[From Rick Marken (930526.0900)]
CHUCK TUCKER (930525) --
I would suggest that we might all learn something if the
statements are treated as serious problems with CT (or PCT or HPCT)
and point out how we would deal with them.
By the way, Chuck, what did you have in mind when you wrote this.
What might we all learn if the statements are treated as serious
problems with CT? What might we learn about how to deal with them?
Dag Forssell (930525 13.55) --
In his characteristic enthusiasm, Galileo thought that his
telescopic discoveries would make everyone see, _as with his own.
eyes,_ the absurdity of the assumptions that had been standing in
the way of a general acceptance of the Copernican system. But men
can believe only what they are ready to believe.
What a great story -- and how appropriate given the latest
demonstration of disturbance resistance by the scientific
establishment (the Locke/Latham/Bandura inanities and Fowler's
curt refusal to be held accountable for her claims about PCT [which
I hope Gary Cziko will post to the net]).
Bill Powers (930525.1930)--
There is an enormous difference between a person who is trying to
grasp the meaning of control theory and has failed to understand
some subtle aspect of it and a person who is interpreting control
theory incorrectly for the specific purpose of showing its errors
or lacks.
All that comes through to me now is "I hate this theory
because it doesn't agree with mine, and I'm going to do my best
to make it go away."
YES! I don't see how anyone who understands PCT could read the
Locke/Latham/Bandura statements and not see that this is
all that is going on. There was not even a scintilla of substance
in the whole, ghastly article. As Tom Bourbon noted, this is
precisely the kind of commentary we get from the people who
review our research articles. There is only one agenda
here and it has nothing to do with understanding PCT. The
goal here is just to make PCT go away. The establishment doesn't
even want to hear about PCT -- let alone actually try to learn it.
So we PCTers have gone away from the establishment, not because
PCT is anti-establishment but because the establishment is anti PCT.
The establishment has considered PCT enough to know that it doesn't
want it -- period. CSGNet and the CSG Conference are now about
the only place where people can learn about PCT. But PCTers can't
give people PCT knowledge -- ultimately people have to go out
and learn PCT for themselves. In order to learn PCT one has to be
willing to do so; this is why most establishment social scientists
will never learn it. But willingness alone is not enough. As Bill Powers
noted some time ago, learning PCT takes some WORK. It doesn't come
from putting the right words together while sitting in an armchair. You
have to do the demos, learn some of the basic mathematical
relationships and do some of the modelling. Without that, PCT will
always be just a set of mantras -- pleasant mantras, perhaps, but
(as in Bill's zen exercise) ultimately meaningless.
Best
Rick