Huffin’ ‘n’ Puffin’
Slate.com thinks Bitch is huffy! They should watch out or I might huff and puff and blow that brick house down!
“The feminist blog Bitch Lab’s extensive post about the study is especially peeved that the article allowed a Republican National Committee spokesman to combat the findings. “The logical rebuttal to scientific findings are people within the scientific community, NOT the flipping RNC (or the Dems, were this about them!)” the post huffs.“
Combat the findings? I’m asking again: we wonder why creationism is considered a theory on equal standing with evolutionary theory?
It’s not that they “allowed” the Republicans to comment. It’s that they position what Republicans have to say as if it’s somehow the rebuttal to what researchers have to say. It seems to me that, given that scientific studies are almost always being criticized by another scientist, then the logical place to turn would be to criticism by other researchers.
Happens all the time, dunnit? Science writers and journalists inteview both sides in the scientific community as to the conclusions of the latest research.
That’s what science is about innit? (jeez! I was always such an anti-positivist, too! Critical realism was where it was at. I sound like a flippin positivist or something. *sigh*)
But more: before you turn to those criticisms, perhaps it would be important to actually spell out the research in its entirety. THEN, you can turn to the researchers who have criticisms. If there are none, maybe that’s important to write about, yes?
But that doesn’t happen because we want to give people who’ve been tagged with racism the chance to deny it.
When the researcher points out that it’s not just this study, it’s a study that must be read in the context of decades of research, the statement is placed at the very end of the story. It’s at the end where few readers have bothered to go. Why position that claim at the end? It’s a claim anyone with two brain cells to rub together can go out and read about for themselves in these bulidings called L-I-B-R-A-R-I-E-S. At least in theory.
Look at the contrast. No one hauled themselves over to the partisans on all sides of the political spectrum to ask: “Welp, whaddy’all thinka the findings that you are like addicts who reward yourself for biased thinking like a junkie rewards himself for drug-addled thinking?”
The author didn’t feel it necessary to get an “opposing viewpoint” on that one did he?
But the author of the article felt it imperative to do so on the issue of racsim.
That’s my point.
In my view, turning to the Republicans for their response to the findings — and presuming that they can have anything intelligent to say at all when they haven’t even had a chance to look at the research — is pathetic at best.
Of course, it’s perfectly reasonable to ask “Goshes, there’s been this scientific “charge” leveled against Republicans. Let’s go out to the RNC and ask them what they have to say.”
But, seriously, do you think the question of whether or not the Republican party’s candidates and platforms appeal to people who are more racist than other USers is going to be answered in some kind of “contest” between researchers and Republicans?
Is it just who can shout louder so that no matter what the reseaerch says it just doesn’t matter? If the Republicans shout louder, “We are not racists and we don’t support racist policies,” does it make it so?
As I suggested, what is of tertiary interest here is also that the way the WaPo attempts to be “objective” by presenting both sides. The way they conceive of the “sides” makes them end up seeming a lot like postmodernists: knowledge is the result of an agonistic process. The Republican National Committee combats the findings of researchers.
Combats.
There you have it. Wanna mock pomoistas? Read the WaPo for fodder. It would be not unlike the way Liberals read Town Hall for the game of Fish, Barrel, Smoking gun. It’s fun, easy, and you lose weight too! Ginsu knives free after 10 blog posts!
(man: I may be going over the the positivist dark side if I don’t watch out.)
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NOTE: accidentally deleted this post so that’s why the dupe in your reader.
January 31st, 2006 at 7:18 pm
You expressed (towards the end) the thing that Stanley Fish pointed out (and I agreed with) about the strange obsession that some scientific crusaders have with Pomo philosophy and its views on truth, etc. Contrary to their claim that Pomo talk is dangerous (as Fish points out: what reach do these philosophers have that makes them so dangerous) I have always suspected the basic issue to be a turf war. Just like you, I wonder how all this newspeak passes by without much criticism.
These days, positivism is not so bad a place to be. I recall Feyerabend, often referred to, to his delight, as the ‘worst enemy of science’, recommending Aristotle over Derrida in his memoirs.
January 31st, 2006 at 8:05 pm
Regarding “objectivity” and getting both sides…
Surely one of the reasons media outlets seek out ‘alternative points of view’ on nearly every story with the faintest scent of controversy is the lack of in-house subject matter experts.
News stories are often written by people who don’t have the capability to assess real questions from false ones when it comes to science and who can’t turn to anyone on the payroll who can.
One of the reasons a columnist like Krugman stands out (whether one agrees with him or not) is that he actually knows the subject he’s writing about and can competently argue various elements of an economic issue.
Very few journalists can do this on any technical subject.
This lack of knowledge, cozily married to a fear of appearing biased (which, often enough, works out to a fear of appearing biased against the dominant party) drives these organizations to turn to questionable sources to comment on scientific work that has social and poilitical impact - a good example is the way in which global warming is presented: for example, as a topic for Sunday chat show talking heads to debate as if they knew what the hell they were talking about.