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ariel · 20th August 2018, 05:49 PM

Hi Alan,

Your view of academic thinking is not fully precise. Physics, math, biology, - "hard" sciences in general,- employ validated and objective methodologies. It is the " soft" field where your irony ( sarcasm?) is fully justified.
They create an aura of " science" mostly by employing highbrow titles for their fields of occupation. In not so distant path they would be called just "cultural anthropologists". Now they are " cultural neuroscientists". Which means, that instead of just observing people, they employ psychological tests of dubious validity and recently they got access to high-tech machinery: functional MRIs, PET scans etc. Statistical analyses are getting more and more convoluted and always support their pre-test hypotheses.

So, yes, I fully agree with you that one can only chuckle at the attention lavished on their mumbo-jumbo by the popular press. One can still recall the hilarious " Sokal Affair"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

But there is a dark side to their popularity. They purport to show that adults from different cultures have inherent differences in the way their brains view real world and are capable of reaching logical conclusions.

Does it mean that the " analytical" approach of Western cultures largely depends on the ethnicity of the observer/analyzer? And that non-Western races by virtue of their " Oriental" or " African" upbringing are incapable of rigid scientific thinking? Were they born with their brains holistically "pre-wired" for generations or were they brought up that way by their environment ( and how about early childhood experiences?). Is a Burmese or African person by virtue of his/her ethnic origin sufficiently competitive with a Caucasian in their ability to solve analytical problems?
Are they equally suitable for participating in the modern economy/academia/ research/political life? Indeed, our glorious 21st century demands analytical
brains, and those by and large belong to the Westerners, rather than Orientals, don't they?

Somehow there is a whiff of racism there, is it not?

The original IQ tests ( early cultural neuroscience) were created to weed out mentally-feeble people from immigrating to the US. Individuals from the British Isles had the highest scores, whereas Italians and Eastern European Jews cumulated at the bottom. As a result, there were calls by the "cultural neuroscientsts" to severely limit immigration from those localities. One minor detail was conveniently omitted: the tests were administered in.... English.

20th August 2018, 05:49 PM	#2
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	Hi Alan, Your view of academic thinking is not fully precise. Physics, math, biology, - "hard" sciences in general,- employ validated and objective methodologies. It is the " soft" field where your irony ( sarcasm?) is fully justified. They create an aura of " science" mostly by employing highbrow titles for their fields of occupation. In not so distant path they would be called just "cultural anthropologists". Now they are " cultural neuroscientists". Which means, that instead of just observing people, they employ psychological tests of dubious validity and recently they got access to high-tech machinery: functional MRIs, PET scans etc. Statistical analyses are getting more and more convoluted and always support their pre-test hypotheses. So, yes, I fully agree with you that one can only chuckle at the attention lavished on their mumbo-jumbo by the popular press. One can still recall the hilarious " Sokal Affair" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair But there is a dark side to their popularity. They purport to show that adults from different cultures have inherent differences in the way their brains view real world and are capable of reaching logical conclusions. Does it mean that the " analytical" approach of Western cultures largely depends on the ethnicity of the observer/analyzer? And that non-Western races by virtue of their " Oriental" or " African" upbringing are incapable of rigid scientific thinking? Were they born with their brains holistically "pre-wired" for generations or were they brought up that way by their environment ( and how about early childhood experiences?). Is a Burmese or African person by virtue of his/her ethnic origin sufficiently competitive with a Caucasian in their ability to solve analytical problems? Are they equally suitable for participating in the modern economy/academia/ research/political life? Indeed, our glorious 21st century demands analytical brains, and those by and large belong to the Westerners, rather than Orientals, don't they? Somehow there is a whiff of racism there, is it not? The original IQ tests ( early cultural neuroscience) were created to weed out mentally-feeble people from immigrating to the US. Individuals from the British Isles had the highest scores, whereas Italians and Eastern European Jews cumulated at the bottom. As a result, there were calls by the "cultural neuroscientsts" to severely limit immigration from those localities. One minor detail was conveniently omitted: the tests were administered in.... English.