I am now actively trying to decide on and plan for my master's thesis. While I am developing a clear idea, some important philosophical questions are coming up. In many ways I don't know if I can have a clear idea of what my results and correlations will be until I do the research. So while I can have a general hypothesis, I am waiting on the results and conclusions. The danger with this approach is that my research could be reduced to data mining, meaning that I look at the data to tease out a problem. If I use this approach, then I ask myself, why am I even here? What good is it to look for problems that that don't really exist, or at least do not have the relavancy to be noticed?
While talking to my friend Ryan, a fellow graduate student, he brought up the point that in order to have real purpose to our studies, we need to have a clear conceptual model of what we are looking for an what we want to find. Since we are both Baha'i, the ultimate conceptual model would be the unity of humankind, of which anything that we are studying should utimately give heed to. While I agree, I believe that is of upmost importance to be aware of our lenses, and to maintain objectivity while investigating the dictates of our conceptual model. For example, If I truly believe that urban sprawl in ABQ is bad because it wastes rescources and destroyes the environment, which by using a few more logical connectives, runs counter to my belief in the unity of humankind, I will orient my research to amplify this belief and propose alternatives according to my belief. What if my research doesn't prove this, what if instead it shows that the environmental consequences are negligible and that the economic benifits (which could or could not be a proxy for human well being) are substantial?
I guess what I am getting at is that over or under abundance of subjectivity can be harmful. Science cannot be conducted and interpreted enslaved to an ideology, nor can it be a purely objective endeavor that forgets to acknowledge that we, the scientists, citizens, and beings, who this research is utimately meant to serve, are part of the equation. We can and should have a conceptual model of reality that informs all our research, but it should not affect what we find, only what we choose to do with those findings.
This is the extent to which I have thought about my philosophical dilemma, I am open to ideas and comments from anyone. I am still searching.....
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5 comments:
Hi Jason,
Ran across your blog searching for Baha'i ... I am a Baha'i also ... thought you might enjoy this ... Science and the Muslim Ummah by Dr. Mahdi Gulshani ... "Acquisition of knowledge is incumbent on every Muslim." [1] This tradition brought up the discussion as to what kind of knowledge a Muslim should necessarily acquire an issue around which various opinions were offered in the past.
Abu Hamid Al-Ghazzali (died A.D. 1111), in his famous book Ihya `ulum al-din (The Revival of Religious Sciences), mentions that he had come across twenty different answers to the above question. ... The non-religious sciences are further classified into "praiseworthy" (mahmud), "permissible" (mubah) and "undesirable" ones (madhmum). He puts history in the category of permissible sciences (mubah) and magic and sorcery in the category of the undesirable fields of "knowledge".
The "praiseworthy" sciences (mahmud), according to him, ...
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as a side note ... i advocate the study of a "single world currency operating largely through electronic impulses" ... the usd as the world reserve currency will be abandoned soon ... ultimately the world will witness one currency being born ... is it gold ... is it silver ... is it the islamic gold dinar ... the iraqi dinar ... who knows ... but it is an interesting study ... i may not get back to this blog ... you can email me ... deanhedges@yahoo.com
Jason -
Nice post. Wish all research projects were true research, and not excercises in fitting the data to the predetermined outcome, or conceptual model which the investigator can't sacrifice to truth.
Where are you getting your data? I have some fun things to do with it, if you are interested...
Dear Cuñado,
I agree... If you are trying to justify your preconceived ideas with research and science, then your are not being Just (Oh Hijo del espiritu! ante mi vista lo mas amado de todo el la Justicia)
Hi doing research in data mining is always intresting.It deals with several real time applications
From what I remember of that speech and why I thought it was relevant, you had said in your blog: “over or under abundance of subjectivity can be harmful. Science cannot be conducted and interpreted enslaved to an ideology, nor can it be a purely objective endeavor that forgets to acknowledge that we, the scientists, citizens, and beings, who this research is ultimately meant to serve, are part of the equation. We can and should have a conceptual model of reality that informs all our research, but it should not affect what we find, only what we choose to do with those findings.”
I think that speech by Dr. Arbab (?) brings out a very important point about examining things that challenge your religious beliefs in the pursuit of truth. I think that we, as Baha’is, are privilged to know that science and religion are One – that is, they are both the study of Reality. That said, when science and religion disagree, we are given an opportunity to seek for truth: either our science was bad, or our religious interpretation (conceptual model of reality) is wrong. At that point we are forced to investigate both points until we come to the Truth.
A fantastic example of this is the power of prayer. From Some Answered Questions we know that prayer and touch have a physical effect, most clearly manifested in ability of prayer to help the healing process. At John Hopkins a few years ago, a double blind experiment was done on the power of prayer in healing, with the conclusion that there was a statistically significant difference in the healing rates of those who were prayed for versus those who were not. This is one example of science being used to support the claims of religion.
Science, however, should not be used to “prove” religious claims, only to investigate them. The first rule of the scientific method is to investigate with a “disinterested eye” – not that you are not interested in the outcome, but that you are not fishing for an answer; this leads to bad science and superstition (as opposed to Truth and Justice). For instance, way back in the days of Kepler, the universe was thought to be geocentric – centered around the earth. Religious leaders thought this was supported by the Bible. Scientists then labored to develop consistent theories, some rather complicated, that would explain the motion of the stars and planets. Furthermore, once they had a “good enough” theory to explain this religious notion, they were unwilling to really take a close look at the actual data and further investigate other models. If they had systematically observed the heavens then they would have come to the same conclusion that Kepler, and later Galileo found – that we live in a heliocentric universe.
To sum up: "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God” …. In other words, it’s all about Oneness.
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