[Air-L] Scientific Proof

[Charlie Balch]

Barry,
As a potential doctor of philosophy I encourage you to have your own views.
My view is that, other than in fields like math which create their own
realities, you can't get scientific "proof" of anything. Science is an
attempt to understand phenomena with a degree of confidence. In the real
world it is not possible to prove anything. I think it was Einstein who said
"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain,
and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."

Qualitative studies tend to have less "proof" than quantitative studies as
much of the interpretation of the data is through the lens of the
investigators' personality. This does not invalidate qualitative results
but, as you point out, the reader should consider the possibility that they
do not share the same assumptions as the researcher. One interpretation of
Godel's incompleteness theorem is that no system can understand itself. I.E.
Humans cannot understand humans. 

All the best,

Charlie Balch MEd, MBA, PHD 

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
[mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Barry Saunders
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 3:56 AM
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-L] Religious Dimension of Sustainable Development

it's not sub-scientific. it's just not scientific.

completely different approach. you can't get a scientific proof from an
anthropological approach.




--
Barry Saunders
----
http://investigativeblog.net
http://gatewatching.org
http://youdecide2007.org
----
PhD Candidate // researcher
http://creativeindustries.qut.edu.au
http://eprints.qut.edu.au/view/person/Saunders,_Barry.html
ph: 07 3138 0155
skype: barry_saunders
CRICOS No. 00213J

________________________________________
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org [air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On
Behalf Of Christian Nelson [xianknelson at mac.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 8:21 PM
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-L] Religious Dimension of Sustainable Development

I hope you'll pardon me if observe that your response is kind of
funny--it finds anthropology "sub-scientific," something that a lot
of anthropologists would find quite disrespectful, though you've
objected to the implication that you are "sub-human."

On Jan 8, 2008, at 4:56 AM, Barry Saunders wrote:

> indeed, but i'm interested in the scientific proof. Anthropological
> evidence doesn't really count as 'scientific proof'.
>
> No disrespect to anthropology intended though - I'm curious as to
> how anyone could scientifically test the hypothesis - particularly
> how they judge what a fulfilled human is.
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