C. E. Larson: The Benefits Of Thinking Like A Scientists, And Why VCU Is At Risk
There is only space here to mention a single offending guideline from VCU’s proposed General Education curriculum: “Recognize how knowledge is constructed differently in various communities.” Knowledge of course is knowledge. But there are fashions in academia that suggest that the most important kinds of knowledge are somehow not universal, and that there is no “truth” to scientific laws.Hear, Hear.
One of these trends, alluded to in this curriculum guideline is “social constructivism” or the “social construction of knowledge.” The main idea here seems to be that, because people discover scientific laws, the discoveries must be somehow dependent on the backgrounds (cultural, political, etc.) of the scientists who made them.
It is certainly true that scientists make up the language they use. (For example, whether a neutron is called a “neutron” or something else is a choice — which becomes a convention.)
Insofar as scientific language and practices are conventional, there is something true in social constructivism — but specific claims (that can be substantiated or falsified by evidence) in social constructionism are rare. Insofar as social constructionism is the backdrop for the rejection of “truth” — especially scientific truth — the new VCU General Ed guideline promoting it is pernicious.
***
A better guideline here would be to recognize how knowledge is universal, and acquired only slowly over time, with great effort, by serious and thoughtful researchers across the planet.
Social constructionism, relativism, and similar nonsense have basically become dogma in the humanities and social sciences. Here's a simple rule of thumb: once the term 'social construction' or its cognates is in play in a discussion, nothing serious will be accomplished. It's not that society has no effects on us; it's rather that those terms are so ambiguous and unclear that they destroy any conversation they touch.
VCU was in the process of destroying itself fifteen years ago (one of its first inane moves: shove a bunch of unrelated departments into the laughably-named "school of world studies"... I mean...there's not much in the humanities and social sciences that you can't shove into "world studies," really... ) Now it seems to be going the way of JMU by replacing its core curriculum with a half-assed "General Education" program.
Academia is a silly place.
posted by Winston Smith at
9:01 PM
1 Comments:
To your point about the ambiguity of language that PCs use-- one of my classmates claimed that the definition of 'racism' is the old "privilege plus power," and that the turn, as it is used in contemporary academia, is unequivocally clear.
I preceded to point out two other plausible uses of the term (citing the historical genesis and development of the term), and he decided that these kinds of racism, e.g. hatred of some other race or the belief that one's race is superior, are just kinds of prejudice plus power. Thus, there is no ambiguity.
When I tried to point out that there is still discrepancy in how people *use* the term, he just simply rejected it out of hand, and said "we already have a clear definition of racism." He didn't take to my point that 'racism' is a theoretical term-- and not a natural language term-- thus it is much harder to secure its precise meaning.
tl;dr if someone claims that you are being unclear, just deny that there is an ambiguity and gaslight your opponent such that they begin to question why *they* have a nonstandard interpretation of the concept. Rhetorical tricks. Sneaky sneaky.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home