Academic Anti-Science

Academe

Volumn 82, Issue 6, 1996, Pages 38-42

  Levitt, Norman ^a   Gross, Paul R ^b  

^a RUTGERS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0346047327     PISSN: 01902946     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/40251538     Document Type: Review

References (27)

1. Despite its having come into common use, we use the term "science studies" with trepidation, anticipating charges of (as usual) reductionism or conflating disparate positions. Nevertheless, for us as for many in the business, "science studies" is shorthand for trends in sociology, history, and philosophy of science, along with cultural studies of science and feminist science-critique, in which a strong-constructionist view of science prevails, a holding that social prejudices and the like leave a strong impress on, or actually generate, not only the system of scientific institutions and the deployment of technology, but the actual content of scientific knowledge.
2. An interesting example is the experience of Bowdoin College in the 1870s, when its president, J.L. Chamberlin, former governor of Maine and Civil War hero, fought the trustees over his wish to make science a standard part of the curriculum. (See Alice Love Trulock, In the Hands of Providence: Joshua L. Chamberlin and the American Civil War [Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992]).
3. For an account of how anti-realist and anti-scientific thought came to dominate in the new sociology of science, see Stephen Cole, "Voodoo Sociology: Recent Developments in the Sociology of Science." In P.R. Gross, N. Levitt, and M.W. Lewis (eds.), The Flight From Science and Reason. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 775, May 1996.
4. See, e.g., Steven Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory: The Search for the Fundamental Laws of Nature (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993); Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (New York: Random House, 1996).
5. See, e.g., Steven Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory: The Search for the Fundamental Laws of Nature (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993); Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (New York: Random House, 1996).
6. Gerald Holton, Science and Anti-Science (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993); Alan Chalmers, Science and Its Fabrication (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990); Philip Kitcher, The Advancement of Science: Science Without Legend, Objectivity Without Illusions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); M.F. Perutz, "The Pioneer Defended" (review of The Private Science of Louis Pasteur, by Gerald L. Geison), New York Review of Books, December 21, 1995, 54-58.
7. Gerald Holton, Science and Anti-Science (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993); Alan Chalmers, Science and Its Fabrication (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990); Philip Kitcher, The Advancement of Science: Science Without Legend, Objectivity Without Illusions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); M.F. Perutz, "The Pioneer Defended" (review of The Private Science of Louis Pasteur, by Gerald L. Geison), New York Review of Books, December 21, 1995, 54-58.
8. Gerald Holton, Science and Anti-Science (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993); Alan Chalmers, Science and Its Fabrication (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990); Philip Kitcher, The Advancement of Science: Science Without Legend, Objectivity Without Illusions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); M.F. Perutz, "The Pioneer Defended" (review of The Private Science of Louis Pasteur, by Gerald L. Geison), New York Review of Books, December 21, 1995, 54-58.
9. Gerald Holton, Science and Anti-Science (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993); Alan Chalmers, Science and Its Fabrication (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990); Philip Kitcher, The Advancement of Science: Science Without Legend, Objectivity Without Illusions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); M.F. Perutz, "The Pioneer Defended" (review of The Private Science of Louis Pasteur, by Gerald L. Geison), New York Review of Books, December 21, 1995, 54-58.
10. Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch, The Golem: What Everyone Should Know About Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993; Canto Edition, 1994), 145. See also the critical review of this work by Ullica Segerstråle, "Science by Worst Cases," Science 263 (February 11, 1994): 837.
11. Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch, The Golem: What Everyone Should Know About Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993; Canto Edition, 1994), 145. See also the critical review of this work by Ullica Segerstråle, "Science by Worst Cases," Science 263 (February 11, 1994): 837.
12. See also Nobelist Steven Weinberg's bemused reading of Latour on "The Einsteinian Constant" in his letter to the New York Review of Books, October 3, 1996, 55-56.
13. See, e.g., P.R. Gross, "On the 'Gendering' of Science," Academic Questions 5 (2, Spring) 1992: 10-23.
14. H.M. Collins and Steven Yearley, "Epistemological Chicken," in A. Pickering (ed.), Science as Practice and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 301-326. A form of the game, much preferred here in the U.S. to the tamer version explained by Collins, is for two cars (driven by teenagers, of course) to head for each other at full speed. The driver who turns away first loses - is "chicken." The winner is a hero, like the sociologist who has made the wildest denial that science has anything to do with nature.
15. One of us (N.L.), pretty radical by his own lights, would prefer to call it pseudo-radicalism. There are a few science-studies Generals who disdain the "leftist" label. Latour is one. He insists that he is a victim of leftist attack. However, it is inconceivable that Latour's reputation would have grown to such dizzy heights had not hordes of soi-disant leftists embraced his ideas and made them indispensible to a politically radical reconceptualization of science.
16. Andrew Ross, The Chicago Gangster Theory of Life: Nature's Debt to Society (London: Verso, 1994).
17. Phillip E. Johnson, "Mr. Dennett's Dangerous Idea," The New Criterion, October 1995: 9-14; See also Paul R. Gross and Phillip E. Johnson, exchange of letters, The New Criterion, February 1996: 78-80; and Daniel C. Dennett and Phillip E. Johnson, The New Criterion, March 1996: 78-80.
18. Phillip E. Johnson, "Mr. Dennett's Dangerous Idea," The New Criterion, October 1995: 9-14; See also Paul R. Gross and Phillip E. Johnson, exchange of letters, The New Criterion, February 1996: 78-80; and Daniel C. Dennett and Phillip E. Johnson, The New Criterion, March 1996: 78-80.
19. Phillip E. Johnson, "Mr. Dennett's Dangerous Idea," The New Criterion, October 1995: 9-14; See also Paul R. Gross and Phillip E. Johnson, exchange of letters, The New Criterion, February 1996: 78-80; and Daniel C. Dennett and Phillip E. Johnson, The New Criterion, March 1996: 78-80.
20. Vine Deloria, Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact (New York: Scribner, 1995).
21. See Andrew Ross, "Science Backlash on Technoskeptics," The Nation, October 2, 1995, and the subsequent responses of Edward O. Wilson, Norman Levitt, and David G. Whitels, The Nation, November 20, 1995.
22. See Andrew Ross, "Science Backlash on Technoskeptics," The Nation, October 2, 1995, and the subsequent responses of Edward O. Wilson, Norman Levitt, and David G. Whitels, The Nation, November 20, 1995.
23. Zeroing their sights on Gross and Levitt in Social Text are: Andrew Ross, Dorothy Nelkin, and Alan Sokal of New York University; Emily Martin of Princeton; Les Levidow of The Open University; Stanley Aronowitz of the CUNY Graduate Center; George Levine of Rutgers; Langdon Winner of RPI; Sarah Franklin of Lancaster University; and Hilary Rose. Sokal is, of course, a special case: vide infra.
24. For evidence that the condescension is well recognized within science studies, not just by us, see the maifesto by three members in good standing of the trade: Warren Schmaus, Ullica Segerstråle, and Douglas Jesseph, "A Manifesto," Social Epistemology 6 (3), 1992: 243-265.
25. M.F. Perutz, Op. cit.; Gerald L. Geison, The Secret Science of Louis Pasteur (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995); and the exchange of letters between Geison and Perutz in the New York Review of Books, April 4, 1996, 68-69.
26. M.F. Perutz, Op. cit.; Gerald L. Geison, The Secret Science of Louis Pasteur (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995); and the exchange of letters between Geison and Perutz in the New York Review of Books, April 4, 1996, 68-69.
27. M.F. Perutz, Op. cit.; Gerald L. Geison, The Secret Science of Louis Pasteur (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995); and the exchange of letters between Geison and Perutz in the New York Review of Books, April 4, 1996, 68-69.