Theory and Ideology was Re: Luke Rondinaro's world system theory

Questions of ideology haunt all theories of history. I note that Michael Shermer's recent bio of Alfred Wallace contains still another claim on the science of history. Not even a mention of Karl Popper. I guess Popper was useful to dispose of Marx, now noone has heard of him. 

The question of the science of history is intractable. My problem is that Darwinists still get away with a science of evolution, and make claims on history in that regard. 
The left is simply silent here. So is Darwinism ideology? No baloney about social darwinist hangwringing, to the point, but...
Rephrase the question. Is the Darwinian theory of natural selection an ideology? Yes or no, finally, from the critics of ideology. 
 
The question of science and history revolves around the question of teleology. And that is the nemesis of any such science. 
I think these issues are very well dealt with in the eonic model, and if you check the statement of the model, http://eonix.8m.com/enx_theory3.htm  you will see that instead of theories we have 'free action scripts', and a model of the evolution of theories!! 
'Down field free action scripts' taken honestly do not preempt science, but they make science a subprocess of the history. 
It' s like being in the temporal downfield of three earthquakes. We can have a science of earthquakes, but in the temporal downfield we need a 'free action script', like what the blazes do I do now, etc...

I think the discrete-continuous model proposed deals with teleogy and 'causality' both in a unique way, especially with the distinction between 'system action' and 'free action', which distinguishes the historical process on one level with its temporal realization on another. 
Most of all it deprives all parties of crypto-teleological ideologies, and does justice to Marx and Popper both, leaving both behind. 

In a message dated 8/12/2002 8:52:02 PM Eastern Daylight Time, franka@fiu.edu writes:


> SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER ABOUT THE SCIENTIFIC EMPEROR'S CLOTHES
>                          A Review Essay 
>
> of Naked Science. Anthropological Inquiry into Boundaries, Power, and
> Knowledge edited by Laura Nader. New York & London: Routledge 1996,
> xvi,318 pp. $ ??
>                               by
>
>        ANDRE GUNDER FRANK
>
>
> abstract
>       
> The editor explains: "The point is to open up people's minds to other ways
> of looking and questioning to change attitudes about knowledge, to reframe
> the organization of science - to formulate ways of thinking globally about
> science traditions ....  There are different kinds of knowledge that
> provide valid truths of use to human kind. If a dominant [Western] science
> silences that knowledge, we all lose.... The myth of a single science can
> be seen as a myth; the false separation between science and nonscience may
> be considered a barrier to new thinking; and a whole range of vital and
> experimental thinking is possible" [23-24].
>
> The central theses and the abundant evidence in this book are that
> "science is not free of culture; rather, it is full of it. Militarization
> has certainly had an effect on American science... [and] has also fired
> the pervasive commercialization of the scientific
> effort.... Politicization of science is unavoidable,
> [because] behaviour is affected by those who control funding and who often
> determine the research questions [and] virtually all science has social
> and political implications.... Denial of a contexutalized science, or the
> assertion that science is autonomous, strikes at the scientific endeavor,
> defined as a process of free inquiry" [xiii,9].



John Landon
Website on the eonic effect
http://eonix.8m.com
nemonemini@eonix.8m.com