Applying Philosophy of Science II

In the other thread by this name, there was a debate about whether a consideration of the Philosophy of Science could help practicing scientists in their daily research.

It seems to me -- who is neither a scientist nor a philosopher -- that the case was, as a Scottish jury might rule, "not proven".

Be that as it may, would Philosophers of Science have anything to say about any of the following ideas about science, which apparently have traction now among some academics:

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"For Newton, gravity resulted from the mutual attraction between masses; for Einstein, from the curvature of space. One might imagine still other kinds of explanations, for example a Native American belief that objects fall to earth because the spirit of Mother Earth calls out to kindred spirits in other bodies."

N. Katherine Hayles -- 'Constrained Constructivism: Locating Scientific Inquiry in the Theater of Representation'

"If we think of these projects as attempts to ground representation in a non-contingent metadiscourse, surely it is significant that the most important work on them appeared before World War I. Einstein published his papers on the special theory of relativity in 1905 and the general theory in 1916; the Principia Mathematica volumes appeared from 1910 to 1913; and logical positivism had its heyday in the closing decades of the nineteenth century. After World War I, when the rhetoric of glorious patriotism sounded very empty, it would have been much more difficult to think language could have an absolute ground of meaning."

N. Katherine Hayles -- Chaos Bound

"Is e=mc2 a sexed equation?...Perhaps it is. Let us make the hypothesis that it is insofar as it privileges the speed of light over other speeds that are vitally necessary to us. What seems to me to indicate the possible sexed nature of the equation is not directly its uses by nuclear weapons, rather it is having privileged what goes the fastest..."

Luce Irigaray -- Le sujet de la science est-il sexue?

"As capital's state religion, Science is the way capital teaches us to look at and appropriate the world around us without thinking about “the way we're thinking.” It is difficult for those of us steeped in the propaganda barrage of Big Science to even question such social norms as the mass-vaccination of children in the U.S."

Mitchel Cohen -- Big Science, the Fragmenting of Work & the Left’s Curious Notion of Progress

"A geometry implies the heterogeneity of locus, namely that there is a locus of the Other. Regarding this locus of the Other, of one sex as Other, as absolute Other, what does the most recent development in topology allow us to posit?"

Jacques Lacan -- The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book XX

"...on the whole, this book adopts the position, endorsed by the main directions of contemporary criticism (yet still not unproblematic), that literature and science, whatever else they may be, are modes of discourse, neither of which is privileged except by the conventions of the cultures in which they are embedded."

George Levine -- One Culture

"All of this is perhaps not conclusive evidence of the fundamentally flawed nature of the scientific system of knowledge but it should prod us into critically reappraising a mode of thought which externalizes the source of suffering and death and seeks to eradicate it...

... In absolutely negativizing disease, suffering and death, in opposing these to health and life in a mutually exclusive manner, the scientific medical system of knowledge can separate in individuals and in populations what is absolutely bad, the enemy to be eradicated, from what is good, health and life. In the process it can and does objectify people with all the repressive political possibilities that objectification opens."

Frederique Apffel Marglin -- Smallpox in two Systems of Knowledge

"Is the insistence that nature is artifactual not more evidence of the extremity of the violation of a nature outside and other to the arrogant ravages of our technophilic civilization, which, after all, we were taught began with the heliotropisms of enlightment projects to dominate nature with blinding light focused by optical technology?9 Haven't eco-feminists and other multicultural and intercultural radicals begun to convince us that nature is precisely not to be seen in the guise of the Eurocentric productionism and anthropocentrism that have threatened to reproduce, literally, all the world in the deadly image of the Same?"

Donna Haraway -- The Promise of Monsters

"Science is not a process of discovering the ultimate truths of nature, but a social construction that changes over time. The assumptions accepted by its practitioners are value-laden and reflect their places in both history and society, as well as the research priorities and funding sources of those in power."

Carolyn Merchant -- Radical Ecology

"How can metaphysical life theories and explanations taken seriously by millions be ignored or excluded by a small group of powerful people called 'scientists'?"

Andrew Ross -- Strange Weather

"While most progressives (including scientists) welcome criticism of science's serviceability to corporate, military, and state needs, many are less willing to question science's close affiliation with positivist rationality and value-free knowledge, for fear that compromising the path of positivism somehow amounts to a betrayal of those 'Enlightenment roots,' or that it represents the first step down a slippery slope to nihilism. Many others, however, believe that progress in social thought is not possible without a thorough critique of the Enlightenment, whether for its justification of the domination of nature, or its authoritative support for belief systems like scientific racism or sexism, or for the monocultural legacy of its assumptions about rationality."

Andrew Ross -- The Sokal Hoax

"Feminist scholarship of science, which is truly monumental both in terms of quality and quantity, has analysed almost every branch of science. It has shown that the focus on quantitative measures, analysis of variation, impersonal and excessively abstract conceptual schemes, is both a distinctively masculine tendency and also one that serves to hide its own gendered character."

Ziauddin Sardar --Thomas Kuhn and the Science Wars

"Like postmodern social theory, postmodern science sees modernity and modern reason as inherently repressive."

Steven Best -- 'Chaos and Entropy: Metaphors in Postmodern Science and Social Theory'

"To be sure, science studies scholars have shown, often in considerable detail, that when science is regarded as a concrete human practice, it displays all the features one would expect of other similarly endowed social, economic, and political institutions. Put most pointedly, they claim that it is difficult to specify empirically the distinctly "rational," "objective," or "truth-oriented" character of the scientific mind. It is not that scientists are less rational than the rest of humanity; rather, they are not more rational."

Steve Fuller -- The Science Wars: Who Exactly is the Enemy?

"If a theory 'forced' one to assent to politically distasteful, depressing, and counterintuitive claims, then one could regard those consequences as in themselves good reasons to find the theory implausible."

Sandra Harding -- Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?

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I am only a layman here, but the ideas expressed above seem to me to be ridiculous.

Doug, I think sometimes theories that may seem bizarre and outlandish - or even ridiculous - to a layman are nevertheless correct when properly interpreted by experts. (Quantum theory would be an obvious example.)

This is not one of those times.

I mourn each and every tree that died for the words reproduced above. And if any of those publications were exclusively electronic, I'll mourn the photons doomed to transmit this nonsense into your (and my) brain.

(OK, Doug, I'll make another attempt to carry on a conversation. We'll see how this one goes....)

Well, the ideas you cite are arguably over-extended, certainly, but it's not at root ridiculous to note that the practice of science has ideological and political dimensions.

And whatever the excesses of 'postmodern social theory', it's not leftist academics who are working at the grassroots to destroy science education in America. Yes, there are anti-science loons on the left: but the attack on science in this country is by-and-large being undertaken by forces of conservatism.

As Rev. Ray Mummert noted in regard to the attack on science education in the Dover PA case, "We {conservative fundamentalists} have been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture."

Johnascott: your response is reassuring to hear.

Bob: I think we're safe here.

You say: "... the practice of science has ideological and political dimensions." Well, yes. Everything has "ideological and political dimensions".

So what? Is this not like my claiming that a flying crocodile is living in my attic, and then defending my claim by arguing that crocodiles exist, flying things exist, and living creatures exist in my attic?

It would be interesting to discuss science education in schools, where I happen to believe that the study of philosophy of science could help liven up what is generally a deadly dull, scholastic enterprise. But that's for another thread.

I am entirely in agreement that religious fundamentalists are enemies of science and rationality. Their assault on reason is easy to see, and has been repelled in the courts, thank God. (Although I should say that I think that both the ideas of the post-modernists and of the ID people should be discussed in school science classes -- it might make them a little more interesting.)

But it should say something about the deficiencies of our education system in teaching critical thinking that people like the ones quoted above can so easily find lodging in the very citadels of reason, our universities.

I'm not as willing to dismiss all the ideas in these quotes. I think there's a baby lurking somewhere in all that bathwater.

The passages are overstated, for sure. But I find some of them objectionable more for where they are headed than for what they say. Some seem to assume or at least insinuate that because science is value-laden (or socially constructed, or what have you) all the contents of science are somehow up for grabs. Normatizing science often goes hand-in-hand with relativizing norms. But it doesn't have to.

Suppose science is normative through and through. That doesn't necessarily mean it is subjective, arbitrary, false, or meaningless. In fact, the predictive success of science points to a reality independent of the way anyone might wish or need it to be. So if the other arguments (not given in your quotes) lead one to accept the view that science is value-laden (as I think they should) a more plausible conclusion is that values themselves are just as objective as the structure of molecules. For instance, there really is a truth of the matter that nuclear power should not be used for certain things.

Now, the risk I run in claiming that values are objective is that everyone is going to jump on me as though I had added, "... and I know what the true values are." But I could never claim that without contradiction. For a value to be objective means for it to be something independent of my wishes or my agenda. Objective values cannot be known with certainty, but must be approximated with the same sort of critical reflection one uses in searching for objective facts.

So I suggest that the worthwhile criticism in all that postmodern stuff is not that science is phony, but that the positivistic mindset of most practicing scientists is narrow, unreflective, and smug. You can be both right and smug, you know. The smugness I refer to is the confident belief among scientists that the only theory worth knowing is the latest theory--the belief that the way a given theory emerged, the rivals it defeated, its meaning and place within the history of science are all moot because that is the theory that won.

I teach medieval philosophy and one of my favorite parts of the course is when we start talking about some of the early theories of physics. The students, having usually completed their core curriculum courses in science, are usually condescending about medieval theories of projectile motion or of light. But when I start to ask them for a better theory, they find they don't really understand how things move or how light works. I feel that the process of comparing modern physics to ancient physics deepens their understanding of what is really going on with concepts like inertia, acceleration, and gravity. After my course, they begin to understand what a strange concept "space" is, and how it differs from "place." They start to see gravity as a hard-won concept, rather than as a perfectly obvious datum of perception. In short, they begin to feel how amazing is this accomplishment called "science."

Sorry about this ramble. I'll stop now. Don't beat me.

Skippersan: I think that, like Bob, you are defending something other than what the folks I quoted are saying, and something which is defensible.

I don't think their views are just on a linear continuum with the quite unobjectionable observation that many scientists are unreflective, and that many scientific concepts like space and time and energy are not so obvious and harbor methaphysical assumptions that need to be examined. (I assume -- maybe I'm wrong here -- that the latter is one of the concerns of philosophy of science.)

Sorry, Doug, I'm not buying it.

Yes, silly things have occasionally been said by academics on the left.

But destructive, anti-science policies are being pushed by the right. The situation isn't symmetric.

The actual, real threats to science are predominantly coming from the right.

Show me the well-funded leftist foundations and think tanks that are actively underwriting efforts to destroy science education - something symmetrical to America's creationist movement, say - and you'll have something to talk about. The datum that silly stuff can get published in academia is nieither new nor especially alarming.

I should probably emend my previous post to note that (of course) I agree that, as Bob puts it, "the practice of science has ideological and political dimensions." I'll even cop to being somewhat smug and unreflective (at least on a day-to-day basis).

But the writers quoted above stray from the obvious into the oblivious when they infer from these facts that science is of a "fundamentally flawed nature," to take one of their phrases. Several of the authors go on from oblivious to mentally deficient when they assert, say, that science is on an equal footing with animistic religion, or that there might be a feminine or 'unsexed' alternative to E = mc^2 that has any value whatsoever.

I agree that anti-science attacks from the right are more pressing, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't shout down nonsense whenever it crops up. I want to keep right-wing creationism out of our elementary schools, and I want to keep left-wing homeopathy out of our medical schools. And I would like to keep fools who think that it's more important for science to be inclusive than to be correct (although I wonder how many of these theorists would invite a tribal shaman to take over their surgeon's scalpel when facing a major operation) out of our academies.

Bob: I think you are replying to the following argument:

"There are two kinds of serious attacks on science nowadays, and the worst of them are those by the postmodernists in the academy."

I didn't make, or even imply, that argument, so I will let the person who did make it reply to you.

Doug - fair enough.

What I was answering was the proposition:

"Science is under attack. I'm going to outline the least significant attacks and ask for comment - while ignoring the more dangerous attacks."

So, sorry, I wasn't going to be drawn in.

In the first GOP debate, THREE of the ten candidates for the presidency acknowledged that they don't follow the scientific worldview.

Well, fine, nice of them to admit it. However: you'll note that they weren't immediately laughed off the platform. You can still be a taken seriously as a candidate for the presidency and not subscribe to the scientific worldview.

I find THAT to be a much greater danger than any of the academic chatter you've quoted above.

Well, several things can be said about this:

(1) I have argued evolution elsewhere, among people who don't believe in it. (A thankless task as you probably know.) And I assume that everyone here, being serious thinkers of one sort or another, share my belief. I could have posted some of the ravings of the late Jerry Falwell and asked for comment on them, but I don't think I would have gained any information, in the information-theory sense of the term.

However, I am curious as to what the sort of people who post here think about the beliefs of what seems to be a serious trend in certain intellectual circles.

(2) The three deniers are not professors at universities. I don't require that my plumber believe in evolution, only that he be a good plumber. The same for a politician. Ronald Reagan made my toes curl with regard to his intellectual depth, but he made the right decisions and helped destroy Communism, which many evolution-believing folks -- including some great scientists -- had hailed as the New Dawn of Mankind.

(3) The overwhelming majority of people do not apply the scientific worldview. They believe in angels, gods, demons, spirits, energies, feng-shui, transsubstantiation, psi, the power of prayer, and so endlessly and depressingly on.

But in practice, few of these people 'attack science'. Rather, their anti-scientific mysticism simply co-exists with an acceptance of science and its fruits. So someone whose child becomes ill may indeed have a Novena said for her, but will first take her to the doctor and will not inquire as to the doctor's faith in Jesus.

Most American Presidents denied the scientific world view, in fact. They believed, or claimed to, in an invisible man in the sky who intervened in human affairs. In some cases, such as that of Abraham Lincoln, this probably made them better Presidents.

With respect to the three Deniers, I would want to know how their lack of belief in evolution would affect their political decisions.

And I would be interested in whether the other seven could actually explain evolution in any detail, or whether they are just going along with the consensus view of intelligent people. (Nothing wrong in that, by the way.)

Yes, there is a debate to be had on the dangers to the sort of civilization we have built in the wake of the Enlightenment. We tend to take for granted that liberal democracy as now practiced in Europe and the United States and a few other places is here to stay.

I don't believe this.

I do see most of the sort of people who go to church on Sunday, or say they do, including those who don't believe in evolution, as the defenders of this liberal democracy, literally, and the sort of people quoted above who now seem to have a major presence in the Academy, as its enemies.

I know this will sound wrong-headed to many and the exact reverse of the real situation.

The difference between a plumber / your neighbour and a president who doesn't believe int eh scientific worldview, is that neither the plumber or your neighbour is asked to make natinal policy decisions based on it. A president may have more than two advisors on any given topic, hopefully at least one will be from the scientific world view. This advisor's views should not be given equal weight with that of someone who knows what will happen because someone else wrote it down in an old book long ago!

Fox: The term "the scientific world-view" is far too vague as a criterion. Does someone who believes in God have it? Strictly speaking, no. Yet you can believe in God and be a very sensible person, even a good scientist. People compartmentalize.

I know lots of religious people, but none who pay the least bit of attention to the barbaric practices urged upon God's people by the Bible. They don't even pay attention to its strictures against divorce.

But if you really and truly want to elect a politician who believes in the scientific world view, then you will have very few candidates to support, since I promise you that every Democrat or Republican who has any chance at the Presidency will swear blind that he or she believes in the Bible, God, Jesus as God's son (or Moses as God's spokesman).

This probably bothers neither of us a bit, since we know that people can believe (or say they do) in the supernatural, and yet act as if the supernatural did not exist.

I have an acquaintance who told me that he once supervised a graduate student who was a devout Seventh Day Adventist, and as such believed the world was created 6000 years ago. Apparently this did not prevent her from getting her PhD in astrophysics. He said she just lived a kind of dual life. These humans are strange creatures.

Ronald Reagan supposedly consulted an astrologer. ( This otherwise-dubious website probably gets it essentially right.) How embarrassing!

But when it came to estimating the intentions and vulnerabilities of the Soviet leadership, I would (retroactively) trust him far more than the double-Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling, a truly great scientist, who naively believed in the peace-loving nature of said gentlemen. (And who wasn't entirely consistent in applying the methods of science in other fields, too.)

Were all the scientists who believed that the Soviet Union was building the "most advanced democracy the world has ever known" practicing the scientific worldview?

Another point: when people say they "don't believe in evolution" you need to probe further. Do they believe the earth was created 6000 years ago? Or do they believe that existing life demonstrates irreducible complexity that could not have been formed by natural causes? Both may be wrong, but there is a huge difference between the two beliefs.

Further, doubts about embracing evolution may reveal a fear that doing so commits the believer to denying an "ontological gap," as someone put it on another thread, between man and the rest of life -- leaving us to the idea that we are "just blobs of protoplasm", and that defective models should be sent to the ovens.

In fact, if the Left shibboleth is "do you believe in evolution," the Right shibboleth is "do you believe in God?". Both are proxies, but bad ones, for, in the first case, "Are you an intelligent, thoughtful person who will act on the basis of a naturalistic world-view?" and in the second, "Are you a decent human being who will act in a moral manner?"

They are bad proxies because they don't really tell us much about the person who holds or doesn't hold the belief in question.

In fact, people can be utterly committed to the scientific world view in every meaningful sense and yet hold catastrophically wrong views and take catastrophically wrong actions in real life. And vice versa.

People can be complete atheists and yet be utterly moral and self-sacrificing for a Higher Cause than themselves. And vice versa.

Much as it might personally please me, I wouldn't expect someone who ends up 'elected' to president of the US not to belive in god. There are too many vocal belivers in the US for that to happen. BUT such a person cannot be a scientific worldview denier either. If that happens, as implied by your earlier posts that it might, then critical non-partisan information offered by dedicated scientists will be ignored as if it were equal weight partisan advice from another interest group. Which can't be in the end for the good of the US that you all profess to hold so dear.

I can't think of a simple questions that a candidate could publically answer which would be clear on this matter, hence the resort to scientific worldview. I don't expect the president to have had the scientific background themself to know the topics in any detail at all. I would hope such a person is open to recieving the current best opinion of science, on the relevant matters. The evidence from the recent Bush adminstration doesn't make me very hopeful, but as I can't vote over there, hope is all I have,

Perhaps we can agree on this: it is highly desirable that a President have the ability to weigh and filter the opinions offered to him by various groups, understanding how self-interest can motivate people, and yet how self-deception can make them think their views are objective; how the desire to see a certain outcome can warp our judgement; and so on..

This means deciding when scientists are offering their views based on the best that science can come up with -- " ... critical non-partisan information offered by dedicated scientists" as you put it -- and when they are simply repeating the conventional wisdom of the intellectual class, which is not always right. (Even the former is not always right, of course -- when I studied biology in high school I learned that humans had twenty four pairs of chromosomes -- but it is the best we can do.)

Alas, I fear no likely presidential candidate from either party is going to have these desirable qualities in excess.

A President can be intelligent and well-meaning, and not naive, and listen to advisers who assure him that people ruled by a tyrant will welcome an invading force ... and be proved utterly wrong.

Whether he is then condemned as a fool by the rest of us will probably depend on whether his general political views match ours or not.

I don't think any simple test of a candidate's worldview prior to his election would eliminate people prone to make such errors.

Maybe we should copies of these two books to all candidates.

I'll try to bring this back on point a bit.

I'm not too upset about silly things that get said in the academy. The academy - at least in the social sciences - is at least partially a version of Hesse's Glass Bead game. Symbols get manipulated, at least partly in the abstract, simply to see what new patterns emerge.

Academic writing - pretty much by definition - is required to push the state of the art, to go beyond today's accepted boundaries. If it doesn't, it becomes a simple round of mutual congratulation.

When new ideas are tossed out, yes, of course many of them are going to sound silly. Most of them ARE silly. But only by putting them forth for discussion does the conversation get advanced.

If some random academic publishes a silly idea, then
a) at first, only their partner, their tenure committee, and a few score other academics will read it; and
b) it will be discussed.

And then, ideally, worthy ideas will propogate, and silly ideas will wither. The discussion and ridicule is a natural part of this process. I can't get too worked up that silly ideas are put forth: that's how the system is supposed to work. If only sensible, non-controversial ideas were put forth, progress would stop.

Silly, outre' ideas are a necessary part of the conversation. One of the differences between liberals and conservatives is in how they react to this: to overgeneralize, it's a matter of temperment. (That is, liberals tend to be entertained by silly ideas, and conservatives tend to be outraged.)

But, again, contrast the silly anti-science views that Doug has unearthed in academia with the silly anti-science views we saw on display in the presidential debate: one has an audience of thousands; the other has an audience of tens of millions.

Three candidates say that they hold pre-Enlightenment conceptions of the universe - and millions of Americans think that this qualifies them to formulate America's science policy - billions of dollars of spending - for the next four years.

I find that much more frightening.

I think most everything interesting to be said regarding many "continental" views of science that would be useful to analytically-trained philosophers is summed up in Ian Hacking's The Social Construction of What? I wouldn't expect some die-hard Russell fan to be interested in following Heidegger or post-Heidegger reasoning on the topic of science that is really necessary for the more serious substantive critiques (which isn't to say it's a horrible idea to do so). I also wouldn't expect an insular logician to need to take the time to read up everything on psychoanalysis to even begin to grasp what Lacan is driving at (likewise a Lacanian may or may not care to know what four-valued logic is or why she should care- although maybe she should). This division of labor is totally fine, for me, so long as the tone stays professional. Sure, there are some places of accessibility into the vocabulary used by these groups for analytically-trained people, but I doubt it would be of use for many of them. I do think, however, the rather absurd practice of listing off recondite quotations by the evil-continental-science-haters (of course taken out of context and reassembled as a "greatest hits of the absurd") is, at best, intellectually misdirected and, at its worst, rather spurious.

#18: Your comment about taking quotes out of context as a "greatest hits of the absurd" is fair. Although, as Al Franken said of (I think) Jerry Falwell, some of those excerpts would have had to be preceded by "I'd have to be a total lunatic to say the following:" to be anything but ridiculous.

If you can make an intellectual case for the stream of anti-scientific thought represented above, I'd be interested to hear it. Otherwise, given the empirical success of science, given the apparent hollowness of 'critical theory' and the gibberish in which it is often expressed, given the Sokal prank, given the ease with which the authors above slide into self-parody, I'm going to continue to treat this sort of thing with ridicule.

And, no, I'm not going to take your word for it that it all makes sense if only one understands Heidegger or has internalized Lacanian psychoanalytic theory. You can have your division of labor if you like, but please provide some evidence that it's not the folks on my side of the theoretical divide who are doing all the work.

#19-

1- I think YOU should make a case that all examples above can be included as "anti-scientific." Whatever that term means. Some of the quotations included tend to crticize certain scientific practices, but this is rather different than being out-right anti-science. If it were the same as being anti-science, many scientists, or all scientists, would be anti-science.
2- Blah blah blah Sokal nonsense. Yes okay Duke fucked up and published some nonsense. There is also, of course, the case that immediately followed of those French physicist twins who turned out to be frauds. Just because one journal published (OR EVEN TENDS TO PUBLISH) nonsense doesn't mean that "critical theory" (which I guess should be read "non-anglo philosophies") is anti-scientific. The weakness of this argument is painful for me to read, especially from someone who takes himself or herself to be the champion of "the empirical success of science."
3- I didn't make an argument that criticisms of science are inherently valid if you follow Heideggerian phenomenology or Lacanian psychoanalysis- I argued that such familiarity would provide the frame necessary for EVEN BEGINNING a discussion on whether some of these people are criticizing science and what such a criticism entails. If you think it is possible for me to limn the trajectory of thought here then you might as well ask me to give you the fucking history of the study of quantum mechanics. This isn't to say it's not possible, it's just to say you've missed the point.

The upshot is that your response is not only arrogant and specious, but also that it assumes this entire list can be caught under the rubric of anti-science (assuming both there is a real position that is opposed to scientific endeavors and that this block of out-of-context quotations form some kind of univocal argument). A good response probably is "Look- no one in their right mind thinks that intellectual progress vis-a-vis science is a bad thing for making our lives better." I will join on board with you and everyone who isn't Theodore Kaczynski in making that affirmation. Now follow closely, I'll analyze a quotation from above, from an author I've never heard of and don't agree with:

"... In absolutely negativizing disease, suffering and death, in opposing these to health and life in a mutually exclusive manner, the scientific medical system of knowledge can separate in individuals and in populations what is absolutely bad, the enemy to be eradicated, from what is good, health and life. In the process it can and does objectify people with all the repressive political possibilities that objectification opens."

The author here is obviously concerned with turning healthy and unhealthy into diametric extremes. He thinks that medical practice tends to do this, and it does not actually reflect what he takes health to entail. It seems he wants to point us to a broader, non-technical understanding of health. He thinks that health should not be solely a condition of medically-determined well-being, but something else (I don't know what).

I don't agree with this guy. #19, you probably don't either. I think probably treating some people as healthy and some people as unhealthy is a useful, practical way of splitting people up to determine who needs treatment. But if you notice, the author is not making a point about whether or not we should "keep science around" or not- it's not an anti-science point. He is just saying something about the way we already use medical science. He thinks maybe we could change the way we use it, and he thinks he has some good ideas for how to do this.

The aggravating thing, 19, is that your post acts like an "argument from purity." The problem, of course, is that science is not some golden god (and thank god for that). Science is great for a lot of things- including the rather huge point of reducing mammalian suffering. I like that science does this. I also like that science promotes being rational over being irrational. I also like that science is self-correcting and self-critical (rather unlike you wielding it as some kind of anti-continental club). However, 19, I suggest you take your own point to heart and be far more careful than you're being with what you say. I smell the stench of a healthy dose of band-wagon-jumping that should be inimical to the scientifically-minded.

There are some people who believe that life probably exists on other planets. Some of these people are rational, and some are lunatics (for instance, those who claim to be in contact with beings from other planets). I am sure the rational people have no wish at all to be identified in any way whatsoever with the lunatics.

So, a question: when an obviously absurd utterance like

"Is e=mc2 a sexed equation?...Perhaps it is. Let us make the hypothesis that it is insofar as it privileges the speed of light over other speeds that are vitally necessary to us. What seems to me to indicate the possible sexed nature of the equation is not directly its uses by nuclear weapons, rather it is having privileged what goes the fastest..."

is made, do people who are in this field laugh the maker out of court? Is "Luce Irigaray" some minor eccentric figure who should not be quoted as an example of "critical science studies"?

"do people who are in this field laugh the maker out of court?"

No- the whole point is that you should be taking what you read seriously regardless of your "feelings" or how "obviously absurd" something is (I guess it's so obvious it doesn't even require analysis?). I realize this quotation may make no sense to you and you don't want to bother to take the time to explicate it- but just posting it up then saying "hey look how insane this is" really isn't an argument. Provide an interpretation and why you think it's wrong and maybe you'll have something. Maybe even something scientific?

But it's obviously crazy. Why should I take it seriously? Surely no one else does???

Do you mean to say that if I wrote a paper saying that the earth was created 6000 years ago by an invisible man in the sky, other people should take me seriously???

No one said you have to take it seriously? But it is logical to assume that if you want to criticize something you actually have to explain your opinion on it.

I think you probably should take the 6,000 year old thing seriously since most of the people in the most powerful country on earth do (once again, you're under no obligation to do so). I think the BEST way to take something seriously is to explain to a person why you disagree with this or that or what features of this or that argument are wrong. There is a great Daniel Dennett speech that he gives to refute Rick Warren, the evangelical, who wrote "The Purpose Driven Life." Dennett isn't condescending, he doesn't dismiss their arguments, he explains (i.e. provides reasons) why he thinks they're wrong. He also explains that he finds his reasons rather convincing, and he thinks that the evangelicals would also find them convincing (if they took him seriously). (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTepA-WV_oE)

I think you are flat-out wrong to think that you can be dismissive of something that appears to be patently absurd (at least something the appears to be absurd that takes itself to be serious). In fact, as I note above, I think it is a rather unscientific attitude. In fact, I think it is a similar tactic of "plugging-my-ears-i'm-not-listening" that so many of those Christians you find so absurd often use.

Doug1943 at #23: and that's exactly the point I made at #7 and #10 above.

On the one hand, you can cherry-pick silly quotes from the anti-science Forces of Darkness on the academic Left, who easily number in the thousands.

On the other hand, you could have just as easily chosen to cherry-pick silly quotes from the anti-science Forces of Darkness on the Right - who number in the hundreds of millions. And who take it very seriously.

The attack on science is not symmetric: and it's coming primarily from Conservatives.

JT-

Although I can sympathize with your efforts to read and interpret charitably, there is, it seems to me a serious worry that's driving a lot of the backlash against "the academic left" which has nothing to do with some ill-defined notion of "defending science." Here's the issue as I see it:

Suppose for the sake of discussion I grant you that Lacan et al are serious thinkers engaged in a serious project (which is just hard to latch onto without complete immersion in the subject matter). That seems fine, and there's an argument from authority which lends itself to this view, namely, that when a large number of relatively smart people take some individual's work seriously it's probably better to engage with it rather than dismissing it out of hand.

This seems to me to be a helpful attitude to take, even though I often fail to succeed in adopting it.

The problem is that Lacan and Derrida have a lot of disciples, many of whom do have more straightforwardly political aspirations within the academy. Many of the thinkers in question here are often used to justify, sometimes on a very specious reading, certain kinds of policies and outlooks that ARE patently absurd. There really are people in English departments who use arguments from authority, citing some of these guys, to reject most of the enlightenment project along with much of the subject matter of contemporary philosophy. I actually have a couple of theories about why this is so, but I won't bore you with them here.

Anyway, as I see it the problem is that what's at issue (or at least often perceived to be at issue) is stuff a little more close to home than a favored epistemology (this is expressly for many people in the academy).

You take these English department philosophers and combine their presence with the increasing desire for diversity in academia and all of a sudden there are people making tenure decisions in colleges of liberal arts and sciences who are radical skeptics about anything other than certain kinds of radical political agendas. One might think that when the dean of LAS thinks the history of philosophy is nothing more than the history of oppression it's going to be hard to persuade him to let you hire a Hume or Descartes specialist. And this stuff does happen sometimes.

The idea is that there is a worry about putting people in positions of power (outside of particular departments) who have substantive disagreements with practitioners in those departments regarding the foundations of their discipline. Many of the English department philosophers seem to have substantive disagreements with everything BUT English department philosophy and this is something to worry about.

I think this well-known conservative says it best.

I really have no time for long discussions these days, but in reply to #26, I think jtchipman has already rebutted some of these complaints, by explaining that 1) the exploitation of a certain field by certain groups does not necessarily make the entire field of studies ridiculous, and 2) such complaints are not an attempt to grapple with the philosophy/ies concerned, but are more on the lines of ad hominem arguments, directed against selected figures, departments, titles etc. rather than complete texts.

I would also like to add (or perhaps this has been mentioned and I missed it) that sometimes there is no such thing as a 'field of studies' or a 'school of thought' except in the minds of critics who want to lump a great number of people and ideas together to simplify their task of repackaging preconceived notions, and venting and ranting at great, imaginary enemies - so whereas in reality Lacan and Harding may have little or nothing in common, it helps the critic and his/her audience to herd them as one body, one voice, one meaningless label - 'Anti-Enlightenment Critical Theorists from the Continent', for instance, or 'Scientists who want to Undermine our Social and Religious Values'.

Of course, ad hominem arguments are entirely valid at times, and one is always welcome to the personal opinion that some domains of human endeavour are entirely superfluous, and finally, one can actually grapple with a body of work and become even more convinced that it's redundant; but I don't think these are very effective counter-arguments in the above context.

NoLongerAtEase-

These are good points and I agree with them. Also, I absolutely think there is a danger in the type of hiring politics you describe and perhaps even worse systemic issues lurking about in the humanities in general. Do note though that I don't require you "take our word for it" that these are legitimate courses of study. I don't know if they are or aren't. All I require is my great, beloved Sellarsian "game of giving and asking for reasons."

Richard Rorty discusses Derrida's relevancy by making it clear that Derrida's work is more or less useless politically (we could easily substitute "scientifically" for "politically" in this instance I think). I don't know if Rorty still says this. His issue is/was that reading Derrida is not going to help us in making practical political decisions in the way that someone like Mills or Rawls or whoever might. The take home point for me is, when you DO start coming out with pretty weird stuff like the now-famous Irigaray e=mc2 sexed equation thing, you need to spell out the rammifications so as to be crystal clear (what does this apply to, how big is its scope, who is the audience, etc). Context helps with these issues, but maybe not enough for certain purposes. I see no problem with her saying crap like this regardless of how ridiculous it sounds so long as (a) it's a point that can be clarified enough to be reasonable and useful and (b) there exists a population for which the point is both reasonable and useful. Here is where what you wrote about the argument-from-authority being not good enough comes into play- we do need a far, far better justification than "Irigaray said so" for anything we say about this quotation (or some idea of hers, etc etc etc). Naturally I highly doubt she is saying "ohh Einstein is a sexist," "science is bad," or whatever reactionary nonsense Doug is worried about, but that is beside the point.

Speaking of argument-from-authority...

Doug-

Way to let your sarcasm really drive your point home. Okay actually it doesn't clear anything up as all it lets us know is that Noam Chomsky, who is a well-known liberal, academic, and linguist (not a philosopher), also criticizes some of this nebulous blob, anti-science of the academic left, with equal inexactitude as you. Yet you still haven't really explained to us what this kind of anti-science is. Chomsky doesn't either- he cleverly using the rhetoric of simplicity as though it were a reason for his not understanding (i.e. to paraphrase "I may be too dense to understand," "I would like someone to clear this up for me but they can't," etc). Note that this is a rhetorical stance and not a reason. Once again painfully ironic coming from the leading proponent of the humanities discipline that most aspires to be a science. Let's bring in some arguments and reasons alright? Reasons are the scientist's turf I thought (which I've pointed out multiple times)? So far you have (a) imported an arbitrary list of quotations you think are anti-science without arguing for why it is the case that we can call this group anti-science other than "it's obvious" or "X says so" and (b) you also think religion is anti-science in the same way (similarly linking the two without good justification). I have made clear that your justifications are not satisfactory in terms of what we expect from a robust logical argument. If you are going to continue with this thread cut the crap and actually provide a response other than "it's just ridiculous," "it's just like idiot Christians," or "x thinks it's just ridiculous." Just explain yourself, okay?

Once again, watch the Daniel Dennett link above if you need help with this. I think Bob is more or less on target in terms of where we should place our critical pressure, although I hope we come up with some more concise, convincing reasons than you present. For example, I have a hard time grasping your reactionary horror at some 18 year old reading the question "is e=mc2 a sexed equation?" in her freshman year English class (with a nod to NLAE's chastening of me vis-a-vis the sociology of academic philosophy) when issues like those included in the link below are looming large in the US.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/19/education/19board.html?ex=1180584000&en=59...

In my initial post, I was interested to know what philosophers of science thought about a set of quotations from various individuals, who, I believe, represent a substantial school of thought in the American academy.

Some people have said: obviously rubbish.

Others have said:

--- (1) What about those other people, who are also saying rubbish -- they are a greater threat to science than your example.

--- (2) And anyway, what they are saying has a kernel of truth to it.

--- (3) These statements are dealing with deep, profound, obscure matters, difficult for someone of ordinary understanding to grasp; "recondite".

--- (4) They are "taken out of context", "cherry-picked".

--- (5) Some (all?) of these statements are silly, but they are not representative of the school of thought of which those who made them are members. You should engage the whole school of thought.

--- (6) There aren't very many of these people.

--- (7)They don't represent a body of thought anyway, except in your mind. But you should grapple with this body of thought and not just make ad hominem attacks.

To which I reply:

I may be wrong, but my impression is that the tendency of thought to which the people from whom those quotes were taken belong is not a small, insignificant fringe. (There are probably a few hundred, perhaps even a few thousand, academics who are Scientologists. But they have little significance in influencing the young people who pass through our universities.)

It may be the case that a body of thought is still valuable and worth engaging with, despite the fact that some of its most prominent spokesmen utter nonsense.

But in that case, surely the burden of argument that the rest of us should spend many precious hours studying it is on its proponents. Why should we study this school of thought, as opposed to, say, Mormonism, or Kabbalah?

Those who say we should, would have a stronger case if they could show that the rest of this school of thought repudiated such nonsensical utterances -- did they?

Or, if the statements above are taken out of context, pray supply the context. Is there any context that could make them anything but utter bilge? If I have "cherry-picked" out-of-context and unrepresentative statements, let us have some representative ones.

By the way, I do not believe that American science is in any immediate danger from either the flat-earth anti-evolutionists, or the post-modernists.

As a previous post suggested, the latter are not going to vote to take away funding from cancer research and give it to shamans; and the former are not going to close down any research hospitals and rely on the power of prayer.

Everyone believes in science nowadays in practice. The attacks on it are largely symbolic, and stand in for other concerns.

There is an interesting discussion -- two or three, in fact -- to be had about what the spread of post-modernism reveals about our culture, and the academy, and the potential it has for doing serious long-term damage to our society by disorienting the new generations of our intelligentsia.

And an equally interesting one about science education in schools, and how good (or not) it is, with or without allowing school children to see Intelligent Design presented as an alternative.

And I don't think this is, or should be seen as, a Left vs Right issue, even if most postmodernists are on the Left.

I am on the Right and yet have never felt the slightest impulse to defend the Falwells of the world, even if their worst utterances are "taken out of context", and even if there is a "kernel of truth" to some things they say, and even if murderous Islamists are a far greater threat to democratic liberty than Christian fundamentalists. I'm happy to agree with Noam Chomsky on this one, if on little else.

And yet you still cannot provide us with a coherent argument for exactly why the quotations from above are to be included as utter nonsense. You need to go over each one for us, create a thread between them and explain why that thread does not count as coherent or useful scientifically. I'm sorry that you don't want to spend the time to do this, but why do you keep flaming if you're not going to bother?

I don't really think you've provided a good enough target for your criticism- so yes, the burden is yours for that (since you started the discussion). The only relatively interesting split I see, that maybe you're attempting to get at, is between philosophy and sophistry? It's hard to tell though because you seem to just be flapping about hating "pomo" without even giving us problems with "their" tactics other than "look how ridiculous these quotations are!"

I think your style would be improved greatly if you could find more things to say about these quotations other than "nonsense" "rubbish" "ridiculous" "crazy" whatever. I think those words belong at the end of the argument and not the beginning.

No one needs to demonstrate that these quotations are from outliers of some well-defined core of academics (they aren't). You keep repeating this, but it's question begging because you still haven't discredited the quotations themselves. It's also amusing to read your thoughts on the possibility of a null set of contexts where something would be intelligible. Maybe you're right- but you still haven't shown us the work.

(as an aside, I just scrolled through the posts and, in fact, i am the only one who has even BROACHED an analysis of one of the quotations- found in #20. no one has bothered to argue that the interpretation i provided was worthless or meritless as it would necessarily be if the quotation itself was wholly intellectually bankrupt.)

(discussion)...to be had about what the spread of post-modernism reveals about our culture, and the academy, and the potential it has for doing serious long-term damage to our society by disorienting the new generations of our intelligentsia.

A few responses:

What does post-modernism reveal about our culture and the academy?

0) Post-modernism - as I said above - indicates that the conversation advances only when somebody moves the frame beyond its current position. If it doesn't jar you, it's not advancing the conversation. The commonplace saying that bears here is: "I've never learned anything from the man who agrees with me".

1) I still think you're overstating the "danger". The worst consequence I can foresee is that a few under-deserving academics might find a niche.

If what happened in the academy were of real consequence, it would have long since been brought to heel by our corporate masters. Academia is a playpen.

Conservatives control the economy, the executive branch, the legislature, the judicial branch, the police, the military, the media. Liberals control a few English departments.

2) Some of your quotes I knew of, in broad outline. On the other hand, N. Katherine Hayles was new to me, and a brief look into Wikipedia shows me that there's more going on there than your excerpt would indicate. She's a scientist - at least, she has a graduate degree in chemistry from CalTech - so now you've got me interested in what she's saying.

3) Once again, our discussion amuses me: you brought Chomsky to bear on the topic. Recall the gang of conservatives who broke up our last conversation - because they were discomforted by having a high "affinity" number with someone who read Chomsky....

By the way, I do not believe that American science is in any immediate danger from either the flat-earth anti-evolutionists, or the post-modernists.

Well, you're certainly wrong on the first part: the flat-earthers have demonstrably obstructed progress in American biology and medical science: the stem-cell ban. That's far more dangerous than the confusion sown among a few sections of undergraduates by the post-modernists.

Bob: I think you are deeply mistaken about the relative distribution of real power in America (and the West). Post-60s liberals (I hate to use what Irving Kristol called "that valuable word" to refer to them, but unfortunately there is no other) have won the Cultural Revolution, and thus have taken the most important high ground of all. (For instance, the big corporations are not run by ideological people at all. They just want to make money. If this requires that they pretend day is night, they will do so. As Lenin said, they will sell the rope that is intended to hang them.) I think we have only just begun to see the terrible consequencs of this profound cultural shift. The ridiculous PoMo people are as much symptoms of the disease as its bearers.

Say what you will about Chomsky, you can at least read him and understand what he saying, and agree with him or not. His political writings are accessible to anyone, and his work on grammar is accessible to any reasonably intelligent person who wants to make the effort.

Incidentally, dense pretentious jargon to cover intellectual poverty is not new. I recall reading, nearly fifty years ago, C.Wright Mills' The Sociological Imagination, in which he brilliantly destroyed sociologist Talcott Parsons' The Social System, showing that at best it just expressed shallow truisms in obfuscatingly pompous language. (I will venture a thesis here: the Left does this sort of exposure better than the Right, for reasons that are not to the Right's credit.)

And you are wrong about the stem-cell business. The people who oppose stem-cell research do not do so because they oppose science.

They do so because their moral understanding of the world extends the concept of "human being" to an embryo.

It's just an extension of their opposition to abortion. I disagree with them about this, but it is not a factual, scientific disagreement.

You, I'll bet, would oppose proposals to allow potentially-lethal medical research on condemned criminals, without their consent, despite the fact that this might lead to valuable medical breakthroughs.

But your opposition (if my assumption is correct) is not based on any considerations about science at all, but on ethical or moral considerations which are not questions of science.

JtChipman: I think you are an admirer of Judith Butler. Can you please explain this statement of hers to me:

"The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power."

(An entry into the wonderful Bad Writing Contest website.)

I've hyperextended my dismissal muscle so I'm going to take a little break from the pomo discussion. But, regarding #32 - 33, I did want to reiterate that I agree very strongly with Bob that the right-wing control of most of our political institutions (along with fundamentalist Evangelical control of much of the right-wing) poses a much more serious threat to science than left-wing humanities scholars do. But I wouldn't go so far as Bob in saying that everything is ok in the playpen of academia, nor do I agree that everything controversial necessarily advances the conversation. There can be movement in unproductive directions.

Also, thanks for the Bad Writing link, Doug. Great stuff. The final passage for 1998 is from a former professor of mine. Total nutcase, but a surprisingly good lecturer. Naturally, he included his books in the course requirements, so I am privileged to have 24 hour access to gems like the one on the Bad Writing website.

I have discussed the "Bad Writing Contest" on another thread and have decided it's not really worth discussing with most people that bring it up.

I am not an "admirer" of Butler; however, I was a student of hers and I respect her very much both in that respect and as a thinker. I'll explain the quotation- I'm not quite sure why I'm doing so though since you still haven't provided anyone with any clearer thoughts vis-a-vis the quotations you began the conversation with. You also haven't defended your ignoring my pleas for ANY reasonable account of your position regarding them. Here you go:

Butler is making a comparison between two understandings of how power is thought to operate in societies. The first, inspired by Althusser, takes power to be a monolithic theoretical object. The conception was not dynamic or sensitive to the contingencies that inevitably exist in societies. The second conception gives a more dynamic picture of how power is used. Here power is thought to be manifest in specific material contexts rather than consistent structures that remain the same over time. This second position is probably an allusion to Foucault.

I don't know how useful the point Butler is making is. Maybe it was important for what she was discussing at the time. I don't really care too much either way, personally. All I mean to show is that it's not really so difficult as you're making it. Anyone who spends more than 10 seconds reading it with even a passing familiarity of the subject could do the same.

Quid pro quo- please explain the following quotation from the article "Caianiello's Maximal Acceleration. Recent Developments":

"Classical and quantum arguments supporting the existence of MA have been frequently discussed in the literature. MA would eliminate divergence difficulties affecting the mathematical foundations of quantum field theory. It would also free black hole entropy of ultraviolet divergences. MA plays a fundamental role in Caianiello's geometrical formulations of quantum mechanics and in the context of Weyl space. A limit on the acceleration also occurs in string theory." (G. Papini 3)

I have selected this article and the quotation from it randomly. I am nearly positive you can explain this to me in terms that I understand. That isn't the point. The point is that it will take you a rather long time to look up the relevant information and figure out how to express it in lay terms. I think the problem with Butler's quotation is no different (albeit of potentially more questionable utility).

"Is e=mc2 a sexed equation?...Perhaps it is. Let us make the hypothesis that it is insofar as it privileges the speed of light over other speeds that are vitally necessary to us. What seems to me to indicate the possible sexed nature of the equation is not directly its uses by nuclear weapons, rather it is having privileged what goes the fastest..."

lol!

Abject, hebetudinous nonsense.

She's claiming that mass-energy equivalence is "sexed" because the one constant - speed of light - is masculine ("goes fastest")! By the same logic one could claim that E=Mc^2 privileges the fat lesbian woman because her mass increases as she approaches light-speed (masculinity).

Drivel. Don't buy it.

Shorter Judith Butler:

"Power is not just a consequence of capital. Time and its contingencies play a part too!"

Good grief. The trivial and the banal expressed in bombast. Did she win the Bad Writing contest?

Jtchipman: Thanks very much for taking the time to decipher the Butler quote for me and others, especially since we are so unreceptive to your arguments. We must be an especially unrewarding readership.

As I think you suggest, what she is saying -- if I have now understood it, which I may not have -- doesn't seem very profound.

It has echoes of what I take to be the postmodernists' critique of classical Marxism, and their rejection of it in favor of "identity politics". But don't you think that your explication of it is better than hers, being more accessible?

Is not the use of unnecessarily convoluted language an attempt to enforce a position of dominance, a reinforcement of unequal power relationships, underpinning the very dominator-dominated relationship that is ostensibly being criticized? Is not the reader of Butler's text forced into the position of the Other, excluded from the circle of knowledge-holders?

As for the quote you selected on a turn-about's-fair-play basis, I suspect it would take me a very long time -- years -- to achieve the level of knowledge in physics required to be sure I understood this argument. It would mean understanding quantum field theory, and half a dozen other concepts in advanced physics. And I cannot even explain, anymore, why a gyroscope precesses, or why the planets' orbits around the sun are ellipses, not circles.

And in any case, I am personally not even happy with relativity, much less quantum theory. I yearn for a universe made up of solely of perfectly elastic particles in motion in an absolute space and time.

But were I to undertake such a task, I would have the satisfaction of knowing that I was learning something real, the best approach to truth about the physical universe that mankind has yet achieved. I don't think that is the case with respect to whatever it is that the postmodernists are on about.

On the other hand, maybe there is something to it, as Bob seems to believe.

A further request:

I know this will seem unfair, since I have declined to try to explain quantum mechanics (not understanding it myself), but ... I was reading the following essay recently, and have been trying to make sense of it. Can anyone summarize what it says in a few sentences?

1. Textual prepatriarchial theory and the subcultural paradigm of expression

If one examines the subcultural paradigm of expression, one is faced with a choice: either reject textual prepatriarchial theory or conclude that academe is part of the rubicon of consciousness. Marx’s essay on dialectic discourse suggests that art may be used to reinforce capitalism.

However, Porter1 implies that we have to choose between libertarianism and Sartreist absurdity. The subject is interpolated into a neotextual desublimation that includes language as a whole.

It could be said that the characteristic theme of the works of Tarantino is the fatal flaw, and therefore the collapse, of cultural sexual identity. Debord uses the term ‘libertarianism’ to denote the role of the writer as artist.

Therefore, several theories concerning not discourse, but subdiscourse may be found. If the subcultural paradigm of expression holds, we have to choose between the postcapitalist paradigm of context and structuralist narrative.

2. Tarantino and the subcultural paradigm of expression

In the works of Tarantino, a predominant concept is the distinction between opening and closing. In a sense, neotextual constructive theory states that the purpose of the reader is social comment, given that the premise of textual prepatriarchial theory is valid. The subject is contextualised into a libertarianism that includes truth as a totality.

However, Baudrillard uses the term ‘Derridaist reading’ to denote the rubicon, and some would say the dialectic, of postcapitalist society. Von Junz2 implies that we have to choose between the subcultural paradigm of expression and semanticist pretextual theory.

In a sense, in Jackie Brown, Tarantino deconstructs the deconstructivist paradigm of reality; in Reservoir Dogs, however, he reiterates the subcultural paradigm of expression. The main theme of Cameron’s3 analysis of cultural narrative is a mythopoetical whole.

3. Textual prepatriarchial theory and postsemioticist dialectic theory

“Society is used in the service of hierarchy,” says Bataille; however, according to Parry4 , it is not so much society that is used in the service of hierarchy, but rather the absurdity, and thus the fatal flaw, of society. However, Marx’s model of libertarianism holds that truth is used to exploit the proletariat. If textual prepatriarchial theory holds, we have to choose between Batailleist `powerful communication’ and precultural discourse.

The primary theme of the works of Tarantino is the role of the observer as participant. In a sense, the subject is interpolated into a textual prepatriarchial theory that includes narrativity as a totality. Von Ludwig5 states that we have to choose between libertarianism and the constructive paradigm of narrative.

However, the failure of neodialectic narrative which is a central theme of Tarantino’s Four Rooms is also evident in Pulp Fiction. The premise of textual prepatriarchial theory implies that consciousness is fundamentally elitist, but only if truth is distinct from reality.

But in Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino analyses postsemioticist dialectic theory; in Four Rooms he affirms capitalist libertarianism. Marx uses the term ‘libertarianism’ to denote a self-sufficient reality.

In a sense, many modernisms concerning postsemioticist dialectic theory exist. If libertarianism holds, the works of Tarantino are not postmodern.

4. Tarantino and textual prepatriarchial theory

“Class is impossible,” says Baudrillard; however, according to McElwaine6 , it is not so much class that is impossible, but rather the futility, and therefore the failure, of class. It could be said that libertarianism holds that the raison d’etre of the observer is significant form. The subject is contextualised into a textual prepatriarchial theory that includes narrativity as a totality.

“Society is part of the economy of truth,” says Bataille. Thus, the example of postsemioticist dialectic theory prevalent in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction emerges again in Jackie Brown, although in a more dialectic sense. The characteristic theme of Scuglia’s7 analysis of textual prepatriarchial theory is the difference between sexual identity and class.

“Society is meaningless,” says Derrida; however, according to Porter8 , it is not so much society that is meaningless, but rather the absurdity, and eventually the defining characteristic, of society. In a sense, Foucault uses the term ‘prepatriarchial objectivism’ to denote the futility, and some would say the economy, of capitalist reality. The subject is interpolated into a libertarianism that includes narrativity as a paradox.

“Class is part of the genre of reality,” says Lacan. However, the primary theme of the works of Gibson is the role of the writer as participant. Debord’s essay on textual prepatriarchial theory suggests that consensus comes from the collective unconscious.

In a sense, Sargeant9 states that we have to choose between postsemioticist dialectic theory and semanticist postcapitalist theory. Foucault uses the term ‘libertarianism’ to denote a mythopoetical whole.

Therefore, postsemioticist dialectic theory suggests that sexual identity, somewhat ironically, has intrinsic meaning. A number of discourses concerning the collapse of modernist society may be discovered.

It could be said that in Neuromancer, Gibson examines textual prepatriarchial theory; in Virtual Light, although, he analyses subtextual theory. Many deconstructions concerning libertarianism exist.

In a sense, the main theme of Dietrich’s10 critique of postsemioticist dialectic theory is the role of the poet as reader. The premise of textual prepatriarchial theory implies that the significance of the poet is social comment, given that postsemioticist dialectic theory is invalid.

But an abundance of narratives concerning a preconstructivist totality may be revealed. Bataille promotes the use of libertarianism to modify and attack sexual identity.

5. Consensuses of stasis

“Society is a legal fiction,” says Lyotard; however, according to Sargeant11 , it is not so much society that is a legal fiction, but rather the defining characteristic, and hence the paradigm, of society. Therefore, Foucault uses the term ‘the conceptual paradigm of discourse’ to denote the common ground between consciousness and sexual identity. The primary theme of the works of Gibson is not discourse, but subdiscourse.

If one examines libertarianism, one is faced with a choice: either accept pretextual deappropriation or conclude that the establishment is capable of significant form. In a sense, many theories concerning textual prepatriarchial theory exist. Sontag suggests the use of semiotic subcultural theory to challenge outmoded perceptions of art.

“Sexual identity is part of the meaninglessness of consciousness,” says Baudrillard; however, according to Hubbard12 , it is not so much sexual identity that is part of the meaninglessness of consciousness, but rather the economy, and eventually the defining characteristic, of sexual identity. Thus, Sartre uses the term ‘postsemioticist dialectic theory’ to denote a mythopoetical reality. The subject is contextualised into a textual prepatriarchial theory that includes art as a totality.

“Class is unattainable,” says Foucault. But the premise of libertarianism holds that narrativity is intrinsically impossible, but only if language is equal to reality; if that is not the case, culture may be used to entrench the status quo. Sontag promotes the use of neocultural narrative to modify sexual identity.

In the works of Tarantino, a predominant concept is the concept of capitalist sexuality. However, if postsemioticist dialectic theory holds, we have to choose between the subdeconstructivist paradigm of consensus and cultural rationalism. The dialectic of postsemioticist dialectic theory depicted in Tarantino’s Four Rooms is also evident in Jackie Brown.

“Class is part of the stasis of culture,” says Bataille; however, according to Porter13 , it is not so much class that is part of the stasis of culture, but rather the rubicon, and therefore the absurdity, of class. But Finnis14 states that we have to choose between neodialectic materialism and capitalist rationalism. The main theme of Abian’s15 model of textual prepatriarchial theory is the futility of postdeconstructivist society.

The characteristic theme of the works of Gaiman is not, in fact, narrative, but prenarrative. However, the subject is interpolated into a libertarianism that includes consciousness as a reality. Foucault suggests the use of postsemioticist dialectic theory to deconstruct hierarchy.

“Sexual identity is used in the service of class divisions,” says Lacan. Thus, Lyotard’s essay on dialectic postconceptualist theory suggests that the Constitution is fundamentally impossible. If textual prepatriarchial theory holds, we have to choose between dialectic objectivism and Batailleist `powerful communication’.

But Foucault promotes the use of postsemioticist dialectic theory to attack and modify class. The subject is contextualised into a textual prepatriarchial theory that includes sexuality as a whole.

Therefore, Bataille suggests the use of neomodernist Marxism to challenge elitist perceptions of society. The main theme of Brophy’s16 analysis of postsemioticist dialectic theory is the difference between sexual identity and language.

However, Reicher17 holds that the works of Gaiman are postmodern. Several narratives concerning the failure, and some would say the futility, of constructive sexual identity may be discovered.

In a sense, the primary theme of the works of Gaiman is the role of the writer as observer. The subject is interpolated into a Lacanist obscurity that includes sexuality as a totality.

It could be said that any number of situationisms concerning textual prepatriarchial theory exist. The premise of neotextual theory implies that language is capable of significance.

However, Marx uses the term ‘postsemioticist dialectic theory’ to denote a capitalist whole. If textual prepatriarchial theory holds, we have to choose between libertarianism and subtextual conceptualist theory.

Thus, the example of textual prepatriarchial theory which is a central theme of Gaiman’s Neverwhere emerges again in The Books of Magic, although in a more self-fulfilling sense. Sontag promotes the use of Batailleist `powerful communication’ to read class.

However, von Ludwig18 suggests that we have to choose between textual prepatriarchial theory and the subtextual paradigm of context. The subject is contextualised into a postsemioticist dialectic theory that includes art as a totality.

It could be said that Sartre suggests the use of textual prepatriarchial theory to deconstruct class divisions. The subject is interpolated into a libertarianism that includes consciousness as a whole.

Didn't work... Doug, could you please close your italics? Thanks.

I believe I recognize Doug1943's texts as products of the Postmodern Essay Generator: http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo.

</I>Amazing, a conversation in which I can find something to agree on with everyone! :)

First, I'd like to note that the quotes seem to deal with different aspects or meanings of "science": some with science as a societal institution (often playing in a theatre near you as "Big Science"), some with science "in abstract", as a way of gaining knowledge and/or the body of scientific knowledge. I don't have the time now to address these separately, but the distinction is important.

John, Chipman, I think it's useless to try to "make the case" for the quotes in #1 being either anti-scientific or not. They have no relationship to science whatsoever, no import for science, no significance for science, no value in scientific terms at all. Not Even Wrong. A number of the quotes displays the use (abuse or misuse if you like) of some scientific ideas, jargon or equations--that's all. Irigaray is equally free to wonder about the "sexing" of equations or farts of dragonflies. I don't think she's claiming she's saying something scientific, something of any interest to the special theory of relativity.

Scientists are understandably startled to find scientific terms and notions enmeshed in such texts (we all need to get out more!), but it seems to me that the Sokal hoax proved only how little some philosophers know and care about science as such. I suppose this is embarrassing enough, if one likes (as Lacan did, apparently) to borrow scientific jargon, but it's less embarrassing than maintaining that their blather (or not-blather, as I'm sure JTChipman could explain and defend each and every quote) is actually advancing science, as that other brand of modern philosophers, the analyticals or whathaveyou, seems to like to think.

The Sokal hoax (and that book he co-wrote, "Fashionable nonsense") was good for laughs, but in some ways it missed the point. For one thing, the problem of philosophical language is incommensurably greater than the problem of scientific language, in the end making philosophy more difficult than science (which is very, very difficult indeed). I can't blame (well, not an AWFUL lot) people for inventing languages, or even engaging in outlandish analogies or metaphorical orgies, in order to convey their ideas better.

Some smart ideas can be stated simply. Not all. Moreover, I think a certain philosophical intuition helps--just like a scientific intuition helps to do science, or mechanical one to repair engines. Positivists (and I am one) break out in hives at words like that, and yet it's nothing more than a mix of experience and giftedness. And where it's lacking, one really does need a guide.

One more thing, again about the Sokal hoax--one of the things that struck me was that those fools lapped up his paper so eagerly BECAUSE it was written by a scientist! I mean, who knows, if it had been sent in by just another "loverofwisdom", maybe they'd have given it a proper once-over... Deliciously ironic.

(1) I never claimed the Butler quotation was really useful, I only claimed it "made sense" in the sense of being "not-blather." Once again, I pointed out that maybe it was important in context, but I'm sure none among us (myself included) really cares about that.

(2) Doug- I'm not sure that people are unreceptive to my arguments. It seems like people have either (a) accepted them or (b) ignored them.

(3) Doug- I am also interested in whether it's MORE USEFUL to put an argument in the way I did as opposed to Butler. I do think that oftentimes the same idea can be expressed in multiple ways- often much easier ways. I do think Butler is at fault for this here. This is a matter of editorial practice, however, and not the essential ridiculousness of the idea (although here the idea is actually rather simple as has been pointed out). I also think you're right to point out that heavy jargon keeps some people out and some people in- but this is a matter of extent and not essence.

(4) Doug- you thinking that, at the end of the road, the set of texts you think of as postmodern being useless is an empty point. You explain that quantum physics is more "real" than cultural criticism. It's not that I don't buy this, I just think this position so unclear that there is no way to get traction on what you mean by it.

(5) LolaWalser- I read your comments on the first thread and you may be surprised (or not) that I agree with you on most things. I think your jabs at pomo are sort of ridiculous, but only because it's vague and a bit guilty of what I termed before as band-wagon-jumping. You do note here, however, that these types of jabs are nonserious and only for kicks, which is fine by me.

Notice also I never have defended the position that the quotations are good for augmenting scientific progress (although I have obviously defended the rationality of a few). As you note and I agree with, Irigaray et al probably are under no illusions that they are changing any opinions of any actual scientists. There are theorists who maybe think this, I know Bruno Latour is a bit close to saying things like this, but I don't think those listed are doing anything more than picking up what they take to be rhetorical features of scientific exposition- particularly Lacan. This is why I think Doug's criticisms are probably best leveled at the more liberally-minded philosophers of science (Kuhn, Feyerabrand, Latour, whatever) rather than any old person with a weird quote to post up.

I think the only thing I would take issue with is the somewhat annoying tone in your third paragraph. This could be because I don't understand whether or not you have misinterpreted me as making a case for the pro-science or anti-science character of the quotations. I say no such things and, while I am maybe not quite as rigid as you in this regard, think you're more or less on the right track in terms of relevancy. All I have said vis-a-vis science and my opinions on it are found in the last paragraph of #20 (also see #29 about Rorty on Derrida). I think you'll find them palatable.

Whoa!!!! Forced Italicization! Didn't work in Ethiopia but here ... Sorry about that!!! I think this is a bug in the system.

DoctorRobert: Te Salud, Sir!

I'm going to stand up for postmodernism ...this is just my own theory, but the biggest problem with the kind of postmodernism being discussed here is a failure of its practitioners to use its principles on their own discourse … what postmodernism boils down to is the recognition that there are an infinite number of variables, often interacting with each other, that help create the “meaning” of all that we say and do.

So the postmodernists look at a Quentin Tarantino film and try to find its “real” meaning, given the entire context in which it was made and seen, and without giving any special consideration to what meaning Tarantino says he was trying to express.

The problem is, the postmodernists don’t seem to recognize they are just as much part of the context as anything else, so there’s no reason to give specific instances of THEIR discourse any special weight either.

Yet that doesn’t make postmodernism worthless ... it can’t provide THE meaning of a movie, but it can help you realize that what you think a particular movie means isn’t necessarily what someone else thinks it means … and if you replace the word “movie” here with something like “terrorism,” you can see how postmodernism has the potential to help understand other people and their actions.

*rolls eyes*

Doug at 43:
And you are wrong about the stem-cell business.

No: I would be wrong (and you would be correct) IF the bill had been, you know, actually about saving embryos. But it wasn't: it was about stopping scientific research.

The GOP is not opposed in principal to IVF because rich people derive benefits from IVF. So they didn't vote to "save embryos"; under their law, the same number of embryos will still be destroyed. No, they voted to hinder scientific research. Note the difference.

Which, of course, caused more harm to American science than any post-modernist ever dreamed of.

(edited to fix a typo)

I think your jabs at pomo are sort of ridiculous, but only because it's vague and a bit guilty of what I termed before as band-wagon-jumping.

(Chipman, if I jabbed at pomo, there'd be nothing vague about it. As it is, I don't mind the animal, for little I've glimpsed of it.

When I was in high school, I had the opportunity to observe an unusually large number of unusually stupid people choose to study psychology. For a long time I thought this meant psychology was a stupid discipline. Turns out those "unusually stupids" simply don't get how difficult it is... :)

Another aside: let's NOT get into Latour! If it hadn't been for some dumb book of his, some eighteen years ago, I might have kept paying attention to the humanist critique of science... how many scientists do you think even care?)

I don't understand whether or not you have misinterpreted me as making a case for the pro-science or anti-science character of the quotations

I think I understood you well, as you did me, concerning both your own attitude and the irrelevance of those quotes to science as such. We could mention the distinction between anti-science and anti-scientific utterances (in general, not just in relation to those quotes), but I think the point is clear enough. (Which brings me to the title of this thread: I don't understand why it's called "Applying" at all...)

Finally, I cannot agree with Bob more: the biggest threat to science comes from the right, from the masses of undereducated bigots stirred by religious crazies and demagogues, not a handful of academic Laputans. Should the street ever burn universities (again), we'll see just who was sitting next to whom in that ivory tower...

Two Comments:

1. The idea that "science"....whatever that is....is being threatened by "the right"....whatever that is.....is a common motif in lots of internet discourse but it's a pretty shallow claim until you start specifying your terms.

I'm pretty sure that, just like what we're broadly calling the postmodernist contingent, there are all sorts of views on the right about numerous different subareas of science.

Just like it makes little sense to say that someone like Derrida was "against" electricity or attempts to cure cancer, it makes little sense to suggest that conservatives are against those things, if that's what we think "science" comes to.

Now, it's certainly true that many conservatives in this country have religiously motivated qualms with evolutionary biology and certain bits of contemporary geology. But this doesn't, in itself make them anti-science and it doesn't mean they are a threat to science.

Even if they succeed in having a unit on intelligent design taught in some backwater high schools that hardly constitutes a threat to science.

Second: Lola, you can't possibly be a positivist, if by your use of that term you mean to associate your self with the Vienna Circle and its associates. The positivists clearly stipulated that the purpose of philosophy was to advance science (though in a quixotic way, as any second order discipline would do). From what I've gathered here, you seem to think philosophy hasn't got any purpose aside from possible literary or aesthetic import. Maybe you're just confused.

Maybe you're just confused.

:)

Maybe you're just a rude git--but let's assume not, for the space of this post. I meant (as I wrote) positivism with a small "p"--the bushy-tailed rationalist inclination/belief in proving theories scientifically (and preferring those that can be so proved). As applied in my sentence, it was meant to signal a distaste for such nebulous notions as "scientific intuition". It's a viewpoint, it doesn't necessarily imply a card-carrying philosophical allegiance to any particular school.

Btw, positivism the philosophical system is somewhat older than the Vienna circle.

But this doesn't, in itself make them anti-science and it doesn't mean they are a threat to science.

This is too preposterous to discuss (at least for me). I'll say this much: I am not American nor do I live in the US, but I, as the majority of my colleagues perceive a big threat in the American creationist movement, not least because it has triggered and is fueling similar movements elsewhere, most recently in Eastern Europe and Russia. For details, please turn to some of the numerous news outposts dealing with this matter...

Recent oversight hearings

...the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group, cited a survey that showed 500 scientists from nine agencies said they had been barred from publishing study results related to climate change.

Ok.....obviously I know about Comte's positive scientific philosophy, but I assumed no one took that seriously in the 21st century, because in its simplest form its either self-refuting or trivial. That is, Comte's view, which I take be the claim that all knowledge is scientific knowledge seems to not be verifiable from within science. So it means that if it's something we can know, it's something we must know using extra-scientific means. Now, if the view isn't a knowledge claim then it's trivial....just some arbitrary guiding principle or practical choice with nothing especial to set it apart from other such principal.

The Vienna Circle folks, when they were at their best, had clever ways of avoiding these sorts of obvious traps, which is why I just assumed you want to line up with Carnap rather than Comte. My bad.

Anyway, I'm very interested to know how you go about proving scientific theories. Here I was thinking that induction had some problems with it and, lo and behold, someone on Librarything has the answer. Please let us in on this.

Finally, I'm still unclear about the purported anti-science stance of conservatives. Sure, there's a bunch of ideologues who reject popular scientific theories for bad reasons, but the same thing certainly happens all the time on the left. Consider the "blank slate" view of human nature or the notion that all sex differences are socially constructed. It's a rare soul who is open minded enough (some might say foolish enough) to accept every contemporary scientific theory all at once without argument.

Lastly, if you're really worried about creationists (I, for one, am not) then you should note that the more nuanced and subtle thinkers in their ranks have adopted the language and arguments of many of the "postmodern" thinkers this thread was originally focused upon. The Kuhnian talk about paradigms is key for this group, and one of their major arguments is that there are simply different standards of evaluation for different social groups with no one standard being better or more unreasonable than any other. The idea here being that, while they often cannot give strong arguments for rejecting evolution, what they can do is (purportedly) show that it's no better off than any other theory, all of which are heavily conditioned by an inherited conceptual scheme. This is the sort of argument that;s supposed to win creationism equal air time in the public schools.

but the same thing certainly happens all the time on the left.

The difference, though, is that the left is out of power. This is actually an important distinction. Their sillier theories are in no danger of being implemented.

I don't know if it is appropriate to interject a little humor at this point, but if anyone does want a chuckle, check out this increasingly popular site: Open Letter to the Kansas School Board.

"Anyway, I'm very interested to know how you go about proving scientific theories"

Formal scientific proof is very very hard, and only occurs in a few cases. It happens when you start from 1+1 =2 and add a few other mathmatical rules until the given theory is proven in all cases where the approximations and assumptions required for the mathmatical rules you've used are valid.

Despite the casual use of the word proof by many people including scientists who should know better, no theory is proven until the maths is solved. Hence any biological theory for example is not provable.

However many theories are considered 'proven' when the results are widely replicable, and no evidence has been found that contradicts the theory.

"This is the sort of argument that;s supposed to win creationism equal air time in the public schools." I agree with your "supposed" but unfortunately it IS winning creationism equal air time and that is worrying.

#54 RAMEN!

Reading_Fox: I was being facetious, but what I was trying to get at via humor was the point you made that people should know better than to causally throw around the words 'proven' and 'proof'.

Proof is only available in mathematics. Notice that even the strongest scientific theories we've got are still just, as you've put it, CONSIDERED proven. But even if we can't conceive of an alternative story or a piece of evidence that would falsify the theory, there's always a POSSIBILITY that some new piece of evidence could emerge and that would require us to revise even our best theories. This is the problem with inductive arguments generally. Since science is built on induction, we learn quickly to stop talking about proof and shift over to talk about probability.

I didn't know there were still Comtean or Machian positivists in this day and age. I thought they died out along with philosophical naivete.

Be that as it may, Mr AtEase has a lot of gall to be lecturing others on philosophy. How dare you condescend! They've taken philosophy in high school too you know. :)

(I kid. Don't kill me.)

Philosophy in high school? What high school is that? And speaking of high schools, my own view is that a bit of controversy in school classes would be a very good thing, especially in science classes, but elsewhere too.

We could have teachers teaching something along these lines:

"Almost all people who have science degrees believe this (insert neo-Darwinism here). But a few believe this: (insert ID here). And some believe this: (insert flat-earth creationism here). You are required to believe the first."

And in history classes we could say: "Most scholars believe that the ancient Egyptians were the ancestors of today's Egyptians. But some people believe that the ancient Egyptians were actually the ancestors of sub SaharanAfricans, and had flying machines and teleportation as well. But even if they did not have flying machines ... in fact, even if they lived in mud huts and consulted witch doctors and were illiterate, their culture was just as good as ours, since a culture is not necessarily intrinsically inferior or superior to another. You are required to believe the latter." (And I think a few postmodernists could be brought into service to justify this.)

Bob: you say that rich people benefit from IVF, so the Republicans did not vote to hinder it, but did vote to hinder science with respect to stem-cell research, (due to their lack of a scientific worldview, presumably). So rich people will not benefit from stem-cell research? Could you explain that a bit further, please?

Stems cells and IVF
briefly!

Embryonic stem cells that are the most useful but cause the most controversy are obtained from 'spare' or 'waste' IVF lines that would be destroyed anyway!
Yet IVF was allowed to go ahead for many reasons, but people didn't understand the science and so blocked the stem cells, thereby saving NO BABIES whatsoever, because they are all destroyed at the end of the IVF process.....

If you object to 'killing' embryos you have to also object to IVF but people don't because they see the benefits.

Hence no-body benefits from stemcell work because it was banned. ... in the US at least.

Just to clarify, MANY DO object to IVF because of the waste, and many refuse to let the 'extras' be disposed of. There is a group doing it's best to 'adopt' out these extras to willing parents to be so they don't get tossed down the drain.

Though I do agree with reading_fox the vast majority haven't a clue about all this one way or the other.

Doug again-
"in fact, even if they lived in mud huts and consulted witch doctors and were illiterate, their culture was just as good as ours, since a culture is not necessarily intrinsically inferior or superior to another"

Ahhh getting razor close to racism- glad to see it! Naturally there are better (read "more just") societies than others, but this is not what you're saying so the criticism sticks. The incidental facts of a culture (e.g. huts or apartments, christian or pagan, literate or illiterate) are not the same as the factors that make one culture better than another (i.e. how just it is- killing people or not killing people, enslaving people or not enslaving people, racist or not racist, suffrage or no, etc).

JTChipman: Racism? That, as I understand it, is the view that one group is superior to another because of its genes, not because of its achievements.

The ancient Greeks were far more advanced than genetically-similar tribes living near them. Nothing to do with race, just with acknowledging that being able to read and write is better than being illiterate.

The idea that human societies progressed, or evolved, and that societies which could build pyramids and calculate when the next eclipse was due were more advanced than those which could not, and that societies which could put a man on the moon were more advanced still, was the common property of Left and Right prior to the degeneration of the Left after the 1960s.

As for "justice": in the broad sweep of history, the more technically advanced a society was, the more it regulated itself by laws, than simply by the rule of the strongest, and the more chance "justice" had to be established.

Of course, the 20th Century, with its plague of Fascist and Communist societies, proved that a simplistic understanding of the connection between technological achievements and social advance was wrong.

Just out of interest: does anyone know if (some, all) postmodernists think that it is okay to teach Black children that the ancient Egyptians were actually Africans who flew around in flying saucers? Or shouldn't they be taught the truth, along with all other children?

youre right- since, though everyone knows that the genetics of african americans is only inconsequentially different than anglo americans, the fact that blacks still outpace their white counterparts in imprisonment a few times over isnt racism because we know it isnt about genetics (maybe "thats just how they are"- right doug?). all those chumps over at MIT all know this genetic information too, but they still refuse tenure to african american professors because theyre african american (but it isnt racism because they know about genetics). don imus also presumably knows about genetics, but still didn't mind deploying what i think we all can admit are racist epithets. sorry i dont buy that cultures that are literate are better than illiterate cultures. literacy is useful for some things and not for others. some of the things it is useful for help us quite a bit in various ways- that's great, but it doesn't make us (presumably those reading this) better in an essential kind of way. i dont really understand your point about facism and communism- it seems to reinforce what im saying (i.e. "a simplistic understanding of the connection between technological achievments /apartments vs huts, literacy vs illiteracy, etc/ and social advance /justice/ was wrong"). stop refering to "postmodernism" as though anyone would defend such a position. the term is too vague to be useful for anything but your attempts at building a straw man. lastly, give us a source for your egyptians flying saucers thing. i doubt anyone has any idea what the fuck youre talking about.

i hope to god that "1943" doesnt represent your year of birth.

"all those chumps over at MIT all know this genetic information too, but they still refuse tenure to african american professors because theyre african american"

Do you know this? Or are you just making unsupported allegations?

If you're talking about the hilarious Sherley case (hunger strike if denied tenure!), then let's hear the evidence. Believe it or not, denial of tenure happens all the time. Sherley is bonkers if he thinks that a hunger strike is an appropriate response to losing tenure. If anything it confirms that he was rightly denied!

Btw (irony) - Sherley opposes embryonic stem cell research. Maybe his 'anti-science' research stance was the REAL reason tenure was denied. But wait, that doesn't quite square with the racism victim angle. Clearly this stem cell luddite needs to be made to toe the line.

Get the pitchforks out now, we're changing narrative.

Frank Douglas also just quit due to what he perceived to be racism particularly in the "hilarious" Sherley case (why hilarious?). Find some other extraneous justification for Douglas and I'll give you a point, and don't say "ohh he is nuts too," or "he is oversensitve too." Believe it or not some population segments have, at various points in history, been compelled to go to extreme measures like hunger strikes, among other things, to highlight unfair treatment. I'm guessing you're not among such segments? Here is a link to the Center Douglas headed:

http://web.mit.edu/cbi/

Also note Cornell West (just another angry, oversensitive black man) left Harvard for similar reasons. I'm fairly sure that you know I could come up with a rather large list of cases of suspected racism in academic hiring practices in the last 25-50 years. It's so easy thinking of this as an isolated incident and that blacks are just hypersensitive. If you have the guts to come out and say such a position publicly- go ahead. Skepticism is pretty easy to come by.

This was only one part of three examples of racism that are not explicitly directed at individual's genetic heritage. I also want reasons from enthymeme for why a) rates of black imprisonment outpace rates of white imprisonment if we, as a society, are so far beyond belief in substantial genetic difference and b) why racist comments are still made in a time when we know genetic differences between "races" are inconsequential. This is after, of course, the above examples from racist academic attitudes are explained to me. The point about racism is also, of course, only a part of my larger point that the ethnocentrism displayed by doug easily slips into a tacit acceptance of racist attitudes (though ethnocentrism in the case of justice might be argued for).

Don't patronize me with your "unsupported allegations" comment. Where is this flood of evidence about the denial of tenure being due to his stance on stem cells?

Enthymeme: I make my (meager) living lecturing others on philosophy. Just think, what you're getting for free some other poor soul is paying for!

Anyway, I think the discussion between Doug and JT is interesting but maybe should have a thread of its own since in many ways its a pretty radical departure from whateverthehell this thread is supposed to be about at this point.

I don't think a thread on the (purported) institutional racism in the academy is outside the scope of this group since a large number of members have at least a toe dipping in the pool academia.

Well we're well off topic anyway so I thought I'd interject some more comments about a 'better' culture.

Surely the only two true measures of 'betterness' of any culture are:
a) how sucessful it is, ie how many people belong to it
b) how resilient it is - ie over how long a timescale (through how many upheavals) is it still relevant.

On both counts I think it is clear that the Chinese culture is currently the 'best' in the world. We'll see in a few decades once GlobalWarming/water wars have been resolved if that is still the case.

JTChipman: I've got to rush off and work, so I won't be able to discuss your interesting post for a day or so. In the meantime, could you clarify your position for me so I am not responding to something you do not in fact believe?

(1) Many more men are in prison than women are. Sexism at some level may play a role in this: juries are probably more inclined to be sympathetic to women, policemen automatically assume the perpetrators of violent crime are likely to be men, etc.

Regardless of the extent to which this is true, do you believe that the main reason for the gross disparity in men being imprisoned is sexism, either directly or indirectly? (By "indirect sexism" I mean men being conditioned towards violence by society.)

(2) Do you admit the possibility that a Black person may be denied tenure, or not hired in the first place, because of non-racist reasons? That is, he just wasn't good enough in this particular case?

(3) I suspect you believe in racial quotas for the admission of students to universities. Do you believe in racial quotas for the hiring of teaching staff?

(4) Would you be willing to hire a professor who believed that some ethnic groups may be genetically superior to others with respect to some aspects of intelligence, if he was qualified on all other grounds?

(5) Do you thnk that it is okay to teach Black children that the ancient Egyptians were actually Africans who flew around in flying saucers? Or shouldn't they be taught the truth, along with all other children?

I will not respond to your questions because NLAE has a point about relevancy for this thread at #66 and I detect you're in bad faith, Doug, due to your inclusion of the postmodern essay generator script and constant inclusion of the egyptian flying saucer thing (as though my rejection of such an absurd idea would automatically proves something about the truth whatever the hell you mean by using that word). This argument tactic is the same as "who even believes in such a patently absurd idea as this irigaray quotation"- a point which, if I recall, you abandoned after we actually started quizzing you on what you meant. Also I dislike rehearsing positions that have been introduced into the conversation on arbitrary grounds- that is, because you want to "better understand my position." Give me some better reasons for why my positions on these issues matter or respond to my above difficulties.

67- I think you're probably right in terms of evolutionary fitness. I hadn't even considered that as a criteria but you're right to bring it up. I still do think, though, that more just societies are better societies, but that's a bit of a tougher argument to put forward than yours. I think it does avoid the loophole with the global warming problem in China, though (because mine gets into ethics and all this).

Jtchipman: Well, of course everyone will draw their own conclusions as to your reasons for not wanting to respond, but just to make it crystal-clear:

Are you refusing to respond because this debate should be in another thread? That's reasonable, so let's transfer it to another thread.

Are you refusing to respond because rejecting the absurd ideas that the Postmodern, pardon me, Portland School Board and others put into their curriculum would imply that you believe that there is some univocal concept of the truth? I don't see how that follows: you could just say, "No, I believe Black children should not be taught absurd lies about Black history, but that does not mean there is a univocal concept of the truth. For example ..." and then you could explain what a univocal concept of the truth is, and why it is wrong. Why not do that?

For the life of me, I cannot see that laughing at the ridiculous Irigaray quotation, which I assume we all thought was hilarious in the extreme, needed any further explanation. We all agree it is deeply silly, what more is there to say?

Anyway, let us continue this discussion elsewhere. Perhaps in the Group called "Outside" which was designed for just such a purpose.

I would really like to know if you think more men are in prison than women because of sexism, or if Blacks should be hired into faculty positions on the basis of racial quotas, or if it is even theoretically possible that a Black person rejected for a job could be rejected on legitimate grounds, or if someone who believes that one ethnic group is probably superior in intelligence to another because of their genes should be allowed to teach in higher education.

You in turn can put whatever questions you want to me, and I promise that I will answer them to the best of my ability.

I have the opinion that in the modern American Academy, a univocal concept of the truth prevails, and makes such discussions as we could have rather rare.

But perhaps I am wrong, and you have been exposed to ideas such as mine and can easily refute them. Let's see, shall we?

"Or shouldn't they be taught the truth, along with all other children?"

What truth? Where does this "the" come from? Do you mean we should teach children what the best (i.e. have the most reasons for) historical evidence? Well fucking obviously! Obviously children shouldn't be taught that there are alien spacecraft, jesus, mohammed, or a flying spaghetti monster that fit into the historical facts in a supernatural kind of way (because there are fewer reasons to think these things). What I refuse to respond to is a loaded question- where if I say "well no we shouldn't teach our children that" I am immediately disagreeing with the so-called "postmodernism" of the portland school board. I have reiterated over and over again how fucking sloppily you use that word but you continue to do so. Throughout this thread you will notice my main insistence is that REASONS be given the loudest voice. With historical facts we want to provide our students with those facts with the most reasons behind them. Maybe it just boggles your mind so much that someone who is actually sympathetic to the quotations you list can be simultaneously such a fan of rationality that you can't stop trying to root out some (fictitious) inchoate love of the irrational in my thinking. The only one who ended up in your court about Irigaray was enthymeme but s/he also didn't provide any evidence for ejecting it from the realm of the reasonable other than "it's just SO ridiculous." 1) blacks can be rejected from tenure on non-racial grounds- see my above examples of Douglas and West to back up why this instance leads me to think it was racially-based 2) yes more men than women commit violent crimes due to sexist culture practice. 3) the original point (that will probably be once again ignored) was that racism does not depend solely on genetic material.

Answer this one question in good faith- "Will you please explain to all of us how the quotations from above fit into a coherent whole that you dub 'postmodernism' in a way that squares with an actual (read there are a set of reasons for) set of texts?"

"Perceived". Is that supposed to be evidence?

Frank Douglas quitting out of solidarity with Sherley is not "evidence" of anything except the strength of his convictions or his friendship with Sherley.

It's easy to play the race card. Not so easy to back it up.

As for Cornel West, what has he got to do with Sherley's tenure? He had a personality clash with Lawrence Summers and contrived to turn it into a full-scale race riot. Pretty funny, but it has nothing to do with MIT or the Sherley case.

Nor did I say that Sherley was denied tenure because of his opposition to embryonic stem cell research. I said MAYBE he was, raising it as a fun hypothetical in this thread. Quite topical too if you consider the thread title.

You on the other hand have categorically asserted that Sherley was passed over for tenure because of racism. Again, evidence?

I'm sorry if you think asking you to back up what you say is "patronizing". Perhaps I'll take that to mean "no evidence is forthcoming" . . .

Jtchipman: Thanks for your response. It clears a lot of things up.

I take it we both agree that men vastly outnumber women in prison because men commit vastly more violent crimes than women, and that the same logic applies to the Black/White disparity.

I take it you then also believe that criminal behavior is a function of "culture practice", which I would suppose also applies to white lynch mobs in the old South?

"Culture practice" is not a term with which I am familiar. What does it mean?

Does it have implications for our criminal justice policy, or other social policy?

Because acknowledging that social conditions, or culture, influences behavior is one thing -- but claiming that some sort of systematic injustice is responsible for the great disparity of males (or Blacks) in prison is another. I don't think the second follows from the first. (And it does not, of course, follow that any sort of "racism" is necessarly the particular cultural practice that makes the Black crime rate so high. This may be true, but it then has to be demonstrated.)

I don't mean to dodge your other points. On the particular tenure question you mentioned: In the first place, I found it hard to actually follow your argument as you first raised it. You may have been entering it in haste, of course. You said:

"youre right- since, though everyone knows that the genetics of african americans is only inconsequentially different than anglo americans, the fact that blacks still outpace their white counterparts in imprisonment a few times over isnt racism because we know it isnt about genetics (maybe "thats just how they are"- right doug?). all those chumps over at MIT all know this genetic information too, but they still refuse tenure to african american professors because theyre african american (but it isnt racism because they know about genetics)."

In the first place, "consequential" genetic differences among ethnic groups, which may seriously influence their behavior (such as on IQ tests, or with respect to law-breaking), is something I am agnostic on. It may be true, it may not. We have to wait and see what the science reveals. Certainly there are well-respected academics who believe that one ethnic group can be genetically superior to another with respect to intelligence. Maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong. It's just a quesiton of empirical fact. We must wait and see.

In the second place, racial prejudice can certainly exist even if the only differences in genetics among racial groups are superficial ones. These prejudices can exist for a variety of reasons, but should play no role in tenure decisions. If the man you refer to would have gotten tenure if he had been white, but was refused it because he was Black (in fact, if not explicitly), then a serious injustice has been committed.

So, I take it you are saying: this man should have gotten tenure, and the only reason he didn't is racial prejudice.

I don't know anything about the case, but will try to find out. My own "prejudice" here is that it is very unlikely that an injustice has been committed, but perhaps I am wrong. I will tell you my considered opinion later.

On literacy vs illiteracy. Let me phrase it this way, and perhaps we can agree: literacy is better than illiteracy, everything else being equal.

And the things that come along in a culture that has developed literacy are better, too -- I am just using literacy as a marker for progress up the ladder of social development. Things like improved medical care and longer life span and the emancipation of women and the abolition of slavery and the beginnings of our mental emancipation from superstition. (Perhaps I should make it clear that there is no moral judgement implied on individuals who live in backward, primtive societies. If someone is born in a culture where raiding the next village, killing the men and raping the women is the norm, they are not to be blamed for this.)

So, yes. More advanced societies have the capacity to give us a better quality of life, which includes "justice".

You wanted a reference for the "flying saucers" business. I apologize for assuming this was common knowledge, but it obviously is not. (It's actually "gliders" but the author also claims the Egpytians had psi powers, psychokinesis, etc.)

The sorry tale is summarized here. The idiots on the Portland School Board who authorized the whole thing describe their project here. You can read the actual insane document here .

It is tempting to say that a post-modernist attitude to truth helped these so-called educators to destroy any chance of developing the scientific world-view among minority youth.

You also say "i hope to god that "1943" doesnt represent your year of birth." Why do you hope that? What difference would that make? Is it an unlucky year?

Now you also want me to say why all the quotes I exhibited display are the views of "postmodernists". Is that actually in dispute? I just assumed it was obvious. But perhaps I am wrong. I would be delighted to hear that the people I quoted at the start of this thread represent some other school of thought, or none at all. Is this so? (I actually don't care whether or not they are this that or the other thing. The quoted statements are silly. Full stop.)

It is hard for me to understand why you don't think that the Irigaray quote is obviously utterly ridiculous. Here it is again for those who are arriving late in this discussion:

"Is e=mc2 a sexed equation?...Perhaps it is. Let us make the hypothesis that it is insofar as it privileges the speed of light over other speeds that are vitally necessary to us. What seems to me to indicate the possible sexed nature of the equation is not directly its uses by nuclear weapons, rather it is having privileged what goes the fastest..." Luce Irigaray

Are you saying that it is plausible, and that therefore I must do more than just laugh at it, and also at the people who solemnly read this sort of thing and nod their heads and think, "Wow, what a profound thinker."?

I will confess that to try to explain to someone why the concept that Einstein's famous equation is "sexed" is absurd, if they do not immediately see this, is not an appealling one. It arouses in me the exact same feeling I get when someone challenges me to prove that the earth is far older than 6000 years. I know in my heart that nothing that I can say will penetrate.

Nonetheless, I shall try. But first I must ask you, what you would count as evidence for my view? What kind of argument are you expecting to hear?

If someone claims that state ownership and control of the economy will result in a better situation for ordinary people than the current arrangement, I know the lines upon which we need to argue. I can envision the kind of evidence that would count for, and against, this claim. Because it is not obviously wrong on the face of it.

Or, if someone says that research in economics is biassed towards a competitive male viewpoint, I can imagine, in theory at least, the kind of evidence they should be asked to present for this view. It is not obviously absurd, on the face of it, and is worth discussing.

But it is hard for me to think of what more I can do to discredit the Irigaray quote, than just to quote it again.

As for a general discussion on post-modernism, assuming that there is such a thing, let us agree to find one we agree on -- in Wikipedia maybe? -- and then we can discuss it.

You are obviously far more knowledgeable on this subject than I am, so why don't you present us with a link to a good exposition of it, by a partisan, and then we can discuss it.

Solely because I love to be Devil's Advocate when I can, some grounds upon which "the Irigaray quotation" may not be as silly as it first sounds.

I think we need ot look at the word "sexed" in the context of the quote - it seems to be given a special meaning* here, nothing to do with sexuality or human gender. The hypothesis is that this is a special equation because it divides the properties into 2 sides/genders/sexes. Very strange way of saying it, but thre you go. Hence the conclusion is that c the speed of light is on one side, and the other terms the other. The reason given for dividing it in this way is that c becomes an absolute value of maxiumum speed, whereas the other variables are free to take on any value.
This is an important point in a lot of physics.

I've absolutely no idea what the nuclear weapons reference is based on, other than the equation itself is used in working out yield in nuclear reactions.

Did that make any sense to anyone at all? It would maybe help if we had the rest of the chapter to find out where she was going with it?

I'm still not convinced that it isn't just fundamentally silly, and I'm not conviniced in a world with a finite amount of time for reading that there are not a lot of better ways to spend it (a nuclear physics textbook fro example) - but it is consivable she has a point.

* see some rather odd posts above for the validy of giving ordinary words specal meanings.

#69 - I would like to believe just societies are better ones, but that requires defining 'just' from an absolute reference that doesn't priviledge our society because its the one we live in. This is hard to do.

Fox:nice try. But then are not all equations "sexed"? On this account are not all subject/predicate relations "sexed"? What have we added to human knowledge here?

This whole debate has got me interested in this "postmodernism" stuff. I would dearly love for someone to point to a single clearly-written book which expounds it. Let me know if you come across such a thing. I have a couple of books which attack it, both written by Marxists or ex-Marxists, which I have not yet really read, but of course to be fair I should read something written by a defender -- assuming that there are any who are capable of writing a sequence of clear sentences.

On primitive vs advanced societies: I think "just" is a loaded word, and we should say that advanced societies can give their inhabitants a better quality of life, starting with length of life. But the real issue is much more fundamental: primitive societies believe loads of nonsense about the physical and biological world, and advanced societies have rejected this and are starting to understand how things really work. It's a question of human dignity.

Of course, other things related to "justice" are relevant: contrast the tolerance of the USA today, its justice for all, the wonderful opportunities it offers to everyone regardless of race, with the poverty, oppression, and murderous racism you find endemic in the Third World.

I agree with reading_fox about the Irigaray quote. In fact, I thought this was one of the very, very few that might have some validity, but I think it might for different reasons.

As we learn more about men and women we learn that in some very fundamental ways they perceive the world differently. Men are much better at folding boxes in their minds than women. Men are more likely than women to have more keenly developed spatial perception. Considering the way Einstein tells his story of the genesis of special relativity his major insight came while thinking about the spatial relationship of an observer and an object moving in relation to the observer. This is a way of opening the door to special relativity and the speed of light. A woman may have come to the speed of light through this method, but it is highly unlikely. Especially in 1905 when you could count on the fingers of both hands the number of women who could even understand the problem, much less arrive at a solution. At some point a woman may come up with an alternate solution to predicting the speed of light, but I suspect that train has left the station.

I do think Irigaray missed this angle, also. Mostly because many people are reluctant to assign any human differences to genetics. Of course, this is BS. If humans are somehow innately different then a lot of liberal shibboleths crumble. But by the same token Conservatives like Doug1943 have to be careful in discerning what constitutes a "better" civilization or culture. Is it possible that the Bushman culture in Africa may be better for them than ours would be? If one looks at how successful western civilization has been in Africa one might conclude that it is.

I'm prepared, Lay on MacDuff.

Whoa, Geneg -- you are a brave fellow. I don't want to be anywhere near your foxhole for a while. (Is that Larry Summers' body lying over there?)

If you need some small-arms defensive ammunition: you can check out these folks . For heavier stuff, go here .

"We're back to women's lack of commitment and brainpower." (From the Larry Summer's link above).

I didn't say anything about a lack of brainpower, I said they are likely to perceive the world differently. My statement has nothing to do with intelligence at all. To follow Doug1943 briefly, I would say the best societies, on the whole, are the societies that allow their women to develop themselves to their fullest capabilities, some of which are beyond the ken of men, just as their men are allowed to develop. Men and women have many of the same capabilities. Where they differ, I dare to say, their abilities complement one another.

Turning women into baby bearing chattel is the surest way to ensure your society is a failure. Even in stone age cultures women are not treated this way. This mode of thinking about women only comes with "civilization".

BTW, I thought the whole Larry Summers thing was a setback to true education.

Once again, many people's lives are vested in our being blank slates at birth. Especially people in academe. To think this position advances liberalism is a grave mistake, just as anyone who buries their head in the sand is making a grave mistake. It does no one any good to advance someone simply to fill the ranks with the right kind of person, whatever that might be, just as it is harmful to the overall project of meritocracy to deny someone advancement because they are not the right kind of person. If we are going to proclaim ourselves a meritocracy, then we should act like one. However, this raises a whole different set of issues regarding whether a meritocracy is the best way to go.

Here's a classic test of this theory:

Pick a destination requiring several turns to get to.
Ask your wife or husband to write down directions to that location. You do the same. Compare directions.

Another test: ask your spouse to tell you what direction you are traveling without recourse to a compass or a map. This one works best when the sun is not visible.

These tests work better if you and your spouse are of different sexes.

Im sure some here will love this...

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000024.html

By directing us to an interesting site that criticizes his own side, JTChipman has taken the high ground and shamed all the rest of us.

"And even the ranks of Tuscany could scarce forebear to cheer."

Now I believe it is incumbent upon us scoffers and mockers to imitate his generous gesture and find a good pro-PoMo site that will interest him. I'm tolerably ignorant in this field -- can anyone else do the honors?

If you read carefully it turns out to be a qualified criticism which I had HOPED would chasten you a bit.

Friends, I think this exchange has been a powerful example of the social construction of meaning.

Reading_fox:

The hypothesis is that this is a special equation because it divides the properties into 2 sides/genders/sexes.

No. If you read the quotation again, you'll see that Irigaray calls it "sexed" because it "privileges" the "fastest" speed over "other kinds of speed".

("Is e=mc2 a sexed equation?...Perhaps it is. Let us make the hypothesis that it is insofar as it privileges the speed of light over other speeds that are vitally necessary to us. What seems to me to indicate the possible sexed nature of the equation is not directly its uses by nuclear weapons, rather it is having privileged what goes the fastest...")

The quotation isn't much to go on, and I'm not tempted to read more of her, but I'll hasard a guess that her POV involves equating "fastest" etc.--all the signifiers of "bestest" and "mostest" probably--with the male gender, and those "other", "unprivileged" kinds of speeds (presumably... slower?) with the female gender. (Not that SHE thinks this, the larger framework is probably her criticism of this common bias.)

So the way Einstein "sexed" the equation is by ignoring all these "other" kinds of speed and enshrining the fastest, "male" kind. Actually, it doesn't matter whether "fastest" is taken to be male or female--just the idea of "sexing" a physico-mathematical property is silly enough. Never mind the math, the meaning of the symbols, the reason that speed of light and mass figure in the equation etc. As far as science is concerned, it's pure nonsense.

Of course, I could be wrong in my interpretation. Frankly, I'd as soon square circles as parse this crap, pardon me, "crap". As I said, I am not excluding the possibility that it tells something useful to someone somewhere--only not to scientists, within scientific discourse.

I think this exchange has been a powerful example of the social construction of meaning.

Well noted! :)

ETA: quote