Scientism

[Duke Leto]

The short version of that would be "Death to all Fucking -isms!".

Yeah. Go team. Right direction. Boo hiss. Really bad inferences. Philosophical cultural evolution proposals, unsupported punctuated equilibrium. Go back and review Kurt Lewin. He was trying to connect to physics too. I'm more inclined to finding clues for history in comparative neuroscience models just as medicine is finding cheap evidence basis in rodents and monkey models.

Fellow iconoclast!

The idea is a lot simpler than you're making it out to be. My idea is we can't talk about the big historical "-isms" as meaningful things that last more than a generation or so, "nationalism" in 19th century Eastern Europe was quite a different animal from 15th century Western Europe or 19th century America, so calling them all "nationalism" muddies more than it clarifies; and that the economy has to be healthy and stable enough to pay for existing social structures. If the economy gets messed up, social structures will be forced to change, although the selection criteria will be based on "what makes sense to a majority of people (with power) at the time", and therefore highly unstable. Society doesn't change when things are going OK economically.

If anything, this is taking a sledgehammer to 19th century historical scientist(-ist?)s who worked wrongly with the framework of Hegelian Idealism and tried to make history into a copy of Linnaeus's Biology, only the taxonomy wasn't just non-cladistic, it was Aristotelian.

 

[fromderinside]

Yeah. Go team. Right direction. Boo hiss. Really bad inferences. Philosophical cultural evolution proposals, unsupported punctuated equilibrium. Go back and review Kurt Lewin. He was trying to connect to physics too. I'm more inclined to finding clues for history in comparative neuroscience models just as medicine is finding cheap evidence basis in rodents and monkey models.

Fellow iconoclast!

The idea is a lot simpler than you're making it out to be. My idea is we can't talk about the big historical "-isms" as meaningful things that last more than a generation or so, "nationalism" in 19th century Eastern Europe was quite a different animal from 15th century Western Europe or 19th century America, so calling them all "nationalism" muddies more than it clarifies; and that the economy has to be healthy and stable enough to pay for existing social structures. If the economy gets messed up, social structures will be forced to change, although the selection criteria will be based on "what makes sense to a majority of people (with power) at the time", and therefore highly unstable. Society doesn't change when things are going OK economically.

If anything, this is taking a sledgehammer to 19th century historical scientist(-ist?)s who worked wrongly with the framework of Hegelian Idealism and tried to make history into a copy of Linnaeus's Biology, only the taxonomy wasn't just non-cladistic, it was Aristotelian.

I agree. From your perspective it is a lot simpler than I'm making itout to be. Using modern guides though from biological discipline conjecture? Are they truly appropriate as guides. What I'm looking for in history are principles gained from living social beings similar to humans in many respects as points of entry for considering what we have collected. Mine is no better, but, it is my preference.

 

[Duke Leto]

I'm still trying to work out what the hell you just said, so let's chalk this one up as "agreement to disagree".

 

[fromderinside]

I'm still trying to work out what the hell you just said, so let's chalk this one up as "agreement to disagree".

We don't disagree except on who and what are useful references. I'm disgusted by Gould and his superposition of catastrophic geological history with evolutionary equilibrium (punctuate equilibrium) as how evolution works while I'm pretty much in tune with  T. C. Schneirla and  E. O. Wilson as sources for insight on human history. If you are wondering about Schneirla just look at a recent SA article on electrical stimulation and cancer research. In that paper the self absorbed author, a physician, robbed an idea about the relation between disease and neural reflex from TC. while aligning himself with Charles Sherrington as sources for such innovation.

I get pissed real easy.

 

[Duke Leto]

I'm still trying to work out what the hell you just said, so let's chalk this one up as "agreement to disagree".

We don't disagree except on who and what are useful references. I'm disgusted by Gould and his superposition of catastrophic geological history with evolutionary equilibrium (punctuate equilibrium) as how evolution works while I'm pretty much in tune with  T. C. Schneirla and  E. O. Wilson as sources for insight on human history. If you are wondering about Schneirla just look at a recent SA article on electrical stimulation and cancer research. In that paper the self absorbed author, a physician, robbed an idea about the relation between disease and neural reflex from TC. while aligning himself with Charles Sherrington as sources for such innovation.

I get pissed real easy.

Well, in my defense, I guess, I cited Dennett and Dawkins as much ahead of Gould, and I know Dennett prefers Wilson to Gould. Never heard of Schneirla.

 

[fromderinside]

We don't disagree except on who and what are useful references. I'm disgusted by Gould and his superposition of catastrophic geological history with evolutionary equilibrium (punctuate equilibrium) as how evolution works while I'm pretty much in tune with  T. C. Schneirla and  E. O. Wilson as sources for insight on human history. If you are wondering about Schneirla just look at a recent SA article on electrical stimulation and cancer research. In that paper the self absorbed author, a physician, robbed an idea about the relation between disease and neural reflex from TC. while aligning himself with Charles Sherrington as sources for such innovation.

I get pissed real easy.

Well, in my defense, I guess, I cited Dennett and Dawkins as much ahead of Gould, and I know Dennett prefers Wilson to Gould. Never heard of Schneirla.

OK then.