Ha, love it. Well the idea of the gonzo approach anyway (that experience sounds brutal, man) — csalisbury

If you liked my brief episode, you will absolutely adore Tearoom Trade by Laud Humphreys. Humprheys was a PhD candidate at a university in St. Louis and wanted to investigate the demographics and roles involved in the gay sex taking place in park-restrooms in the St Louis area--the "tearoom trade". Humphreys didn't engage in sex; he served as "the lookout queen" -- the guy who stood by the door to keep a lookout for park police, and warn the guys who were having sex. He observed sex taking place for quite a few weeks; he also kept track of who drove which cars, and who did what kind of sex. As part of his regular job, he looked up car licenses, obtained identities of the drivers (and tearoom participants). Later in the study, he went to the homes of the identified men and did a market survey of some sort to obtain the demographics he needed.

He put all this together into a great piece of research writing (it's really interesting to read) AND he destroyed all o the raw-identifying data, so at no point could the police or university track down participants.

Tearoom Trade -- 1970 -- (the popular title of his PhD dissertation) is the way sex research of this sort should be done (IMHO). Humphreys was, at the time, a priest (Episcopal) and continued working in the area of sexuality research and counseling. He died in 1988.

I thought it was a great piece of work -- the academic social scientists exploded in outrage. They probably objected to his raising the standards of research above the level most of them cared to achieve.

Certainly, a scientist may not play ball, and not get published - and that is good for him! But then the rest of us are still getting the stuff that is published. So while we might esteem him for his resistance, it's not changing the system that determines what sort of stuff gets published - and the OP was about that problem — csalisbury

I largely agree with you so I will ignore everything but this , which is palpable nonsense. To put it simply, one participates in corruption or one refuses to participate. Refusing to participate reduces corruption and participating not only increases it but further normalises it. I cannot change anything by posting on this forum, and it costs me nothing to fulminate, so it is unlikely to convince anyone. but at the very small risk of sounding like a rabid religious conservative, this is how the moral world works: you have freedom and responsibility over what you do, even when it is difficult, but you are not responsible for what others choose. 'In the world, but no of it'.

Scientists have to tell the truth. There is no compromise available; there is no science without honesty.

I thought it was a great piece of work -- the academic social scientists exploded in outrage. — Bitter Crank

He was crucified, as might be expected. And here's another principled fool:

why I was not allowed to study philosophy at the University of Western Ontario. I objected to the forceful, totalitarian, and basically unnatural feminization of the School of Philosophy. — god must be atheist

Sacrificing anything of value for nothing, however, is recommended not to comfort lovers, but to suicidal people, the insane, and the extremely stupid. — god must be atheist

Sounds like someone acting according to principles whilst decrying such behaviour. But of course it is no real sacrifice to give up a corrupt education, and it is no real sacrifice not to publish corrupt science.

Edit: I'll butt out now, and retreat to ethics to continue to pontificate.

why I was not allowed to study philosophy at the University of Western Ontario. I objected to the forceful, totalitarian, and basically unnatural feminization of the School of Philosophy.
— god must be atheist

Sacrificing anything of value for nothing, however, is recommended not to comfort lovers, but to suicidal people, the insane, and the extremely stupid.
— god must be atheist

Sounds like someone acting according to principles whilst decrying such behaviour. But of course it is no real sacrifice to give up a corrupt education, and it is no real sacrifice not to publish corrupt science.

Edit: I'll butt out now, and retreat to ethics to continue to pontificate. — unenlightened

Wow. I made myself misunderstood.

I ran headlong against a brick wall because I did not know better. I THOUGHT I could change the system, I THOUGHT they just did not see the error of their ways. I WAS sacrificing (or rather: not sacrificing, not even risking, only the outcome came to be a sacrifice) something of value (my education) for something of value (their changing their ways). I was CONVINCED that my one outraged letter was going to change the policy of the department because I figured a good argument ought to convince philosophers.

I was STUPID. No foresight. No insight.

So I did not contradict myself; I did say in this thread that sacrificing something for nothing in return is something what, among other people, the stupid people do.

I was one of them.

That's the left wing academic agenda in a nutshell. — counterpunch

Why did you leave out the right wing academic agenda? Is it any different? No, it is not any different. Not all scientists are left wing in the survey-creating social sciences, yet it is said in this thread that they are all forced to create non-repeatable experiments with consistent results.

Your singling out the left shows nothing else but that you are biassed. God only knows (figure of speech) how many others of your wrong ideas are sourced by your biasses.

And there we arrive at the inescapable conclusion - that principles are nothing, that values have no value. Now that's what I call a slippery slope! — unenlightened

What it shows me is that reality beats principles.

Show me one instance in history where standing steadfast for a principle which stand has not changed anything for the better, and has not produced any desired results, is worth doing.

Why did you leave out the right wing academic agenda? Is it any different? No, it is not any different. — god must be atheist

I have political opinions, sure. I'm a capitalist - for example. I'm not a communist. If you want to call that bias - then I'm biased. I studied sociology and politics, and can assure you that the humanities are a wholly owned subsidiary of left wing, subjectivist, anti-capitalist, neo marxist, post modernist, politically correct bigots and bullies. There is no right wing political opinion informing the humanities because they are de-platformed at every level - up to and including policy, as my post about Russel Group universities shows. That's a far more pernicious form of bias, than selection bias, or having a political opinion. It's blatant. i.e. bias by policy, and it's a particular claim by the left - that they are justified in doing so. The right argue for academic freedom, and freedom of thought and expression. The left want their ideas to be dictatorial. Opposing academic dictatorship doesn't make me biased. It simply means I'm not utterly insane!

What it shows me is that reality beats principles. — god must be atheist

Man, I empathize with you! I've fought quite a few battles over principles--and 49 times out of 50 lost. Not just lost, but was crushed, flattened, and discarded. The problem (aside from the one of tilting at windmills) is that other people ALSO have principles, and more often than not their principles conform to prevailing moral code better than mine did.

Reality does play the game with a good hand (poker analogy) and has a full supply of face cards and aces up its sleeve.

There is also the matter of competence. One's principles have to be lived and defended competently. There were occasions when I just wasn't all that competent. Up against a shark what can a herring do? (quote from the Sound of Music, believe it or not)

So, my advice, which you have been waiting for with baited*** breath: Fight on. Choose your battles. Collect allies. Measure carefully: How much is this battle worth, relative to other battles one has fought and will fight?

***baited Irrelevant aside; it's 'bated', short for 'abated' not 'baited'. I've been using 'baited' for decades, rather than the correct 'bated'. We will now return to the regularly scheduled broadcast, in progress.

There is a dearth of conservatives among faculty in American universities, at least that's what I have read in various reports from mainline publications,

the humanities are a wholly owned subsidiary of left wing, subjectivist, anti-capitalist, neo marxist, post modernist, politically correct bigots and bullies — counterpunch

This was not true when I finished college in 1968. It wasn't obviously the case when I took some classics courses in the early 1980s at the U of Minnesota. But things were definitely changing in the 1980s. An academically oriented magazine, Lingua Franca, charted the changes. (the Sokol hoax was revealed in Lingua Franca by its author, for example.)

Now, 30 odd years later, Neo-marxist, postmodernist, politically correct lingo has slopped al over the place.

***baited Irrelevant aside; it's 'bated', short for 'abated' not 'baited'. I've been using 'baited' for decades, rather than the correct 'bated'. We will now return to the regularly scheduled broadcast, in progress. — Bitter Crank

This was interesting read-- watching you debait with yourself on a topic of spelling.

I'm a capitalist - for example. I'm not a communist. If you want to call that bias - then I'm biased — counterpunch

What I call your bias is that you go against reason due to a conviction to an ideology. Your ideology is not communist, no problem, but you develop false opinions due to your strong conviction to your ideology.

A capitalist can see clearly too, and so can a communist. Denying this on either side (i.e. categorically denying that the other side can see clearly) would be an example of a biassed opinion.

What I call your bias is that you go against reason due to a conviction to an ideology. Your ideology is not communist, no problem, but you develop false opinions due to your strong conviction to your ideology. — god must be atheist

Could you please provide examples - because without them, this is just an ad homniem attack, to which I say - pish!

***baited Irrelevant aside; it's 'bated', short for 'abated' not 'baited'. I've been using 'baited' for decades, rather than the correct 'bated'. We will now return to the regularly scheduled broadcast, in progress. — Bitter Crank

I understand. I like to spell "bias" in the plural as a noun or in the third person singular or in past tense, with two s-es in the middle. This gives it a badass, anti-disestablishmentarialistic undertone of being open to bisexuality. Rub the nose of the politically correct into it. -- for the record, I am a strong supporter of allowing or letting or living along with people who fall in love and have sex with whichever consenting adult, in whatever way they prefer. Love is love is love by any other name.

Could you please provide examples - because without them, this is just an ad homniem attack, to which I say - pish! — counterpunch

I provide one example. I don't have the research inclination to search for more. I did not attack you, and my argument was not ad hominem.

He says: "It's not enough that I succeed - everyone else must fail." That's the left wing academic agenda in a nutshell. — counterpunch

I gave a reasoning to the opinion why the above is biassed: Because the right wing academic agenda is the same. I even called you out on this later, before I went into the bias thing.

And actually I don't even agree with the statement you made, "It's not enough that I succeed - everyone else must fail." But it is not at all a leftist statement, whether it is true or not. You specifically chose to call it a leftist agenda, due to your bias.

I really don't know how to explain this in greater detail.

What it shows me is that reality beats principles. — god must be atheist

Then you need some specs. Reality is totally subservient to principled imagination. New York is built on a grid system because someone decided it would be a good idea, and for no other reason.

I read your post, and informative as it is, I'm having hella job forming a coherent reply. So I'm not gonna. Thanks for your input, and no criticism of the content, but "Hmm...that's interesting" is all I've got so far.

And actually I don't even agree with the statement you made, "It's not enough that I succeed - everyone else must fail." But it is not at all a leftist statement, whether it is true or not. You specifically chose to call it a leftist agenda, due to your bias. I really don't know how to explain this in greater detail. — god must be atheist

Oh dear!

I do not invite you to agree with the statement. It's a quote from a villain in a film, I described as one of the most evil things I've ever heard. Yet it describes the left wing ACADEMIC AGENDA perfectly. They left de-platform right wingers. i.e. What in effect they are saying is: "it's not enough that I succeed, everyone else must fail."

You might make the effort to understand before dishing out ad homs willy nilly!

But it is not at all a leftist statement, — god must be atheist

It's been around awhile, even as a New Yorker cartoon--"it's not enough that dogs win--cats must fail"

It probably goes back to Attila the Hun, at least.

OK. If there was anything worth emphasizing, it was the Sokol Hoax. Have you heard of it? If not, it's worth a google. It revealed the vacuity of at least one POMO publication, and the lingo that they (all) use.

Reality is totally subservient to principled imagination. New York is built on a grid system because someone decided it would be a good idea, and for no other reason. — unenlightened

???

Did the principled imagination contravene the events in reality? I don't think so. It's not even a principle to imagine a city built on a grid system. It's a planning system, much like the unplanned cities in mediaeval Europe, and the planned cities like Paris or Budapest, with the straight boulevards and the concentric circular roads.

The principles of accounting and the principles of a person are not even the same kind of thing. It is a fallacy to use them interchangeably, or to claim they mean the same thing. Aristotle called it equivocation.

Similarly, you are committing equivocation if you equate a principle in city planning to the principles that drive a person's moral behaviour patterns.

POMO publication — Bitter Crank

What does POMO stand for? Google search and Wikipedia both pointed at only one meaning, to ANLIC. What did you mean by POMO?

You might make the effort to understand before dishing out ad homs willy nilly! — counterpunch

That won't cut the mustard. You used the expression within context in which your usage of it was rather very unambiguously meaningful. You can't negate that by saying that it's a quote I did not recognize.

And like I said, I did not dish out ad hominem. You only feel so because my argument was solid, and it defeated yours. (It was about bias, please remember where this was started by what.) You can call it an ad hominem in your effort to diminish the argument, but it won't work, because I also showed you how that was wrong of you to accuse me of uttering an ad hominem.

Interesting that neither Google nor the Urban Dictionary recognize POMO - short for Post Modern or postmodernists, postmodernism, postmodernitis...

My apologies. I find it annoying when people use abbreviations which are far from obvious.

Hehe. Mofo is not in Wiki, either, and new speakers of the language are often baffled why a word would not be defined by the users of the language. :lol:

OK. If there was anything worth emphasizing, it was the Sokol Hoax. Have you heard of it? If not, it's worth a google. It revealed the vacuity of at least one POMO publication, and the lingo that they (all) use. — Bitter Crank

Yeah, sorry man, I just blanked last night. I went to bed shortly after, and was out like a light. But in the cool light of morning, thanks for pointing a spotlight at the unsubstantiated nature of my claim that:

the humanities are a wholly owned subsidiary of left wing, subjectivist, anti-capitalist, neo marxist, post modernist, politically correct bigots and bullies — counterpunch

Obviously, I don't know the political opinions of every academic in every university in the western world, but I have more than a casual acquaintance with the literature; and then there's things like Jordan Peterson - and the gender pronouns dictat, and Lindsay Shepard - subjected to an inquisition for referencing Peterson in her class. It chimes with my own "lived experience" (sic) of being downgraded for exploring objectivism in social and political theory after reading Atlas Shrugged.

The Sokal Affair is funny. Sokal Squared is even funnier, but what does it really illustrate? That people are lazy and don't like to admit when they don't understand (nonsensical post modernist jargon)? The problem, I think is that, Alan Sokal could just as easily have written a nonsense physics paper - and submitted it to a physics journal, and got it published. Would that demonstrate the vacuity of physics? No. Just the laziness of the editor.

That won't cut the mustard. — god must be atheist

I'm not trying to cut mustard. I'm trying to say something, that clearly, just went straight over your head. That's okay. Forget it!