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A work is criticized as "scholarly"


Alfred001

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In the wikipedia article about infanticide,

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide

 

there is a paragraph that says:

 

"However, Milner's treatise includes at the same time cultural hypotheses for the practice, and his approach to the subject has been criticized as both scholarly and an idealized view of infanticide.[143]"

 

What the heck does it mean that a scientific work is "scholarly?"

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agree with iNow. Scholarly can sometimes be used as a pejorative in academic circles if the author is missing the wood for the trees. In pure science - which this most certainly is not - one can abstract a tiny segment of a process, control for the extraneous factors, and thus investigate the microscale. In the humanities - and a historical cultural survey of this would fall into that broad category - sometimes this approach can work and other times it is a complete waste of time and effort. ie you read this sort of criticism "It's a little overly scholarly and seems to forget the human context within which blah blah..."

 

That said I have read Cesar Tort's review in the Journal of Psychohistory and it is pretty crumby - he seems to be angry that Milner has attempted a disinterested and dispassionate survey of such an emotive topic; personally, I prefer surveys to be as rigorous as possible - comment and views can be personal if necessary, but not statistical and descriptive reviews.

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