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From: jeff@aiva.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: The Social Construction of Reality
Message-ID: <490@aiva.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 6 Jul 88 16:51:40 GMT
References: <1157@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <450001@hplsdar.HP.COM> <1332@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Reply-To: jeff@uk.ac.ed.aiva (Jeff Dalton)
Organization: Dept. of AI, Univ. of Edinburgh, UK
Lines: 20

In article <1332@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) writes:
>The dislike of ad hominem arguments among scientists is a sign of their
>self-imposed dualism: personality and the environment stop outside the
>cranium of scientists, but penetrate the crania of everyone else.

No, it is a sign that they recognize that someone can be right despite
having qualities that might make their objectivity suspect.  They also
can remember relativity being attacked as "Jewish science" and other
ad hominem arguments of historical note.

>When people adopt a controversial position for which there is no convincing 
>proof, the only scientific explanation is the individual's ideology.

Perhaps the person is simply mistaken and thinks there is convincing
proof.  (Suppose they misread a conclusion that said something was
"not insignificant", say.)  Or perhaps they are don't really hold
the position in question but are simply using it because others
find it hard to refute.

-- Jeff