I'm curious about how non-Americans are reacting to Donald Trump. As you
may have surmised I fear he's a burgeoning Mussolini. He seems to speak to
an apparently deep discontent among the white working class of the U.S.
They seem willing to sacrifice some freedoms for security when there's not
threat to the government of the United States. So bizarre that a man who
has never worked a day in his life, who can and does afford a sybaritic
lifestyle should become the savior of those who can't afford to send
their kids to college, who face financial ruin with any serious medical
condition. Why do they flock to this ignorant, loathsome man?
It frightens me. Do you folk beyond our shores share my fear or am I just
being self-dramatic?
On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 9:03 PM, Mike Geary <jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Yeah, OK, sure, but what does Donald Trump have to say about all this?
That's what matters.
Mike, in Memphis thinking about running a write in campaign for President.
I promise not to talk about menstrual cycles or the size of my hands.
On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 4:33 PM, Redacted sender jlsperanza for DMARC <
dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
We are considering whether Dr. Dillner is a Popperian. McEvoy is engaged
in some study of Dillner's issue in her regular (otiose?) column in THE
GUARDIAN. She usually frames her 'issues' as 'dilemmas', to implicate she
attended, once, a philosophy course ("the horns of the trilemma"). In
McEvoy's wording, this concerns his post-Popperian epistemology, not "of
knowledge" but, one "based around how women 'know' to synchronise
menstruation" -- which crucially ascribes tacit knowledge, as Chomsky would
have it -- as Dillner uses the 'trouser word' in the title to her essay
under discussion ("Do women’s periods really sy
nchronise when they live together?"). (J. L. Austin, 'with typical
sexism,' Grice adds, refers to 'really' as a "trouser word" -- the "word
that wears the trousers" -- vide Austin, "Sense and Sensibilia" -- Austin's
point is that 'really' is really otiose).
McEvoy rightly identifies some red herrings, such as the Irishness of
Dillner's opponent, one McClintock (In McEvoy's wording, "since the time of
St. Killian of Columbanus, patron saint of Jam Rags, no one in the Irish
countryside has ever menstruated.")
What motivated McEvoy to dedicate his second essay to a refudiation of
Dillner (granting "things are not going well") are precisely the two horns
of Dillner's dilemma (there's a third horn, but we can safely ignore it):
a) Dillner's evolutionary approach. Here McEvoy candidly asks (section 56
of his essay):
"It is unclear to me how 'synchrony' [of female menstruation] would
impede the "single dominant male"."
As long as it is not unclear to the single dominant male, I suppose we
could safely ignore the issue ('safely ignore' is my pet phrase, this
week). "Single," as Grice notes, is not polysemous ("Do not multiply senses
beyond necessity"). It can _mean_ but not as per sense, 'not-married' ("not
married dominant male") or can mean 'only one, singular". The fact remains
that males, dominant or not, single or not, are NOT the main concern of Dr.
Dillner's solution to her own dilemma (trilemma, but we can safely ignore
her third horn).
Synchrony, incidentally, did impede De Saussure, who distinguished beween
synchrony and diachrony. E.g. 'chien' (De Saussure's mother tongue was
French) may mean, via synchrony, one thing, and via diachrony, another
("Such is linguistics, as I invented!," he used to joke from the balcony of
his villa in Switzerland).
b) synchrony.
So, is Dillner a Popperian. For McEvoy, she [i.e. Dillner] is.
This occupies the whole chapter V of McEvoy's essay, so we should provide
a detailed exegesis (It will most likely be published as a book, as most
PhD dissertations are, in UK, by Palgrave/Macmillan).
McEvoy writes in one of his drafts to his thing (he has changed thesis
advisors thrice already):
"[The case for Dillner as a Popperian is clear:] Popper would rightly say
[McEvoy uses the potential, 'would', seeing that Popper is dead -- in
historical prose, the indicative is also correct, "Popper rightly says"]
that one counter-example refutes a universal generalisation [about the
issue discussed by Dr. Dillner] but he would accept that one apparent
'counter-example' cannot refute a probabilistic claim [such as the claim
put forward by Dr. Dillner]."
McEvoy gives an illustration which does NOT relate to Dillner's
discussion, but which is otherwise relevant:
"If the probability of rolling 6 on a dice is 1/6, this is not refuted
because in a series of 1000 throws 6 occurs less or more than 1/6, nor is
it straightforwardly refuted if 1 turns up 1000 times in a row."
After the 'exemplary example,' as Geary would put it ("people think
examples are by necessity exemplary, but they are not"), McEvoy goes on:
"This leads onto the complex problem of how we understand probabilistic
claims in terms of non-inductive testability."
It is only THEN that McEvoy attacks the topic raised by Dillner:
"It would seem", where McEvoy uses Grice's favourite verb, 'seem' (vide
his "Causal Theory of Perception" -- "That pillar box seems red to me --
and to everybody else who is not Daltonian, for that matter"] menstrual
synchronicity is a theory of a probabilistic rather than non-probabilistic
kind."
Since it is synchronicity which led McEvoy to write the essay in the
first place, it is natural he wants to say more about this:
"[The theory of menstrual synchronicity"] is [Dr Dillner want it or not]
a theory of a propensity towards menstrual synchronicity, not of an
absolute fixed rate at which menstrual synchronicity obtains."
-- where the keyword is 'propensity' for which McEvoy has a footnote on
Romano Harre.
McEvoy goes on:
"An absolute fixed rate [at which menstrual synchronicity] *might* be
refuted by any deviation from it (which constitutes a counter-example), but
a _propensity_ [towards mentrual synchronicity] of a probabilistic sort
would NOT be straightforwardly refuted by the same deviations."
McEvoy goes on to expose the application of Popper's falsificationism to
probabilistic and non-probabilistic theories, and notes that "this key
difference explains why more of Popper's [Logic of Scientific Discovery] is
taken up with the problem of applying falsificationism to probabilistic
theories than is taken up by the relatively more straightforward case of
non-probabilistic universal laws [about which Dr. Dillner could not care
less]."
There is a special footnote as McEvoy goes on to apply (if not via
conceptual analysis') how this especially touches on Popper's 'propensity
theory of probability' and that the universe may be characterised as a set
of 'changing propensities for change'.
The references are fascinating.
Cheers,
Speranza
----
REFERENCES
Dillner, Luisa. "Do women’s periods really syn
chronise when they live together?"
Popper on menstrual synchronicity -- various sources.
Grice, "Is "Males don't menstruate" analytic?", unpublication.
Geary, How to impede the dominant male in menstrual synchronicity: a
repartee to Luisa Dillner.
A study claims that the dates of house-mates’ periods move,
then align – but
that long-held belief is being challenged by evidence and new studies.
In other words, the first study has been 'refudiated'.
Do women’s menstrual cycles align when they live together?
Dillner writes:
"You know what happens when women live together."
"They start to menstruate together."
"Suddenly everyone craves chocolate and runs out of tampons
at the same time.
Not only that, but the chosen cycle often seems to belong to
the most assertive
woman." (Vide Grice on the concept of 'assertion', and his polemic w
ith Dummett as to
whether conditional assertion ("If it rains, we go to the cinema") is an
assertion).
Dillner goes on:
"Well that’s biology for you – it must be pheromones or the
lunar cycle or
something. Evolutionary anthropologists have suggested that
synchrony would
prevent any one woman being monopolised by a single dominant male."
Cfr. Popper on Darwinism.
"Ever since Martha McClintock [an Irish surname], a psycholo
gist from Harvard,
published her study of 135 female living in a together, it h
as been an accepted
truth that menstrual cycles synchronise when women live together."
Dillner goes on:
"McClintock's] study, based on an analysis of about eight cy
cles per woman,
found that roommates and close friends saw the average numbe
r of days between
the starts of their periods fall from eight or nine to five days."
"A control group of randomly chosen women had cycles that re
mained 10 days
apart from each."
But, and this is what makes Dillner's piece a dilemma that McEvoy thinks
refudiates his post-Popperian epistemology, not "of knowledge" but
"based around how women 'know' to synchronise menstruation" -- which
ascribes tacit knowledge, as Chomsky would have it.
"A study performed later than McClintock's, however, found t
hat 80% of women
believed in the synchronising phenomenon with 70% saying tha
t it was a pleasant
experience."
"It’s a powerful concept after all – that the empathy of wom
en can make their
periods fall in line. But is it really true?"
Dillner offers a solution to the dilemma.
"Well, if you are one of the 80% of women who believes in sy
nchronicity – brace
yourself. It isn’t a thing."
"Since McClintock’s study there has been enough research wit
h NEGATIVE [i.e.
refudiatory] results to move menstrual synchronicity into ur
ban mythology."
Dillner goes on:
"Many studies have tried to replicate McClintock’s findings – some have
succeeded, but more have not."
Dillner goes on:
"Criticisms of McClintock’s work include statistical errors
– not controlling
for chance in the results and inflating the initial differen
ces in the onset of
menstrual cycles that led to synchronicity being over stated."
Dillner goes on:
"A study of Dogon women in west Africa, who were segregated
into menstrual
huts, found no synchronicity over 763 days and no effect of
the moon on periods
(and these were ideal test conditions, as there was no electricity)."
Not for Geary, who likes to watch television at night. (But
then he does not
live in West Africa -- cfr. "Memphis", keyword: northern Africa).
Dillner goes on:
"A study of 186 women in China who lived together for a year
also found no
synchronicity."
On the other hand, at that time Sting (an Irish surname), of Police
fame, was composing a song
on Synchronicity, with a different implicature.
Dillner goes on:
"But the researchers pointed out that the start of periods v
aried for women,
and cycles were often variable, which could give the false impression of
synchronicity."
A 'false impression' is like a false idea, only different.
Dillner goes on:
"Menstrual cycles can vary from between 21 to 35 days. Stres
s, weight loss or
illness will all disrupt periods. A study of 26 lesbian couples found no
synchronicity but did find individual menstrual cycles varie
d by up to 10 days.
So despite the internet refusing to let this myth die –"
or refudiating to let this myth perish --
"you are the owner of your menstrual cycle and no friend, ho
wever close, can
control it."
By stressing the 'you', Dillner rightly impedes the single dominant male,
which is indeed the third horn of her dilemma, in evolutionary terms.
