[Xmca-l] Re: in the eye of the beholder

[Henry G. Shonerd III]

Amazing dialog! What I have gotten out of it, with due regard to my encyclopedic ignorance: 1) I liked the Sandra Harry reference on perspectives. Langacker devotes considerable ink to "construal" in grammatical analysis. 2) The comment on linguistic vs. imagistic construals, i.e. multimodal, is very useful to me,  and lacking in mainstream linguistics, 3) I think I must be a Humian: I don't think causality can be demonstrated. So maybe science isn't about truth at all, but rather collective skepticism and humility. (Scientists used to know that queers were weird. Well, maybe WEIRDs are queer, not normal.) The consequences are global and frightening, but the models of what is causing climate change are not truth, they are models. The question is what predictions we can make using those models and what predictions we can make (again, using models) about any measures we might take to avert disaster predicted by the models. And I suspect that scientists can not win the public relations battle by claiming truth. The "doubts" of climate change deniers, ironically, are part of skeptical science, not some discovery of a massive conspiracy. 4) Asbestos is more like tobacco than climate change. The (and X-rays) predictions of what happens when you go into the mine, or smoke, are convincing to practically anyone, though that hasn't always been the case. 5) Truth, for me, is about sticking with life projects despite lack of easy certainty, which is why I like the inclusion of hope in the chat. And I like the idea that it's all a creative work in progress. And I think this XMA/XMCA dialogic project gives ME hope! I know my construals may be lacking in coherence, but I respect and trust this community to help me get it right. Good old ZPD!
Henry

On Sep 22, 2014, at 10:38 AM, "John Cummins" <deva_research@lineone.net> wrote:

> Apropos the Scientific American article, below is a recent abstract of a recent article, and also ( I hope) a functional link to a preprint of the whole paper.
> 
> John
> 
> 
> Authors: José L. Duarte, Jarret T. Crawford, Charlotta Stern, Jonathan Haidt, Lee Jussim, and Philip E. Tetlock
> 
> Deadline for Commentary Proposals: Monday August 11, 2014
> 
> Abstract: Psychologists have demonstrated the value of diversity, particularly diversity of viewpoints, for enhancing creativity, discovery, and problem solving. But one key type of viewpoint diversity is lacking in academic psychology in general and social psychology in particular: political diversity. This article reviews the available evidence and finds support for four claims: 1) Academic psychology once had considerable political diversity, but has lost nearly all of it in the last 50 years; 2) This lack of political diversity can undermine the validity of social psychological science via mechanisms such as the embedding of liberal values into research questions and methods, steering researchers away from important but politically unpalatable research topics, and producing conclusions that mischaracterize liberals and conservatives alike; 3) Increased political diversity would improve social psychological science by reducing the impact of  bias mechanisms such as
> confirmation bias, and by empowering dissenting minorities to improve the quality of the majority's thinking; and 4) The underrepresentation of non-liberals in social psychology is most likely due to a combination of self-selection, hostile climate, and discrimination.  We close with recommendations for increasing political diversity in social psychology. 
> 
> Keywords: Social psychology, diversity, politics, bias, sociology of science
> 
> 
> Download Target Article Preprint (please give the page a few moments to load):
> http://journals.cambridge.org/BBSJournal/Call/Duarte_preprint
> 
> 
>