Saturday, September 2, 2017

Re: [Yasmin_discussions] STEAM to STEM: redesigning science itself ? yes says sundar sarukkai

Dear Yasmin friends

I thought that this recent article by Neal White may be of interest in
terms of this discussion (polymathy - v - ste(a)m) etc

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03080188.2017.1297166

Neal's argument is not for an amorphous wholeness to embrace and infuse all
disciplines but for a level of cognitive resistance and action informed by
intersections and live engagement among fellow travellers in various
coinsecting fields.

With very best wishes

B

On 31 August 2017 at 17:08, roger malina <rmalina@alum.mit.edu> wrote:

> yasmilners
> sundar sarukkai at NIAS
> Bangalore sends this in response to our provocation that maybe in
> steam to stem we need to think about redesigning science itself, both
> the scientific method and the social embedding of science to meet the
> situations of the 21st century= both the scientific method and its
> social embedding have evolved over the centuries
>
> as sundar notes- scientists are often allergic to any idea that
> science itself needs redesigning
>
>
> roger
>
> Roger, I was very pleased to see this email you sent about the need to
> redesign science and scientific method. This is a bigger problem in
> India and has been so for quite some time. We are a unique country in
> that our Constitution has 'scientific temper' as one of our
> constitutional duties! Scientists have repeatedly misused this to save
> the ordinary people from their 'blind beliefs' and 'superstition'. And
> use this to ask for more funds for science. Recently some of them
> organized a march for science which also recycled such uncritical
> views on science. I wrote against this ideology in a national
> newspaper - see
> http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/the-march-from-
> yesterday/article19459043.ece.
> The scientists, especially those who organized the march, got furious
> (expected trolls in the social media) and one of them wrote a
> rejoinder in an online site called The Wire pedaling the same views.
> I then wrote a response which set out the faults in that piece - see
> https://thewire.in/167673/sundar-sarukkai-march-for-
> science-superstition-lynching/.
> You might also find another response to this debate useful -
> https://thewire.in/169521/march-for-science-superstitions-latour-salk/.
>
> As we can clearly see, many of these scientists don't read about
> science - Wikipedia and dictionaries are enough for them to understand
> any concepts in the non-sciences but they would not allow any
> non-scientist to talk about quantum physics or relativity based on
> their reading of such material. (I must also add here that there were
> many scientists who did not agree either with the rationale for the
> march or with the naive scientistic responses but the larger national
> narrative about science continues to be at this level.) You are also
> very right about the other point you raised, namely, the scientific
> community's reluctance to accept the social character of science. To
> try and incite a dialogue around this, I wrote an editorial for
> Current Science on the sociality of science but haven't managed to get
> the scientists to react - see
> http://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/111/11/1731.pdf.
>
> Glad you started this dialogue.
>
> Thanks, sundar
>
> 7
> _______________________________________________
> Yasmin_discussions mailing list
> Yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr
> http://estia.media.uoa.gr/mailman/listinfo/yasmin_discussions
>
> Yasmin URL: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin
>
> SBSCRIBE: click on the link to the list you wish to subscribe to. In the
> page that will appear ("info page"), enter e-mail address, name, and
> password in the fields found further down the page.
> HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE: on the info page, scroll all the way down and enter
> your e-mail address in the last field. Enter password if asked. Click on
> the unsubscribe button on the page that will appear ("options page").
> TO ENABLE / DISABLE DIGEST MODE: in the options page, find the "Set Digest
> Mode" option and set it to either on or off.
> If you prefer to read the posts on a blog go to
> http://yasminlist.blogspot.com/
>

--
Bronaċ
_______________________________________________
Yasmin_discussions mailing list
Yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr
http://estia.media.uoa.gr/mailman/listinfo/yasmin_discussions

Yasmin URL: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin

SBSCRIBE: click on the link to the list you wish to subscribe to. In the page that will appear ("info page"), enter e-mail address, name, and password in the fields found further down the page.
HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE: on the info page, scroll all the way down and enter your e-mail address in the last field. Enter password if asked. Click on the unsubscribe button on the page that will appear ("options page").
TO ENABLE / DISABLE DIGEST MODE: in the options page, find the "Set Digest Mode" option and set it to either on or off.
If you prefer to read the posts on a blog go to http://yasminlist.blogspot.com/