Re: NYTimes.com Article: Op-Ed Columnist: The C.I.A.:

["Peter Majoy" <pwmjoy@earthlink.net>]

You state: FWIW I don't believe the piece is in support of Bush--at best, it
is
>neutral simply claiming that the fault lies with someone else. I suppose,
>one could claim that not blaming Bush is, in some sense, supporting him,
>but I see this as an exaggeration.

I state: Au contraire, not an exaggeration. It is blatantly in support of
Bush
because it reflects the Bush attempt to
point the finger of blame at the intelligence community. Additionally, as I
stated, Bush created his own anointed group that hyped select pieces
of intelligence and in so doing distorted the intelligence which, according
to Brooks, was distorted to begin with. Thirdly, his simplistic assertion
that we hardly needed intelligence to understand what a criminal Hussein was
(along with a few others)  builds the case that the invasion was
right simply based on those gut, unscientific feelings.  His article
appeared on this
list to provide a bit more insight into rash scientific claims around
testing. Brooks
probably approves of NCLB mandates. I don't know. I do know that he has
written in support of this administration, hence my comments about the
article published here. In fact, on January 6th, he wrote a lame piece
called
 "The Era of Distortion" in which he cast condescending criticism on anyone
who suggested that neo-cons and Bush had anything in common except their
aversion to Saddham Hussein.

You state: >On the other hand, objectivity is not quite the same animal as
scientific
>reductionism (or "scientism"). The latter is probably better described as
>"emotionless" rather than "objective". But accusing an OpEd columnist of
>lack of objectivity is silly to begin with--it is an OPINION column, after
all.

I state: whether it is "objectivity" or "scientific reductionism" isn't the
point.
Many who are supposedly "objective" try to appear "emotionless" too. That
was part of
his point that I agreed with. Lastly, it's fun to accuse someone of a
contradiction and
its silly  to assume that opinions clothed as "objective" don't merit a poke
in the ribs
simply because they are not objective by definition. That approach would
summarilly
shut down debate on the grounds that it's just all opinion anyway. Opinions
are influential,
so it isn't the worst canon of response to illustrate where an expressed
opinion is
internally contradictory.

Cheers......

PWM


-----Original Message-----
From: Victor Steinbok <victor.steinbok@verizon.net>
To: arn-l@interversity.org <arn-l@interversity.org>
Date: Wednesday, February 04, 2004 1:29 AM
Subject: Re: [arn-l] NYTimes.com Article: Op-Ed Columnist: The C.I.A.:


>At 09:21 PM 2/3/2004, Peter Majoy wrote:
>>This article is a two edged sword. On the one hand it does a good job
>>de-mythologizing scientfic claims of infallibility and, as such, is useful
>>in applying to one of its manifestations, standardized testing. On the
other
>>hand, you have to note that Brooks uses his critique of the CIA to support
>>Bush who had his own specially selected group cooking the books at the
>>Pentagon to help rationalize a policy that had already been in the
planning
>>stages before September 11. Therefore, the Brooks critique comes full
circle
>>to expose his own practice of the very thing he is condemning, posing as
an
>>objective fellow.
>
>FWIW I don't believe the piece is in support of Bush--at best, it is
>neutral simply claiming that the fault lies with someone else. I suppose,
>one could claim that not blaming Bush is, in some sense, supporting him,
>but I see this as an exaggeration. On the other hand, I simply think that
>Brooks is wrong here. Take a look at his piece on the Democratic primaries
>last Friday. He identifies something that is best described as a mental
>tautology--in the case of the primaries, it is the case of voters lining up
>behind the leading candidate quite simply because he's the leading
>candidate. In the case of the column in question, we should throw out the
>pseudo-scientific basis for human decisions and rely strictly on human
>decision. He's wrong on the science and the tautology is in the fact that
>it is the human decisions that got us in trouble to begin with. But I've
>already commented on that.
>
>On the other hand, objectivity is not quite the same animal as scientific
>reductionism (or "scientism"). The latter is probably better described as
>"emotionless" rather than "objective". But accusing an OpEd columnist of
>lack of objectivity is silly to begin with--it is an OPINION column, after
all.
>
>         VS-)
>
>