Why do real scientists miss this obvious point?
A classic example of a perpetual puzzle. One of the writers at Uncommon Descent gives us this.....

... Once we are reasonably informed (thus the value of sound history, civics, ethics and logic), will quickly expose spin in the media, or from the platform, or from the lecturer's podium, or from the pulpit...

IDers are HONEST SCIENTISTS who understand the difference between descriptive and prescriptive in the context of science. Why do so many of them fail to understand the SAME distinction in the study of government? (In parallel, they also fail to understand the distinction in grammar. Most of them are prescriptivists who think a split infinitive is "ungrammatical".)

Civics is just like quantum quackery or global warming. It's a set of axioms put forth by fashionable people at some point in history. Some of these axioms are untestable nonsense, others are EXPLICITLY FALSE and TOTALLY DISPROVED. None are true or valid.

The 1787 Constitution was based on the counter-science notion of equality, which was KNOWN TO BE FALSE in 1787 and is FALSE in far more detail now.

Its provisions were tried for a few years and then discarded in 1803. Since then, "courts" use the axioms and provisions BACKWARDS. Freedom of religion is the basis for jailing Christians. Freedom of speech is the basis for cultivating riots to shut down unfashionable speech. The specific restatement of the crazy equality claim in the 14th Amendment is used to justify affirmative action. The full faith and credit clause justifies rejecting a divorce decree from another state.

= = = = =

Since the ID author was talking about education, let's apply it...

Why do we need training? When you know HOW SOMETHING REALLY WORKS, you know how to use it. Vocational and experiential education gives you experience with HOW THINGS REALLY WORK. A student who knows HOW THINGS REALLY WORK is immune to official and cultural lies. Can we extend this to grammar and government?

We have good DESCRIPTIVE texts for grammar, but we didn't use them in schools until recently. Common Core finally gives a strong and refreshing push in the right direction.

We have good DESCRIPTIVE texts for government, but we still don't use them. Machiavelli is the Old Testament of descriptivism. Parkinson is the New Testament. Many later writers have added accurate OBSERVATIONS AND DESCRIPTIONS of how bureaucracies really work. I don't think any of these observations have been turned into school texts or curricula.

Why? Thinking about it....

Aha. Unfortunately a lab for bureaucracy is impossible. There's a natural obstacle beyond simple foolishness or political idiocy.

You can train every branch of physical science with lab sessions. Frog innards can be studied in a week. Ohm's Law and Newton's Laws can be observed in a week. Plant nutrition and growth can be observed in a year. Food chemistry can be mastered in a year. These passive parts of Nature are always ready to be observed and manipulated. If you observe and manipulate competently, you'll always get the same result.

The structure of a large organization DOESN'T reveal itself in a year, and CAN'T form in an artificial setting.

"Social Science" courses have repeatedly tried to set up "dictatorships" but they don't show anything. Classic bad example was the mid-60s Stanford experiment that tried to simulate a prison in a few weeks. The "guards" took total control and tortured the "inmates". This is EXACTLY OPPOSITE to the structure of a real prison, where the strongest inmates (typically the black inmates) control the guards.

It takes many years for real structures to crystallize, and it takes REALITY. You aren't going to see it in a one-semester experiment where the participants have all sorts of external motives and lives, and you sure as fuck aren't going to see it in a computer-based Game Theory "experiment".

Labels: Experiential education

  ¶ 12:16 PM