Date: Sat, 10 Apr 1999 21:02:39 +0100
From: Chris Lees <chrislees@easynet.co.uk>
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: "scientism"
Jake wrote:
> << Chris, While I think Jake is needlessly abrasive, >>
>
> I think when somebody tosses around a word like "scientism" and pretends that
> it has some legitimate function, or general effect other than disparagement
> science, somebody NEEDS to be abrasive about it. And I am happy to fullfill
> that function so that others can pleasantly get on with other issues.
I'm not disparaging science. Never have ,never will. I ramble on quite a lot on
my website, about how marvelous I think science is. What I criticise is an
attitude I designate as scientism, which, regretably, you often exemplify.
One reason I detest that attitude, is because it diminishes science.
> "Scientism" is just a jackass word to be legitimizing, and I am honored to be
> pointing that out no matter how much it might upset Chris (although at this
> point he seems to erroneously believe that upsetting him is my only
> intention). I find it humorous that anybody would use the word outside
> cultures like creationism and paranormalism and *expect* anything but
> derision.
So you're setting yourself up as universal arbiter of legitimate words now,
are you, Jake ? Your usual pompous nonsense. Bla, bla, bla.
>
> >>I tend to agree with his assessement of this paper, at least as you have
> presented it. I haven't read the paper in full. I know only what you
> originally posted to this
> list and what you've said above.<<
>
> That's all anybody here knows about it other than perhaps Chris, and yet we
> are attacked for not knowing it. Perhaps this is another case where Chris is
> imagining that we owe him some responsibility to drop whatever we may be
> doing and hunt down these references to whatever ends are necessary to find
> them. Certainly the thoroughly nasty and caustic nature of his response to
> my assessment (which is essentially the same as yours), in addition to the
> even more tenuously associated ad hominems that rambled on and preceded that
> response considerably, would seem to indicate that I had violated some sacred
> duty which I didn't know that I had.
"Nasty and caustic" eh ? Tut,tut, what a pampered life you must have had, Jake.
Chris.
http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~chrislees/tao.index.html
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit