4 ms·
> She: I've heard that the main thing is to avoid relativism. But I'm a physicist, and that presents a real difficulty. Without relativity there'd be no possibi
by pjscott 10y ago
> She: I've heard that the main thing is to avoid relativism. But I'm a physicist, and that presents a real difficulty. Without relativity there'd be no possibility of making measurements and we'd each be prisoners, to all eternity, in some single point of view. In my discipline, we need the relativity of frames of reference in order even to begin work. I have a special need for relativity because I work on events close to the Big Bang. You don't need relativity, too?
I think it's safe to say that, with this paragraph, Bruno Latour failed the Ideological Turing Test: this conflation of philosophical relativism with the physical theory of relativity is not something that would ever be uttered by someone who knew what the latter is.
It gets worse from there. Please, anyone who's tempted to write a dialogue with a fictional person holding an opposing viewpoint: talk to one first! Find out what their arguments really are! And, if possible, learn their views well enough that your summary would seem accurate to one of them.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago> Please, anyone who's tempted to write a dialogue with a fictional person holding an opposing viewpoint: talk to one first! Find out what their arguments really are! And, if possible, learn their views well enough that your summary would seem accurate to one of them. Amen. It might also prevent the deliberately insulting language that Latour adopted. Clearly, he holds the scientific camp in contempt. An actual dialog might have demonstrated to him that there was more there than ignorance and mistaken ideas.