Scientism and Values.pdf - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Knowledge: Unused and Misused 143
take another area of medical diagnosis, the perception of macroscopic
syndromes, e.g., the first diagnosis of coronary occlusion as reported in
R. H. Major, Classic Descriptions of Disease (2nd ed.; Springfield:
Charles C. Thomas, 1939), pp. 464 If. Similar problems of subjectively
differentiating diagnosis face the archeologist: "Modern archeology has
reached a point where many possible patterns and hypotheses can be
suggested, each of which seems to propose cultural 'facts' that are not
necessarily mutually exclusive and that do not necessarily contradict
each other but which in the same body of materials reflect various
aspects of a many-sided reality.... In the case of cultural pattern or
configuration, however, the 'reality' of proposed fact is less apparent
because the particular interests of the investigator, and perhaps the
historical development of the science, intrude more strongly into the
result." (Joseph R. Caldwell, "The New American Archeology," Science,
CXXIX [February 6, 1959], 305.)
For the problem of elegance in research and theory, see, for instance,
John D. Tsilikis, "Simplicity and Elegance in Theoretical Physics,"
American Scientist, XLVII (Spring, 1959), 87-96.
16. "Renewal Project Divides Chicago," New York Times, September 28,
1958, and Sol Tax, "Residential Integration: A Chicago Case," Human
Organization, XVIII (Spring, 1959).
17. H. J. Laski, The Dilemma of Our Times (London, 1952), pp. 46 f.
18. Seth S. King, New York Times, February 20, 1958; see also Amitai
Etzioni, "The Functional Differentiation of Elites in the Kibbutz,"
American Journal of Sociology, LXIV (March, 1959), 476-487.
19. Ironically, and pertinent to this point, Walter Lippmann, in the early
spring of 1960, used migration figures from West Germany to East Ger·
many cited by the Communists as evidence that all could not be so bad
in East Germany as to warrant a strong stand on the part of the West
in regard to the Berlin question. And yet, a few weeks later a flood of
refugees, unprecedented in recent years, began to reach West Berlin and
has not yet subsided at the time of this writing.