Yeah...
I know. Sigh...Originally Posted by marct
I've got answers but my daddy always said i shouldn't curse to express myself. Oh, and now 4 weeks into my Sociology doctorate classes I can say social sciences suck. I'll take engineering any day of the week. A light switch is on or off. It does not have transcedental states of understanding or statistical significance averaging out to maybe.
Sam Liles
Selil Blog
Don't forget to duck Secret Squirrel
The scholarship of teaching and learning results in equal hatred from latte leftists and cappuccino conservatives.
All opinions are mine and may or may not reflect those of my employer depending on the chance it might affect funding, politics, or the setting of the sun. As such these are my opinions you can get your own.
Serves you right
considering all the thesaurantenical fits you've given to others trying to follow some of your posts
Yes I made up a word but this is American English and I take pride in following with the great tradition of continually expanding it in an effort to make learning it harder for those from other countries
Reference AAA
I would guess they will remain somewhat of a fence setter on this until there is either a full success to take credit for or a failure to use as an excuse for future refusal to participate.
Actually, come to think of it...
This is actually doable, give or take about 5-10 years of research. It'll probably take someone like Peter Novick do to it right, but it's definitely doable. The data is out there... most associations, or any kind of membership, request details like employment sector. PhD students are forever running around conducting interviews and getting large numbers of people to fill in surveys/questionnaires...
As for the knowledge of social scientists vs. the know-how of engineers - in this forum, I will refrain from passing negatives on my colleagues who had the misfortune of choosing to study the latter. Good keggers, though - so I hear...
So I guess this isn't the time to talk about quantum potentiality or thermal switches.
On a (slightly) more serious note, it's not surprising that social science is still in the "schools" phase. Engineering would be there as well if it purposefully excluded large amounts of data, which is what the social sciences tend to do (cf The Adapted Mind, by Barkow, Cosmides and Tooby, 1992 and Sometimes the Bus does Wait - the introduction to Missing the Revolution by Barkow, 2006).
Of course, if you start quoting Jerry's stuff in your Soc classes, they will probably role their eyes ......
Having done a fairly intensive field study on that question, I'd have to say that engineers are better keggersAs for the knowledge of social scientists vs. the know-how of engineers - in this forum, I will refrain from passing negatives on my colleagues who had the misfortune of choosing to study the latter. Good keggers, though - so I hear...
Marc
Sic Bisquitus Disintegrat...
Marc W.D. Tyrrell, Ph.D.
Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies,
Senior Research Fellow,
The Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, NPSIA
Carleton University
http://marctyrrell.com/
HTS and the AAA Taboo
Given that I am not the brightest bulb on the tree, I will refrain from commenting on all previous discussion regarding whether it is ethical for anthroplogists to throw their lot in with the military....
However, I do think it is ironic that for all the hand wringing and statements of the AAA, that neither has had an impact on the fielding of HTS teams. In fact, if my sources are corrent (and they are very good sources), they have more supply than they can effectively train. It seems young anthropologists are more interesting in applying and learning their craft, then they are concerned about the hystrionics of College professors who have been cemented in their instutions for decades. Viva the Vibe Generation
Live well and row
Hacksaw
Say hello to my 2 x 4
Academics Turn On "Human Terrain" Whistleblower
This whole saga gets weirder and weirder....A former HTS staff member speaks at a AAA conference supporting the need for social science in the military, the mood turns ugly and she ends up crying (based on reports below). These Academic Anthropologists are tough. I mean, she basically got fired from the HTS and went to the AAA to tell them that the program wasn't working and they jeered her anyway. Don't need to go to Iraq to get attacked...
Academics Turn On "Human Terrain" Whistleblower
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/1...ght-betwe.html
Questions, Anger and Dissent on Ethics Study
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/11/30/anthro
Former Human Terrain System Participant Describes Program in Disarray [on Zenia Helbig]
by David Glenn
The Chronicle of Higher Education
December 5, 2007
http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/4586
I need me some anthropological fairy dust to dull the senses...
B.
Thanks for the post, its always great to be pointed to "good" content as opposed to swimming in the www ocean without a lifepreserver. What does AAA stand for? Arrogant A$$h0/es Anonymous. What a bunch of self-important/self-marginalizing miscreants.I wasn't sure if I should laugh or cry, but I have to admit it reminded me back to fonder days of beer bongs. tailgates and skipping boring lecture hall classes.
Hacksaw
Say hello to my 2 x 4
It's worth quoting directly from the insidehighered article regarding the alleged "crying" incident. Kudos to Gusterson, one of the founders of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists, who had the guts to stand up and slap down these idiots. In general and as usual, there a fewer number of idiots, but it's how the saner ones react that shows something.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/11/30/anthroAt one point Helbig said that she couldn’t disengage from the military role in Iraq because it includes her fiancé, and she noted that if someone in the military refuses to deploy as ordered, that person would go to jail. At that point, a number of people in the audience shouted that her fiancé should have resisted nonetheless, and at that point, she started to wipe tears from her eyes and face.
Gusterson, the George Mason professor, urged the audience to show Helbig some respect, and said that she “showed courage” in expressing her views before an audience she knew didn’t share her opinions. Gusterson’s comments received applause as well and several of those who subsequently criticized Helbig’s views made a point of praising her for attending the meeting.
Well noted. Good on him.
Just goes to show the total ambiguity of that vocal minority. They'll encourage someone to break the law to support their point of view, but damn someone to hell for disagreeing with them. It's a shame we don't have more sane ones standing up and telling them to shut the hell up.
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
Human Terrain Mapping
Mar-Apr 08 Military Review: Human Terrain Mapping: A Critical First Step to Winning the COIN Fight
....When it deployed to Iraq in mid-2007, TF Dragon inherited a heavily populated (400,000 people) area southeast of Baghdad. The AO was volatile, in part because it straddled a Sunni/Shi’a fault-line. The majority of the Sunnis lived along the Tigris River, the task force’s western boundary. Shi’a tribes resided in the north (close to Baghdad) and along the eastern boundary (the Baghdad-Al Kut highway).
The requirement for new ethnographic information on its AO weighed heavily on the task force. Thus, the entire unit began focusing on systematically collecting and collating ethnographic information. Ultimately, TF Dragon worked the collection through a process the staff labeled “human-terrain mapping,” or HTM.
Developing the HTM process amounted to creating a tool for understanding social conditions. As it collected and cataloged pertinent information, the task-force staff tailored its plan in order to capture a broad range of details. An important aspect of the process involved putting the data in a medium that all Soldiers could monitor and understand. Once the formatting and baseline information requirements were set, TF Dragon employed the shared situational-awareness enhancing capabilities of the Command Post of the Future (CPOF) computer system. Each company was allocated a CPOF to post the results of its mapping on a common database, a matrix that included information about religious boundaries, key economic structures, mosques, and important personalities such as sheiks....
Well, then, it would probably frustrate you to no end to discover that a light bulb has at least 3 positions. "On", "Off" or "Null State". And that's before you start discussing existential questions about the bulb, and whether it is a particle or a wave.
Sorry. I couldn't resist the temptation....
In one of my early graduate classes the professor was trying to make a point about engineering methods and perspective leading to design failures. He said that we see the light on or off, but the light bulb has a perspective of does it want to be on or off. One of my fellow students quipped "The light bulb more likely wants people to stop applying 120V AC to it's posterior". You have to have perspective.
Sam Liles
Selil Blog
Don't forget to duck Secret Squirrel
The scholarship of teaching and learning results in equal hatred from latte leftists and cappuccino conservatives.
All opinions are mine and may or may not reflect those of my employer depending on the chance it might affect funding, politics, or the setting of the sun. As such these are my opinions you can get your own.
ROFLMAO!!
Let me guess. I have to ask: was it an anthropologist anthropomorphizing the light bulb?
(Slapout, isn't that illegal in Alabama?)
John Wolfsberger, Jr.
An unruffled person with some useful skills.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Light Bulb...
Or, as German post-structural historian Reinhart Kosseleck put it, asymmetric counterconcepts are generated through narrative concept formation that's contingent on hegemonic perception and counter-perception.
Or, light bulbs have feelings too.
Don't know bout all that,
But they do seem quite human in that they have a tolerance up to a certain point after which they do one of two things
1- Quit
2-Blow
February Anthropology Today
The entire February issue of Anthropology Today is on "the War on Terror" with lead article by Roberto Gonzales on the HTTs and a response from Montgomery McFate & LtCol Steve Fondacaro. Blackwell (the publisher) has grouped over 30+ articles from previous issues there as well.
Sic Bisquitus Disintegrat...
Marc W.D. Tyrrell, Ph.D.
Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies,
Senior Research Fellow,
The Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, NPSIA
Carleton University
http://marctyrrell.com/
Excellent! Thanks for posting.
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