© June 2005 Graham R Little
There is ongoing proliferation of journals, and rush to achieve peer review publication. With the Sokal affair, peer review comes into question as the process for ensuring intellectual integrity and article quality. Journals are long on advice on topics and style, but nowhere are offered clear guidelines on content. Much is published amid performance pressures on academics but with disquiet and unease that we are in fact writing more and saying less. Wisdom, where?
With this backdrop this article explores the question: what guidelines are able to be applied such that article quality, that is the content of the article does in fact add to the overall accumulation of human wisdom? The paper provides a definitive answer based on the critical role of strategic thinking in all intellectual endeavours, showing how it is the relating of a topic to its ground that ensures wisdom and the accumulation of real understanding.
What is proposed is that the current standard of ‘peer review’ is replaced by a standard of ‘rigorous strategic and conceptual transparency’. It is important to understand that this work is presented in the manner and style of the proposed new standard. Specifically, the standard is summarised in the next section, in a manner suggested for all works.
The standard of rigorous strategic and conceptual
transparency
Guidelines offered by Journals and the lack of guidelines
for judgement of conceptual quality
Sokal and the emergent questions over peer review
Summary of the problem and related issues
The conceptual structure of strategic thinking
Summary of critical function of ground
Strategic human resource management in the firm
Interpretation of quantum electro dynamics
Note on the historical discussion of the interpretation
of quantum mechanics
Summary
comparison of peer review with standard of rigorous strategic and conceptual
transparency
Comparison
of this paper and original Sokal paper against the two standards
The outline of the relationship between the topic and issues of ground
that need to be resolved prior to initiating meaningful discussion on the
topic. The discussion of the topic must be congruent with issues of ground, and
any discussion of the topic bounded by any limitations within the solutions to
the issues of ground. The article must also have a clear and succinct purpose
in relation to advancing understanding on the topic, with the purpose
underpinning the originality and uniqueness of the work. Clarity of purpose
within the bounds dictated by issues of ground, ease and unforced nature of all
congruence, completeness of list of issues of ground, and the cautious limiting
of the topic discussion to the bounds enforced by the solutions to the issues
of ground collectively infer high quality content. Science is a creative
endeavour in relation to a topic within the bounds determined by the ground; it
is not a creative-speculative endeavour.
|
Topic: What
needs to be done to ensure greater quality in the content of
scientific/intellectual journal articles? That all such articles do contribute
to improved/increased human understanding and wisdom. |
|
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Purpose of the article: To present a complete solution to the question posed by the topic. |
|
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Issues of ground and the summary
position adopted. |
|
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Immediate examples, topics and issues. |
Peer review process exhibits flaws; journals offer no guidelines on judging content. |
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Nature of general theory of psychology. |
Core to the general theory of psychology underlying the work is that psychology has several causal factors embedded in a causal structure as spelled out in the theory. Knowledge is one of those factors. Other causal factors include predispositions in the form of habits and comfort zones, and predispositions arising from pre-existing aspects of world-views and yet others arising from aspects of Thought and Emotion, embedded into mental sets, resulting in people being more likely to respond one way rather than another. |
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Nature and structure of knowledge. |
Epistemology is chiefly about the relation knowledge makes with reality beyond what we know. Ashby tools of immediate and ultimate effects models scientific knowledge. Knowledge ordered into conceptual hierarchies based on immediate and ultimate effect relations these hierarchies offering causal insight into the mechanisms/causes of the universe. |
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Nature and structure of understanding. |
Understanding exists in the relation some knowledge makes to other, pre-existing knowledge and understanding. Without being able to be linked to pre-existing knowledge and understanding any information/knowledge remains as only that, and neither adds to further insight nor to the accumulation of wisdom. |
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Existence of Reality. |
Rule of relations limits ability of any individual to assess existence of Reality. Inference of existence from analysis of perception and from scans of neural activity in presence of objects. Goal of science is to build models offering increasingly clear insight into regularities of Reality. |
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Nature of ‘truth’. |
An act of judgement, no process or system is able to replace final judgement, but we can develop processes that enforce better disciplines of judgement, more focused on the crucial issues and less influenced by personal preference and ideology or some socially accepted formula of content and style. Scientific truth is judgement of models best reflecting regularity of Reality, therefore not all ‘truths’ equal. Scientific truth is the current best-fit model; successive scientific truths viewed as asymptotically approaching Truth (capital) the perfect match to Reality. Scientists build current scientific truths aspiring to Truth they can never attain. |
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Nature and structure of strategic thinking. |
Emerges as a consequence of the above model of knowledge and understanding. Is the conceptual action of relating a topic to its ground, and of ensuring issues of ground are all understood, covered, secure, and complete before initiating any discussion or thinking on the topic. Most specifically, ensuring that whatever is said on the topics is not able to be altered or necessarily revised by any emergent insights or additional understanding of the issues of ground, and of ensuring full congruence of what ever is said on the topic with the issues of ground solutions used. |
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Ethics of science. |
Emerges as the essential behavioural consequence of enforcing the disciplines of strategic thinking onto all scientific/intellectual endeavours. |
Journals offer two very precise guidelines
to authors: First, they define carefully the topics or area to which the
journal is devoted. Second, they specify the style in which any article is to
be presented, with most opting for the ‘
Let us be clear as to what ‘peer review’ means: Any work is placed before a panel of people who work in the field. Journals compete in effect to recruit ‘editors’ and ‘editorial panels’ of prestigious academics to act as the ‘reviewers and arbiters’ of article quality. Any particular work may go to one or several of these arbiters of standards, it would depend on the nature of the work, its estimated impact, and the uniqueness or otherwise of what is presented.
Peer review would seem to cover the standards needed, it would seem to be able to generate objectivity as experienced professionals in the field rated the work of other professionals. Appearances can be deceiving, and in the next few paragraphs I would like to explore potential downsides of this peer review process in relation to its stability and potential to achieve the necessary levels of intellectual rigour and the standards apt for science.
People lean toward pre-existing worldviews. The general theory of psychology on which this paper is based proposes that a person’s ‘world view’ is causal in their conduct. Further, that ideas inconsistent with any pre-existing worldview are unlikely to find a comfortable fit within the psychic structures of a person. To be pointed, the theory strongly suggests that ideas inconsistent with a pre-existing worldview are likely to be counter-argued or dismissed or both.
How do pre-existing worldviews impact the peer review process? Ideas that do not fit with the thinking of the day within some group of professionals will be dismissed or counter argued or both.
To escape this tendency demands a significant act on part of the reviewer, to lift themselves out of their natural and instinctive manner of thinking and ‘see’ and assess ways of thinking quite different and quite foreign to them. It is unquestioned this can be done, but given the shortfalls that are I would think apparent to anyone of the most meagre reflection, I suggest this implies peer review to be not a process on which to solely base the intellectual standards of humankind.
What consequences would be evident if the
issue of pre-existing worldviews was rife in the peer review process? I suggest two definite consequences. (1)
That there would be a proliferation of journals and people with a given
world-view would aggregate about particular journals. The very existence of
pre-existing world views would encourage those with a gain in publishing
journals to promote and support any journal likely to garner sufficient
support, regardless of any questions of quality of content. (2) Articles
accepted by any journal would then reflect that which the people who read the
journal wanted to read. There would be an emergence of word and topic
harmonious with the population of the journal, and anything inharmonious would
not be published, and anything harmonious would be published.
The peer review process is intrinsically
not objective. Karl Popper
among others suggested that objectivity was shared subjectivity. Were this so
simply so then peer review would have this as it root, its core of validation.
This view of objectivity overlooks any factors of judgement inherent in the
work itself, independent of the observer. For example, distance is ‘objective’
in the first instance, with only the manner of measurement varying between
observers, but varying dimensions able to be reconciled with little effort.
Distance is not something of ‘shared subjectivity’; there is something ‘there’,
in and of itself, although at times we may wrestle to fully grasp that which it
is. The same applies I suggest for articles and for the advancement of
knowledge. The knowledge that is, is there, in and of itself. It is not merely
shared subjectivity. Any addition or proposed addition is also ‘there in and of
itself’. Peer review internalises judgement to the peers involved. And while
reviewers can and do produce reports on a work, the judgement remains shared
subjectivity, and is not immediately intrinsic to the work.
This issue
emerges most if any work is rooted in conceptual structures currently not
popular, currently not common, and currently not the way the core of those
reading and hence reviewing the work think. This would universally result in
the work being rejected.
The alternative as outlined here seeks to root the core of the judgement in the work itself, measures derived from the relationship the work (knowledge) makes to other work (knowledge). Some degree of subjectivity is always present, but the proposed process pressures the move away from subjectivity to strategic and conceptual transparency fundamentally intrinsic to the work. Given that the process of peer review intrinsically embraces no factors fundamentally intrinsic to the work, this leaves the process liable to distortion and misdirection exactly as outlined above, with judgement leaning heavily toward pre-existing points of view.
As in business, when things go wrong it is most often not people to blame but faulty process, so it is with peer review. The peer review process is intrinsically faulty, in that the predisposition is intrinsic to the process, it is not deliberate in reviewers, they can do nothing else, since the very structure of their psychology enables nothing else, they can in effect not help themselves but be who they are as they are.
Then came Alan Sokal. Professor Sokal was professor of theoretical physics at NYU. He was he professed disenchanted with much of modern thinking in social science and the lack of precision and intellectual rigour. He drafted an article claiming to link various social phenomenon with quantum variability, and submitted it to a well-known and highly regarded social journal. It was accepted, and the time of it being published he declared the article a hoax written to prove that if an article were written in the language of the editors and journal population, it would be published. To date, this is the only effort at empirical validation or otherwise of the accepted system (peer review) for maintaining article integrity.
Sokal’s thesis could be summed: Any article meeting the pre-dispositions of editors and likely readers, written and saying things they would like to hear, will be published. Given the discussion above, this seems highly predictable. But more importantly we best view the Sokal version as an aspect of a more general proposition, namely: That peer review will maintain and ensure the integrity of articles and the quality of those articles.
In discussions of science, Popper presented his falsification proposition, namely that if the proposition is all swans are white, then the sighting of one black swan will negate the thesis. Now I do not adopt any simple view of judgment in science, and have elsewhere discussed the topic, however, falsification has its place amid the range of factors guiding judgement, along with prior conceptual analysis, instinct, and supporting evidence. If we are committed as I would think to ensure the integrity and quality of intellectual articles, and if we think that the process for doing that is peer review, then any evidence whereby peer review is negated as the process must be seen as very serious indeed, regardless of motives, of detail, or of embarrassment, Professor Sokal and the editors who accepted his article, both in the end should be seen as doing world science a favour.
Peer review is clearly established as flawed and not able to secure the level of intellectual rigour and quality to which I would think we all aspire.
Here I will try to bring together the issues and what we know of them.
With this as backdrop I have constructed the framework that any system must match if the integrity of articles is to be assured.
1. Intrinsic objectivity: The system must be objective, and must embrace elements of judgement intrinsic to the work itself.
2. Acceptance of human predispositions: The system must accept people as having predispositions, and must not be bounded or potential undermined by people’s natural tendencies. The process must be grounded in actions that do not assume best endeavours of people, but assumes normal and typical endeavours of people.
3. Strategic science: The system must assert the very nature of science and rigorous intellectual endeavour: It must assert the intellectual discipline essential for an article to be of the required standard and this must tie to the intrinsic objectivity as specified above.
4. Establish ethics a consequence of intellectual disciplines: Any ethical considerations should flow naturally from the disciplines of achieving the necessary intellectual standard; ethics arise not from assertions of a ‘behavioural standard’, but arise naturally from the very nature and structure of science with any ‘behavioural standard’ being a consequence not a necessary prior assertion. That is, ethics do not make a scientists, science demands levels of intellectual rigour that if followed flow to essential ethics that are subsequent to the endeavours of science.
5. Enable multi-discipline judgements: The criteria of judgements must allow and enable judgements on ideas beyond that of a reviewer’s experience (for example, new paradigms being offered) and offer transparency of judgement transcending disciplines, so that what is in one discipline can be bought to account in assessing quality of articles in other disciplines implied or referred to in the work.
6. Transparent science: The transparency should extend to clear conceptual/strategic transparency such that any intelligent observer is able to examine and assess the validity of the judgement on a work, and where the first issues needing dealt with have clearly been dealt with and it is immediately evident that there is no issue overstepped that would or could refute or erode the discussion on the topic.
I assert the process I outline below will achieve these criteria and more, and I now elaborate on the process and models behind it.
Strategic thinking I define as the conceptualisation of a topic in relation to the prior issues that relate to the topic and are pertinent in any consideration of the topic. In business, for example, the topic might be stated “identify the market position and product mix for the firm that will assure the required return on investment over the next five years”. This is clearly ‘strategic’, and is type of activity I would facilitate with a senior team undergoing a ‘strategic review’. In fact, my overall definition of strategic thinking arose from my work as a consultant in business; it became extended when I asked myself ‘what is the general nature of what we do in business?’ I came to understand ‘strategic thinking’ as a form of ‘thinking’, a conceptual process, implicating conceptualisation. I had already reached views on the definition of understanding, and the extent that any understanding required knowledge to be related and integrated into prior knowledge. It became a small step then to see strategic thinking as conceptualisation of a topic in relation to issues of importance that needed resolved prior to proceeding with consideration of the topic.
There are several crucial aspects intrinsic to strategic thinking.
Science is not a speculative endeavour: The next major step in developing the view of strategic thinking was to see it as applying to any and all intellectual endeavour. I experimented and quickly came to see the application of strategic thinking in philosophy and science generally, and wrote some articles for my web site to that effect.
As I dug deeper, I saw the power of the approach. In effect, for any topic, there is always a ground. And anytime any consideration of any topic extended beyond the ground of the known it was then mere speculation because the consideration no matter how useful or solid it appeared, extending beyond what could reasonably be projected, once outside the bounds determined by the ground, the considerations on the topic were not based on known insight and understanding, but implicated ignorance, speculation and risk. This understanding immediately posed a question: Is science a speculative endeavour?
Science as part of knowledge is itself thus an aspect of a variable of psychology and of sociology. Values of variables define specific states, and the variables from which values determined are not able to direct or determine those states. In social science, this issue is the definition of the precise point where reason and objectivity and ‘science’ cease and moral and ethical choices assume full weight. The decision as to whether or not ‘science’ is a speculative endeavour or not, is thus no decision of science nor of any form of sociological theory, it is solely a decision by us, based on our moral and ethical views of what we want science to be, and beyond just science, the issue extends to all serious intellectual endeavour that we choose to take seriously (that is not to say science fiction is not taken seriously, but no-one asserts science fiction has any validity beyond entertainment).
Furthermore, within the process of strategic thinking as I have defined and developed it, there is intrinsically a process able to assert a standard for these endeavours that far surpasses the current standard of peer review. So, for instance, if we were to assert that science is not a speculative endeavour, it would mean that any work on any topic that was not grounded was rejected as speculation and while interesting and perhaps offering speculative guidelines as to potential direction, it was not science was not serious intellectual endeavour, and as such was not able to be used or published or referenced in any serious journals.
My personal view is stated in the heading to this section. Should any groups follow this view, then journals with which they associate, even Universities would adopt a standard of rigorous strategic and conceptual transparency as developed here in assessing any work offered as a serious contribution to increasing human wisdom and understanding. Others are entitled to their own views, they may choose to continue with peer review as their standard, then final judgement would emerge over time as to whether the tighter intellectual standard was in practice the superior position.
The following are meant to be illustrative, and I have tried to select a wide range of topics. Essentially the standard of rigorous strategic and conceptual transparency severely limits the range and nature of the discussion against all the examples. In many instances, such as for the work of Marx, the damage is such as to negate the work, and to classify it as unscientific, and a totally unfit intellectual legacy. The same would apply to Freud, Skinner, Tolman, Weber, Durkheim, and a very large cross section of writers in social science. Physical science is generally more precise and circumspect, except when it comes to speculation on the nature of the universe as interpreted from quantum electro dynamics, here there is again need to assert the ground, and to forge a much more careful and precise if significantly less interesting frame of thinking. For example, moving from the serious deficiencies of quantum theory implicit largely in its assumptions and what it fails to do, and what associated models and theories fail to do, to project multiple universes is bordering scientifically irresponsible.
All notable people
involved in quantum mechanics have at various times discussed its
interpretation, this includes no lesser than such as Bohr, Einstein,
Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and Plank. What has been consistently overlooked in
the discussion is that the true interpretation of quantum mechanics is not an
issue of physics, but one of epistemology. Quantum mechanics is first knowledge,
therefore any interpretation must be a detail of the relationship all knowledge
makes to objects represented by that knowledge, and further that this issue is
a fundamental issue of ground in the interpretation of quantum mechanics to the
extent I argue that the absence of full and accurate model of how all knowledge
relates to the objects represented by that knowledge invalidates any discussion
of the interpretation of quantum mechanics relegating it to the realm of
speculative science fiction. Any failings in the luminaries who created quantum
mechanics lay in their inadequate grasp of the nature and structure of
knowledge, they were physicists not epistemologists, in particular they did not
see the essential strategic nature of science, and consequently, being of a
time that saw and thought in concrete images, they naturally sought to
interpret their creation in physical terms. Today, we best await clearer
notions of knowledge, etc, before pushing to interpret quantum mechanics,
contenting ourselves meantime with the fact it gets very good answers although
we are not fully clear as to why.
Judgement
factor
|
Peer
review standard |
Standard
of strategic and conceptual clarity |
|
Intrinsic objectivity: |
Does not exist and only operative
to extent editors/journals choose to assert it. |
Is the fundamental issue of
judgment, editors having no choice, and the judgments are evident and able to
be challenged, as is bias. |
|
Acceptance of human predispositions: |
Biased toward pre-existing views
and opinions. But not easily evident or able to be challenged. |
Independent of pre-dispositions,
with judgment rooted in factors intrinsic to the work itself. |
|
Strategic science: |
Non-existent; tends to assert
style with which editors familiar and referencing/scholarship to imply
credibility. |
Asserts essential link to key
issues that must be validated prior to the discussion on the topic.
Credibility vested in strength of ground, clarity of links to ground, and
limiting of discussion as defined by ground. Encourages creativity within
bounds defined by ground. |
|
Establish ethics a consequence of intellectual disciplines: |
No intrinsic limit to
speculation, acclaim being in saying first that which later emerges, and if
it does not, then recognition in volume of output. Encourage quantity over
quality. |
Intrinsic enforcing of a
cautious, building approach. First things first. |
|
Enable multi-discipline judgements: |
Not possible because contrary to
core underlying premise, namely experts know best on topic. Will encourage
proliferation of journals each seeking an ‘audience’ of initiates. |
Any reasonably informed editor
able to asses congruence of ground and topic and whether the discussion has
reached too far beyond bounds determined by ground. Encourage professional
editors. |
|
Transparent science: |
Initiated talking to initiated;
will tend toward complex language that is effectively the jargon of the
initiated. Emphasis on style, not on conceptual clarity. |
Enforcing of clarity of
conceptual structure; language to carry concepts, irrelevant in and of
itself. Encourage moderation of jargon in search for transparency and
conceptual clarity. |
|
This paper. |
|
|
Peer review |
Strategic and conceptual
clarity |
|
·
Not consistent with commonly held views on
many aspects.
·
Limited attempt at scholarship.
·
Destructive of much high profile work.
·
Language overly simple, implied amateur. |
·
Ideas differing from many common views.
·
But, high level of congruence in overall
intellectual construction.
·
Very high coherence.
·
Many comments on high profile work merely
summarize what others have said. Here, point made; used to illustrate process
and intellectual structure.
·
Highly transparent.
·
Comments limited firmly by ground.
·
Highly original work.
·
Offering result from within new paradigm, but
nonetheless with clarity and congruence able to be extended forward to
grapple with and deal to issues not otherwise easily dealt to. |
|
Rejected. |
Accepted. Support to
refine style and tighten |
|
Original Sokal paper |
|
|
Peer review |
Strategic and conceptual
clarity |
|
·
Fully consistent with style and expectations
of editors.
·
Extensive scholarship.
·
Progressive of ideas and direction sought.
·
Language complex but authoritative, supported
by credentials of author. |
·
Non-existent link to ground.
·
Discussion significantly over reaches any
reasonable assessment of ground, becoming fully speculative.
·
Limited conceptual transparency, hard to see
what exactly is being offered that adds to human wisdom. |
|
Accepted. |
Rejected. |
The standard if
adopted does intrinsically lean to full-time professional editors, not part
time academics sitting on judgment of work of peers. A trained and informed
person can ‘see’ congruence, coherence, transparency, and clarity in work, one
does not need to be a specialist, in fact being a specialist as pointed out, is
a disadvantage in assessing work. Rather than needing specialists in judging
work it really needs generalists who are able to ‘see’ how items and issues
from other disciplines in fact bear to the discussion of the topic. Generalists
‘see’ the overall range of ground implicated with the topic and where
appropriate guide authors in reconsideration of their ideas. Scholarship and
referencing is deemphasized because it guarantees nothing in terms of
intellectual quality. There are two purposes (1) to ensure ground and core
issues relative to the topic are covered, (2) to ensure that critical ideas and
comment of others is given weight and appropriate recognition (avoidance of
plagiarism). Beyond these definite contributions, scholarship is seen as no
more than historical catalogue of comment, a filing cabinet of historical
effort. The emphasis and thrust in this standard of strategic and conceptual
clarity is on solving issues, with the standard forcing focus back onto
unresolved issues crucial to the topic, and necessarily requiring resolution
prior to moving onto discussion of the topic. Using the standard of rigorous
strategic and conceptual clarity it is not possible to step past unsolved
issues and pretend we can talk meaningfully about something dependent on the
issues we have ignored.
The questions able to
be used in judging a work would include the following.
ü
Have all
issues of ground been identified?
ü
What
issues of ground are core, and what are peripheral?
ü
Have the
solutions of all core issues of ground been defined and stated?
ü
Are the
solutions to issues of ground agreed and secure?
ü
Are there
new solutions being offered? Are the new solutions themselves rooted in clearly
defined ground and those solutions congruent with their own ground? (Relates to
assessment of potential new paradigm.)
ü
Which
issues of ground have limited understanding? Which issues of ground have
unclear or imprecise solutions? Which issues of ground have no agreed solutions
or contentious solutions? To what degree do these issues act as a veto on the
range of discussion available on the topic?
ü
Are there
issues of ground involving ‘interpretation’? (Quantum mechanics, for example.)
To what extent is the discussion of the topic dependent on this interpretation?
What qualifications must then be placed on the discussion so it is offered
within a tighter strategic science framework?
I do not claim this a
complete list of issues and questions, but do think it sketches the manner of
the process for making a judgment. The standard of rigorous strategic and
conceptual clarity also encourages editors to support publication of good ideas
that is ideas meeting the standard. Whether the editor receive the application
hand written in pencil on toilet paper, from a peasant in Timbuktu, Bosnia or
from a miner in Runanga is irrelevant, does it meet the standard, is it useful
and sound thinking, if so, then let’s help get it published as a contribution
to the advancement of human wisdom.
Currently, promoting
new paradigms (using the term in the manner of Kuhn), new ways of seeing
things, and developing and offering new conceptual structures is very
difficult. Peer review blocks such efforts largely enforcing a status quo, with
social standing and money all flowing from the structure, so much vested
interest involved. Here science as an ideal collides with human frailties of
power, influence, prestige and money. All this is well known and understood,
even if it is not often addressed as a serious ethical issue for world science.
The standard of
rigorous strategic and conceptual transparency offers some solution, it does
not rest on prior views, it does not require a work to fit with what editors
think, it demands judgment of the coherence of the work, so if a new paradigm
is on offer, it requires that paradigm to consolidate its ground, and to build
from that ground ensuring supporting evidence at every step, and that the topic
when finally reached, exhibits tight congruence with every issue of ground
which itself is fully developed and consistent with evidence and argument. New
paradigms are encouraged and supported, but the author must have done the work,
all necessary work from the ground up!
Within this view
science emerges not as some monolithic structure but as a multifaceted endeavor
driven by people with vision. There is a Reality, beyond sense and perception,
and we can know it, but never quite, but we can know it better than we do now.
Hence science, the endeavor to achieve the additional insight and understanding
that takes us that step closer to a goal we can never achieve. Wisdom
understands the more you learn the less you know you know.
Science parallels
business, the entrepreneur sees economic opportunity, and pursues it. Success
is the fulfilling of the vision. All science has a collective vision of
achieving greater wisdom and clarity on the regularities of Reality. The
scientist-entrepreneur sees the new route to the goal; they have not a vision
of an end as in business, but of path and process as in a new paradigm. Must
all science necessarily follow the same paradigm? For science is there but only
one-way to skin the cat?
I hasten to add that
this is not ‘relative science’. I do not think there are multiple Realities,
although I do think we can know it differently and in different ways, but all
must reconcile to the singular, or to whatever the end may be. There is only
one end point to which humanity can only strive but never reach because we can
only know it through the glass of our knowledge, we cannot know Reality
directly, ever. So even should we attain ultimate insight, we could not know it
so, and such a position would violate wisdom’s understanding, and frankly I
believe more in limiting faith in my wisdom than allowing arrogance of any
belief in ultimate knowledge. In these comments we see where science needs
moderated by moral and ethical choices of spirit extending far beyond what is
only science.
Multiple paths to the
end we can never reach. Science entrepreneurs pursuing personal visions doing the
work to validate their paradigms and gaining followers supportive of their
path. And who prior is to say they are wrong? Provided the ground well
developed, consistent, supported by evidence, not falsified by any observation,
coherent in argument, extending beyond limits of what is, addressing problems
not easily addressed from within current positions and paradigms, and offering
the goal of greater insight and understanding of Reality then the standard of
rigorous strategic and conceptual transparency supports such efforts, and
rewards the scientist-entrepreneur with recognition and publication.
Multiple science,
multiple paradigms pursued as paths to glory, while serving the greater goal of
increased wisdom and understanding: A deconstructed image of science
paralleling multiple entrepreneurs pursuing their own goals of wealth and so
doing making the economy wealthy. Free science, free all creativity, but
creativity bounded by an intense demand for strategic and conceptual clarity
and coherence. -End-