Pretty sure my professor is a winger.

[mahina]

One of his big points today is that science is subjective. Um, no, good science is objective, and bad science can be subjective...but I am not comfortable contradicting the prof on the second day of class. He plans to cover military issues in depth...in a speech class?

Another question in his 'getting to know you' schtick was, 'who are you voting for, and why?' But he didn't tell us who he is voting for. Or why.

Anyway, my question is, should I

[Hekate]

1. Don't pick a fight; this man decides your grade. But as time goes on, be prepared to defend...

... your position respectfully. This is a speech class -- you'll be speaking.

Are you at UH?

Hekate
UH '71

[mahina]

3. Hey hey, oh yes,

I sure am! 4th generation of brokeass UH students baby!

I still owe you that Uncle Moe CD, my Itunes will not let me burn it, though the music was from CDs I bought. Sorry to dissapoint you Hekate. I will keep fiddling with it.

Hey how was that speech? I like Ian Lind's blog http://ilind.net/ He has some great pics of our Hawaii delegates. And a hysterical clip of Chuck Freeman boogying.

Aloha sista.

[Hekate]

42. The speech was absolutely fantastic. I could not stop grinning for hours and hours.

I cannot remember the last time I was so happy.

No worries about the CD -- I forgot it myself. Can't connect to the link -- it says I am "forbidden"! Technology...

Aloha sista too. :hi:

Hekate

[Kutjara]

2. He sounds like another academic who has trouble distinguishing between...

...science and social "science."

I'd suggest playing it cool and avoiding contention. Some of these characters love the feeling of power that comes with tenure, and get off on crushing "unruly elements." Don't be a martyr to some tinpot Mussolini's ego.

[Quantess]

4. What does he teach?

Is there a way to switch to a class with a different professor?

[mahina]

5. The class is Speech 364, Persuasion. The text would be dang useful for us!

"Influence, Science and Practice" by Robert Cialdini. http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Practice-Robert-B-Cialdini/dp/0205609996/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220086370&sr=8-1

Have to say it would be helpful for all of us for the next few months. Especially the part about automatic decisionmaking, decisionmaking without thinking but just 'click, whirrrr' reaction. That's what the Republicans have down to a science. A subjective science, he he.

[GreenPartyVoter]

30. He's teaching "Persuasian?" Sounds to me like he maybe just likes to toss

some hot issues and out there and let you all scrap over them, watching to see who is provoked or persuaded and how.

Or did you really get a gut feeling that he wants to push you all into his little corner?

[mahina]

8. I wish...there's only one section,

and it filled up instantly. He's a first term prof at UH as far as I can tell.

[DCKit]

6. I'd drop the class.

Spend some money and save yourself the stress - and possibly a bad grade.

Allow those who are "left behind" to file the complaints at the end of the semester for being subjected to a winger.

[mwooldri]

7. A possible source: the Federal Election Commision website.

It's not completely up-to-date but... if your professor has donated to some political cause then you'll be able to see his affiliation that way - kind of.

Mark.

[mahina]

11. Good idea, I checked fundrace.org and no info.

Will check the FEC site. Mahalo.

[orleans]

9. i'd report him. REPORT HIM! he shouldn't be asking you who you're voting for

it's none of his business.

and if you tell him he could very well hold it against you.

FUCK HIM!
report him!

[aikoaiko]

32. report him for asking who they plan on voting for? that's ridiculous.

There is nothing wrong with asking the question.

[orleans]

36. yes there is. especially if your grade rides on how you answer a conservative. n/t

[aikoaiko]

45. Participation is a gradeable activity, but,

Of course giving someone a lower grade because of whom they are voting for is wrong, but that is not what the OP said was happening. It was a get to know you activity.

[Snarkturian Clone]

35. LOL

:rofl:

wimp.

[orleans]

37. apparently you've never been in that situation. or if you were you

didn't give a rats ass about how your grade turned out. some people actually care about how they do in school. and it's difficult fighting a teacher w/bias or prejudice.

so i could say--lucky you. you must be one of the privileged.

[Name removed]

39. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

41. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[depakid]

10. Sounds like an interesting speech communications prof to me

Seems like he's making you think.

[mahina]

12. It's an interesting class.

I've been in classes with real leftist profs that made the republican kids uneasy, but the profs were all scrupulously fair, actually overly accommodating to those with whom they disagreed.

I don't know how the wingers act but something tells me they don't play fair. They certainly don't play fair in real life. We shall see!

[DailyGrind51]

13. Though wasn't Debra Winger great in "Officer and a Gentleman"?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

14. Actually, most of the people I hear espousing that view are left-wingers.

I'm not a philosopher or a sociologist, but the terms I hear used by the people who put forward that position to describe their views most are postmodernism and feminist theory/criticism, and it tends to go with left-wing political views and ultra"squishy" (as opposed to "crunchy") sociology and philosophy.

[Odin2005]

25. And ironically that BS is used by the Right to attack science.

The PoMos are the scourge of Academia. Their BS seems to infiltrate everything, destroying everything reasonable and logical, leaving nihilistic anomie that comes to be filled with dogmatic religious and ideological BS.

[Alcibiades]

38. Actually, most of the people I hear espousing that view are

Straussians.

He could well be a neoconservative.

[kwolf68]

15. Ask a scientist if science is subjective

Dumbest thing I've ever heard.

Science can have NO subjectivity in it. You could theoretically make a hypothesis that is subjective, but all your testing and experimentation HAS to be objective.

See, the reason is because if you create some bullshit science project to produce a 'subjective' conclusion then the peer-reviewed community will expose you as a quack and a fraud and your work will be quickly discredited.

Science is the LAST bastion of objectivity.

[realisticphish]

16. oh god, a PoMo

i really wish you luck; don't pick a fight yet.

and PoMos aren't really right wing; they tend to be leftist, actually

[mahina]

20. I'll bite,

what's a PoMo?

Love your sig.

[realisticphish]

22. post modern

believe that reality is subjective, etc.

Works for literary criticism, not so much for science.

and thanks; get fuzzy is my favorite newspaper comic :)

[TexasObserver]

17. you have a lifetime to get even with bad profs AFTER you finish the class

Bad professors, like bad cops, should not be contradicted at night on the side of the road.

Take a middle approach. Regale him with your knowledge of the candidates, but deny him the satisfaction of knowing who you choose. He's being coy and deceptive. So can you.

[norepubsin08]

18. Don't take him on at all while he is your teacher but...

write everything down that he says is objectionable...then figure out a way to twist it and file a law suit. If you really hate him...sue him personally for any perceived wrong and twist that until he is fucked!

[mahina]

19. Whoa.

Glad you're on our side!

[misanthrope]

21. Be the bigger adult. Let it slide**nm

**

[BlooInBloo]

23. (shrug) It's always a problem when idiots talk about science.

[Odin2005]

24. Must be one of those Postmodernist idiots that think there is no knowable objective reality...

...And that all knowledge is thus a social construct. :eyes: The sad thing is that that kind of PoMo BS is routinely used by the enemies of Science and Reason, ranging from New Age cranks to Fundies to Climate Change Denialists to Neocons.

[Orangepeel]

26. I'm with realisticphish. Could be a postmodernist.

in my experience, right wingers don't argue that science is subjective. They argue that science that doesn't agree with them is "junk." Postmodernist argue that what one chooses to study, how one chooses to measure it, and how one interprets the results depends on one's worldview.

Postmodern philosophy isn't conservative. Right wingers tend to be against anything that smacks of relativism.

[mahina]

27. I have to go give Skinner some money now.

This is why I love DU.

Thanks.

[readmoreoften]

29. Yes, get to know him better. He is most likely just offering a postmodern critique. Very normal.

Conservatives are far more likely to say that science is objective, and then 'prove' creation science with it. Some of the most conservative fields in science are hardcore into 'objectivity'. You might also want to look at his profile. If you see "intelligent design" then he's conservative. If you see "feminism and science" he's likely liberal.

[readmoreoften]

28. Far more likely to be a constructivist. That means postmodernist. That means liberal.

Constructivists look at how metaphors and conservative (culturally) worldviews are used to manipulate observational data. Science strives for objectivity, but much of it fails smell tests. For example: much of the science about race and sex have been off-the-charts subjective. There are all manner of belief systems that color our data and he's most likely just taking that into account.

Science is only "objective" as a entire project. Particular projects may be quite subjective and these incorrect analyses might last for centuries before other scientists look at them and say "let's re-test."

The trajectory of science is objective.

[aikoaiko]

31. As others said, he is likely a post-modernist. I too dabbled in social constructionism where all

...knowledge is a social construction -- a word game played within certain rules. You might just ask him why he says science is subjective when you think of it as an objective endeavor.

Asking who you plan to vote for is great ice breaker. Ask him who he plans on voting for.

Most professors like to be engaged by their students regardless of whether the students agree or disagree. At least I do.

People suggesting that you drop the class or report him (for what I cannot figure out), are giving you bad advice. Whether he is right, right of center, left of center, or left, try to learn something from him. Some of my favorite classes, in hindsight, were from professors I hated at the time. If you only want to take classes from left wingers (or people who agree with you), then you're missing the point of higher education.

[alcibiades_mystery]

33. He's not a winger, he's a rhetorician

Read Alan Gross' "The Rhetoric of Science." Then read the essays in Gross and Keith's "Rhetorical Hermeneutics" (Gaonkar's critique of the rhetoric of science and the responses to it). You'll have a pretty good feel for where he's coming from then.

You'll get the usual hardcore "scientists" in this thread who utterly misunderstand critiques of scientific "objectivity," largely because they are completely unversed in the 20th century philosophical traditions in which they are based, and definitions of subjectivity and objectivity that evolve through those debates. They will yell and scream about the foolishness of "social construction," largely based on the version of it that they understood in their sophomore level English class 16 years ago. They will yell about "pomo idiots' and the like. Do not listen to these people. They don't have the faintest clue what they're prattling on about. Go pick up Bruno Latour's "Pandora's Hope." It will at least give you a sense of how these debates have moved on from the very stupid version you're getting here in this thread, which is 1994 Science Wars shit with absolutely zero value for you. The reason your professor is pushing on science is because it is will be the key way to stage the debate between Plato/Aristotle and the sophists, a debate that enlivens and grounds the study of persuasion (which is to say, rhetoric) more broadly. Don't get caught up in your own ideological framework at the outset, as doing so will inhibit your learning.

[baby_mouse]

43. Getting a bit declarative there...

;-)

[alcibiades_mystery]

44. Seen it all before, y'know?

:-)

[TahitiNut]

34. Just say you're voting for Noam Chomsky and wait for his heart to stop.

:rofl:

In the meantime, read The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (Habermas 1987) and wallow in subjectivity.

[SalmonChantedEvening]

46. .

:spray: :rofl: air please.

[TahitiNut]

48. (grin)

I was wondering if anyone would get it. :evilgrin:

[mahina]

50. Hi Tahiti, I don't get it.

But I loved 'Manufacturing Consent' and "911"
Aloha!

[Alcibiades]

40. He might well be a wingnut

Some folks like to keep the kids guessing. For example, in my intro classes, I never, ever let on that I'm a Democrat, if only because the job of kids in college is for them to figure out who they are for themselves, not to become the person they think I want them to be. I also use a lot of patriotic themes in lectures and assignments, because it puts them off the scent. Then, a few weeks into class, I can say whatever damn thing I want to, and they think I'm playing devil's advocate because there are American flags all over the place. (Of course, I also teach them a lot of crazy stuff about the rule of law and not men and the Constitution and junk, just so they don't continue on as ignorant savages).

Anyway, if this guy brings up the fact-value distinction at all, forget all of what I just wrote. If he mentions that, then he's a neocon.

[UTUSN]

47. Does he: Wear a mullet?!1 Have a red truck?!1 Flash his skin?!1

[GoesTo11]

49. Science = gut feel = subjective.