When mental algebra goes wrong….
I have a post up at Dean Nation, Toward a reality based foreign policy. It is basically a somewhat pedantic analysis of the term “Shia,” and its uses and abuses in the interests of short term political expedience. I will be commenting in more detail on problems I see that often crop in the “algebra of cultural variables” in the future. Unlike the physical and to a lesser extent biological sciences, social science has not discovered its atomic units and so all aproximations are exceedingly slippery and often tenditious. If you know what answer you want you can concoct an appropriate assemblage of variables to spit out the result that will satisfy….
Posted by razib at 11:11 PM
Recent Comments