc. worth his salt retains a healthy skepticism about his own findings/discoveries/hypotheses, and has enough humility to recognize that his word will not be the last on the subject<<<<< Never met one of these birds. Let me say that my father went to college when I was a child, my mother when I was a teenager, and I started college in 1972 and finished in 1988, going part-time for my BA. I've got a J.D. and an LL.M. My husband has a BS and a M.Pub.H. I have known many a Ph.D. in my day. And I've never met one of these birds.

To: Ilaine who wrote (35738)	4/24/1999 12:31:00 PM
From: Chuzzlewit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Blue, it isn't just facts that need to be verified-- it's the whole idea of hypothesis testing. If you are unwilling to subject yourself to that kind of thorough-going scrutiny you have no business being a scholar. I can't speak for the social sciences, of course, but in the "hard" sciences what you do must be verifiable. Even if you reach the right conclusion, if your methodology is flawed you will not be taken seriously. This is as it ought to be. And perhaps one of the major problems we face as a society now is our willingness to embrace trendy ideas without subjecting them to any kind of rigor. It seems that every week we hear of some new miracle cure for something, and its proponents seem to claim that the idea is suppressed by the establishment as part of some sort of conspiracy. The lack of evidence of a conspiracy is often cited as proof of just how dangerous a conspiracy it is. Sometimes these trendy ideas gain a great deal of currency and people suffer as a result; for example: the recovered memory and religious cult trials in Yakima, Washington. The favorite target seems to be people who have various diseases and are desperate. TTFN, CTC