Social constructivism applied to science argues that an objective, observer-independent reality doesn’t exist, (or that if it does, it’s not accessible by humans, which is functionally the same thing). Under that framework, then whenever we talk about gravity, we’re not talking about some objective truth, but our attempts to model what we perceive as an objective truth. Hell, the only way we’re able to have this conversation at all is because I wrote “gravity is a social construct” and you understood what I was referencing enough to disagree.
Regardless of what we call them, or how we understand them, the laws of physics nevertheless apply – as you eluded to in your example of animals being subject to gravity, despite their understanding of it.
This is not true of race or gender. They exist exclusively as categorizations and narratives within our collective set of definitions and understandings. They do not exist outside of human culture.
So at best what you’re saying is that our understanding of gravity is the result of a social construct. Which is just needlessly pedantic.
But since that’s apparently what we’re doing then your statement is still incorrect. It should be:
Neat, but none of that makes gravity a social construct. Race and gender are.
What is your understanding of a social construct? I wanna make sure we’re on the same page about definitions
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_constructionism
Social constructivism applied to science argues that an objective, observer-independent reality doesn’t exist, (or that if it does, it’s not accessible by humans, which is functionally the same thing). Under that framework, then whenever we talk about gravity, we’re not talking about some objective truth, but our attempts to model what we perceive as an objective truth. Hell, the only way we’re able to have this conversation at all is because I wrote “gravity is a social construct” and you understood what I was referencing enough to disagree.
Regardless of what we call them, or how we understand them, the laws of physics nevertheless apply – as you eluded to in your example of animals being subject to gravity, despite their understanding of it.
This is not true of race or gender. They exist exclusively as categorizations and narratives within our collective set of definitions and understandings. They do not exist outside of human culture.
So at best what you’re saying is that our understanding of gravity is the result of a social construct. Which is just needlessly pedantic.
But since that’s apparently what we’re doing then your statement is still incorrect. It should be: