Year: 2010

The Scientific Tribe

“The objectives of science may be objective, but science forms a fascinating topic for anthropologist’s case study. Social and political factors driving science are pervasive. Nothing fundamentally different in modes of “problem solving” thought between say engineers and scientists.”

I had found the current Rees Reith lectures (last of 4 today) a little dull so far, and even today. Perhaps it’s just his – male, gray & stale – delivery, nothing too contentious, but some gems in there. The real contention in science is that Rees has religious faith, held to be compatible with his elevated position in science.

Wonderful dig at the religious zeal of Darwin’s modern day “disciples” contrasted with Darwin’s own outlook.

(Scarily dumb question from the representative of The Wellcome Foundation, wishing scientific progress could be more systematic. Give him the benefit of the doubt that it was maybe ironically tongue in cheek ?)

Talking out your Arse ?

If computers had colons, they could make better decisions. Nice one from Dilbert.

Dilbert.com

The problem is confusing brains with minds. You colon is part of your mind, even though it’s not part of your brain. Damasio has a word for it – Somatic Markers. (And yes it is all process. Process that is; not “a” process.)

Trust Matters

One of my management adages is

“Agreement in public,
disagreement in private”.

I was reminded of it by this quote collection from Kevin Kelly. (Here’s the permalink to the Scott Delinger quote.)

It’s one of these things that get’s tangled up in open communications, freedom of speech mantras that so many people seem to think applies to all communications. As if not voicing disagreement is somehow dishonest. No such thing as need to know, all management of communication is somehow evil. Also the element that agreeing in public is a kind of “me too” noise, less valuable that disagreement. It also get’s tangled up in “scientism” … as if somehow covering up disagreement, not pointing out errors, is counter to scientific progress, and must be stamped out for some greater good.

No. In my experience most disagreement is initially misunderstanding, and voicing disagreement initially tends to spread misunderstanding, and in a context where trust matters, spreading misunderstanding then spreads uncertainty and mistrust. Much more effective to voice misunderstanding and apparent disagreement with the other party privately, to establish if there really is error or significant disagreement, or simply lack of clarity that will benefit from clarification. Then go public with that. Much more productive of everyone’s time.

Of course if trust doesn’t matter to you, do your worst.

(More good quotes in that Kevin Kelley collection BTW – Tim O’Reilly and E. Digby Baltzell for example.)

Compression Loop

Spooky for reasons I can’t quite pin down yet, having picked-up on Compression yesterday, Compression is the initial subject of this Long Now talk from Brian Eno and Will Wright. In retrospect, I think the only connection with Owen Barfield is the mention of the Aeolian Harp as regenerative music.

Oh, and receiving a mail this morning concerning Owen Barfield.

Listening now to that Eno / Wright talk, this is of course identical to Hofstadter’s Tabletop metaphor – problem space with huge range of possible outcomes as a conversation … a simple recurring pattern of “play” generating outcomes in levels well beyond the objective  inputs.

Disappointing

Having concluded positively that Christopher Hitchens does know what he’s talking about in the faith vs science debate, I have to say that the rhetoric here is unnecessarily dirty.

The prince is an easy target without coherent argument, or necessarily the expertise for such argument, but he is expressing a real concern for soulless scientism.

Rationally Stupid

Or is that Stupidly Rational ? Neat. From Elizabeth Pisani.

And morally rational ? A good one from Michael Sandel. Essential ethics at the core of difficult debate.
(And Sandel’s Harvard teaching lectures from 2005 – and the ongoing online justice harvard resource – see also last year’s Reith lectures.)