The feedback I most often get about my blogs is that I always seem to be “dissing” scientific methodology, especially quantitative statistics. Some people are indignant. Some apoplectic when they construe me as challenging the veracity of science. Others simply write me off.
I’m not a Luddite. All I’m saying is that there are many genres of knowledge from which we can understand the world. And that the methodology we choose actually shapes our reality.
I do challenge, however, the enlightenment notion that science is the only legitimate way of knowing; and, the illusion of control and mastery underlying the scientific discourse.
I believe that*:
- A number of approaches to “knowing and telling” exists.
- No method or theory has a universal and general right to truth claims.
- Truth claims comes from local, cultural and political worldviews.
- Truth claims are, at best, partial.
- Scientific methodology should not automatically be rejected provided it is open to new inquiry.
- There are situational limitations of the knower.
- No human can claim to be omniscient narrators.
- There is subjectivity in story telling,
*Adapted from Richard’s “Writing as a method of Inquiry from DENZIN, N. K. & LINCOLN, Y. S. 2011. The Sage handbook of qualitative research, Thousand Oaks, Sage.
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