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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Subject:
From:
Adrian Wenner <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 12 Apr 1999 13:18:56 -0700
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   Tim Rich offered some interesting comments about Why and Purpose in
science, including the following:

>...I think that scientists are also very concerned with WHY in
>many cases, I know that medical scientists are, [since] WHY leads to important
>cures.  A complete understanding of science needs to include WHY.  Original
>purpose is definitely theological; furthermore the WHY of PURPOSE must
>remain in the realm of theology.

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   Yes, all of us in science begin an experimental program with Why
questions (an inescapable starting point, actually).  I covered that point
in the following two publications:

 1989  Wenner, A.M.  Concept centered versus organism centered biology.
AMERICAN ZOOLOGIST.  29:1177-1197.   and a simplified version:

  1993  Wenner, A.M.  Science as a process: The question of bee "language."
BIOS.  64:78-83.

   Those on BEE-L can contact me directly to obtain a copy of the 1993
publication.

   One can find a much earlier treatment of the changing nature of "fact"
in the following publication:

Fleck, Ludwik.  1935   GENESIS AND DEVELOPMENT OF A SCIENTIFIC FACT [in
fractured German].   (translated into English and republished in 1979 by
the Univ. of Chicago Press).    [1-(800) 621-2736 --- ISBN:  0-226-25325-2]


   That paperback book actually costs only about $15 U.S.

   In other words, I suspect Tim Rich and I are on the same wave length on
a good many points, though perhaps living in different theological worlds.

                                                        Adrian




Adrian M. Wenner                    (805) 963-8508 (home phone)
967 Garcia Road                     (805) 893-8062  (UCSB FAX)
Santa Barbara, CA  93103

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*     "Nature only answers rightly when she is rightly questioned."

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*                                                      Goethe
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