Barry, As a potential doctor of philosophy I encourage you to have your own views. My view is that, other than in fields like math which create their own realities, you can't get scientific "proof" of anything. Science is an attempt to understand phenomena with a degree of confidence. In the real world it is not possible to prove anything. I think it was Einstein who said "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality." Qualitative studies tend to have less "proof" than quantitative studies as much of the interpretation of the data is through the lens of the investigators' personality. This does not invalidate qualitative results but, as you point out, the reader should consider the possibility that they do not share the same assumptions as the researcher. One interpretation of Godel's incompleteness theorem is that no system can understand itself. I.E. Humans cannot understand humans. All the best, Charlie Balch MEd, MBA, PHD -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Barry Saunders Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 3:56 AM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-L] Religious Dimension of Sustainable Development it's not sub-scientific. it's just not scientific. completely different approach. you can't get a scientific proof from an anthropological approach. -- Barry Saunders ---- http://investigativeblog.net http://gatewatching.org http://youdecide2007.org ---- PhD Candidate // researcher http://creativeindustries.qut.edu.au http://eprints.qut.edu.au/view/person/Saunders,_Barry.html ph: 07 3138 0155 skype: barry_saunders CRICOS No. 00213J ________________________________________ From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Christian Nelson [xianknelson@mac.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 8:21 PM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-L] Religious Dimension of Sustainable Development I hope you'll pardon me if observe that your response is kind of funny--it finds anthropology "sub-scientific," something that a lot of anthropologists would find quite disrespectful, though you've objected to the implication that you are "sub-human." On Jan 8, 2008, at 4:56 AM, Barry Saunders wrote:
indeed, but i'm interested in the scientific proof. Anthropological evidence doesn't really count as 'scientific proof'.
No disrespect to anthropology intended though - I'm curious as to how anyone could scientifically test the hypothesis - particularly how they judge what a fulfilled human is.
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