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#1
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Toward clarity on Truth and Facts
In a recent exchange here (I hesitate to call the contributions of one
of the posters, "debate") an analogy to show that truth and fact is the same thing was given. It referred to the Periodic Table of Elements as 'truth' because 'atomic weights are facts.' The truth about this is somewhat different. The facts do change from one era to another, and there was a day when the old fact was overthrown and the new fact replaced it. We cannot be sure that in fact, the facts of today won't be replaced in the future. I'll get to my point on the Periodic Table claim in a bit. But if you apply the thinking I'm going to share about that to the issues of social science research and more specifically to the spanking of children as a tactic used to "teach" the "facts" and "truth" begin to appear to not be as one poster claimed...immutable. There's curious little story that Bill Bryson, in his interesting book, "A Short History of Nearly Everything," where he relates the creation of the periodic table, the very first person doing so, and how it turned out. Here is a passage from page 136: .... Neither the idea of atoms nor the term itself was exactly news. Both had been developed by the ancient Greeks. Dalton's (the creator of the first Table of Atomic weights. ed.) contribution was to consider the relative sizes and characters of these atoms and how they fit together. He knew, for instance, that hydrogen was the lightest element, so he gave it an atomic weight of one. He believed that water contained seven parts of oxygen to one of hydrogen, and so he gave oxygen an atomic weight of seven. ... Now in those times, Dalton was considered the absolute authority in this matter of atomic weights. It was accepted by most all scientist, and physicists in particular, that in fact, and I emphasis FACT, that indeed oxygen had an atomic weight of seven. Of course we know today that what was FACT, hence 'the truth' then turned out to be incorrect. Oxygen, it turns out, has an atomic weight of sixteen. Now we hope that further experiments don't change that, or other atomic weights, but things have changed so that we have elements now with their own atomic weights that did not, and do not exist in nature, but are man made. Hence, truth changed, because facts change. Our ability to examine the universe and it parts changed. Which brings me back to spanking as a system of discipline. And the Embry study, and Embry's remarks here. If I read him correctly and recall correctly, what Embry stated was that he believed, previously, it was a fact that spanking generally worked to teach children behaviors. What he later found out, inspired by the work of others -- something I've read in other writings of Embry -- to do more research on how learning in children actually occurs is this. Learning from spanking can work for some children, though they too learn from non CP instruction, but the very ones that are the most difficult to teach not only don't learn what it is they are being taught, but in fact resist and increase the undesirable behavior when spanking is used. And this is most important -- they DO respond to non-spanking methods with more compliance, and less side effects of undesirable behaviors rather like the other children that don't come with behavior problems of the magnitude of these more difficult children. Thus, the Truth, base on Fact, changed for Embry, and I presume for anyone objectively examining his findings while holding a belief themselves in the efficacy of spanking. Doubtless their belief, their Truth, would change. Of course the hope is that they were rational objective observers and open to change based on the current facts. Facts are not immutable. Nor then, is the truth. We continue to learn. And we continue to learn about spanking, and about children's process of learning. Kane |
#2
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Kane poses as a philosopher
Toward clarity on Truth and Facts 0:- wrote: In a recent exchange here (I hesitate to call the contributions of one of the posters, "debate") an analogy to show that truth and fact is the same thing was given. It referred to the Periodic Table of Elements as 'truth' because 'atomic weights are facts.' The truth about this is somewhat different. The facts do change from one era to another, and there was a day when the old fact was overthrown and the new fact replaced it. We cannot be sure that in fact, the facts of today won't be replaced in the future. I'll get to my point on the Periodic Table claim in a bit. But if you apply the thinking I'm going to share about that to the issues of social science research and more specifically to the spanking of children as a tactic used to "teach" the "facts" and "truth" begin to appear to not be as one poster claimed...immutable. There's curious little story that Bill Bryson, in his interesting book, "A Short History of Nearly Everything," where he relates the creation of the periodic table, the very first person doing so, and how it turned out. Here is a passage from page 136: ... Neither the idea of atoms nor the term itself was exactly news. Both had been developed by the ancient Greeks. Dalton's (the creator of the first Table of Atomic weights. ed.) contribution was to consider the relative sizes and characters of these atoms and how they fit together. He knew, for instance, that hydrogen was the lightest element, so he gave it an atomic weight of one. He believed that water contained seven parts of oxygen to one of hydrogen, and so he gave oxygen an atomic weight of seven. ... Now in those times, Dalton was considered the absolute authority in this matter of atomic weights. It was accepted by most all scientist, and physicists in particular, that in fact, and I emphasis FACT, that indeed oxygen had an atomic weight of seven. Of course we know today that what was FACT, hence 'the truth' then turned out to be incorrect. Oxygen, it turns out, has an atomic weight of sixteen. Now we hope that further experiments don't change that, or other atomic weights, but things have changed so that we have elements now with their own atomic weights that did not, and do not exist in nature, but are man made. Hence, truth changed, because facts change. Our ability to examine the universe and it parts changed. Which brings me back to spanking as a system of discipline. And the Embry study, and Embry's remarks here. If I read him correctly and recall correctly, what Embry stated was that he believed, previously, it was a fact that spanking generally worked to teach children behaviors. What he later found out, inspired by the work of others -- something I've read in other writings of Embry -- to do more research on how learning in children actually occurs is this. Learning from spanking can work for some children, though they too learn from non CP instruction, but the very ones that are the most difficult to teach not only don't learn what it is they are being taught, but in fact resist and increase the undesirable behavior when spanking is used. And this is most important -- they DO respond to non-spanking methods with more compliance, and less side effects of undesirable behaviors rather like the other children that don't come with behavior problems of the magnitude of these more difficult children. Thus, the Truth, base on Fact, changed for Embry, and I presume for anyone objectively examining his findings while holding a belief themselves in the efficacy of spanking. Doubtless their belief, their Truth, would change. Of course the hope is that they were rational objective observers and open to change based on the current facts. Facts are not immutable. Nor then, is the truth. We continue to learn. And we continue to learn about spanking, and about children's process of learning. Kane |
#3
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Greg succeeds as an asshole...was... Kane poses as a philosopher
Greegor wrote:
Toward clarity on Truth and Facts 0:- wrote: In a recent exchange here (I hesitate to call the contributions of one of the posters, "debate") an analogy to show that truth and fact is the same thing was given. It referred to the Periodic Table of Elements as 'truth' because 'atomic weights are facts.' The truth about this is somewhat different. The facts do change from one era to another, and there was a day when the old fact was overthrown and the new fact replaced it. We cannot be sure that in fact, the facts of today won't be replaced in the future. I'll get to my point on the Periodic Table claim in a bit. But if you apply the thinking I'm going to share about that to the issues of social science research and more specifically to the spanking of children as a tactic used to "teach" the "facts" and "truth" begin to appear to not be as one poster claimed...immutable. There's curious little story that Bill Bryson, in his interesting book, "A Short History of Nearly Everything," where he relates the creation of the periodic table, the very first person doing so, and how it turned out. Here is a passage from page 136: ... Neither the idea of atoms nor the term itself was exactly news. Both had been developed by the ancient Greeks. Dalton's (the creator of the first Table of Atomic weights. ed.) contribution was to consider the relative sizes and characters of these atoms and how they fit together. He knew, for instance, that hydrogen was the lightest element, so he gave it an atomic weight of one. He believed that water contained seven parts of oxygen to one of hydrogen, and so he gave oxygen an atomic weight of seven. ... Now in those times, Dalton was considered the absolute authority in this matter of atomic weights. It was accepted by most all scientist, and physicists in particular, that in fact, and I emphasis FACT, that indeed oxygen had an atomic weight of seven. Of course we know today that what was FACT, hence 'the truth' then turned out to be incorrect. Oxygen, it turns out, has an atomic weight of sixteen. Now we hope that further experiments don't change that, or other atomic weights, but things have changed so that we have elements now with their own atomic weights that did not, and do not exist in nature, but are man made. Hence, truth changed, because facts change. Our ability to examine the universe and it parts changed. Which brings me back to spanking as a system of discipline. And the Embry study, and Embry's remarks here. If I read him correctly and recall correctly, what Embry stated was that he believed, previously, it was a fact that spanking generally worked to teach children behaviors. What he later found out, inspired by the work of others -- something I've read in other writings of Embry -- to do more research on how learning in children actually occurs is this. Learning from spanking can work for some children, though they too learn from non CP instruction, but the very ones that are the most difficult to teach not only don't learn what it is they are being taught, but in fact resist and increase the undesirable behavior when spanking is used. And this is most important -- they DO respond to non-spanking methods with more compliance, and less side effects of undesirable behaviors rather like the other children that don't come with behavior problems of the magnitude of these more difficult children. Thus, the Truth, base on Fact, changed for Embry, and I presume for anyone objectively examining his findings while holding a belief themselves in the efficacy of spanking. Doubtless their belief, their Truth, would change. Of course the hope is that they were rational objective observers and open to change based on the current facts. Facts are not immutable. Nor then, is the truth. We continue to learn. And we continue to learn about spanking, and about children's process of learning. Kane |
#4
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Kane poses as a philosopher
He is also a "published" researcher. He is also a member of a secret intellectual mailing list. He is also a PDF expert! ;-) He just can't read a simple chart! Doan |
#5
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Kane poses as a philosopher
And you as a idiot; oops, that's not posing,
it's reality. |
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