Group items tagged

Researchers have extensively explored the range of social, economic, geographical and other barriers which underlie and to a considerable degree “explain” (cause) the Digital Divide.  My own contribution has been to argue that “access is not enough”, it is whether opportunities and pre-conditions are in place for the “effective use” of the technology particularly for those at the grassroots.

The idea of a possible parallel “Data Divide” between those who have access and the opportunity to make effective use of data and particularly “open data” and those who do not, began to occur to me.  I was attending several planning/recruitment events for the Open Data “movement” here in Vancouver and the socio-demographics and some of the underlying political assumptions seemed to be somewhat at odds with the expressed advocacy position of “data for all”.

Thus the “open data” which was being argued for would not likely be accessible and usable to the groups and individuals with which Community Informatics has largely been concerned – the grassroots, the poor and marginalized, indigenous people, rural people and slum dwellers in Less Developed countries. It was/is hard to see, given the explanations, provided to date how these folks could use this data in any effective way to help them in responding to the opportunities for advance and social betterment which open data advocates have been indicating as the outcome of their efforts.

there is a sub-field within the study of philosophy that looks at what should qualify as valid or certain knowledge. And one main divide in this sub-field would perhaps be the divide between empiricism and rationalism. Proponents of the former generally argue that only what can be observed by the senses should qualify as valid knowledge while proponents of the latter are more sceptical about sensory data since such data can be "false" (for example, optical illusions) and instead argue that valid knowledge should be knowledge that is congruent with reason.

Another significant divide in this sub-field would be the divide between positivism/scientism and non-positivism/scientism. Essentially, proponents of the former argue that only knowledge that is congruent with scientific reasoning or that can be scientifically proven should qualify as valid knowledge. In contrast, the proponents of non-positivism/scientism is of the stance that although scientific knowledge may indeed be a form of valid knowledge, it is not the only form of valid knowledge; knowledge derived from other sources or methods may be just as valid.

Evidently, the latter divide is relevant with regards to this debate over the validity of TCM, or alternative medicine in general, as a form of medical treatment vis-a-vis Western medicine, in that the general impression perhaps that while Western medicine is scientifically proven, the former is however not as scientifically proven. And thus, to those who abide by the stance of positivism/scientism, this will imply that TCM, or alternative medicine in general, is not as valid or reliable a form of medical treatment as Western medicine. On the other hand, as can be seen from the letters written in to the ST Forum to defend TCM, there are those who will argue that although TCM may not be as scientifically proven, this does not however imply that it is not a valid or reliable form of medical treatment.

These questions essentially get at the issue of openness of debate. Openness includes at least two aspects, which are inevitably closely related, indeed hard to separate: who (or, whose ideas) can enter the debate; and how long should debate last before it ends (and people move to the next topic, or act on conclusions from the past debate).

The first issue would seem an easy one: no person, nor any person’s ideas, can be barred from debate.

ohn Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, which is a cornerstone work of the modern liberal society: “If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. … To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolutely certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility. …” (Mill, 23, 28).

There is a great divide in business schools, one that few outsiders are aware of. It is the divide between research and teaching. There is little relation between them. What is being taught in management books and classrooms is usually not based on rigorous research and vice-versa; the research published in prestigious academic journals seldom finds its way into the MBA classroom.

none of this research is really intended to be used in the classroom, or to be communicated to managers in some other form, it is not suited to serve that purpose. The goal is publication in a prestigious academic journal, but that does not make it useful or even offer a guarantee that the research findings provide much insight into the workings of business reality.

is not a new problem. In 1994, Don Hambrick, then the president of the Academy of Management, said: “We read each others’ papers in our journals and write our own papers so that we may, in turn, have an audience . . . an incestuous, closed loop”. Management research is not required to be relevant. Consequently much of it is not.

One part of Matthew Nisbet's recent report that has received very little attention is its comparative analysis of ideological and partisan perspectives of members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Nisbet shows that AAAS members are extremely partisan and ideological.  The word "extremely" is mine, and what do I mean by it?  Look at the figure above:  AAAS members are more partisan than MSNBC viewers and even Tea Party members.  AAAS members are more ideological than evangelical churchgoers but less so than Fox News viewers.  In both cases AAAS members are very different than the public as a whole.

Dan Sarewitz has discussed the problems with the ideological and partisan likemindedness of our scientific community, which has been exploited and reenforced in political debates: During the Bush administration, Democrats discovered that they could score political points by accusing Bush of being anti-science. In the process, they seem to have convinced themselves that they are the keepers of the Enlightenment spirit, and that those who disagree with them on issues like climate change are fundamentally irrational. Meanwhile, many Republicans have come to believe that mainstream science is corrupted by ideology and amounts to no more than politics by another name. Attracted to fringe scientists like the small and vocal group of climate skeptics, Republicans appear to be alienated from a mainstream scientific community that by and large doesn't share their political beliefs. The climate debacle is only the most conspicuous example of these debilitating tendencies, which play out in issues as diverse as nuclear waste disposal, protection of endangered species, and regulation of pharmaceuticals. How would a more politically diverse scientific community improve this situation? First, it could foster greater confidence among Republican politicians about the legitimacy of mainstream science. Second, it would cultivate more informed, creative, and challenging debates about the policy implications of scientific knowledge. This could help keep difficult problems like climate change from getting prematurely straitjacketed by ideology. A more politically diverse scientific community would, overall, support a healthier relationship between science and politics.

It should come as no surprise that the increasing politicization of science has come to make science more political rather than politics more scientific.  At the same time, the more partisan and/or and ideological that you are, the more welcome and comfortable that you will find the politicization of science, as it reenforces your preconceptions.

Real life is messy. And as a general rule, the more theatrical the story you hear, and the more it divides the world into goodies vs baddies, the less reliable that story is going to be.

some people do feel that certain issues are so important that there should be cause in political debates to overlook lies or misrepresentations in service of a "larger truth" (Yellow cake, anyone?). I have seen this attitude for years in the climate change debate (hey look, just today), and often condoned by scientists and journalists alike.

the "global warming: yes or no?" debate has become an obstacle to effective policy action related to climate. Several of these colleagues suggested that I should downplay the policy implications of my work showing that for a range of phenomena and places, future climate impacts depend much more on growing human vulnerability to climate than on projected changes in climate itself (under the assumptions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). One colleague wrote, "I think we have a professional (or moral?) obligation to be very careful what we say and how we say it when the stakes are so high." In effect, some of these colleagues were intimating that ends justify means or, in other words, doing the "right thing" for the wrong reasons is OK.

This is not an anarchist call for the ransacking of government files, in the manner of Julian Assange. WikiLeaks has raised the issue of whether the unauthorised and anarchic acquisition and leaking of government records is legally or ethically defensible. I don't wish to embark on that debate. I believe it is a distraction from a much more important debate about how to enhance the quality of political and public deliberation while drastically reducing secrecy.

If public policy is sound, it must be possible for the grounds of such policy to be made public without caveat and to withstand public scrutiny. We should not be left guessing, as we too commonly are; and deploring the evasions of politicians and their minions.

Statistics recognizes different measures of an "average," or central tendency. The mean is our usual concept of an overall average - add up the items and divide them by the number of sharers

The median, a different measure of central tendency, is the half-way point.

A politician in power might say with pride, "The mean income of our citizens is $15,000 per year." The leader of the opposition might retort, "But half our citizens make less than $10,000 per year." Both are right, but neither cites a statistic with impassive objectivity. The first invokes a mean, the second a median. (Means are higher than medians in such cases because one millionaire may outweigh hundreds of poor people in setting a mean; but he can balance only one mendicant in calculating a median).

the "data" from which the economic calculus starts are never for the whole society "given" to a single mind which could work out the implications and can never be so given.

The peculiar character of the problem of a rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess.

The economic problem of society