The idea of the color yellow is associated with electromagnetic wavelength of 590 nanometers. However, the latter is the physical description of the human perception but yellow does not appear anywhere in Maxwell's equations. The color yellow in that sense is nonphysical.
Describe purely scientifically the relationship between my first cousin and myself. Certainly, DNA will not help. Do you mean therefore that when I say Olga is my first cousin that this is a meaningless kind of knowledge?
Moorad
________________________________
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu on behalf of Don Winterstein
Sent: Fri 11/28/2008 9:08 AM
To: gregoryarago@yahoo.ca; asa
Subject: Re: Polanyi on science (was Re: [asa] C.S. Lewis on ID)
qualities are also shareable
Give me an example of a quality that's shareable, and I'll show how it's shareable only because it can be described in terms of its measurable properties. No one can go inside another's psyche to find out how that person is experiencing something. Science does as well as it does because scientists do not need to know others' thought processes or what flaky misconceptions they may have entertained along the way or what their ethnic heritage was but only what the quantified and hopefully reproducible conclusions actually are.
The notion that information is purely quantitative as an aspect of communication has been decisively overturned
Almost all "communication" is not quantitative, so this is no surprise. But such "communication" needs to be in quotes, because given any interpersonal interaction, no one knows what was actually exchanged. Only if what was exchanged can be quantified can one get a handle on what was communicated. Scientists communicate things like numbers, equations, shapes, etc., all of which are quantities, deal with quantities, or can be quantified. Scientists include quantifiable descriptions of how they obtained their results so that others can test their conclusions.
I can count the number of ideas I present in a paper, which is a quantity of something non-physical.
Wrong. Once your ideas are in papers and you can count them, they are quantifiable physical entities. But as for any particular idea, you can't be sure your reader grasped it in the way you intended.
I'm worried, Don, that you're using the term 'subjective' pejoratively
No way, so please stop worrying. But I'm beginning to wonder if anything at all is subjective to you. : )
Don
----- Original Message -----
From: Gregory Arago <mailto:gregoryarago@yahoo.ca>
To: asa <mailto:asa@calvin.edu> ; Murray Hogg <mailto:muzhogg@netspace.net.au> ; Don Winterstein <mailto:dfwinterstein@msn.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 27, 2008 5:19 AM
Subject: Re: Polanyi on science (was Re: [asa] C.S. Lewis on ID)
Hi Don,
If you'll please forgive me for saying it, I find your perspective one of the past, that is not consistent with how 'science' is generally viewed today. First, there are many sciences and many different scientific methods; there is not a single monolith of 'Science.' Thus, to say "sciences deal only with quantifiable entities" is rather an speculative opinion than a view that holds any sort of consensus. For example, qualities are also shareable, which is antonymous to the notion of quantities. And there are even non-natural things that are studied using scientific approaches.
Second, with a more positive and supportive message, 'shareable' is primarily a matter or concern of communication. The 20th century saw a raft of scholarly activity in the realm of how communication is important in the conveyance of scientific (and other important forms of) knowledge. The notion that information is purely quantitative as an aspect of communication has been decisively overturned as simplistic and unsupportable. It is the same with logical positivism, empiricism and quantificationism (Sorokin coined the term 'quantophrenia' in this sense); they each must be understood as limited within the contexts that they arose and related to the problems they attempt(ed) to solve.
In the sense suggested above, you might consider allowing non-physical things to be involved in scientific processes (even if that suggestion leaves an initial bad taste in your mouth, I suggest the taste is palateable and even to be appreciated in the long run!). You write: "If it's non-physical it can't be quantified." Yet this doesn't mean it is communicatively unimportant or that what is communicated cannot be addressed using scientific methods. For example, I can count the number of ideas I present in a paper, which is a quantity of something non-physical.
It is after the 'hermeneutic turn' and the 'linguistic turn' (i.e. important contributions in philosophical thought of the 20th century) that natural scientists are called to pay more attention to how they communicate and the importance of communication to what is 'scientifically current' or what counts as 'scientific currency.' This seems to be part of both Murray's and Polayni's message, the latter which said:
"The scientist must be granted independence, because only his [sic] personal vision can achieve essential progress in science...No man can know more than a tiny fragment of science...I think we are overestimating the factor of the absolute confirmation, because that is not the kind of thing which exists in science - certainly it is not found by backroom boys." (In Man and the Science of Man, 1968: 22, 26, 142)
"I woudn't worry about whether this is science or not. It seems to me not a substantial question." (163)
I'm worried, Don, that you're using the term 'subjective' pejoratively, when it needn't be seen or understood that way (e.g. as anti-science).
Gregory
--- On Thu, 11/27/08, Don Winterstein <dfwinterstein@msn.com> wrote:
From: Don Winterstein <dfwinterstein@msn.com>
Subject: Re: Polanyi on science (was Re: [asa] C.S. Lewis on ID)
To: "asa" <asa@calvin.edu>, "Murray Hogg" <muzhogg@netspace.net.au>
Received: Thursday, November 27, 2008, 3:24 PM
just because one's experience of God is personal it doesn't follow that such knowledge is "subjective"
Sciences deal only with quantifiable entities and testable relationships among quantities. Quantities in principle are accessible to everyone, and that's a major reason why sciences make progress. Scientists don't know how other scientists perceive quantities, just that the quantities turn out to be the same for everyone. IOW, quantities are shareable.
Christians commonly "share" experiences of God and other non-quantifiables, but "share" is in quotes because as they "share" they don't have any sure way of knowing whether anyone grasps what they are talking about. We believe God is real and exists independently of ourselves, but any experience of him is fundamentally unshareable. Any attempt to share the experience amounts only to making suggestions, dropping hints. Our "sharing" may stimulate others to seek such experience, but even if they succeed, they won't know whether their experience is the same as ours. For these reasons knowledge from such experience is subjective.
Don
----- Original Message -----
From: Murray Hogg <mailto:muzhogg@netspace.net.au>
To: ASA <mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2008 5:55 PM
Subject: Polanyi on science (was Re: [asa] C.S. Lewis on ID)
Hi Burgy,
Very nice to have Polanyi introduced into the discussion!
However, I hope you won't mind if I offer some minor correction to your remarks on Personal Knowledge?
Strictly Polanyi doesn't offer "Personal Knowledge" (PK) as a third category alongside the objective and the subjective. Rather he considers that it is a category which embraces these two and so goes beyond the false "objective / subjective" dichotomy.
In respects of science Polanyi would argue that there IS no knowledge apart from that held by persons AND that this knowledge is not so simply connected with "facts" (or "evidence") as the early twentieth century positivists (Polanyi's major target) would have us suppose. In the context of the current discussion, I'm pretty sure that Polanyi would answer Moorad's question "what does "consider ALL the evidence" mean?" with the obvious: "it depends who you ask". But this is not to reduce the answer to a battle of subjective opinions as Polanyi would argue that whether one gets an intelligent answer also depends upon who you ask!
Actually, Polanyi would appeal ultimately NOT to what people SAY about science, but to how they DO science: and it's simply not a simple case of accumulation of facts followed by construction and testing of hypotheses - scientists are simply far too intuitive and creative for that. And the reason? Because their science is firstly a personal pursuit albeit guided by their understanding of and engagement with public discourse and data. To appropriate an old adage in a somewhat paradoxical way: Polanyi would insist that Science is an art and not a science.
Thus, to be a scientist is to possess a skill which, like being able to play the violin, is not reducible to a set of rules which one could follow without guidance and experience. One has to learn how to do science by doing under the supervision of those who already know how to do. It's exactly the same process one follows in order to learn how to play the violin - the rare self-taught individual or child prodigy notwithstanding.
In respects of Christian faith, one can appropriate Polanyi's epistemology to argue that just because one's experience of God is personal it doesn't follow that such knowledge is "subjective" - after all, individuals experience scientific evidence and discourse as individuals so such experience is therefore "personal" by definition. But we don't thereby relegate it entirely to the category of the subjective. Now, to be clear, I don't say that Polanyi took this view of Christian faith: he may well have considered that religious experience in whole or in part has no connection with any objective external reality. I only say that if one takes Christian faith as primarily concerned with the knowledge of God, and if one takes God as an objective external reality, then one will consider that Christian faith is not (contra liberal theology) concerned primarily with the subjective but with the objective.
There are, of course, clearly elements of the subjective and objective in the Christian's knowledge of God. And we are always challenged to make a personal appropriation of objective truth, to offer subjective response to objective reality, thus recognizing and embracing "fact" in our own personal "experience". But it's precisely because both fact and experience, the objective and subjective, are involved that any schemata which contrasts these categories is necessarily inadequate.
Returning to Polanyi, it's only in realizing that his notion of PK is a claim about the individual's response to both objective "fact" and subjective "experience" that one can see that his category of PK is not a third option over against the objective and the subjective, but one which embraces and even transcends them.
The really interesting thing is that whilst this sort of discussion has very interesting applications in religious epistemology, Polanyi himself was primarily concerned with philosophy of science. He formulated the idea of PK precisely because he saw no connection whatever between the theory and the reality of scientific method as it had been propounded by the early twentieth century positivists. So Polanyi's notion of PK is PRIMARILY formulated in conscious reference to the practice of the physical sciences. So, Burgy, your fear that PK is concerned more with metaphysics than with science is actually entirely contrary to Polanyi's stated purpose. Personal Knowledge is FIRST a theory about scientific knowledge BEFORE it is a theory about any other field of knowledge.
Incidentally, Polanyi would dismiss the rule "consider ALL the evidence" as hopelessly naive. He would point out that nobody has "all" the evidence, most people don't even know where to look to find it, if they did know where to look they probably wouldn't see it, and even if they DID see "all" of it they would have no ability to bring it into any sort of coherent relationship. THESE are the sort of abilities Polanyi considered marked one's ability to do science: not some trifling ability to jump to an obvious conclusion AFTER the data were identified, collected and collated. Think, for instance, how OBVIOUS biological evolution becomes AFTER a genius like Darwin actually does the REAL scientific work of identifying, collecting and collating the relevant data.
Finally, If Polanyi were to criticise the data selection of YECs I don't think it would be simply on the basis that they cherry-picking the data - after all, being able to sort the relevant from the irrelevant is one of the marks of good science in Polanyi's view. His criticism (again, if he was to offer one) would rather be that they know so little about science that they not only pick the wrong cherries, but also that they have no grasp of what to do with them afterward. At least, that is how I think Polanyi would structure a response IF, indeed, he were to object to YEC.
Blessings,
Murray
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