Ziggurat said:
Nothing of the sort. Rather that you can find such data, and serious analysis, in places other than academia. Thos other sources can be think tanks, columnists (like Amir Taheri, a very good source) or even individuals. For example, belmontclub.blogspot.com has, for my money, provided some of the best analysis of the situation in Iraq to be found. It's serious, and sometimes even quantitative, analysis, but it probably doesn't count as "scholarly".
Yes but still, given the more controlled, peer reviewed nature of scholarly and academic sources vs. others that may easily be taking the data out of context or utilizing flawed data from the onset, I tend to put more trust in scholars who study the issue in depth, in a peer reviewed envrinment, for years as opposed to think tanks (which often times get paid more to endorse a pre-set conclusion then do serious investigation), columnists who's understanding is likely to be superficial, and individuals who's testimony is questionable.
To bolster my case I should note in informal logic there is a distinction between a false appeal to authority and a legitimate appeal to authority i.e. expert testimony.
To take an excerpt from the book
How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age:
Appeal to Authority
We often try to support our views by citing experts. This sort of appeal to authority is perfectly valid---provided that the person cited really is an expert in the field in question. If not it is fallacious. Celebrity endorsements for example, often involve fallacious appeals to authority. because being famous doesn't necessarily give you any special expertise.
Hence using the criteria of false vs. legitmate appeal to authority, I must say appealing to academia has less of chance coming off as a false appeal, especially when it is by an expert in their given field, or in a peer reviewed environment, then citing a think tank, columnist or lay person does.
Originally posted by Ziggurat For one recent example, I point to a little spat between Juan Cole, a middle east history professor, and some Iraqi webloggers:
http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/archives/2004_11_01_iraqthemodel_archive.html#110099322383201686
Cole apparently couldn't even get past history correct, parroting the claim that Fallujah was a center of the 1920's rebellion against the British when it wasn't. Their spat continued in later posts when Cole linked to a site suggesting that those Iraqis were really CIA plants, but he backed off that pretty quick when he realized how absurd those accusations were.
Yes, of course blind faith in academia is no better then blind faith in any other group. Of course, sometimes academics are wrong and lay people (usually themselves relying on the work of other academics) are correct.
However the fact of the matter is you can do the above with regards to any group. Creationists constantly cite evolutionary biologists that make a blunder occasionally, paranormalists will generalize the skeptic that makes mistakes due to being over-zealous. Many psychologists now at days still adhere, very strictly, to the writings of Sigmund Freud and B.F. Skinner, I hardly think that itself discredits the works of modern neurocognitive science, evolutionary psychology and behavioral genetics though.
I imagine such mistakes, if anything are likely to be more common with regards to the social sciences, seeing as they deal with more complex phenomenon, and are relatively new.
However the fact is finding the lone nut, or two in a field hardly discredits the field as a whole. Or even puts the experts on the same grounds as lay person's.
I should note, if anything the argument imo, strenghtens support for academia, as it shows some good academic knowledge can be used to counter very bad academic theories.
Originally posted by Ziggurat For a broader perspective, here's a very nice article on academia's repeated failures regarding the middle east over the last few decades:
http://www.martinkramer.org/pages/899528/index.htm
Basically, they've missed pretty much every major change in the middle east. They didn't know what they were talking about in the 70's, 80's, and 90's, and there's no reason to think they've all suddenly figured it out now when the same ideological blinkers are still firmly in place.
I'm sorry but I don't see how this follows. The above page is that of a single academic professor, who does not really go into much of his work or others in depth.
In any event, even given your criteria of predicting specific, long-term trends I think the standard is a bit unfair.
I should note for example evolutionary biologists cannot predict the exact long-term trends of a species evolution, or what fossils will be found in a very exact manner. And doctors cannot predict what new kinds of diseases we will discover, or where the next epidemic will come from or how, in any exact manner.
However that os often not the criteria we use for such matters. The criteria we use is more varied. For example, we judge doctors more on whether they can predict with a statistical degree of correctness, whether a certain procedure will cure a disease more then chance. We judge biological theories based on the type of data that is uncovered in general.
Likewise we can do the same with regards to historians, not judging theories by very specific events but by long-term trends. Also not judging the theories by mere prediction, but by parsimony.
I can note in any event some specific predictions that certain historians, sociologists and economists have made, which have come true.
For example many in the State Department calculated correctly that Bush not putting in enough troops to secure Iraq and not properly sercuring the Iran-Syrian border would lead to widespread civil unrest and disorder, and even made specific predictions of what sorts of problems would arise as a matter of consequence, this as opposed to the Bush administration which believed that Iraqi gratitude over liberation would make State Department fears unfounded:
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040901faessay83505/larry-diamond/what-went-wrong-in-iraq.html
To take an excerpt:
But Washington failed to take such steps, for the same reasons it decided to occupy Iraq with a relatively light force: hubris and ideology. Contemptuous of the State Department's regional experts who were seen as too "soft" to remake Iraq, a small group of Pentagon officials ignored the elaborate postwar planning the State Department had overseen through its "Future of Iraq" project, which had anticipated many of the problems that emerged after the invasion. Instead of preparing for the worst, Pentagon planners assumed that Iraqis would joyously welcome U.S. and international troops as liberators. With Saddam's military and security apparatus destroyed, the thinking went, Washington could capitalize on the goodwill by handing the country over to Iraqi expatriates such as Ahmed Chalabi, who would quickly create a new democratic state. Not only would fewer U.S. troops be needed at first, but within a year, the troop levels could drop to a few tens of thousands.
Another example comes from the use of UN sanctions on Iraq, much of which beforehand was criticized by non-experts as a failure, but which modern post-invasion data has now vindicated as proven to have eroded Iraq's military capabilities:
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040...rtright/containing-iraq-sanctions-worked.html
Some excerpts:
Most coverage of the weapons inspections that began after the Gulf War focused on Baghdad's efforts to stall, evade, and obstruct UN monitors. But despite Saddam's recalcitrance, the record now shows that the UN disarmament program -- which Vice President Dick Cheney dubbed "the most intrusive system of arms control in history" -- decapitated Iraq's banned weapons programs and destroyed the infrastructure that would have allowed it to restart clandestine programs. From 1991 to 1998, the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) identified and dismantled almost all of Iraq's prohibited weapons. In conjunction with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it conducted hundreds of inspection missions at weapons sites and documentation centers, systematically uncovering and eliminating Iraq's nuclear weapons program and most of its chemical, biological, and ballistic missile systems. After four months of further inspections from November 2002 until March 2003 -- which included 237 missions to 148 sites -- the UN Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) confirmed the depleted state of Iraq's capabilities.
Note I am not of course say mere correlation equals causations in any of the above two examples.
What I am saying is that the predictions are correlated with specific concrete events of the type predicted, or specific actions noted that had an obvious causal role.
With regards to the sanctions for example specific cases of denying Iraq the ability to import weapons, and disarmament support the case for the utility of UN sanctions.
On this I should note that the notion of all academics adhering to one monolithic ideology is extremely flawed. Many advocate different, often times competing, theories on issues.
I think then given that, instead of judging academia as a whole by whether or not a single or small group made a bad prediction, we should more be comparing specific theories concerning events and see which ones fair better.
For example there are two theories of democracy, the "build up first" theory, that states democracies need a certain political/economic infrastructure in which to arise, before which autocracies actually are better for running the country and the theory that concludes demcoracies can exist more indepent of other socioeconomic forces, and that democracy can actually help a nation develope.
Out of the two models, so far much data based on cross-cultural studies have shown that the latter theory has so far had more predictive power then the former.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040...-morton-h-halperin/why-democracies-excel.html
Given that data, I would say it would be erroneous to simply toss out all academic prediction as worthless, and more worthwhile to note that some academic theories are simply better then others.
Hence my point would be that academic knowledge is not tossed out by layman knowledge, or rejected as a whole, but more superceded by better academic knowledge.
Originally posted by Ziggurat Not a good argument, since they aren't in a predictive business. But as a matter of fact, I really don't take most of literary criticism (the bulk of academic "literary profession") seriously. They still use Freud for psychology and Marx for economic theory, when both economics and psychology have left those thinkers in the distant past where they belong.
But that was my point, that a scholars measure isn't solely determined by whether or not they can predict specific events. It can also be determined by how parsimonious their interpretation of the data is.
As for your objection to literary scholars:
A) Do you have any evidence that the majority adhere to Marx and or Freud?
B) Do you have any evidence that this impacts their work to such a degree as to make their statements worthless?
For example Baum literary scholars have in many ways discredited the notion that Baum was a populist who wrote the "Wizard of Oz" as a political allegory.
They base this conclusion on Republican poems Baum wrote, the fact that Baum tended to shy away from politicis in his writing (and the one time he did write a political allegory it was very obvious and clumsy) and other such data.
Even if these scholars were Marxist, or Freudians then, would you reject their authority on the matter, their evidence, or their testimony on that basis alone?
Originally posted by Ziggurat I can't give you numbers, but I can give you examples. Michel Foucault, the famous French intellectual, was enamoured of the 1978 Iranian revolution, since it seemed to fit into the nice lefty anti-colonial, revolutionary, people-power claptrap narative that's still so popular among many "thinkers". It took things like the mullahs hanging an Iranian gay lover of his for him to realize that the mullahs were crazy bastards, not spokesmen of the people.
Michael Focault was a postmodernist, and admittedly a nut. However you cannot judge all of academia by a few fringe nuts out there.
That would be like me judging the opinion of all lay persons on the basis of a single man in the mental hospital.
Originally posted by Ziggurat Or how about Chomsky's predictions that millions would starve because of our invasion of Afghanistan? He wasn't just off on that one, he was completely wrong.
Yes and the majority of experts on the matter generally dismissed Chomsky's ideas as ridiculous or taken out of context.
For example even the graduate student, Brenden Nyhan (political science major) was able to debunk Chomsky's Afghan rantings:
http://www.spinsanity.org/post.html?2001_11_04_archive.html
Chomsky I should also note is a linguist, not a historian, political scientist, foreign policy expert or econimist. Hence attempting to use him to discredit respected members of their fields is somewhat like me trying to use what an astronomer says about biology, to discredit biologists.
