Postmodern Woo | The Science Wars
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- Опубликовано: 13 сен 2024
- We will resume our exploration of the epistemologies of radical constructivists with a primer on postmodern critiques of science. This episode was particularly difficult to make due to the sheer amount of reading that had to be done to acclimatize to the postmodern way of thinking, and the attendant difficulties of compressing a tremendous amount of information into a reasonable time frame. Be sure to hit that like button, ring the bell, and share on your social media to spread this series far and wide; it’s among my most important work on this platform, and it must not be in vain.
Note 1: Jacques Derrida, who was born in the French colony of Algeria, developed the techniques of deconstruction, which are broadly synonymous with applied poststructuralism. He authored such foundational texts to the postmodern program as “Of Grammatology,” which focuses on the application of deconstruction to literary and historical texts rather than scientific ones. As an introduction to his ideas, I didn’t find it particularly helpful (not least because of the atrocious manner in which he writes,) but the Online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy filled in many blanks for me and I so recommend it instead of Derrida’s originals to those who are more interested, as I am, in the postmodern critiques of science rather than its more general deconstructionist program for other kinds of “texts.”
Note 2: another postmodern trope not directly covered here is differance, which entails the direct mechanisms by which signs acquire meaning. One mechanism is the relation of signs to one another via the discourse in which they are situated, the consequence of which is the infinite deferral of meaning. The other mechanism is the means by which signs differ from one another, which differance, as a concept deployed by deconstructionists, attempts to capture. Its relevance to postmodern thought is absolutely central, and hints of it will appear later in the video when talk of “boundary-drawing exercises” is encountered. For the purposes of understanding postmodern epistemology, however, differance is not terribly important; it is much more important to postmodern methodology, which is not our chief concern here, rather than epistemology- hence its omission from the video. I acknowledge it here only for the sake of completeness.
Note 3: One nuance that is worth expanding upon is the fact that waves will superpose if and only if they occupy the same plane. A surface wave and a transverse wave are not subject to the principle of superposition as described here. This is relevant to the present context because there exist multiple types of seismic waves, some of which vibrate orthogonally to one another. The type of analysis I’ve suggested is limited to scenarios that resemble the following: fault A and fault B rupture simultaneously, producing surface waves with amplitudes a and b respectively. At the points of maximum constructive interference, the resulting surface wave will have amplitude a + b. In a very literal sense, the strength of this component of the earthquake is literally the sum of its parts, and civil engineers who forgo linearity in the course of their professional duties, as recommended by “Engineering and Social Justice: in the University and Beyond,” would endanger everyone in the vicinity of the structures they’d create.
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WORKS CITED:
1. Carson, Cathryn. "Who Wants a Postmodern Physics?." Science in Context 8, no. 4 (1995): 635-655.
2. Lyotard, Jean-François. The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge. Vol. 10. U of Minnesota Press, 1984. pg xxiv
3. Indigenous Science Declaration at the March for Science: www.esf.edu/indigenous-science-letter/Indigenous_Science_Declaration.pdf
4. Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and simulation. University of Michigan press, 1994.
5. Sparkes, L. L., and D. W. Piercey. "Indigenous ways of knowing and Western science: Including traditional knowledge in post-secondary biology courses." Report submitted to the department of Biology, Vanier College (2015).
6. Dupuy, Jean Pierre, and Action Locale Bellevue. "Sens et place des connaissances dans la société.[Volume 3]" (1986). pg 110
7. Lyotard, Jean-François. The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge. Vol. 10. U of Minnesota Press, 1984. pg 54-55
8. Lyotard, Jean-François. The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge. Vol. 10. U of Minnesota Press, 1984. pg 60
9. Baudrillard, Jean. L'illusion de la fin. Stanford University Press, 1994.
10. Christenson, Joel; Sears, Matthew. “The Overlooked Messages by Sokal Squared.” Inside Higher Ed, October 30, 2018.
11. Ryan, Maura. "The gender of pregnancy: Masculine lesbians talk about reproduction." Journal of lesbian studies 17, no. 2 (2013): 119-133.
12. Cohen, Mathilde, The Lactating Man (May 14, 2016). Mathilde Cohen & Yoriko Otomo (eds), Making Milk. The Past, Present and Future of Our Primary Food, pp. 141-160, London & New York: Bloomsbury, November 2017 .
13. Nash, Jennifer C. "Black anality." GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 20, no. 4 (2014): 439-460.
14. Potts, Annie, and Jovian Parry. "Vegan sexuality: Challenging heteronormative masculinity through meat-free sex." Feminism & Psychology 20, no. 1 (2010): 53-72.
15. Parson, Laura. "Are STEM syllabi gendered? A feminist critical discourse analysis." The Qualitative Report 21, no. 1 (2016): 102-116.
16. Griffin, Nathan David Stephens. "Queering veganism: a biographical, visual and autoethnographic study of animal advocacy." PhD diss., Durham University, 2015.
17. Oliver, Kelly. "Keller's gender/science system: is the philosophy of science to science as science is to nature?." Hypatia 3, no. 3 (1988): 137-148.
18. “Towards a Feminist Algebra” by Campbell and Campbell-Wright
19. Riley, Donna. "Rigor/Us: Building boundaries and disciplining diversity with standards of merit." Engineering Studies 9, no. 3 (2017): 249-265.
20. Baillie, Caroline, Alice Pawley, and Donna M. Riley, eds. Engineering and social justice: In the university and beyond. Purdue University Press, 2012.
Just waitng for the petulant little shits that put you off Twitter to come swarming in and accuse you of using bad science. Only a matter of time.
@@godlessrecovery8880 I dealt with their nonsense here
www.minds.com/newsfeed/976683618765950976
Just gets better with each one. You're still the King...
Good list, if I ever need to buy a gift for someone I truly and honestly despise, I'll pick a book from it.
King Crocoduck
Your intellectual capability in discussing these topics, and respect for correctly observing rigorous academic citations process is on full display here! Comprehensive and complete references that anyone genuinely interested in the specific topics referenced can access and check for completeness and accuracy of representation.
Compare this level rigour to the typical sloppiness of theistic argumentation and assertions and the contrast in rigour and respect for evidence could not be more strikingly obvious.
First class work! Well done KC!
I challenge Riley to cross a bridge designed and built by non-rigorous engineers.
If the bridge flops around in the wind, don't worry, that's because it won't touch the concept of stiffness with a ten foot pole.
Who said non-rigurous engineers will build bridges? Bridges are an rigid and thus opressive structure of the white heterosexual patriarchy. Non-rigurous engineers are in the business of addressing inequality caused by said systems of oppression
It depends what you mean by 'a bridge' ... naaah, just fucking with you ... couldn't resist.
So like, every engineer the night after getting wasted?
@@mikelord93 What about suspension bridges? Or those designed to deal with the stresses of geographically active regions?
I don't know why, but when I first heard the term "indigenous science," my first thought was as follows: "This sounds like pseudocience."
Yeah, I'm not sure what sciences they still demonstrate or practice.
Science works, that which seeks to modify or separate itself from science doesn't. If it worked it would simply be science. The same is true for "alternative" medicine. If it worked it would simply be medicine.
I think there is some point to the historical claim. Non western peopl did amazing things. They crossed the Pacific from the Taiwan area to populate it. They built amazing pyramids and roads and other structures. They domesticated different plants developed varioius beans and corn and potatos. They had cities to rival any in western Europe.
True, they didn't practice what we call science now But it's worth bearing in mind that our science has evolved substantially from its root in the mid 1600s. All I'm saaying is don't paiint with too broad a brush.
Princess Olmeca I know right. Indigenous people did have science (the only one I know of is astronomy). Just science. No need to put a descriptor in front if it’s actually science, and what she was talking about definitely wasn’t.
@@aeroscience9834 Science is a method of rigorous testing and disconfirmation of hypotheses. Broadly speaking, any attempt to discover knowledge is a proto-science but what we refer to as 'Science' today is not ancient Americans did.
Holy crap, a doctoral thesis starting with the words "I am vegan." I guess "Hello, my name is Kent Hovind" has finally found its match.
woah! Nice catch
It gets far worse. :) ... :(
I recall that paper being one of several fakes that were sent to different journals. The goal was to get some "gotchas" in order to throw a public shit fit masquerading as concern for rigor in scientific journals. Never mind that the concept of peer reviewed journals have become corrupted in the corporate/university system where everything must be proven to be profitable or "productive".
@@danmorgan3685 Ass-mad academic fraud spotted.
which one is that?
As someone who've just got through fourier analysis last semester, the amount of shock I've experienced when it was suggested that linearity and laws of superposition should be taken away is unreal
@@thotslayer9914 year 3 only
Though that's the dream
@@thotslayer9914 I study in the UK, electives outside of physics is impossible. I did applied to physics and philosophy to some schools, but not the one I'm in now
Philosophy is not like science. If you are interested in learning about it there’s plenty of resources available on the internet, courses included.
I took an introductory online course offered by MIT a while back but I couldn’t make myself like it. Too many opinions, not enough facts and data. The problem I have with philosophy is that there’s no testing and people who peddle bs can make a career out of it. That’s not possible in science: bs gets thrown out, if not at once, after it’s proven worthless.
So you get the stochastic boundaries inherent in our evolution. That's cool.
@@thotslayer9914 scientistic lennses, huh?
OK, the bit at around @15:20 concerning the speed of light being privileged and sexist is the most idiotic thing I have heard or read in my life...
Don't worry, there's more.
Sure, but who beyond the author has this mindset? I find it’s rather disingenuous to present this without stating that it’s just as rare as it is absurd. The critique of postmodernism shouldn’t become yet another antiSJW breeding ground
@@asapbrooks743 Given what SJW stands for these days, sanity should be an antiSJW breeding ground.
wait until he gets to Godel's incompleteness theorems, the cringe will be transfinite...
Oh man, I actually laughed and then once i had finished processing it I got sad that someone actually wrote that and then even sadder, that someone else published it. Talk about a rollercoaster.
Is she holding an indigenous microphone?
That would just be a buffalo horn
"Feminist algebra"
I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
2+2=rape
As always: Simpsons did it
After a point, if these weirdos start building bridges, I'll quit driving.
You can have an 'x', even '2x' but you can't have an 'x' and a 'y'.
@@newperve In feminist algebra all numbers are imaginary. Don't you dare presume "x" really identifies as "x". It might feel like a "q" or a "t", numberfluid or for that matter not a number at all that day. You Sir are numberphobe.
I saw this coming from the Patreon feed. HE'S ALIVE DAMNIT, THANK THE GODLESS HEAVENS ABOVE!
Darn right!!!! Wait....... What???
@@moehoward01 yes, Thank the Godless heavens above! Thank you, sky. Thank you, clouds. The King lives. 😆
@@Wistful77 Thank you. Thank you very much.
👻 Thank the Godless Heavens below 👹
Indeed, and praise be to the memory of the man from Samos ;)
I knew it was bad, but I didn't know it was this bad. 21:33 is particularly alarming - the "strategy" of devising theories that don't actually represent nature, but to be used as feminist political tools. Wow.
political pragmatism, they dont believe in values or good or anything like that since they result in hierarchies, they do believe in power tho, so maximizing power to reach their end is all that matters.
Because feminism is not about solving problems, feminism is all about power
Though you see it happening with "race realists", misogynists (women are weaker than men, etc),the anti-trans (there are only two sexes!) or the anti-gay (being gay is counter to evolution since you don't pass your genes on in your children!). Never heard you complain about those.
@@viermidebutura That's as valid as claiming that your position is all about power. You don't want power to go to others since you feel you will lose power (at least power over women). You also went to power, not control, not persuasion, etc.
@@markhackett2302 maybe they are right?
My cellphone is all the proof I need that science is not a meta-narrative.
Your cellphone is oppressive to the natives somehow! Derrrrp.
I would say it is a meta narrative but a useful and practical one because it helps build a better world.....meta narrative does not automatically mean bad
@@MrJpc1234 Nuance is lost here. The term alone somehow threatens this audience.
Not necessarily. To reject the scientific meta-narrative doesn't entail there is nothing to science, just that we are wrong to think there's any grand description we can give as to how science progresses and functions. This is consistent with views like epistemological anarchism, which is well-respected in the even if it's not necessarily popular. Of postmodern philosophy, it's quite a fringe view that emancipation or social issues are at all related to post-structuralism and skepticism of meta-narratives.
"Indiginous science"? Does she mean superstition? Because science is science and it belongs to all.
The least they can do is give an example of indigenous science which actually meets the criteria of science and see how it differs. Then again something tells me they’d have an issue with the word criteria.
Science is a method, nothing more.
@Atheos B. Sapien i don't. Chills man.
@Atheos B. Sapien Like just for the Tim Minchin quote. He is awesome.
Well to he fair, native Americans were superb horticulturists (just take corn for example). Don't get me wrong, I'm not subscribing to the type of woo the lady is discussing during the intro, but maybe take care not to lamblast antiquity with blanket statements yeah?
Are we absolutely sure postmodernism isn't just a huge joke?
If it is, then its proponents have an astonishing ability to keep a straight face!
It would be much funnier if it weren't so sad.
Some of them were intentional frauds. The book Fashionable Nonsense exposes them and many of them are big names in postmodernism.
Postmodernism is a tool, it lets people strike radical poses without actually challenging the system. Its religious character is helpful for its survival, since it has to invent its own worldview to justify itself - which followers gladly embrace.
It isn't. Until the time he was alive, and even now, Foucault was considered a TRUE paladin of intellectual thought. The sort of person you'd think Newton would be considered.
The problem of turbulence is one of the most difficult mathematical/physical phenomena to have ever been studied. Who knew that by thinking of bleeding vaginas that problem could easily be solved and understood. Because somehow the two are connected due to the fact that a bleeding vagina has fluids and that turbulence is comprised of a fluid. I guess the problems are basically the same problems.
Dont mind the fact that one fluid is made of a gaseous material more often then not hitting a, dare I say it, a "rigorous material," or rigid, and other other fluid is made up of a biological liquid that slowly drips out of an orifice over the course of several days. Or the literal million other differences between the two.
I'm sorry if I'm being too scientific, but dudes produce fluids too. If you want to discount peeing because non sexual, what about ejaculation?
So... The whole 'signs' and 'discourse' stuff towards the start of the video... While the way it is applied by postmodernists appears dangerous, it seems to me that the issue is with the conclusions that they produce from that conception of language, rather than the concept itself? I'm almost certainly missing something but what is incorrect about saying that signs are dependent on one another and a wider discourse in order to have meaning? That seemed to make sense to me
This aspect of postmodernism is actually rooted in semiotics, where deconstruction (applied poststructuralism) originated. In my view, the problems begin when they commit themselves to two ontological positions: idealism, and linguistic bundle theory. The proposition that the contents of our language is all that exists is effectively a form of idealism, "our minds create reality." And the attendant proposition of "all categories are the products of our mind" is a radical, linguistic form of anti-essentialism, which condemns us to a nihilistic approach to truth. There are no categories in the real world, everything is in our minds. These metaphysical propositions, rather than the unobjectionable semiotic ones, are where the problems begin.
@@KingCrocoduck Thanks for the response! I think I understand, though I would say; it seems to me that while there is a shared reality comprising of entities with differing properties that exists independently of our minds, surely science is just our best method for approximating truth / the 'correct' boundaries for categories? It doesn't solve the problem of epistemological nihilism right, since everything has to be interpreted through our senses?
@@KingCrocoduck
However, there is a lot to agree with in both of these propositions. Well, in second more than in the first. The "contents of our language is all that exists" is not entirely true, but it is useful to remember that if we can not describe something with any language that we know (including mathematics, etc), then it might as well not exist for us, or, at least, its existence will not be understood on even the basic level. Somewhat obvious, but still good to not forget.
The second part though is where I think the real potential is: yes, not all categories are the products of our mind, unless we mean it in a completely tautological sense of "we named that X, but it's _we_ who named it X, there is no label on it!", this gets especially clear in certain fields of science, such as stuff to do with particles, where there are pretty clear categories. However, a lot of categories _are_ created in our mind, and that often serves as a barrier to understanding things clearer. Coming back from physics to, let's say, biology can provide us with a ton of examples of where attempts to "box" things into neat little categories ends with failure.
Take, for instance, taxonomy, possibly the biggest attempt to "box" things. Linnaeus introduced a revolutionary (at the time) system of classification with a clear nested hierarchical structure. However, as science advanced, it became more and more clear that the hierarchy didn't turn out to be so clear. First, the number of levels became insufficient, then it turned out that this number can fluctuate between different branches... it gave rise to evolutionary taxonomy and cladistics, and even those turn out to have issues when dealing with such discoveries as horizontal gene transfer, for example.
To see this, ahem, "rigid" thinking in action, you don't need to go far: on this very channel there are examples of creationists who LOVE making such errors. The famous "how can a dog can give birth to a non-dog?" is an example of a failed attempt at classifying things into boxes that just don't exist in reality. A "dog" is no more an objective category of real-life things than a "table" is - both are labels invented for languages to make it easier to communicate, even if they don't cover every corner case of those very fuzzy categories.
Does that mean that postmodern woo from this video is valid? Nope. But I think the stuff in the introduction has some value.
@@Shooter__Andy I lean on the constructivist dichotomy mainly because of this argument you brought up.
@@Shooter__Andy Where the topics of categories and essentialism are concerned, the postmodernist is more concerned with the application of power than with predictive capabilities. I select a particular category in my theoretical framework because it allows me to predict and explain data; the postmodernist selects a particular category in her theoretical framework because it flatters her political predispositions. My thinking on the matter is guided by the philosophy of science on natural vs conventional kinds.
Great seeing you again KC. Hope you are doing well. You have the gift of making the complex understandable.
Man, I bet the creationists are infinitely envious of the postmodernists.
Same methods but such a discrepancy in results ...
Some religious folk cottoned on to post modernism a long time ago. Here's a passage from the (imo) seminal text _Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?_:
All discourses and disciplines proceed from commitments and beliefs that are ultimately religious in nature. No scientific discourse (whether natural science or social science) simply discloses to us the facts of reality to which theology must submit; rather, every discourse is, in some sense, religious. The playing field has been leveled. Theology is most persistently postmodern when it rejects a lingering correlational false humility and instead speaks unapologetically from the the primacy of Christian revelation and the church's confessional language.
@Ultimate Heresy nah, not horseshoe, concentration camps and gulags were both POW camps and political prisons that were really good at killing very quickly. I can admit that methods are similar without arguing the ideology itself is the same which is horseshoe
Yes, it's rather scary isn't it? And to think PZ Myers wrote that postmodernism was the very core of skepticism and secularism, and we were all just bigoted boobs that didn't want women in our community if we would to point at postmodernism as the reason feminism and it's ancestral philosophical schools of though are incompatible with science and skepticism
@@TheUrbanSimian Except the ideologies DO mirror each other aside from the scapegoats they choose.
I mean IIRC Crocoduck himself pointed out how creationist like Ken Ham and Eric Hovind have abused undertermination in a quite postmodern fashion.
Welcome back. Good stuff. You did some mind numbing reading to research this. Better you than me :p
Always excited to see the KC uploads
...It's looking more and more like postmodern "critiques" of science are actually the bloviating complaints of idiots who don't understand science and are jealous of how successful it is at accurately describing things.
I got a similar vibe. It seems kind of self-serving - they are either bad at science or just haven't had that 'major breakthrough' they thought they should have, and so instead of rising to meet the bar of excellence set by their predecessors, they use their status as an 'under-represented minority' in the field or society to justify lowering the bar so that their 'contributions' can be seen as more deserving of respect or reward than they actually are. Really, this post-modernist crap is the "Healthy at any size' of intellectualism and science.
So if you look at the history of science, you'll find many examples of entrenched dogmatism regarding certain fields of study. Phrenology and craniometry come to mind as a few clearly pseudoscientific fields that came to prominence by essentially reverse-engineering cultural attitudes in order to justify particular beliefs. In the case of those 2 fields, the data was used to claim an "objective" hierarchy of race. So the goal of postmodernism is to critique the means of study so as not to fall victim to a similar pattern of subconscious (or conscious) legitimization of contemporary power hierarchies through ill-conceived metrics. Modern economics is definitely a field which has mostly succumbed to such societal pressure and is constantly used for the purpose of serving established hierarchies.
For a concrete example of usefulness devoid of any "disagreeable politics", recall the discovery of quantum mechanics and how ardently mainstream physics fought even the conception of thinking about physics in terms of probability waves rather than the traditional particle model/GR. It was only with QFT that it _had_ to be accepted under the pressure of overwhelming evidence.
Is some postmodernism ridiculous? Absolutely, and it should be just as up for critique as the mainstream sciences it intends to examine. But I think it certainly has a reasonable role to play in removing the boundaries of thought and ultimately aiding the development of science as a whole.
Someone mentioned physics envy, and somewhat ironically this is what postmodernism is seeking to remedy; specifically that many social sciences will try to anchor their claims with mathematical formulations for the sake of appearing more concrete/legitimate, despite any actual correlation to "truth". Economics is easily the most guilty of this and it's why I mentioned it earlier.
Anyway, my only point is that it's not as crazy as it seems and is actually (I would say at least) pretty necessary to keep us all thinking in new ways, despite the occasional insanity - which honestly happens in every field.
@@Bisquick Both of your examples are bullshit, I'm afraid. First, craniometry is a perfectly valid field of study, and phrenology never occupied a dominant place in scientific discourse. It was always, from the moment of its inception to its eventual wholesale abandonment, a deeply controversial field that was considered by many to be pseudoscience as early as the 1880s. Phrenology didn't suddenly fall out of fashion after the holocaust and Jim Crow because society stopped liking its attendant politics; it was abandoned by most biologists by the 1930s.
As for quantum mechanics, my channel hosts an ongoing series exploring the history of its development, and it was the dominant paradigm in physics by 1927- six years before the first steps of quantum field theory would be taken.
@@Bisquick ...so because bad science had been accepted before, we should accept obvious bullshit? Yeah, no. The black magic lady can cry in front of her shrine for all I give a damn.
@@therealfriday13th That's not at all what he said. You could at least try to argue in good faith.
Thank you. Thank you so much for doing what you do and being who you are. There is so much irrational, unreasonable stupidity in places where it's directly harmful. Sometimes you'd think the whole world is gone mad. Then something as minute as a notification on youtube reminds you that there's still sanity at work out there. Your contributions to a better, richer, more reasonable future are to be lauded so again, thank you for sticking with us.
Crisp, clear evisceration, sir. It's important work pushing back against mushy useless ideas that undermine not only our current civilization, but endanger our future existence amidst growing environmental problems.
She lost me at indigenous science.
irtehpwn09 it's at best a very, very loose interpretation of science. Something like discovering that drinking a tea from this plant corelates with lowering a fever, or only nuts of this type are edible after being roasted or soaked for a week. The confusion comes from drawing a false relation between the modern standards of rigor, and chanting incantations that have a falsely correlated success rate. Which is a pretty large confusion. Then the enterprise of science is attacked as a political venture because their personal beliefs aren't taken seriously, because they can't comprehend their personal beliefs aren't science.
She should have used a word like “culture”. Her speech would have made much more sense.
You lost me when you didn't get the point but arrogantly commented your opinion anyway .
@@rippedtorn2310 arrogance is a broad umbrella you also seem to shelter under.
Just replace indigenous with woke... It will make sense.
All this is pretty strong evidence of festering institutional corruption in the corporatized education sector, not a genuine desire to be inclusive of women and minorities in STEM.
+
Karl Winterling How ironic is it that a more corporatized, capitalist run education sector ends up preaching rampant anti-capitalism, hell-bent on it's destruction, whilst a government funded university system keeps the far-left neo-marxist loons out and creates an environment which generates knowledge that is ultimately beneficial for capitalism to thrive and succeed outside the university? You'd think it'd be the other way round. Very Strange.
@@rileykaiseeker4294 Postmodernism is not "Neo-Marxism." As Lenin noted, "From the standpoint of modern materialism i.e., Marxism, the limits of approximation of our knowledge to objective, absolute truth are historically conditional, but the existence of such truth is unconditional, and the fact that we are approaching nearer to it is also unconditional. The contours of the picture are historically conditional, but the fact that this picture depicts an objectively existing model is unconditional."
Glad to see you back. I hope life is treating you well 😊.
Through out this all I can think is the Inigo Montoya quote "You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means".
I love how in order to say that rigor is bad she has to throw away the discourse that surrounds the sign.
Yes, it's essentially a metacriticism separated from the meta.
She's not complaining that scientific discourse is using or focused around the concept of rigitidy, she's complaining that the word itself can both describe scientific entreprise and stiff cocks, even though it's never at the same time.
It's so childish I can't believe this went further than the kindergarten class she first giggled it to herself in.
Yes, because there are good discourses... and there are bad discourses.
@@tlrlml How dare you discriminate you discoursist!
You were not forgotten KC. Great to see you again!
As an academic geophysicist, I have some exposure to post modern criticism. It primarily manifests as accusations of scietism. Luckily my colleagues use the term correctly, not as the general illiterate smear you see tossed around by creationists, anti-vaxers and even flat earth proponents. I personally feel there is some merit to the post modern critique in the soft, social sciences. Anthropology, archaeology, sociology, psychology, economics, even some aspects of medicine have all gained from the application of new models. New questions can be asked,.new hypothesis formulated. Old, accepted ones can be tested against new standards. Two very clear examples are the fairly new concept of gender identity vs biological sex, and the genetic variation that actually exists in determining sex. Doctors have known of this and had to deal with a binary system that does not match reality.
However little of this applies to hard sciences. The example provided of the critique of light speed and the equation E=MC^ is a perfect case in point. Also the post modern critique of scientists believing math and models are the real world is a straw man. No scientist among the few thousand I've met would hold such a thing. We work with models that are alwas subject to adjustment. This should be obvious since a large portion of scientific knowledge is inductive or stochastic. Richard Dawkins said , famously: "Science, it works. Bitches." There is your measure of truth.
The first part of your comment is probably where most of this is applied but the second part is massively over egged and hrveven puts (buzz) words folks mouths in this video to dismiss it where it can be useful and used . I'm disappointed to be honest looks like he's going a long way and out of his way to make a video for his politics more than anything else .
@@Demo5 please offer an example of where I dismissed potentially legitimate applications of pomo with "buzzwords."
@@myutubechannel_nr1 Extremist views should always be attacked. King Crocoduck's channel has always been about dealing with extremists.
Ask him about how to actually deal with inequality in academia? I mean he's not an expert on that and can't give you non extremist and non shit answers. He probably should though. If he wants to completely demolish the post modern attack on science he should provide much better alternatives than they do to prevent them from having a monopoly over difficult questions.
It is an interesting video. Especially when you notice all the literary terminology mixed into postmodernism. Then you remember that, that is what postmodernism started out as, LITERARY criticism. Which is where it should have stayed.
Sorry, as someone who likes literary criticism, (the good kind) I say no. No, no, no, no bloody no. It should have never been brought to the front. The moment it started to rear its ugly head it should have been dismissed as the horseshit garbage it is.
Post modernists are so petronising and codescending. As as black person, I also wanna see blacks becoming great scientists. That's why I wanna study applied mathematics next year. Thanks for your video.
@Maxx Kroes Thanks for your input. I'll consider myself as a mathematician, not a black mathematician.
I found many of the Post Modernist ideas expressed in this video to be true to the principles of INGSOC.
Doubleplusgood Comrade!
Welcome, everyone, to the XXI century, where ignorance is the next big thing, because of reasons.
Did you not listen? It‘s because of NO reason! ;)
My first independent programming contract was in 1978 for a Brazilian Solar Architect who showed that Macchu Pichu incorporated solar design principles that had only recently been enumerated in the West. Specifically, those rooms directly facing the Sun were the largest, and the further the rooms were from direct sunlight, the smaller they were. As a result, temperatures inside were constant through out the structure.
Other features of Macchu Pichu made it consistently warm than nearby Cuzco, some thousands of feet lower in elevation. The central peak acted as a thermal reflector, maximizing the warmth from sunlight. While during most days, the sky was clear around the peak, most nights the cloud cover closed over the peak, trapping the heat emitted by the ground during the night.
It is a marvel of solar engineering.
Clearly, the architects of Macchu Pichu were superbly effective engineers, centuries ahead of their time, and obviously employed entirely different principles than those used by modern engineers.
I would not be so quick to dismiss "native science" as pure woo.
This ain't quantum physics made easy part 3!!
Quantum Thoery made easy part 3.
ruclips.net/video/llz8WtLv2X0/видео.html&t=
Citation needed.
I would agree that the goals and applications of engineering need to shift, if only slightly. We should focus less on military and more on sustainability and increasing the wellbeing of people. This, of course, is a value shift in how engineering is used, not a change to engineering itself.
It boggles my mind how excellent each and every one of your videos is! Keep it up :)
I'd like to pretend... That these people are standup comedians, and all their audience aren't followers, but just intellectual people who appreciate high form humor.
BUT IT'S NOT SO, AAAAAAAAAA THE PAIN
OMFG... Where is Stalin?! We need to reopen the Gulags immediately!
LongLostWraith ruclips.net/video/933jsB5ChlA/видео.html now thats what i call feminism that actually help anybody!
Ook! [This is a video which every scientist and engineer should see. I will (secretly) try to distribute it at my university. Thank you for your work. The fluid mechanics part blew my mind.... Speaking of 34:30 and beyond... the feminist (female obviously) 'engineers' already built a bridge in Florida. It collapsed within one day and killed several people.]
The Navier-Stokes equations are an unsolved problem with almost 200 years. Some feminist genius should have already solved it.
Oh great, who let an Orangutan into the library?
TheLibrarianUU Citation?
www.snopes.com/fact-check/was-all-female-responsible-bridge-collapse/ 'cause THAT totally happened.
@@biohoo22 Stop citing Snopes or start citing comic books. They're roughly equal.
I rarely get worked up when watching any type of media, but the “lecture” on rigour was almost infuriating. Hey egghead, look up, rigour is what keeps that roof from collapsing on your disciples here and what keeps the lights on. Im mostly fine with a pomo lens used in art and maybe even history, but once it seeps in to hard science it’s a big problem for me. Great video
You are a national treasure. I've been watching you fight this fight before I even knew what postmodernism was. Keep fighting the good fight my friend
This is the best video describing Post Modernism that I have ever watched.
I am a socialist, but I definitely agree with King Crocoduck's assertions here. Socialism without empiricism is utterly worthless. If you cannot objectively assess the needs of the populace, you will absolutely fail to serve the populace. It's damned well frustrating to watch people on "my side" abandon science in favour of meaningless wordplay. This will not help women, or ethnic minorities, or the disabled, or anyone. It's nothing but useless posturing by useless academics who have clearly never known the very real struggles of the working class. Shame on all these charlatans for disparaging the aims of social justice by invoking such nonsensical BS to platform themselves as self-appointed "heroes of the people" .
Same, It's a shame how in some orgs I've been in have been prone to this sort of idealism. I think it's more popular in the west on the left these days. Russian Marxists that I watch on youtube seem to hold their ground a lot more better with this post modernist stuff. Most of those videos aren't translated into English so I think this phenomena will last longer in the west unfortunately.
Indigenous science? The same science that failed to figure out that logs roll? Ill pass thanks
First nations person here. She's full of crap and doesn't represent me, my family, or my ancestors.
What are you talking about? I must have missed something.
They knew logs rolled. They had toys for children that had wheels.
The native american acctualy invented the wheel. But used it for toys, and not in an serious way.
@@markhackett2302 ahhh, fellow man of culture
Things you didn't think the word "Hyped" would apply to:
A critique video about postmodernism in science.
But here I am, legit happy to see a new one pop up in my feed.
It's probably for ones personal betterment that you are no longer on twitter, but so often I see trolley memes and I am sad that I can't share them. Oh the humanities.
"Lets make engineering deal with the historical problems of women!"
That made me think that engineers really should find a way to wash clothes, or plates, get drinking water into homes, maybe even an artificial light source, oh, maybe a way to heat food really fast using some kind of magic waves, some methods to avoid pregnancy, maybe create absorbent pads used every month and some way for women to talk to each other over great distances to discuss what jerks men are.
If only engineers would think of the women.
Those aren't necessarily "women" problems right now though. I think they're reffering to issues that have persisted from history to now.
Like I guess we need better tech to help cops enforce rape laws or to help people tend off rape. Unfortunately, it's really easy to rape people if you know what you're doing. Often a rapist rapes dozens or hundreds of times before being caught, and even then they may get away with it.
I like that one nail polish that changes color if a alcoholic drink has been spiked. That can seem useful.
There was also this tampon-like item with a spike at the end, but that might be extreme. Idk how much damage should a rape prevention tool provide. Maybe a tranq instead of a straight spike might be more ethical?
@@xenoblad There are an over-abundance of rape kits in police stations across the USA that have no been processed. Supposedly, the cost is too high to process them. Maybe technology could help solve that problem - cheaper, quicker, easier tests.
A tranq, so you goes to sleep so i can cut off his pecker, tie him up, and leave him in an ant bed in the middle of the desert - or thrown him in a river to drown.
The thing is, postmodernism does make some cogent points. Its always worth questioning which set of facts a person is choosing to include in their analysis, and which they're excluding. Its always worth bearing in mind the cultural and social context in which those facts are chosen, and indeed what lines of enquiry are pursued. These criticisms can even be applied to science, since science has finite resources, and its allocation of those resources might represent social or cultural biases. I think that what postmodernists get wrong is they conflate our ability to construct narratives with the idea that literally everything is a mere narrative. They don't understand (or ignore) that Science is the best method we have for understanding the natural world - and yes,we can only filter science through imperfect human senses, and try to understand it with imperfect human brains, but that doesn't devalue it. E=MC2 isn't a narrative, or a discourse. Its a fact about the universe, which would be true whether or not we were here to interpret it. The universe operated long before there were any humans around to pontificate over it, so the rules that govern it must logically be prior to human discourse.
David Foster Wallace: ""poststructuralist" is what you call a deconstructionist who doesn't want to be called a deconstructionist)"
@Mac Ton it has been. Some atheists tried to warn us of feminism, but we didn't listen to them... not that if we had we wouldn't still be dealing with this nonsense. Is believe in god as bad as this nonsense? I... don't know O__o;
@Mac Ton I have to agree. This is ... beyond sick. I hope you and others can cover this... its beyond the scope of logical analysis - in fact, it just breaks logic and my brain. @_@
@@DeconvertedMan Excuse me, but can I ask what definition of feminism you are talking about? I am guessing third wave? Cause feminism in itself is not bad (as in first wave).
Or is there something about this discussion I have completely missed?
I just want to be careful with wording, because most people reading that comment will interpret it as an assault on the base definition of feminism, which I assume it is not.
@@dig8634 first wave was pretty bad as well. But its a moot point, the whole word has been tainted, time to drop it in full. Support whatever without using that word.
@@DeconvertedMan That is true, might as well just say equality and be done with it. No need to specify equality for women after all XD It is the same equality no matter.
I haven't watched a video from this channel in a good while, and just reading the channel title makes me long for the old days of Cameron and Comfort! Oh. the days when some of our chief worries were of the Crocoduck and The Nightmare Banana. Take me back!
The articles cited starting at 20:36 are pure gold, each of them. Has Sokal been up to tricks again?
Sadly those are all real.
To be fair, I'd actually be interested in finding out the results of some of them. Sure, they sound ridiculous, but so does inertia, and if it's backed by actual evidence, then that's exactly what science is for.
The vegan sex one does sound batshit insane, though.
"If men can breastfeed, why don't they?" This may be the funniest thing I've ever read... not only does it ask a nonsensical question that has no basis in reality but it also accuses men of not being willing to do something they aren't able to do...
I'm so glad to see you've kept working on the Science Wars series, which is some of my favorite content of yours! Thank you Crocoduck for the great content.
*internal screaming intensifies
Me around 10-12 years ago:
“I’m going to take on flat earthers!”
The internet: “Wow. You’re going for some seriously obscure low hanging fruit.”
King Crockoduck: “Hold my beer!”
I don't know who's comeback is more welcome, yours or Jameskii's. Regardless, welcome back.
EDIT: Thanks for providing Luce's quote in the video. I'll pass this on to the askphilosophy subreddit.
if you do please post the link!
@@ThePharphis Looks like the thread is archived unfortunately.
oh I see. I thought you meant you were going to make a post on the topic
Wow, you could make a religion out of that.
They've gotten to the point where they're more annoying than creationists.
*No don't*
"Could"
24:00 This is the equivalent of every highschool essay ever written beginning with the words "The Oxford English Dictionary defines X as ..."
Postmodern Woo - it certainly is. I had no idea how wooish until I read Shem's @ Patheos. I had heard of Sokal when it happened, but didn't give PomoWoo much more thought. Many years later I stumble into Shem's and find he argues about science like the alt-med crowd that I'd been reading about for several years prior. One of the first things I read was a video of yours about witchcraft in SAfrica. A video that was grossly mischaracterized by Shem - that's a theme I see quite often.
Anyhoo, that led me to dig deeper into PomoWoo. I have read a few times that there's more to the philosowoo than "anything goes". It seems not. The idea that text & language create things like reality seems to put us at the centre of the universe like a religion might. Apparently, it doesn't matter if electrons existed before we needed them... we're more than dead chemicals...
Anti-naturalism is a good way to describe this woo. Indigenous science, like European science at the time, had nothing for the smallpox shock-wave that hit the new continents. Aspirin is an effective analgesic with indigenous origins and would still be effective regardless of origin. Homeopathy is a European idea that would be medical quackery anywhere it was dreamt up. The geographic location of the genesis of the idea has no bearing on the accuracy of the claim in a scientific sense. This aspect of the method is handwaved away simply because the vagaries of history had a European realize that we can learn of our environment through a thing we call science. Many other cultures were doing similar things, but never quite made the leap. Still, many of the things they came up with are part of science because they describe nature.
PomoWoo seems to be a yearning for something beyond our understanding of our environment because science is most concerned with someone making lefty noises about science rather than the idea of casting a spell to call lightning is an accurate aspect of the natural world. People love science when it backs up their claims, but there's always something wrong with science, when it doesn't.
Postmodernism has become a religion, and as such should, like all religions, be treated with utter contempt.
this entire philosophy is an exercise in the construction of non-sequiturs and its axioms and definitions read like essays trying to reach word limits imposed by high school teachers
The first 12 minutes sounds like social sciences trying to apply its methodology to "hard" sciences...
As a someone who studied social science i can assure you few want post-modern methodologies in their! Post-modern critiques can lead to interesting places, but only if investigated using the tools that deduce objective truth, which exists in the social sciences as much as it does in the “hard” ones.
Postmodernism is a byproduct of the philosophers disease
@@jeffreylaporte6525 thanks for the feedback!
I've studied the humanities (carefully avoiding the woowoo courses) and can attest to the weird disconnect of fact and narrative.
In Puerto Rico, I'm seeing a very vocal group of post-modernists making noise in the social studies, but it may be just that, a very vocal minority.
As a rich white patriarch once said.... "STAY THIS MADNESS!"
it hurts to listen to.
I feel like post-constructionists are trying to turn me into a misogyinist.
@@sandakureva Please resist that temptation.
I found Kelly Oliver's statements at 21:28 interesting. While she is obviously coming from a leftist perspective as a 3rd-wave feminist, the devaluation of truth in the quest for power hasn't only been done _by_ those on the left...
"If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and those who claim to be the bearers of objective immortal truth, then there is nothing more relativistic than Fascist attitudes and activity. From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, we Fascists conclude that we have the right to create our own ideology and to enforce it with all the energy of which we are capable." - _Benito Mussolini_
Haven't seen the whole thing, but your description of post-modernism seems fair! Which is suprsing since so many seem to misunderstand it.
The rest seems very similar to an older video of yours? Is this an re-upload? Or perheps a response to a earlier critique from the post-modernists?
Either way, this one is far more precise! Good work!
The problem with social justice oriented criticism is that it doesn't work for anything that isn't a social construct. Hard science doesn't change based on how the scientists feel. It works much better when dealing with social sciences like history, because our understanding of history usually isn't truly based in proven fact rather it is based on historical documents which are often riddled with the bias of the author. The phrase history is written by the victors is true even with more recent events and it is especially true the further back you go in time. Saying the laws of gravity are filled with Newton's pro western bias is ludicrous, but to say the Histories are riddled with Herodotus's pro Greek bias or David Ramsey's works on the American Revolution are riddled with his bias from having served in a patriot militia are not just reasonable, but also necessary to look at the subject from as close to an objective lense as one can.
Thank you @kingcrocoduck I thoroughly enjoy every video you have put out.
I have not started this one yet and I know I will enjoy and learn from it.
As a transgender person I find calling everything a social construct and then changing meanings annoying and dangerous. Actual science is doing just fine to explain gender incongruity and there's a huge body of research about its validity.
Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?
I really wish you'd put out more content. Always a pleasure and an education to listen to you
Good to see you King 🤘
The King has returned
"Indigenous science is still here!" she yells in a microphone and doesn't use smoke signals. What a bigot.
Oh! Yes. I laughed. I did. 😆
Smoke signals weren't used by everyone. Only some cultures practiced it.
I sincerely doubt that Pawley has ever created the propulsion systems she claimed.
Saying that there's an infinite number of ways to describe how phenomenon are happening seems like it's ignoring that there's relevant ways to distinguish even between true statements. All sorts of true statements can be made about, for instance, a ball falling to earth, that accurately describe what's happening. Newton and Lagrange and Einstein would all describe it differently and none of them would be wrong, but they each are contributing different tools to the toolbox of how to describe the same event. That's an extent to which I think this postmodern viewpoint is useful. But to say "Newton and Lagrange and Einstein are all right and so is the person who a demon pulls all objects just so to move as they do", ignores that the first 3 sorts of tools all have uses and are more useful in some questions than in others, while the last just... isn't. It just ain't that useful. And yeah what's useful depends on subjective desires about what we should want to get done. But if you're repurposing science to be about something other than making predictions about events, you're gonna need something else that does that better or you'll get consequences only a lover of an apocalypse would want.
It's seemingly all part of the plan to "dumb down" everyone on earth?
Oh shit. Is that a conspiracy theory starring "us and them"? I take it back. I take it back. There are no conspiracies to spread stupid as truth! I was wrong. Sorry.
I was worried that you'd forgotten about this series. Glad the new episode is finally out.
I have a feeling that specific worldview largely came about from the failures of early social science (which really did have the issue separating subjectivity from objectivity). It's a real problem in psychology and psychiatry. Historically, doctors tried to "fix" things that weren't problems (due mostly to their culture/person morals or due to a false sense of objectivity).
I would also like to just say "postmodernism" is far too broad of a concept to be throwing around. And what most of this stuff is based on is the problem of subjectivity (the problem of which has been acknowledged for a long time). Of course, I disagree with their solution to the problem (it obviously doesn't work), instead we should be focusing on the continued efforts to remove subjective experience from the various methodologies used in science.
It's also worth pointing out that we all exist in our own heads and while we can make the attempt to study reality we can't ever be perfectly objective (not that we shouldn't keep trying, obviously).
Well King Crocoduck. Thank you, my good man, for stating the blindingly obvious is such an articulate and precise manner. Great work sir.
The "rigour" lady sounds like a group of twelve year old children giggling over the word titillate.
You're going to Mars!
Do you want to go on the rigorously tested rocket?
Or the vigorously tested rocket?
Quantum Theory Made Easy [3] coming next? Real one I mean.
Its already up! ruclips.net/video/oHg5SJYRHA0/видео.html
@@personanongrata5204 Fuck you
I don't think I'd want to cross a bridge, drive a car, or enter a building designed by these "engineers."
i`m amazed that post modernism actually exists
Where on earth do you find the patience to wade through the galling effrontery that is neo-postmodernism? I admire that almost as much as the boldness and clarity of your arguments in favor of rationality and science. Thank you for all of it!
Clicked this so fast I accidentally tore the space-time continuum.
Will fix after after watching the video so apologies for any paradoxes currently being experienced in your reality.
So it's YOUR fault that my cat is simultaneously alive and dead in her litterbox!
@@therealfriday13th Our cat was simultaneously not hungry and ravenous. I hope its over soon.
@@Wistful77
No, that happens every time you reset them to factory settings.
@@therealfriday13th You could always not look in the box...
You better fix this shit. I'm my own great great grandfather now you tit.
I'm once again in absolute chock.
These types of people exist? I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
There's only worse and worse to come. Join the dark net sometime. You get to see what a degenerate world we live in, and how the government wants to hide that from you. After all, the best money producing cattle is a stress-free cattle. The streets are too damn clean.
@@dimitar4y
The lizard people try hard to keep their lives a secret form idiots on the Internet. Leave them alone, they deserve privacy as such as the hairless primates of this planet.
The graphs you used for the illustration of discourses: I feel the need to untangle them. Are they planar? I don't know, but I must try! Why do you do this to us? ^^
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought that!
I kind of understand where the various conspiracy theorists come from. I haven't the slightest idea how or what these people think. I know I'm not anywhere near as educated but I just can't begin to imagine the mental gymnastics required to come to these types of conclusions. It hurts to try.
Brilliant shit dude, just made my high 50% better.
For Deepak Chopra:
“The whole earth, perpetually steeped in blood, is nothing but a vast altar upon which all that is living must be sacrificed without end, without measure, without pause, until the consummation of things, until evil is extinct, until the death of death.”
Joseph de Maistre, St Petersburg Dialogues: Or Conversations on the Temporal Government of Providence
Such drivel. I feel sorry for you, having had to wade through all of this... loose stool-water. Arse-gravy of the worst kind. (Thanks, Stephen Fry)
On a semi-unrelated tangent, I do think reality is subjective, but not in the way post-modernists do.
To explore this, I offer the fact that I am 49 and ask the question, If you were in the Mu Arae star system, would I exist?
Mu Arae is about 50.12 light years away. Given that nothing travels faster than the speed of light, the reality of my existence began to ripple out from my birth 49 years ago at the speed of light and has not yet reached Mu Arae.
Given the speed of light and our relatively close proximity to each other, we don't experience the subjective nature of existence in any meaningful way and it does not manifest in the testing of most of our models, so for practical purposes and most scientific results reality does not seem subjective, but it is.
The realization that I don't exist in the vast vast vast majority of the universe is humbling.
Do these people want a dystopia? Because that's how you get a dystopia...
Always glad to see an upload from you.
How’s the pain and suffering becoming a physicist?
You could ask Marie Curie, such a good question
I was so relieved and excited when I saw this video in my recommendations! I was a bit worried that you were done with your online persona after what happened on Twitter. I’m glad you’re still taking on one of the most threatening parts of the psedointellectualism epidemic on the online front! Keep up the good fight!
I used to think the " endarkenment " was a conspiracy theory !
The following comment may be meaningful, but it asserts no argument, only the ‘wave-spike’ of an emotional superlative.
KC, you are fucking BRILLIANT!
Title: Postmodern Woo
2:40 - Starts talking about intersections
My glee cannot be contained
This is the best video I have seen in years. Can't believe I haven't noticed your channel yet