One of the personal challenges I have been grappling with over the past few months is a professional identity crisis. This crisis is partly related to the issue of credentials – some of which is related to how my PhD was not awarded in a specific academic discipline (it’s a generic Doctor of Philosophy degree … [Read more…]
Over the summer I read a book I’ve been meaning to read but also kind of avoiding: Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All by Michael Shellenberger, an American environmental writer and nuclear power advocate who runs an organisation called Environmental Progress. This organisation “was founded to achieve two goals: lift all humans out … [Read more…]
In this post I wish to briefly explore a possible research direction that scholars might want to explore in studying the current coronavirus pandemic. Though pandemic studies is not a focus of mine the ideas I’ll sketch relate to some analytical themes I explored in my doctoral research. In this post I briefly consider the … [Read more…]
This post outlines an emerging direction in my thinking and which I believe needs to be further developed: a sociology of knowledge practices. This sociology would mobilise social theory and adopt a view of humans consistent with sociological understandings in seeking to better understand a particular set of human activities: ‘knowledge practices.’ Two recent theoretical … [Read more…]
A brief framing note: in the current emotionally charged context it’s probably wise to first articulate some framing thoughts and try to avoid potential misinterpretations. It’s clear that SARS-CoV-2 and the disease it causes are significant threats. It would be a grave error and immoral to ignore its effects on the health and lives of … [Read more…]
Like many people I’m pondering the intensifying COVID-19 infectious disease crisis, with daily life here in Australia (I live in Melbourne) beginning to transform as governments implement policies which upend daily life and many industries. Initial forecasts suggest we’re likely to see the worst level of unemployment since the Great Depression. I have no idea … [Read more…]
A couple of years ago a couple of cognitive scientists – Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber – published a provocative book called The Enigma of Reason which seeks to both engage with puzzles regarding human reason and theorise the cognitive mechanism(s) involved. In my PhD thesis I suggested that their findings regarding human reason are … [Read more…]
I’m currently reading Belief: What It Means to Believe and Why Our Convictions Are So Compelling by James E. Alcock and I noted with interest that some key chapters address knowledge practices and/or issues and factors relevant to them: Chapter 2 notes the ways cognitive ‘schemas’ often automatically fill in the gaps when responding to … [Read more…]
Reading Roger Pielke Jr’s review of David Wallace-Wells’ new book The Uninhabitable Earth: A Story of the Future got me thinking about a process described by Pielke Jr as the transformation of “carefully caveated scenarios of the future” produced by scientific communities into “most likely futures” (or related future-oriented claims). He writes: The scientific community … [Read more…]
Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) – subtitled Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts – is a social psychology book centred on self-justification and cognitive dissonance. The book also implicitly emphasises a particular philosophy of science which is linked to human psychology – it’s this aspect which got my attention. … [Read more…]