Suzana, Ah! You encounter the same paradox. Aggression as defined by who? Invariably you wrap back to the speaker/actor diad. The only resolution, for a scholar, is to reject the jargon and to operationally describe the behavior. Fact, premise, conclusion. Then you can test the fact/claim. IMHO, the fear of being labeled is greater that the fear of disputation. A classic "avoidance/avoidance conflict" that resolves to "lurking or leaving" in listserv behavior. This sounds like a hypothesis for a research project. James Suzana Sukovic <suzana.sukovic@uts.edu.au> wrote: James, I like Boring's view. It is poetic and dramatic, there is a tragic hero and a dull pragmatic in the story, and we can all find real examples for comparison. I am not sure how the theory explains people from textbooks like Copernicus. And, whose textbooks? Tesla was certainly in my textbooks, but not in everyone's. Maybe the devil is in the detail (again!). How do we define trolling and scientific controversy? Latour's approach may help here - whose authority and where, what is controversial and why? Mary-Helen has mentioned aggression. Maybe one difference is in argument vs emotional tone. Cheers, Suzana At 10:13 AM 17/05/2007, you wrote:
"After much thought about the matter, I have come reluctantly to the conclusion that scientific truth, like juristic truth, must come about by controversy. Personally this view is abhorrent to me. It seems to mean that scientific truth must transcend the individual, that the best hope of science lies in its greatest minds being often brilliantly and determinedly wrong, but in opposition, with some third, eclectically minded, middle-of-the-road nonentity seizing the prize while the great fight for it, running off with it, and sticking it into a textbook for sophomores written from no point of view and in defense of nothing whatsoever. I hate this view, for it is not dramatic and it is not fair; and yet I believe that it is the verdict of the history of science." Boring, Edwin G. (1929). The psychology of controversy. Psychological Review, 36, 97-121. [Boring's 1928 APA Presidential Address about past controversy in psychology.]
Suzana Sukovic PhD Candidate _________________________________________ Information & Knowledge Management Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences University of Technology, Sydney PO Box 123 Broadway NSW 2007, Australia www.hss.uts.edu.au/research/research_students/suzana_sukovic.html _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/ --------------------------------- It's here! Your new message! Get new email alerts with the free Yahoo! Toolbar.