POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

Post-Normal “Science”

You'll recall that among the aims of our post-numerate President was the restoration of science to her rightful place. An excellent post at Buy the Truth addresses what this nostrum means in practice:

What is going on is that science is no longer what we thought it was. It is now a tool in the hands of socialists, and the smart money is flowing into the pockets of ‘scientists’ who will serve their agenda. Follow the money. Whilst traditional physics and chemistry departments are closing in British universities, and there is a shortage of science teachers, there is an abundance of cash being poured into departments that will serve socialist ends, and no shortage of acolytes desirous to use this as a route to power. Once there was modern science, which was hard work; now we have postmodern science, where the quest for real, absolute truth is outdated, and ’science’ is a wax nose that can be twisted in any direction to underpin the latest lying narrative in the pursuit of power. Except they didn’t call it ‘postmodern’ science because then we might smell a rat. They called it PNS (post-normal science) and hoped we wouldn’t notice. It was thus named and explicated by Silvio O. Funtowicz and philosopher Jerome R. Ravetz, who in 1991 wrote the paper A New Scientific Methodology for Global Environmental Issues, followed in 1992 by The good, the true and the postmodern, and in 1993 by Science for the post-normal age, where they promoted the idea that

…a new type of science – ‘post-normal’ – is emerging…in contrast to traditional problem-solving strategies, including core science, applied science, and professional consultancy…Post-normal science can provide a path to the democratization of science, and also a response to the current tendencies to post-modernity.

In other words, truth is a preterite bourgeois construction that has been superseded by the fierce political urgencies of now. It is the rhetorical handmaiden of socialist political rhetoric. In Plato's works, Socrates argued against the primacy of rhetoric, wishing to substitute a more systemative appeal to reason. Here, we find this formula, which has served Western inquiry so well for thousands of years, explicitly reversed at the behest of the theorists on behalf of the social engineers, the sordid guardians of a "higher truth."

Alas, there are some reactionaries within the hard sciences who seem reluctant to climb on board the paradigm shift for our own good.

(via Van der Leun's Ka-Ching, which yesterday celebrated its 2000th post)

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

Website - More Posts

Dislazterus

UPDATED x1

Obeyme: Lazarus, arise!
Lazarus: ahhh, fer feckssake, not again...
Obeyme: We have decided a resurrection is in order!
Lazarus: but sire, the last time we tried this I got the distinct feeling...
Obeyme: Silence! You will obey!
Lazarus: I'm just sayin' I didn't go over so well the last time - or the time after that - and I tire of being dug up time and again.
Obeyme: STFU! You will riiiiiise!
Lazarus: eeeeeh gads! What the hell is that?
Obeyme: you dare ask ME questions?
Lazarus: that! the shrink-wrapped graveyard over there...
Obeyme: Oh... erm... that's Nancy.
Lazarus: Oh... and, if I might, who the hell is that creepy fellow behind you?
Obeyme: Oh, him? He's not important. Now rise!
Lazarus: no. why should I?
Obeyme: because I command it!
Lazarus: and who the feck are you?
Obeyme: I am He.
Lazarus: no you're not.
Obeyme: I am so.
Lazarus: No... you are not.
Obeyme: I went to all the right churches. I attended all the right schools. And parties. I am He.
Lazarus: oh, brother. What is with you people?
Obeyme: I am not your brother. And what do you mean by "you people?"
Lazarus: I mean that ever since the real Him brought me back to life, you people have been hassling me.
Obeyme: Look. It's a very, ummmmmm, complicated issue. You just need to trust me. I don't have the time or inclination to explain it to you. Just get out of the ground already.
Lazarus: I will not.
Obeyme: Oh, come on! Do you know who I am?
Lazarus: I know who you are not...
Obeyme: Look. We need you. I am not going to lie to you. We need you.
Lazarus: You do not need me. And, believe me, you don't want me to rise and walk among you.
Obeyme: Oh, come on... pleeeeaaase? We do. We do need you.
Lazarus: Do you know what you are saying? You know after He raised me from the dead I went on to have a pretty normal life. But then, well, things went downhill from there.
Obeyme: What?
Lazarus: Yeah. Got a real bad case of the Leprosy... and later some complications due to a really bad case of plague.
Obeyme: Look. To be honest, I just need you to get up and walk around a little. A photo op. Then, if you find you like it among the living, you can hang out.
Lazarus: did you hear what I just said?
Obeyme: About the plague?
Lazarus: yeah.

Enoch_Root

AKA. Bobby Donn Brubaker (the most popular man in Mesa, AZ), the Umbrella of Terror, Jack Ketch.

Website - More Posts

Craptastic

One day last weekend at about 1 am I realized I hadn't seen one of the dogs and found her hiding in the garage. I packed her downstairs because it was bedtime and realized she and now I was covered in shit. I put her in the bathtub, thinking that would do it but that was just the tip of the iceberg. This little 16-pound dog had about 1/3 cup of shit matted and stuck to her bum. So I toweled her off a bit and began carefully cutting it away from her tail and her butt, which looked very red and sore. After I was done, the whole room reeked, but little dog sat up and licked my nose as if to say, "Thanks. That was disgusting and I couldn't have done it without you."

Now, why am I telling you about my dog's bowel problems? Because I think this episode is pretty symbolic of what's going on in a lot of people's lives right now. I feel like I've been on the verge of a breakdown the entire month of February and so many people I know are going through the same thing. It seems like everyone I know is braving their own personal shitstorm. Tragedy and disaster happen to everyone, yet we feel alone when it happens because of course there's no way anyone could possibly understand what we're going through. What we're suffering supersedes what anyone else is experiencing; it's impossible for anyone else to really "get it." Right?

I don't mean to mock anyone by this. Pain is pain, plain and simple. I don't know what you're going through--even if I've suffered a similar tragedy--because I'm not you. But I'm not a dog with shit stuck to my butt either, yet I know it has to be a pretty nasty and uncomfortable thing.

So to anyone and everyone out there, going through whatever it is that's got you down: I hope you have someone who even if they don't "understand," at least cares enough to brave the stench and help clean you up.

Falahime

Falahime Blah blah blah, Wyoming, blah blah, massage therapist, details cars, used to sell beer, blah blah, hunts big game. That’s about all there is to me; I’m pretty simple.

Website - More Posts

Wannabe Celebrity White House Social Director Stepping Down

From NPR:

A White House aide says Desiree Rogers is resigning her post as social secretary, effective sometime next month.

Rogers recently came under criticism for her handling of the administration's first state dinner. A celebrity-seeking couple from northern Virginia got into the exclusive Nov. 24 affair on the South Lawn without a formal invitation, despite heavy White House security.

Rogers later acknowledged not having staff from her office at security checkpoints to help identify guests. Lawmakers had demanded that she testify to Congress about her handling of the event. The White House would not allow it.

The White House aide spoke on condition of anonymity because a formal announcement had not been made.

The most interesting thing about this is that the Secret Service already took the heat for this. Apparently, another shoe is preparing to drop.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

Website - More Posts

On Fraud

I've mentioned that often, when I've taught Dante, students are appalled by his judgmentalism, and I've said that his principal undertaking in the work is to justify (in the sense of squaring the circle) Divine Justice with Divine Love. But there can be no mercy without justice, and in the hands of those whose symbological world is grounded an insane typological version of ideologically constructed verisimilitude, truth as the upright understand it is an inconvenience:

McCaffrey, 33, of The Bronx, was locked up after Gonzalez accused him of raping her at knifepoint on a Bronx street back in 2005.

It was a lie she repeated to doctors, cops, prosecutors, a grand jury and the jury that convicted McCaffrey.

"What happened in this case is one of the worst things that can possibly happen in our criminal-justice system," Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon said as he pronounced sentence.

McCaffrey said he has some sympathy for Gonzalez and hopes she "doesn't go through what I went though.

"I was an accused rapist in prison," he said, adding that in prison, "rape is the worst crime possible."

All is clearly not forgiven.

A person who would "lie and paint somebody as a rapist is worse than a real rapist or a real murderer," McCaffrey said

He also blamed "the arresting officers, the prosecution." Everyone, he said, "wanted to believe the lie, the ADA [assistant district attorney] first and foremost."

Judge Solomon said, "It's hard to imagine why anyone could have done this."

It turned out Gonzalez robbed McCaffrey of four years of his life for the most trivial of reasons.

She'd been hanging out with a group of girlfriends when she accepted an invitation to get into his car.

After she returned, her pals were furious that she'd ditched them -- so she made up the rape story to gain their sympathy.

She will be eligible for parole in a year -- after serving a one-quarter of the time her victim was imprisoned.

Typical of leftist reaction in the comments:

No one needs statistics to know that most rapes go unreported. In any rape case the woman is the loser, always. And this guy had a long history of violent crime. So crawl back under your rock haters.

But this isn't a rape case, is it? I guess the guy was begging for it.

Hey, you know what's really terrible? Profiling.

via Insty, whom I'd link if I thought it made any difference to him

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

Website - More Posts

Pam Key

of Naked Emperor News accomplishes more in a couple of days than I do in half a year:

Via Breitbart.tv

Related are this and this. Image is everything . . . right?

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

Website - More Posts