QUANTAVOLUTION AND CATASTROPHE
PART FOUR
by ALFRED DE GRAZIA
1. Placebos:
Placebos would designate items in the test that
indicate nothing valid or useful to know for the purposes of the
test. They function to prove a lack of unrelated differences
between those who score differently on the test. For instance, it
might be useful to add several items such as "Whether fast or
slow, evolution by definition must occur in natural history."
And, "Conventional science is more a matter of etiquette of
science than it is a set of accepted theories." And, "A decline in
the productivity of science, noticeable in the late twentieth
century, is attributable in part to an increase in the extent of
political corruption in advanced nations." It might occur that
both C and Q respondents would score similarly on these items,
whether by scattered or concentrated agreement.
2. Religious Dimension:
Creationism; agnosticism; mysticism; atheism; personal deism; scientific deism.
Religious ideologies have been shown to play a considerable
role in adhering to scientific propositions of one kind or
another. It would be possible to uncover some of these
connections either by a couple of questions accompanying the
test (such as, "How would you identify yourself in respect to
the list of religious positions below: accept, reject, indifferent?"
or by including distinguishing items as propositions such as
"Quantavolution fortifies logically and evidentially religions
that maintain a recent creation of the world and mankind by
divine intervention."
3. Additional Items:
Adding a number of items would help to
validate existing items and at the same time lend reliability to
the test as a whole. Thus, proposing that the dinosaurs and most
other species were destroyed en masse in a brief time interval
by the impact of an extra-terrestrial object, or proposing that the
continental crust of the earth has been creeping by tiny
increments over most of the global surface over all of Earth's
history.
4. Merging:
The Q-C Test will be henceforth merged into a
mixed set of items, such that the respondent will be
encountering items of C, Q and other significance randomly in
the course of taking the test. Merging will promote a more
independent series of judgements on the part of the respondent,
and contribute to the significance of aggregated scores, in part
and totality.
5. Validation:
Validating a test that seeks to elicit ideological
syndromes can be most difficult, depending upon the degree of
certainty that the Thing exists in the first place and then the
elusive and unconscious ways in which people are disposed to
mal-describe and conceal their ideologies. Still, with the
improvements already suggested, some approach to defining a
Q and a C nuclear ideology, and in the process a Q mind and a
C mind, can find credence.
6. Randomizing and Cross-sectioning the Sample:
These ordinary problems of test development should present no
unusual difficulties when developing the Q-C test. Inasmuch as
over half of the adult population cannot read well enough nor
are tutored enough to understand any considerable part of the
test, either a special test should be constructed for them or they
should be passed over in favor of administering the test only to
persons who have passed three or more years of college. In the
end, the test results most useful would be the results obtained
from the professional and managerial classes. Since these are the
people running the governmental, corporate, media and
educational systems of the modern state, their ideologies are a
matter of practical as well as contemplative interest.
7. Extending the number of special disciplines implicated in the results:
In Part Five below will be found a list of entries planned for
the Encyclopedia of Quantavolution and
Catastrophe. Every discipline will be found there, and thus a
case is made for finding Q relevant to all disciplines. It would
not be too difficult to revise the test so as to apply it more
directly to each and every major discipline -- geology,
anthropology, theology, astronomy, mythology and so forth.
8. Uses:
a) Abetting theoretical studies.
In this connection, the Q-C test can suggest that a wholesale replacement
of received doctrines of science may be useful and possible.
b) Discovery of trends in public awareness of science.
Are popular notions of what is occurring in science changing?
Perhaps the test will give some indication of how and why the
contents of the mass media are changing with regard to science
and scientists.
c) Discovering relationship between creationist belief and quantavolutionary belief.
Popular creationist belief is strong and seeks, spearheaded by a small
group of intellectuals, to adapt quantavolutionary research and treatises
to its own needs. Creationist scientists are inclined to dominate
quantavolutionary circles, naturally, and certainly feel comfortable moving
in and out of them. Much opposition to Q work by C scientists comes from a
fear that Q is merely a front for creationism.
d) Q-C scores as a function of age, occupation, religion, formal schooling.
The sociology of science and educators would gain by the knowledge of how
Q and C ideas have been penetrating various social formations and categories.
Psychological applications are suggested: is there a radical and
conservative position on C and Q that conforms to political,
intellectual, and social radicalism?
e) Discovery of trends in ideology of scientists.
At a time when it is widely believed that the vast majorityof scientists
would be high-scorers on the C-test and low-scorers on the Q-test,
the distribution of the component beliefs in the population
of scientists would reveal the actual condition in this regard.
Too, one may expect to learn whether the scientific elite, the so-called
establishment, has moved from the conventional center
of gravity more or less than the mass of scientists.
f) Discovery of deficiencies and contradictions of belief brought on by specialization.
Especially with longer versions of the Q-C test, it may be observed how far
and near the various special fields of the scientists stand in relation to the
conventional consensus. What medical specialty, for instance, is most radical
in acceptance of Q tendencies? How do homeopathic practitioners rate?
g) Enumerating the varieties of conventional and quantavolutionary thought.
A great many controversies characterize both the conventional and the quantavolutionary
camps. From the hi-score C camp, it appears that the conventional scientists are
divided and the Q enemy is united, whereas nothing is more obvious to the Q, and angrily
regrettable, than the splintering into tiny fragments of the Q outlook.
h) Fostering interdisciplinary communication.
Scientists and educators who have deplored the lack of sympathy and
understanding between the public and politicians on the one
side and scientists on the other might regard the results of
extensive Q-C testing as indicative of the gravity of the
problem, or of improvements occurring. At the same time, tests
results of different scientific groups might demonstrate that
communication among scientists is as serious a problem as it is
between science as a whole and the public. Test results among
scientific cohorts might illustrate, too, the togetherness of the
scientific fraternity as a whole. Deviations fro consensus might
be regarded as deviations of thought or deficiencies in
knowledge of sciences other than one's own.
