A little mini-thread about the grievance studies hoax, responding to concerns from @ConceptualJames that the emphasis of my initial set of responses may have been in someway misplacedhttps://twitter.com/briandavidearp/status/1056611677251272706 …
"Demonstrate" is a strong word. So no, James's assertion doesn't demonstrate that. Are you suggesting that high-quality journals in feminist philosophy or related areas do not (ever? sometimes? usually?) publish well-thought-out criticisms of their prevailing methods?
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I’m saying that if anyone questions feminist journals politically correct ideas, those people will be shunned and labeled as enemies, and that’s exactly what has happened. Helen even posted a quote yesterday saying anyone who questions those ideas is automatically wrong. See it?
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I’m not sure dunking on the rest of the academy to save grievance studies is, ahem, helping. People on my side of the political aisle would cheerfully hack everything in universities except law & STEM into bleeding chunks & chuck it in the Thames. Don’t give them ammunition.
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It's shockingly irresponsible that so many high-minded academics think that's the appropriate move in this moment. Earp insists we haven't shown a "special" problem in grievance studies, which might be true on "shown" but is a patent and irresponsible falsehood.
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The entire claim I was critiquing was "shown." I thought the whole point of the big hoax was to provide sufficient evidence to support a bold claim that it seemed to me, did not at all reach the level of demonstration.
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I’m not sure I was understood. Lack of a reaction akin to demonization in one case and not in the other, I do see as significant and indicative of varying attitudes.
End of conversation
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Quick, someone call Rebecca Tuvel!
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I'm sensing a sort of weird pattern where I make a statement that has a certain extension (e.g., ever/sometimes/usually) & then you'll respond with a kind of sarcastic reply that changes the extension (e.g., 1 example), as though that refutes or responds to my original statement
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More broadly: there is an underlying assumption that RCTs, math, "hard science" are the gold standard for producing reliable knowledge. This assumption in turn is based on a realist metaphysical stance which philosophers of science like Popper pointed out is simply a preference.
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Well, is the computer that you’re using to say these words designed based on the “gold standard” or the supposed “other ways of knowing?”

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Also, I find it quite fascinating, from an anthropological perspective that only yesterday, I heard the exact opposite criticism of James, Peter, and Helen’s work—in other words that it was flimsy and unreliable because it “isn’t scientifically rigorous.” Very strange.
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I'm not saying I'm not a realist; and to build computers we use a lot of metaphors like information but we don't have to believe that computers are made of information. I find it fascinating that the debate seems to be proceeding without reference to philosophy of science.
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So, you don’t see feminist theory as falsifiable?
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I'm not sure- but like all knowledge it's certainly fallible.
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