This contrast between
inductivism and
deductivism seems to me strongly influenced by
Karl Popper, right. So my question is..
Yes, the philosopher Karl Popper, and so my question is
this: Has there been any influence by Popper on your work?
Popper was just describing. What's
common-sense science since the 17th century
In fact I would question your first statement
It's true that I've been involved in a methodological critique since the late 40s, but it's a methodological pratik of non science
non science this starts with just
Collecting data and trying to make inductive generalizations from it and it gets absolutely nowhere
No, you just can't do it. It's been understood, in fact one of the parts of the
Modern scientific revolution, you know so-called Galilean revolution is you don't even try that
You search
That's why scientists do experiments
In fact in Galileo's case kind of thought
Experiments like he didn't drop two balls off the top of the Tower of Pisa that would never have worked
He just had a very elegant
argument thought argument that explained why
rate of fall wasn't going to
Be affected by mass
Sometimes he may have done experiments a lot of who didn't but the point is ever since the 17th century in fact even before
The scientists inquire of the world they don't just observe it the inquire of the world
 
That's called experiments they concoct
situations that might give you some insight and
From them. They make some guesses about what the theories might be and then they try other experiments to test the theories and
Ultimately they get sort of back to phenomena
But they really don't care very much if they get back to this phenomenon because in fact the phenomena themselves are so
Complex, and so involve so many variables that you just don't try to approximate them
Take the examples that I mentioned that be scientists. Don't try to approximate
Bees swarming. It's just too complicated the wind's blowing you know one of them changed his mind
whatever and
physicists certainly don't
You know take a look at what's going on outside the window and try to draw inductive generalizations from it
I mean you go back far enough
maybe and you know
free
Classical Greece, maybe science looked like that, but this is just mythology that doesn't happen, and it couldn't happen
scientists are inquiring
they're
Inquiring about nature and the same is true in linguistics if you're a field worker, so you're working you know some
Unstudied language in the Amazon. I mean if all you can do is take recordings okay you take recordings
But you're not going to find much if you're really doing serious field work
That you use the techniques that you learned in your field methods course in college
And then will you try to figure out the kinds of questions that will elicit data that might be significant and relevant
You just take a look at masses of data. You basically get nothing there
Just the noise you know so I know it's true that it's a methodological critique
But it's a methodological critique of something that dominates in the human sciences, but has absolutely nothing to do with science
That's true of the whole behaviorist tradition. I mean the the idea of what was called behavioral science that
1950s all the human sciences were called behavioral science and that makes about as much sense as calling
Physics meter reading science I mean it's true that you know take Eddington and others you can
Regard the physics is in principle
Just the study of meter readings
But it's not meter reading science you're using the meter reading grease try and discover something about the world well behavior is data
Not all the data incidentally just some of the data
And selected parts of that data
if you aren't smart enough to figure out, which ones it may tell you something about the human capacities and
The nature of the mind, but just to collect data, and you know
Organize it somehow is
Gonna get you nowhere
if you can't think of anything else to do you have no ideas, and then maybe you do that but
It's not the way science is done
