"co-ed" is defined as (1) attended by members of both sexes, or (2) a female student at a coeducational college or university. This second definition illustrates a troubling feature of activism: the terminology captures precisely the inequality that is meant to be defeated. I am a student at a coeducational university, yet I am not a co-ed. Only women can be co-eds. Usage reflects history. The same goes for race and gender history and philosophy. If I say that I am studying gendered history of science, that connotes (to some) that I am studying women in the history of science. The fact is, I study mostly men in the history of science. That doesn't make gender history a less relevant approach; if anything, it makes it more necessary. Saying "gender" implies "women" for specific historical reasons: gender history arose as part of a larger movement to understand history as more than the story of elites (who were typically rich white men). In the early years of such a movement, that means a lot of topics on The Role of [a non-elite group] in the History of [whatever]. These topics are the low-hanging fruit--they aren't necessarily easy to do (elites tend to keep better records than non-elites), but they are easy to think up. What's harder to do (because of the imbalance in source materials, among other things) is to create a balanced account.
Tuesday, 19 December 2006
a mighty wind
I take it as a given that there can never be a complete history of anything. There's just too much out there to talk about; everything is eventually related to everything else and too many people are involved. Nevertheless, I take it the goal of history is to come to some approximation of completeness. The fundamental contribution of the past few generations was to realize that history shouldn't just be about elites. But then, what should it be about? It can't be "just" anything--not just men, not just women, not just Europeans, not just non-Europeans, not just oppressed, not just oppressors,.... Some general organizing principles have been suggested. Perhaps history is primarily about power differentials, for example.
If I were to offer my own single organizing principle for history, it might go something like this: history is about tipping points; how accretions of individual actions eventuate global change. Since I study science, it's about how various scientific modes or practices or ideas become dominant and change and get replaced. But isn't this a study of elites? Ideas that catch on, rather than ideas that get discarded? I'd like to think that an appropriate study of any given episode in the history of science contextualizes the notions that eventually dominate within the sea of ideas that don't. In other words, it tells the story of the elite, but does so by explicitly examining the nature of its elite-hood. Newton's gravitational theory is instantly credible because it comports with observational data. At the same time, it is mysterious, because it doesn't seem to explain anything, at least under the current notion of explanation. The story of science in the eighteenth century is the story of how Newton's theories grow to dominate natural philosophy. That's not the only story, of course, but if history is like a bunch of air molecules moving around separately, then Newtonianism is the gust of wind they inhabit.
If I were to offer my own single organizing principle for history, it might go something like this: history is about tipping points; how accretions of individual actions eventuate global change. Since I study science, it's about how various scientific modes or practices or ideas become dominant and change and get replaced. But isn't this a study of elites? Ideas that catch on, rather than ideas that get discarded? I'd like to think that an appropriate study of any given episode in the history of science contextualizes the notions that eventually dominate within the sea of ideas that don't. In other words, it tells the story of the elite, but does so by explicitly examining the nature of its elite-hood. Newton's gravitational theory is instantly credible because it comports with observational data. At the same time, it is mysterious, because it doesn't seem to explain anything, at least under the current notion of explanation. The story of science in the eighteenth century is the story of how Newton's theories grow to dominate natural philosophy. That's not the only story, of course, but if history is like a bunch of air molecules moving around separately, then Newtonianism is the gust of wind they inhabit.
Sunday, 17 December 2006
aggregation or agravation?
As an undergraduate, I first articulated the question that still drives much of my research: how does the way we think affect what we know? The transition from mytho-poeic to proto-scientific explanation in Thales still floats at the back of my mind as the paradigmatic example underlying the significance of such a change. But my interest is not historical; it's personal. How can I change my mind? If I succeed, how do I understand the difference? Can I switch back and forth? How do I communicate a novel idea to someone else? Will they understand it in the same way I do? How do new ideas catch on? I was just then becoming enthralled with chaos theory and fuzzy logic, and I was convinced that these ideas stood outside of our usual ways of thinking. Would it be possible to internalize these ideas? How would it change the way we saw the world? What problems would loom larger, and which ones would disappear into the background?
Philosophy of science has similar aims. Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions is paradigmatic (hah!) of the philosophy of science. It's about a collective venture called science, and as a result begins to sound hollow and false the more I know about any given episode in the history of science. Structure is about aggregate behavior; it describes the causes and mechanisms of scientific change. In the opening pages, Kuhn says:
I wanted to be able to talk about the two roles of a schema (mental and social) separately, to distinguish how individuals can change schemas and show how science as a collective venture can do the same thing. This was the piece that was missing from my first (second-hand) introduction to Kuhn--a clear understanding of what a paradigm is for an individual scientist. It's been close to a decade since that first introduction, and my views have surely grown more sophisticated generally, yet this same tension continues to frustrate me. I'm still trying to reconcile the psychology of theory change with the sociology of theory change. I'm still trying to reconcile the specific trickles of history with a workable general idea of science.
It strikes me that this problem is exactly the problem with Bob Batterman's two different explications of breaking behavior. One is detailed, contingent, and right, the other is idealized, universal, and explanatory. How can one description be right and not be explanatory? And how can the other be explanatory without also being right?
Philosophy of science has similar aims. Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions is paradigmatic (hah!) of the philosophy of science. It's about a collective venture called science, and as a result begins to sound hollow and false the more I know about any given episode in the history of science. Structure is about aggregate behavior; it describes the causes and mechanisms of scientific change. In the opening pages, Kuhn says:
[A paradigm is] sufficiently unprecedented to attract an enduring group of adherents away from competing modes of scientific activity. Simultaneously, [a paradigm is] sufficiently open-ended to leave all sorts of problems for the redefined group of practitioners to resolve.When I was writing my undergraduate thesis, I used the word "schema" to refer to a similar notion, but I distinguished conceptual from descriptive schemas. Conceptual schemas are mental objects we use in the manner of shorthand to organize our thoughts about the world. Descriptive schemas are conceptual schemas with an additional social component. We treat descriptive schemas in much the way we treat language--they stand in for ideas about the world, and we usually assume that translation is perfect. I made the distinction out of an unarticulated discomfort at the social-mental interaction. I was trying to walk the tightrope between coming up with a notion that is true (but too complicated to state) and a notion that is simple (but false enough to collapse under scrutiny).
I wanted to be able to talk about the two roles of a schema (mental and social) separately, to distinguish how individuals can change schemas and show how science as a collective venture can do the same thing. This was the piece that was missing from my first (second-hand) introduction to Kuhn--a clear understanding of what a paradigm is for an individual scientist. It's been close to a decade since that first introduction, and my views have surely grown more sophisticated generally, yet this same tension continues to frustrate me. I'm still trying to reconcile the psychology of theory change with the sociology of theory change. I'm still trying to reconcile the specific trickles of history with a workable general idea of science.
It strikes me that this problem is exactly the problem with Bob Batterman's two different explications of breaking behavior. One is detailed, contingent, and right, the other is idealized, universal, and explanatory. How can one description be right and not be explanatory? And how can the other be explanatory without also being right?
Thursday, 14 December 2006
the more things change...
Every branch of science I’ve examined has an equilibrium principle. This is the principle that says, essentially, if nothing changes, then nothing will change. It sounds trite, but it’s essentially the claim that when things stay the same, they don’t require explanation. It’s only when things change that we need to start paying attention. Inertia is an equilibrium principle, and applied forces explain changes in inertia. Inertia itself doesn't require an explanation--it's axiomatic. This is what I mean when I say that science is the study of deviant behavior—it’s all about how things change.
Power laws as emergent behavior
Power laws describe relationships with an exponential scaling effect. The party game 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon works on the basis of this principle--some actors have been in only a few movies or co-starred with only a few other actors. Others, like Kevin Bacon, have been in a lot of movies and co-starred with a lot of other actors. There are many more people with few connections, but only a few people with many connections. In fact, the distribution by number of relationships follows a power law: y=x^k.
One intriguing feature of power laws emerge automatically from random connections. Imagine a board with N nails sticking out of it and K strands of yarn ties between various pairs of nails. We can count the number of strands tied to each nail. If the pairs of nails are selected randomly, it will just happen that some nails get selected more often than others, and in fact, the number of connections to each nail follows a power law. Suppose there are 128 nails. Then perhaps 64 have just 1 connection, 32 have 2, 16 have 3, 8 have 4, 4 have 8, 2 have 16, and 1 lucky nail has 32 connections! The point is that there's nothing magical or mysterious about power scaling; it emerges naturally. It says something genuine and interesting about the sort of phenomenon you're examining, and functions as an "explanation" of sorts, but it's an unusual explanation: it's actually an equilibrium condition, an assertion that this behavior is normal and doesn't require detailed explanation.
One intriguing feature of power laws emerge automatically from random connections. Imagine a board with N nails sticking out of it and K strands of yarn ties between various pairs of nails. We can count the number of strands tied to each nail. If the pairs of nails are selected randomly, it will just happen that some nails get selected more often than others, and in fact, the number of connections to each nail follows a power law. Suppose there are 128 nails. Then perhaps 64 have just 1 connection, 32 have 2, 16 have 3, 8 have 4, 4 have 8, 2 have 16, and 1 lucky nail has 32 connections! The point is that there's nothing magical or mysterious about power scaling; it emerges naturally. It says something genuine and interesting about the sort of phenomenon you're examining, and functions as an "explanation" of sorts, but it's an unusual explanation: it's actually an equilibrium condition, an assertion that this behavior is normal and doesn't require detailed explanation.
Devil in the Details - Robert Batterman's odd notion
Bob Batterman gave a talk a week ago, and I've been meaning to say something about it. Here's the abstract:
As usual, things turn out to be more complicated than we philosophers would like. Some idealizations do not reflect convergence behavior in the complete model, but Bob argues that they are nevertheless genuinely explanatory. An example (one of Bob's) may help.
If we compare two models of a pole breaking under strain (one from molecular dynamics, the other with a continuum idealization), we find that breakage in the continuum model comes from a singularity. On the other hand, in the molecular models, breaks arise from the contingent details of the system's evolution. There is no convergence on singularity. In either model, the pole breaks under the increasing strain, but the continuum model wipes out precisely the detailed initial conditions on which the molecular model depends. Batterman says that the imperfections in the molecular system are explanatory of single events, but not of the class of breaking behavior. Singularities in continuum models fill that explanatory role. How can two fundamentally different kinds of explanations still count as genuine explanations?
This paper discusses the nature and role of idealizations in mathematical models and simulations. In particular, it argues that sometimes idealizations are explanatorily essential--that without them, a full understanding of the phenomenon of interest cannot be achieved. Several examples are considered in some detail.Bob says that the traditional philosophy behind models is that an idealization is justified when the behavior of a "complete" model (say, molecular dynamical model) converges on the idealized model. This is a natural idea; essentially, the idealization captures some pattern that does exist in the complete model but is perhaps too complicated or too subtle to notice.
As usual, things turn out to be more complicated than we philosophers would like. Some idealizations do not reflect convergence behavior in the complete model, but Bob argues that they are nevertheless genuinely explanatory. An example (one of Bob's) may help.
If we compare two models of a pole breaking under strain (one from molecular dynamics, the other with a continuum idealization), we find that breakage in the continuum model comes from a singularity. On the other hand, in the molecular models, breaks arise from the contingent details of the system's evolution. There is no convergence on singularity. In either model, the pole breaks under the increasing strain, but the continuum model wipes out precisely the detailed initial conditions on which the molecular model depends. Batterman says that the imperfections in the molecular system are explanatory of single events, but not of the class of breaking behavior. Singularities in continuum models fill that explanatory role. How can two fundamentally different kinds of explanations still count as genuine explanations?
Monday, 4 December 2006
environmentalism
James Lovelock, one of my favorite eccentrics, is at it again:
My point, back before visions of MacBooks began dancing in my head, was that there are some elements of my lifestyle that are likely here to stay. One of them is my addiction to rare-earth-element-containing electronics. Stipulating this, and also allowing for my tiny financial resources, I still face a large number of green tradeoffs every day. It’s great that I am made aware of a lot of them without much effort on my part, but it’s still hard to choose which ones I should focus on.
A jingle from my childhood goes, “brown eggs are local eggs, and local eggs are fresh!” I’m not sure what color has to do with locality, or whether the same holds true for a major urban area like Toronto, but I am certainly aware of the “eat local” movement. The argument is that the environmental cost of bringing apples from New Zealand is high enough that we should just give up on apples in the off-season and stick to local orchards and farmer’s markets for our apples. How can we possibly evaluate the environmental cost of an apple? It’s a massive systemic issue leaking into nearly any imaginable area. Large-scale efficiencies of agribusiness are eliminated when we rely on farmer’s markets. Local blights are magnified rather than absorbed. I might use more fossil fuels driving my car (if I had one) to the farmer’s market for my four apples and three tomatoes than is expended on all the ships and trains and trucks that bring bushels into supermarkets (I’m missing a citation, here—I know I read this somewhere, I just don’t know where). Certainly transportation is just one cost to consider. There are similar tradeoffs associated with globalized markets, monocultures, fertilizers, pesticides, recycling, public transit, and anything else you might think of. Which are really better: paper bags, plastic ones, or those fabric types that greens reuse every trip? Paper bags are biodegradable, possibly recyclable, and certainly renewable. Plastic bags stick around for thousands of years except where recyclable, and they are decidedly not renewable. Fabric bags are reusable, biodegradable, and renewable. Seems like we have a winner... but we haven’t yet considered manufacturing costs. All three require substantial amounts of water, with attendant heat pollution and trace chemical pollution. It's too much work to find out the answers for all such questions given the vast number of products I touch or consume every day.
And so, I am mistrustful of pat answers, or of absolutes of any kind. Environmentalists who favor one-issue solutions are just as guilty as their opponents of separating human beings from our environment--they just want to replace one "unnatural" system with another--one that satisfies a certain green aesthetic.
Lovelock's most compelling point is his critique of environmentalism as a new urban religion, composed of elitism and a misplaced longing for a simpler life mixed in with a neo-Luddite fear of technology. The greens, and he still claims to be one, proffer the "illusion that if the whole earth was farmed organically all would be well." --from Scientific AmericanI agree with the sentiment. Not that I’m not an adherent to this “urban religion,” minus the neo-Luddite portion. It’s just that much of my present unease with the environmental movement stems from the conflict between the overwhelming number of green choices I can make every day and the limited time and resources I have to make them. There are some sacrifices I would be quite unwilling to make to green the planet—giving up my computer, for example. It is conceivable that I will put off replacing my current model for an additional year. My five-year-old titanium PowerBook still runs great, it has more power than I need (adventures with Mathematica notwithstanding), and besides, it's quite distinctive now than no one else has one (and since I scraped all the white paint off). Unfortunately, restarting is becoming a bit nerve-wracking--it often takes several tries and several minutes. I’m starting to eye other computers these days, and even Windows laptops--particularly tablets--are looking mighty tasty. Once Leopard is out... I'm not sure I'll be able to help myself.
My point, back before visions of MacBooks began dancing in my head, was that there are some elements of my lifestyle that are likely here to stay. One of them is my addiction to rare-earth-element-containing electronics. Stipulating this, and also allowing for my tiny financial resources, I still face a large number of green tradeoffs every day. It’s great that I am made aware of a lot of them without much effort on my part, but it’s still hard to choose which ones I should focus on.
A jingle from my childhood goes, “brown eggs are local eggs, and local eggs are fresh!” I’m not sure what color has to do with locality, or whether the same holds true for a major urban area like Toronto, but I am certainly aware of the “eat local” movement. The argument is that the environmental cost of bringing apples from New Zealand is high enough that we should just give up on apples in the off-season and stick to local orchards and farmer’s markets for our apples. How can we possibly evaluate the environmental cost of an apple? It’s a massive systemic issue leaking into nearly any imaginable area. Large-scale efficiencies of agribusiness are eliminated when we rely on farmer’s markets. Local blights are magnified rather than absorbed. I might use more fossil fuels driving my car (if I had one) to the farmer’s market for my four apples and three tomatoes than is expended on all the ships and trains and trucks that bring bushels into supermarkets (I’m missing a citation, here—I know I read this somewhere, I just don’t know where). Certainly transportation is just one cost to consider. There are similar tradeoffs associated with globalized markets, monocultures, fertilizers, pesticides, recycling, public transit, and anything else you might think of. Which are really better: paper bags, plastic ones, or those fabric types that greens reuse every trip? Paper bags are biodegradable, possibly recyclable, and certainly renewable. Plastic bags stick around for thousands of years except where recyclable, and they are decidedly not renewable. Fabric bags are reusable, biodegradable, and renewable. Seems like we have a winner... but we haven’t yet considered manufacturing costs. All three require substantial amounts of water, with attendant heat pollution and trace chemical pollution. It's too much work to find out the answers for all such questions given the vast number of products I touch or consume every day.
And so, I am mistrustful of pat answers, or of absolutes of any kind. Environmentalists who favor one-issue solutions are just as guilty as their opponents of separating human beings from our environment--they just want to replace one "unnatural" system with another--one that satisfies a certain green aesthetic.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)