I agree
----- Original Message -----
From: MnFamilyMan@aol.com
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2001 10:09 PM
Subject: Re: FW: New Federal Science Standards Worry University Researchers
It would appear to me that this is exactly the 'new crisis' Laszlo writes about in his paper. Some in the social sciences want soft facts to be the only facts and some in the social sciences want the hard facts to be the only facts.
I fully agree with you, Eric. It is the new crisis I meant (and so did my co-author Margit Kocski, I suppose). Such a crisis emerges when there appeare two princeples opposed to each other (e.g., natural sciences - social sciences; or, at least, hard social sciences - soft social sciences) and no synthesis seemes to be thinkable between them.
Does it really have to be an either, or.
It has not to, by any means. My proper domain is, e.g., the economic psychology that has been originated from the "hard" economics and from the "soft" psychology. On the other hand, the psychology itself is in its totality by no means a soft science either, as far as it is based, on one hand, on the "hard" brain sciences and, on the other hand, on the "soft" cultural sciences.
How these two halves (of various levels) constitute one whole, that is the question. Whenever the psychology goes without any answer to the question of the actual level, that theoretical or/and methodological lack amounts to this science's actual crisis.
Laszlo
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