Jim ---
 
>This point focusses on something I have never been able to understand in
>critiques of science: what methods are we to use to "assess the claims of
>science" if not the very methods of science, namely logic and experimental
>verification?
 
        Good question.  Part of the problem is that science seems
to exist both within our society and also partly outside the society.
Scientists tend to be self policing within their own communities.
However, science does not exist just within the community.  Every day
scientific claims find their way into newspaper, TV reports, etc...
Here is where the trouble lies.  And it is here where the general
consumer should be careful about interpreting claims.
        Also, many times claims in one community of scientists finds
its way into other areas.  When the claims in the original community
are proved wrong, the other community sometimes does not get the news.
So, for example, biologists have shown no correspondence between
testosterone and social dominance across eutherian mammals.  Yet,
Yet, many psychologists and anthropologists still use biological
explanations for social phenomena.
 
 
Cheers
 
Robert Guralnick | Museum of Paleontology | University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720 | [log in to unmask] | (510) 642-9696