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closeA biased experiment
Posted by FlorianMarkowetz1 on 28 Oct 2011 at 22:13 GMT
If this is indeed a 'mini experiment' by the PLoS Biology Editors to find out if 'the cultural divide between science and the humanities still exists' - then it has failed! Not because of the small sample size, but because of the biased experimental setup.
What can the result possibly be if Prof Meyer feels free to point out: "I have to admit that I hold a few prejudices against philosophers and even have a rather polemical relationship towards philosophy."
Well, yeah, it seems like the divide exists at least for Meyer, but what does all that have to do with Feyerabend? In particular since the title of this article has nothing to do with the book under consideration, but refers back to 'Against Method'.
It is quite interesting to see that the companion paper on Feyerabend, written by the philosopher Ian Kidd, is much less emotional, but argues clearly and rationally, as we would expect from a good scientist. So the result of the experiment seems to be that the rationality of the humanities is pitted agains the prejudices of the sciences - that's somehow not what I expected. I had hoped there is logic and rationality on both sides.
The experimental failure might reflect a poor choice in the experimental specimen. And that’s really a pity, because I think the basic idea of discussing philosophy of science in scientific journals is great. Hearing more opinions from different people might help to rescue the experiment.
I wrote a blog post to criticize this article in detail http://wp.me/p1WV42-6