I'm sorry if you took what I was saying as patronizing; I apologize.

Are we really talking about knowledge when we are talking about anything empirical? I don't think so. It's all subject to induction, which is always at most probable.

My point about anecdotes as "evidence" was not to suggest that they were knowledge but to say that anecdotes can be evidence of something, perhaps not sufficient evidence, but evidence nevertheless. When someone has an experience of racism, their report of it is evidence. Whether that evidence adds up to anything is for further exploration.

However, in no case is the result of the testing knowledge. It's strong or weak, probable or improbable.

That's what I'll throw out there to start this discussion. I don't think there's a stark line between the anecdote and the repeatable experiment, and the meaningfulness of either depend upon a context. If I'm talking about the number of elk in Yellowstone, and I go out and say, "Wow, I just didn't see many this year." That's worthless to answering the question. However, if someone isn't hired for a job because of reasons of race, their telling of that story is directly relevant to that. As instances of racism are sufficient for there to be a problem of racism, we don't need to know whether racism is a general pattern to know that it's a problem. The specific instances are enough. There, the anecdote is relevant. In neither case is the end result concrete knowledge. There's always a chance of being wrong, a chance of falsification, and knowledge is certain if it's anything at all. The end result of evidence isn't knowledge but probability. Evidence is meaningful when relevant. That's how it's used in a court of law, and the threshold of its importance isn't knowledge but probability. Quantifiable and repeatable things are more reliably probable, and that's why science can be quite useful to us. However, that's not the end all and be all of evidence; the end isn't knowledge (though we use the word "know" loosely; I certainly have even within this discussion).

I've laid some of my epistemological cards on the table. I think you have a high burden to show why anecodtes aren't evidence and why the scientific method is necessary to have a conversation of racism in the parks. What might it produce that makes all other discussion moot until it happens? I think science has a far more important role - to provide us with a diversity of colorful metaphors to flavor our discussion.

As for taking things personally, I think you've missed my point. He certainly was talking directly about things you have said; it's not the same thing as to attack you personally. There's a world of difference. Are we identical with the statements we make? He was picking on what you said, which presumably speaks to an idea that you or others may hold. You happened to say it, but that's not a personal attack. It's an attack on the ideas you've shared, which you have no ownership over. That's another reason that anecdotes are potentially useful to us for discussion. Like anything that's communicated, they are able to be taken by someone else and considered in a different light. The aim isn't to repeat so much as to analyze, synthesize, and therefore understand. That is, what does a proposition speak to, and what doesn't it speak to?

But, we should slow this down, perhaps. What do you take knowledge to be? Why? And, how do you know? I have one hunch. I have a hunch that your answer won't be something we could empirically verify.

For those who don't want this to drift far from the subject, think of this claim. Our problems in the parks aren't problems of science so much as they are problems coming to grips with the values we presume to know. Just as racists once presumed to know their superiority; we presume a lot of values that science doesn't shed any new light on. Those are questions of knowledge; they are not questions of empiricism. The questions are fueled by our experience and are not prejudiced simply toward the measurable variety. That's all I'm saying.

Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World

Jim,
Thank you and I'm sorry for my sarcasm.

I'm weary of the discussion and will just agree to disagree. Let me first add a bit of clarification or whatever.

I lean toward libertarian and free market, not only in economics but in science.

John Locke wrote "The strength of our persuasions is no evidence at all of their own rectitude." In other words, never mind how you feel or what you think might be; you have to be checked.

Liberal science says you must run your belief (in this case, that minorities are underrepresented in natural areas) through the science game for checking. So, Hare came up with a list of studies that have been checked in the "marketplace of ideas" to back his opinion. But one person's experience is not knowledge; it's personal experience. For it to be come knowledge, it needs to be checked. That's all I was sayin'. I'm sure Kurt and Jeremy and everyone else is tired of this, especially of my sarcasm and ranting.

So adios!

Okay, we can pick this up another time. One of my favorite philosophers is G.W. Leibniz, a contemporary of Locke, and he disagreed with Locke on so many things. He actually wrote a dialogue called New Essays on Human Understanding that reads more like a blow by blow response to Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. I come from the rationalist tradition, though I'm not that fond of Descartes or Spinoza. Anyhow, we aren't really that far removed from that climate, though Locke's worldview has been far more influential on practice, especially in the American experience. Perhaps, that's why I think the critics of Locke are all that much more relevant, whether they be rationalists like Leibniz or fellow empiricists like Berkeley. I'm especially fond of the critiques offered by the Scottish common sense realists, especially Thomas Reid. Of course, this isn't just academic to me. How we talk about what we think we know and why we know it goes deep into our discussions about things that are seemingly more accessible, like the issue of race in the national parks. Often, our dividing lines, or the reasons we stay divided, come to basic questions about existence and knowledge. A lot of us haven't thought much about those problems, but we still carry on the thinking of these dead men almost unwittingly. It's doubly interesting when one thinks of the role European men like Leibniz and Locke played in the racism of our own times both consciously and as part of the colonial process.

I don't think one needs to study Locke and Leibniz to talk about race in the parks. I think all one has to do is talk and be willing to consider the force of the discussion on each of our lives. I hope that people will continue to do that. the other stuff we've been talking about is there for those who are interested--in the history, in the history of the ideology, etc. But, it's clear from even just this discussion that racism poisons us, keeps us separated and disempowered. Discussions that explore that experience are worthwhile. And, it might as well be in the parks context; there are a million fitting reasons why.

Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World

Why don't you two just get a room and get it over with???

The same arguments about race diversity on park staffs have been made about gender. And it is nearly always framed as an issue of unqualified women getting jobs that should have gone to qualified men. Sometimes there was even a suspicion that unqualified women were selected over qualified ones so as to prove the point that women could not do the job. There may be unqualified people of all races and both sexes, and they should not be selected for jobs. But there is still a very strong odor of male superiority and misogyny everywhere and this is a factor in hiring and promotion decisions and reactions.

I once wanted to hire seasonally a young black woman who would have been very good at visitor contact, and in a southern state. But the money for the position went to some ranger function instead. This was the kind of person that should have been encouraged to think about a career. On the other hand, one of the least qualified seasonals I had to hire was a white male veteran with preference points that put him at the top of the hire list. During the summer he even had a run-in with the local police for some infraction.

The Forest Service had to be sued to allow qualified women to be hired and promoted in professional positions. These were women who had the skills, the education, the degrees. So, ultimately the court forced the USFS to a quota system that resulted in more diversity at the time than the Park Service, which had relied on the more successful tokenism strategy. Success was keeping the numbers of women low and ensuring they would stay at the bottom of the ladder.

My own opinion is that the mission of these agencies has been so compromised by outside forces, including global warming, and politics, that the quality of performance has been adversely affected, regardless of diversity issues. It has come to be seen as an impossible job, and one that is not valued by our political bosses who are eager to hand over the land to extraction and motorized use, and privatize the money making parts. Who can have pride in such a situation, or feel their work is valued, or feel that the lands can be successfully protected? They can't even be sure they will have careers at this point. So what kind of people will that scenario attract?