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J Scott Hill

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 1 views

  • The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn, is an analysis of the history of science, published in 1962 by the University of Chicago Press. Its publication was a landmark event in the history, philosophy, and sociology of scientific knowledge and it triggered an ongoing worldwide assessment and reaction in—and beyond—those scholarly communities. In this work, Kuhn challenged the then prevailing view of progress in "normal science". Scientific progress had been seen primarily as "development-by-accumulation" of accepted facts and theories. Kuhn argued for an episodic model in which periods of such conceptual continuity in normal science were interrupted by periods of revolutionary science.
  • What is arguably the most famous example of a revolution in scientific thought is the Copernican Revolution. In Ptolemy's school of thought, cycles and epicycles (with some additional concepts) were used for modeling the movements of the planets in a cosmos that had a stationary Earth at its center. As accuracy of celestial observations increased, complexity of the Ptolemaic cyclical and epicyclical mechanisms had to increase to maintain the calculated planetary positions close to the observed positions. Copernicus proposed a cosmology in which the Sun was at the center and the Earth was one of the planets revolving around it.
  • Copernicus' contemporaries rejected his cosmology, and Kuhn asserts that they were quite right to do so: Copernicus' cosmology lacked credibility.
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  • One of the aims of science is to find models that will account for as many observations as possible within a coherent framework. Together, Galileo's rethinking of the nature of motion and Keplerian cosmology represented a coherent framework that was capable of rivaling the Aristotelian/Ptolemaic framework.
  • In any community of scientists, Kuhn states, there are some individuals who are bolder than most. These scientists, judging that a crisis exists, embark on what Thomas Kuhn calls revolutionary science, exploring alternatives to long-held, obvious-seeming assumptions. Occasionally this generates a rival to the established framework of thought. The new candidate paradigm will appear to be accompanied by numerous anomalies, partly because it is still so new and incomplete. The majority of the scientific community will oppose any conceptual change, and, Kuhn emphasizes, so they should. To fulfill its potential, a scientific community needs to contain both individuals who are bold and individuals who are conservative.
  • Those scientists who possess an exceptional ability to recognize a theory's potential will be the first whose preference is likely to shift in favour of the challenging paradigm. There typically follows a period in which there are adherents of both paradigms. In time, if the challenging paradigm is solidified and unified, it will replace the old paradigm, and a paradigm shift will have occurred.
  • Chronologically, Kuhn distinguishes between three phases. The first phase, which exists only once, is the pre-paradigm phase, in which there is no consensus on any particular theory, though the research being carried out can be considered scientific in nature. This phase is characterized by several incompatible and incomplete theories.
  • If the actors in the pre-paradigm community eventually gravitate to one of these conceptual frameworks and ultimately to a widespread consensus on the appropriate choice of methods, terminology and on the kinds of experiment that are likely to contribute to increased insights, then the second phase, normal science, begins, in which puzzles are solved within the context of the dominant paradigm. As long as there is consensus within the discipline, normal science continues.
  • Over time, progress in normal science may reveal anomalies, facts that are difficult to explain within the context of the existing paradigm. While usually these anomalies are resolved, in some cases they may accumulate to the point where normal science becomes difficult and where weaknesses in the old paradigm are revealed. Kuhn refers to this as a crisis. Crises are often resolved within the context of normal science. However, after significant efforts of normal science within a paradigm fail, science may enter the third phase, that of revolutionary science, in which the underlying assumptions of the field are reexamined and a new paradigm is established. After the new paradigm's dominance is established, scientists return to normal science, solving puzzles within the new paradigm.
  • SSR is viewed by postmodern and post-structuralist thinkers as having called into question the enterprise of science by demonstrating that scientific knowledge is dependent on the culture and historical circumstances of groups of scientists rather than on their adherence to a specific, definable method.
  • SSR has also been embraced by creationists who see creationism as an incommensurate worldview in contrast to naturalism while holding science as a valuable tool.[7]
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    Good highlights of Kuhn's book and the notion of Paradigm shift in science.
J Scott Hill

Scientific racism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

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    This page, while it has some problems, highlights the history of scientific racism and how these ideas have been used by politicians and the public to justify genocide, ethnocide, slavery, segregation, etc.  It also should give some idea of how these deeply entrenched attitudes linger in our society and continue to have some effect on continuing inequalities.
Michael Daly

eHRAF World Cultures - 0 views

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    In a recent definitive statement of Oirat identity, Oirat ethnogenesis is linked to original Mongols (yazguuriin Mongol) (Ochir 1993). The author redefined the term Nirun, suggesting that it means 'back' of a body (nuruun). He related it to the legend in the Secret History that, after the death of her husband, Alan Goa, the legendary ancestress of the Mongols, gave birth to three sons from her back (nuruun), claiming that she had been touched by a heavenly light. Ochir used the term butach (illegitimate children) to refer to the three sons who became the ancestry of the Chinggisid golden lineage (altan urag). Most interestingly, he pointed out that the supposed 'heavenly light' that impregnated Alan Goa was in fact a servant called Malig Bayat, who was the ancestor of the Bayat subgroup of the Oirats. It is thus established that it was an Oirat who fathered the illegitimate children of Alan Goa, who in turn became the ancestors of the Mongol aristocrats!
Michael Daly

eHRAF World Cultures - 0 views

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    The colonial structure affects both the colonized and the colonizer. Implicit (and sometimes explicit) in the colonial relationship is the psychological fallout of the relationship. Articulated most eloquently by Fanon (1968) and Memmi (1965), and in fictionalized form by Achebe (1959), these psychological outgrowths involve myriad relations between the colonized and the colonizer. To note just a few: the colonizer's view of the colonized as "subjects"; colonial ambivalence about the colonial history; and historically evolved defenses against encroachments on one's culture; sense of dignity, and way of life. Finally, just as colonial settings produce "colonial mentalities" (i.e., the mentalities of those who acquiesce to the dominant power) (Fanon, 1968), they are also inherent breeders of "oppositional mentalities"
J Scott Hill

The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race - 5 views

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    The quote, "we're better off in almost every respect than people of the Middle Ages, who in turn had it easier than cavemen, who in turn were better off than apes. Just count our advantages" really caught my attention right away because it can be debated. Are we really better off now than the people and animals before us? Although we do have more means of being able to obtain necessary things we need to survive, these advances have also caused many problems within our society today, mostly, in my opinion, due to technology, which is then related to agriculture.
J Scott Hill

RACE - Are We So Different? :: A Project of the American Anthropological Association - 0 views

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    This cite is mentioned in Kottak's text...it has a lot of good information about Race.
Stefany Laun

THE AMISH: History in the U.S. and Canada - 0 views

  • In his Encyclopedia of American Religions, 6th edition (1999), J. Gordon Melton described four main, currently active Amish groups. In alphabetic order, they are: The Beachy Amish Mennonite Churches split off from the Old Order Amish in Pennsylvania after Bishop Moses Beachy refused to pronounce the ban on some former Old Order members who had left to join a Conservative Mennonite congregation in Maryland. They are the most liberal Amish group: they meet in churches, use automobiles, tractors, and electricity. In 1996, they reported 8,399 adult members in 138 congregations. The Conservative Mennonite Conference was formed in 1910 from a group of more liberal Old Order Amish congregations. They use meeting houses, Sunday schools, and English language services. They are located mainly in the Midwest. No membership data is available. The Evangelical Mennonite Church was organized in 1866 by Bishop Henry Egly in Indiana. They were originally known as the Egly Amish, changed their name to The Defenseless Mennonite Church in 1898, and to their present name in 1948. They stress "regeneration, separation and nonconformity to the world." In 1997, they were reported to have 4,348 adult members in 30 churches. Old Order Amish Mennonite Church congregations are very conservative. Transportation is by horse and buggy. Men are required to grow beards; mustaches are not allowed. Marriage outside the faith is forbidden. They meet in each other's homes for worship every other Sunday. About 8% of their membership is made up of converts from outside the community and their descendents. There were about 30,000 adult members in the U.S. and 900 in Canada in 1995. Including children, the total population was about 139,000.
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    Amish and Health Care: current status
J Scott Hill

Anthropological Niche of Douglas W. Hume - Darkness in El Dorado - 13 views

  • We write to inform you of an impending scandal that will affect the American Anthropological profession as a whole in the eyes of the public, and arouse intense indignation and calls for action among members of the Association. In its scale, ramifications, and sheer criminality and corruption it is unparalleled in the history of Anthropology... (Turner & Sponsel letter) This website is dedicated to providing a place to find information about Patrick Tierney's Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon.
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    This website by Douglas Hume contains an immense amount of material concerning the controversy resulting from Patrick Tierney's book, darkness in El Dorado.  Please read through this site and use you personal library in Diigo to create a database of sources you will use in our discussion/debate next week.
J Scott Hill

Marcel Mauss - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 1 views

  • n his classic work The Gift, Mauss argued that gifts are never "free". Rather, human history is full of examples that gifts give rise to reciprocal exchange. The famous question that drove his inquiry into the anthropology of the gift was: "What power resides in the object given that causes its recipient to pay it back?" (1990:3). The answer is simple: the gift is a "total prestation", imbued with "spiritual mechanisms", engaging the honour of both giver and receiver (the term "total prestation" or "total social fact" (fait social total) was coined by his student Maurice Leenhardt after Durkheim's social fact).
  • The giver does not merely give an object but also part of himself, for the object is indissolubly tied to the giver: "the objects are never completely separated from the men who exchange them" (1990:31). Because of this bond between giver and gift, the act of giving creates a social bond with an obligation to reciprocate on part of the recipient. To not reciprocate means to lose honour and status, but the spiritual implications can be even worse: in Polynesia, failure to reciprocate means to lose mana, one's spiritual source of authority and wealth.
  • In a gift economy, however, the objects that are given are inalienated from the givers; they are "loaned rather than sold and ceded". It is the fact that the identity of the giver is invariably bound up with the object given that causes the gift to have a power which compels the recipient to reciprocate. Because gifts are inalienable they must be returned; the act of giving creates a gift-debt that has to be repaid
craiglindsley

On Reflections on Darkness in El Dorado - 0 views

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    "However, some important points are mistaken or missing. Contrary to Alan Fix, research on Yanomami began not in the 1960s but as early as 1800. Now there are more than 60 books, albeit of widely varying quality, on aspects of Yanomami. Sufficient literature exists to recognize a field of specializationYanomami Studies or Yanomamology. It is possible to identify points of agreement and disagreement among the numerous and diverse writers who have published on Yanomami and draw conclusions" "None of some 60 books previously published on the Yanomami ever drew attention to the violations of professional ethics and abuses of human rights by anthropologists in the ways and to the extent that Tierney does. Not one of those books was subjected to a panel discussion and open forum at any AAA convention, any forum in a journal like CA, investigations in three countries, discussions in international media and cyberspace, etc" "Tierney exposed the ugliest affair in the entire history of anthropology. It cannot be summarily dismissed by a vocal minority as simply a matter of personal animosities, turf war, postmodernist critique of science or scientism, objectivist versus activist, differing interpretations of Yanomami aggression, sensationalist or tabloid journalism, etc. As Susan Lindee recognizes and contrary to Raymond Hames, not all of the fundamental claims made by Tierney have been discussed, let alone refuted."
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