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Summer Reading List

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Re: Summer Reading List

#221

Post by malandrew »

Mz wrote: post #213
malandrew wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Female authors must be better than most to have any shot at getting published. So, women authors who do get published tend to be better authors than most male authors. That's one hypothesis. Another equally valid hypothesis is that those that were published were just lucky enough to send their manuscripts to agents and publishers that don't have a bias. A corollary to your hypothesis is that there are publishers an…

FWIW, the essay I linked to was written by a woman. By your logic, you're morally obligated to read it. I didn't make a moral argument anywhere. You asked "Why should I, as a reader, just try to find quality interesting content care about the identity of the author." And I suggested there is evidence that women authors need to be better to have any hope of getting published at all. As I noted above, you have no oblig…

> Female authors must be better

is not the same as

> there is evidence that women authors need to be better

The former is a conclusion. The latter is not. The latter should be further be qualified as "there is evidence that women authors [may] need to be better ... [, but further investigation into causality would be required to confirm this]".

Statements of fact and foregone conclusions without strong support merit the skepticism they are met with.

If someone said "Male authors must be better because they are published more often", I would expect that statement to be met with the same skepticism.

Re: Summer Reading List

#222

Post by filiwickers »

malandrew wrote: post #216
pjmorris wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should I care in those cases? I thought the GP answered your question succinctly as follows: >> Even in a book about facts, a person's relation to those facts reflects their lived experience.

Why should I elevate one of their lived experiences (their gender in this case) over all of their other lived experiences? For many topics, experiences attributable to one's gender is all but irrelevant relative to experiences not attributable to gender. Why not their age? nationality? place of birth? race? sexual orientation? height? native language? myers-briggs personality type? etc., etc.,

Yes, good point! Those are all important as well. I did not intend in my comment to emphasize a binary identity for authors. Seek out books by authors from any lived experience dissimilar from yours to maximize your grasp of our world.

Re: Summer Reading List

#224

Post by Mz »

malandrew wrote: post #221
Mz wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, the essay I linked to was written by a woman. By your logic, you're morally obligated to read it. I didn't make a moral argument anywhere. You asked "Why should I, as a reader, just try to find quality interesting content care about the identity of the author." And I suggested there is evidence that women authors need to be better to have any hope of getting published at all. As I noted above, you have no oblig…

> Female authors must be better is not the same as > there is evidence that women authors need to be better The former is a conclusion. The latter is not. The latter should be further be qualified as "there is evidence that women authors [may] need to be better ... [, but further investigation into causality would be required to confirm this]". Statements of fact and foregone conclusions without strong support merit…

The full original statement involves plenty of qualifiers:

Sorry, it seems really obvious to me and I have heard it said before, so didn't feel I needed to spell it out: Female authors must be better than most to have any shot at getting published.

"it seems obvious to me" and "I have heard it said before" etc. You very much look like you are trolling me at this point. So, I think I am done because, wow, I feel like I need a shower for having made the mistake of trying to engage you in good faith.

Re: Summer Reading List

#225

Post by malandrew »

mtalantikite wrote: post #217
malandrew wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, I don't buy books to solve injustice. I buy them to be informed or entertained. Why stop at choosing books by gender? If it's irrelevant to the subject matter being written on, should I buy books based on someone's nationality? Their religion? Their race? Their sexual orientation? Citing examples of authors where the subject matter is relevant to their identity is not a counter-argument to the point I'm ma…

You don't think a person of color writing about the subprime mortgage crisis would write a different book than a white banker that worked at Bear Stearns? A crisis in which black and Latino applicants were almost 2.5 times more likely to be given a subprime rate in comparison to white applicants? [1] No one is reducing individuals to their race or gender identity, but unless we're talking about pure science and mathe…

The inherent racism in your example notwithstanding, the two examples you chose aren't even comparable. You didn't say "a person of color" and "a white person". You said "a person of color" and a "white banker that worked at Bear Sterns". That's pure apples and oranges.

The relevant lived experience is being a banker at Bear Stearns, not the race of that banker. Also, how do I know the person of color isn't also a banker at Bear Sterns. I worked in Wall Street years ago, and yes, I had co-workers that were people of color.

Re: Summer Reading List

#226

Post by ThomPete »

axplusb wrote: post #214
tgb wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took a philosophy of science course in college and still never got what it was that Kuhn was saying. My memory is the professor spent many lectures telling us what he was not saying, but I never figured out what he was saying beyond a "science goes through fads" simplistic interpretation. Is there a good short overview of it?

My take from this book is that: - scientific knowledge is embedded in some intellectual ether made of underlying hypotheses often not explicitly stated called paradigms - paradigms follow a Darwinian evolutionary process, i.e. better paradigms evolve out of not-so-good previous paradigms - paradigm replacements start with an epistemological crisis , i.e. facts that the current paradigms don't explain well enough. Hop…

Great summary but also important to note that Kuhn didn't believe (unlike Popper) that science moved towards some final destination or explanation. Instead he saw each paradigm as optimal for what it was trying to express.

Re: Summer Reading List

#227

Post by mvleming »

kentt wrote: post #97

I'd consider Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection to be fiction as well. Too long, shouldn't read: if you believe, your back pain will go away. I'm surprised to see the anti-scientific pseudoscience promoted.

I haven't checked out Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection but if you want another book that I think speaks from a similar angle, and that I know has a scientific grounding, check out A Guide to Better Movement by Todd Hargrove[1].

The crux of some recent research into pain can be summarized in a few points:

* Sometimes you'll hear patients talk about pain and look at their area of pain and find nothing in their bones/muscles/etc that would indicate they should experience pain, and sometimes you'll look at other patients and their bones/muscles/etc and find they should experience pain but they don't.

* If you have three cups of water–two of them warm, the middle one cold–and stick a finger in each cup, your finger that is in the middle, cold cup will actually feel a hot, burning sensation. Try it yourself. Pain can be misleading and not indicative of actual danger.

* Similarly, ever play a sport and not feel an injury until the next day? (I'm not talking about soreness.) This indicates that pain can be silenced, and that underlying physical damage doesn't immediately and directly cause a sensation of pain.

The mind-body connection in essence is this: your body is the territory, and your mind is the map. Your map of the territory can become out of sync with the way the territory actually is. The body is incredibly adaptable, if you teach your body to feel pain, it will, if you teach your body to move freely, it will. This doesn't mean, if you're feeling pain, go and do crazy things and hump the dragon so to speak. It does mean: approach the dragon. Lean into the pain. Allow yourself to feel pain. Recognize the pain and listen to it and learn more about where the flare-up line exists in your body. Constantly strive to elevate where the flare-up line is, mindfully and with good vibes. :)

Increasingly we're moving away from a past where physical pain is stigmatized.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Better-Movement-Science-Practic...

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