> The way that we write is inseparable from the way that we think, and restrictions in one necessarily lead to restrictions in the other.
I have two problems with this sentence. The first is that it is false, and the second is that you bolded it.
My oldest child is dyslexic, and writes only with difficulty and discomfort. But once every week or so this person approaches me with a "You know, I was thinking" that surpasses the level of insight I encounter on most blog posts.
It isn't that I'm trying to be dismissive here; this subject is something I've turned around in my mind for a long time. I'm told that, as a child of around seven, I asked my mother, "How can [our pet rabbit] think without language?" I was only seven, right, so I was a bit slow to realize the question wasn't very sensible. When you perform a mental rotation in your head, or ride a bicycle, are you thinking about it out loud? For me solutions to problems in math and physics simply come to mind, and I only mutter about them after the fact.
I think this is (part of) why politics is so awful: people reach conclusions nonverbally, and then make up stories about how their thought processes came together after the fact. One of the best scales for measuring conservatism is the Wilson-Patterson: it gives subjects a phrase like "computer music" and the option to immediately answer "yes" "?" or "no." This scale correlates r > 0.7 with Altemeyer's bloated RWA scale which is full of questions like "Once our government leaders give us the go ahead, it will be the duty of every patriotic citizen to help stomp out the rot that is poisoning our country from within." Are you sure what's going on here is significantly different from somebody saying "research style" and your clicking "yes" over and over again?
Fair enough. I'm not entirely sure what you are getting at - I don't see how any of this invalidates the statement. I'm certainly not saying that all thought reduces to verbal expression or something like that - probably something more like "the dominant modalities and norms through which we express thought in turn shape the manner and form in which we think".
If you're not sure what I'm getting at, I've learned that arguing over the Internet is a ticklish business. I may be confident of 100%, but there's no way I'm getting that, so here I'm pushing for 20%, and you just gave me 10%, which I will take!
Stating my opinion in words, I do agree that current conventions are stuffy, but overall they work very well. Granted, the Discussion section does not *often* contain much in the way of speculation or witty turns of phrase, but in principle it can - and dry humor often finds its way into the Introduction and Results sections. I can also think of a very good reason why style should be mostly kept to a minimum: many researchers, particularly in the hard sciences, are stodgy, verbally awkward, and literal-minded. If style is given free reign, soon enough it becomes the norm; when good science is associated with beautiful and entertaining writing, important results may find themselves relegated to low-impact journals or even the file drawer.
Those are definitely the counterarguments here - the hope would be we can find a better middle ground and scientists can open up to the important of style/aesthetics over time.
> The way that we write is inseparable from the way that we think, and restrictions in one necessarily lead to restrictions in the other.
I have two problems with this sentence. The first is that it is false, and the second is that you bolded it.
My oldest child is dyslexic, and writes only with difficulty and discomfort. But once every week or so this person approaches me with a "You know, I was thinking" that surpasses the level of insight I encounter on most blog posts.
It isn't that I'm trying to be dismissive here; this subject is something I've turned around in my mind for a long time. I'm told that, as a child of around seven, I asked my mother, "How can [our pet rabbit] think without language?" I was only seven, right, so I was a bit slow to realize the question wasn't very sensible. When you perform a mental rotation in your head, or ride a bicycle, are you thinking about it out loud? For me solutions to problems in math and physics simply come to mind, and I only mutter about them after the fact.
I think this is (part of) why politics is so awful: people reach conclusions nonverbally, and then make up stories about how their thought processes came together after the fact. One of the best scales for measuring conservatism is the Wilson-Patterson: it gives subjects a phrase like "computer music" and the option to immediately answer "yes" "?" or "no." This scale correlates r > 0.7 with Altemeyer's bloated RWA scale which is full of questions like "Once our government leaders give us the go ahead, it will be the duty of every patriotic citizen to help stomp out the rot that is poisoning our country from within." Are you sure what's going on here is significantly different from somebody saying "research style" and your clicking "yes" over and over again?
Fair enough. I'm not entirely sure what you are getting at - I don't see how any of this invalidates the statement. I'm certainly not saying that all thought reduces to verbal expression or something like that - probably something more like "the dominant modalities and norms through which we express thought in turn shape the manner and form in which we think".
If you're not sure what I'm getting at, I've learned that arguing over the Internet is a ticklish business. I may be confident of 100%, but there's no way I'm getting that, so here I'm pushing for 20%, and you just gave me 10%, which I will take!
Stating my opinion in words, I do agree that current conventions are stuffy, but overall they work very well. Granted, the Discussion section does not *often* contain much in the way of speculation or witty turns of phrase, but in principle it can - and dry humor often finds its way into the Introduction and Results sections. I can also think of a very good reason why style should be mostly kept to a minimum: many researchers, particularly in the hard sciences, are stodgy, verbally awkward, and literal-minded. If style is given free reign, soon enough it becomes the norm; when good science is associated with beautiful and entertaining writing, important results may find themselves relegated to low-impact journals or even the file drawer.
Those are definitely the counterarguments here - the hope would be we can find a better middle ground and scientists can open up to the important of style/aesthetics over time.