{"id":76,"date":"2015-03-15T21:56:54","date_gmt":"2015-03-16T02:56:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=76"},"modified":"2015-03-17T18:23:18","modified_gmt":"2015-03-17T23:23:18","slug":"what-is-a-skeptic-ctd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2015\/03\/15\/what-is-a-skeptic-ctd\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a Skeptic? Ctd"},"content":{"rendered":"

A reader reacts to this post<\/a>:<\/p>\n

My experience in \u201ccorporate cultures\u201d has found me asking questions which, while quite pointedly valid, embarrassed the presenter \/ boss.\u00a0 \u201cWhat,\u201d I said, \u201cdo you mean when you say, \u2018scientific method.\u2019 \u201d\u00a0 They (boss\/presenter types) had a special, business-oriented thing they meant\u2026each one had a different meaning for their industry.\u00a0 I had studied some science in college, and found that they were abusing the discipline for their own ends.\u00a0 (Cue: Inigo Montoye – \u201cI do not think it means what you think it means.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Once, while in a \u201cpresentation\u201d teaching us all about how to cause a new way of thinking, thusly to inspire greater productivity on behalf of our employers, we were instructed in the art of \u201cparadigm shift.\u201d\u00a0 Some dude from recent (1980s) business world was credited with the idea that year in his brand-new book.\u00a0 Danged college education stuck in my head again.\u00a0 My hand shot up.\u00a0 \u201cThe Paradigm Shift was presented by Thomas Kuhn, in his book, \u201cThe Structure of Scientific Revolutions,\u201d\u00a0 I studied that in college. \u201c<\/p>\n

I was put in my place (an upstart, interrupting the indoctrination) with an explanation that the business dude had written a book explaining and evangelizing it to the business world.\u00a0 Realizing, slowly, that my best interests were served by keeping my job, not informing the overlords that they were wrong, I learned to shut up.\u00a0 Well, at least some of the time.<\/p>\n

Hm.\u00a0 Business people can\u2019t understand the same words when presented by someone with a science background?\u00a0 Maybe a general education, dare we say, Liberal Education, might be a good idea after all.
\nWith that sort of common underpinning to our culture, perhaps we could use words that everyone would be able to accept and understand with common meanings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And nowadays I agree, but as an undergrad at Minnesota<\/a>, I do recall being somewhat impatient at the liberal arts requirements “imposed” on us Institute of Technology types (now College of Engineering & Science<\/a>) – and I was more or less in the majority.\u00a0 Which seems as good a reason as any to compose requirements for the kids who, while of the age of majority, definitely do not have the experience to know what’s good for them.<\/p>\n

Amongst my University regrets: A professor of History (Koch, IIRC) offered to write a letter of recommendation after I took a Comparative History course.\u00a0 While I’m not sure what that means, I suspect it would have been interesting trying to concurrently study both CSci and History.\u00a0 However, I was a horrid student and that might have pushed me over the edge…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A reader reacts to this post: My experience in \u201ccorporate cultures\u201d has found me asking questions which, while quite pointedly valid, embarrassed the presenter \/ boss.\u00a0 \u201cWhat,\u201d I said, \u201cdo you mean when you say, \u2018scientific method.\u2019 \u201d\u00a0 They (boss\/presenter types) had a special, business-oriented thing they meant\u2026each one had \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions\/104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}