Science wars

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The Science wars were a series of intellectual battles in the 1990s between "postmodernists" and "realists" (though neither party would likely use the terms to describe themselves) about the nature of scientific theories. In brief, the postmodernists questioned the objectivity of science and encompass a huge variety of critiques on scientific knowledge and method within cultural studies, cultural anthropology, feminist studies, comparative literature, media studies, and science and technology studies. The realists countered that there is such a thing as objective scientific knowledge and accused the postmodernists of having a poor understanding of the subject they were critiquing.

Contents

[edit] Historical background

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Up until the mid-20th century, the philosophy of science had concentrated on the viability of scientific method and knowledge, proposing justifications for the truth of scientific theories and observations and attempting to discover on a philosophical level why science worked (see, for example, Karl Popper). During this time there had also been a number of less orthodox philosophers and scientists who believed that logical models of pure science did not apply to actual scientific practice. It was the publication of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1962, however, which fully opened the study of science to new disciplines by suggesting that the evolution of science was in part sociologically determined and that it did not operate under the simple logical laws put forward by the logical positivist school of philosophy. Kuhn described the development of scientific knowledge not as linear increase in truth and understanding, but as series of periodic revolutions which overturned old scientific order and replaced it with new orders (what he called "paradigms"). Kuhn attributed much of this process to the interactions and strategies of the human participants in science rather than its own innate logical structure. (See sociology of scientific knowledge and Theories and sociology of the history of science).

Some interpreted Kuhn's ideas to mean that scientific theories were, either wholly or in part, social constructs, which many interpreted as diminishing the claim of science to representing objective reality (though many social constructivists do not put forward this claim), and that reality had a lesser or potentially irrelevant role in the formation of scientific theories. A number of different philosophical and historical schools, often lumped together as "postmodernism", began reinterpreting scientific achievements of the past through the lens of the practitioners, often assigning political and economic conditions as formative a role in theory development as scientific observations. Rather than being held up as heroes of knowledge, many scientists of the past were scrutinized for their connection to issues of gender, race, and class. Some more radical philosophers, such as Paul Feyerabend, argued that scientific theories were themselves incoherent and that other forms of knowledge production (such as those used in religion) served the material and spiritual needs of their practitioners with as equal validity as did scientific explanations.

[edit] The Science wars

This apparent attack on the validity of science from the humanities and social sciences worried many people, especially as the language of social construction was appropriated by groups attempting to assert political control over the use of science in society (for example, the Creation-evolution controversy). In 1994, scientists Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt published Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels With Science, an open attack on the postmodernists. According to supporters, the book brought the shortcomings of relativism into sharp focus, claiming that the postmodernists knew little about the scientific theories they discussed and pursued sloppy scholarship for political reasons. According to scholars in science studies (the postmodernists under attack), the book brought into sharp focus the authors' failure to understand the theoretical approaches they criticize and relied on "more caricature, misreading, and condescension than argument."[1] The book received a moderate amount of mainstream attention and became a flashpoint for the science wars.

Higher Superstition also served as the inspiration for a conference hosted by the New York Academy of Sciences called "The Flight from Science and Reason" and organized by Gross, Levitt and Gerald Holton.[2] While some participants were critical of the polemical approach of Gross and Levitt, overall the conference was highly critical of the ways non-scientist intellectuals dealt with science.[3]

[edit] Science wars in Social Text

In 1996, Social Text, a journal of critical theory, compiled a special issue entitled "Science Wars", with brief contributions from many of those in the social sciences and humanities labeled as "postmodernists." A number of articles placed the science wars in the context of the changing role of science in culture, as further evidence of the roles social and political factors play in science. In the introduction, Andrew Ross suggested that the backlash against science studies was a conservative reaction to reduced science funding; he characterized the "Flight from Science and Reason" conference as an attempt at "linking together a host of dangerous threats: scientific creationism, New Age alternatives and cults, astrology, UFO-ism, the radical science movement, postmodernism, and critical science studies, alongside the ready-made historical specters of Aryan-Nazi science and the Soviet error of Lysenkoism" that "degenerated into name calling."[4] Historian Dorothy Nelkin characterized the vigorous response of scientists to Gross & Levitt's call to arms—in contrast to the historical tendency of scientists to avoid involvement in political threats to science such as creation science, the animal rights movement, and attempts by anti-abortionists to end fetal research—as a reaction to the failed marriage between science and the state. With the Cold War over, military funding of science continued to decline while funding agencies were demanding increased accountability for grants and research was increasingly directed by private interests; Nelkin claimed that postmodernist critics were "convenient scapegoats" that diverted attention from problems within science.[5]

Physicist Alan Sokal submitted a paper to the issue in which he purported to argue that quantum physics supports postmodernist criticisms of the objectivity of science. It was published in the journal, and later Sokal revealed it to be a hoax and an experiment to see if the journal editors would "publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions".[6] Its publication, known as the Sokal affair, was simultaneously revealed as a parody in the literary magazine Lingua Franca; this caused an uproar that brought the science wars to the attention of a wide audience of scientists and humanist scholars, and even into the mainstream media.[7]

[edit] Continued conflict

Since the "Science Wars" edition of Social Text, the seriousness and volume of discussion increased significantly, much of it focused on reconciling the "warring" camps of humanists and scientists. One significant event was the "Science and Its Critics" conference in early 1997; it brought together scientists and scholars who study science and featured Alan Sokal and Steve Fuller as keynote speakers. The conference generated the final wave of substantial press coverage (in both news media and scientific journals), though by no means resolved the fundamental issues of social construction and objectivity in science.[8]

Later significant publications related to the science wars include Fashionable Nonsense by Sokal and Jean Bricmont (1998), and The Social Construction of What? by Ian Hacking (1999).

Though the events of the science wars are still occasionally mentioned in mainstream press, they have had little effect on either the scientific community or the community of critical theorists. Both sides continue to maintain that the other does not understand their theories, or misunderstands what are meant to be constructive criticisms or simple scholarly investigations as attacks.[citation needed]

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Flower, Michael J. "Review of Higher Superstition," Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 24, No. 1, 1995, pp 113-114. Similarly dismissive reviews appeared in Isis (Vol. 87, No. 2, 1996), American Anthropologist (Vol. 98, No. 2, 1996), Social Studies of Science (Vol. 26, No. 1, 1996), and other social science and humanities journals, and even the almost purely descriptive review in The Journal of Higher Education (Vol. 66, No. 5, 1995) took a snide tone, suggesting in the final sentence that the book itself is further proof that politics and the epistemology and philosophy are science are inter-related.
  2. ^ Gross, Levitt and another participant later published a book with the same title, based partly on the conference proceedings: Gross, Paul R., Norman Levitt, and Martin W. Lewis. The Flight from Science and Reason. New York: New York Academy of Science, 1997.
  3. ^ Kramer, Jennifer. "Who's Flying - And In What Direction (Coverage of the NYAS Flight from Science and Reason conference)." Accessed May 15, 2006.
  4. ^ Ross, Andrew. "Introduction" Social Text 46/47, Vol. 14, Nos. 1 & 2, 1996), pp 1-13. p 7.
  5. ^ Nelkin, Dorothy. "The Science Wars: Responses to a Marriage Failed." Social Text 46/47, Vol. 14, Nos. 1 & 2, 1996), pp 93-100. p 95.
  6. ^ Sokal, Alan. "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" Social Text 46/47, Vol. 14, Nos. 1 & 2, 1996), pp 217-252.
  7. ^ Sokal, Alan. "A Physicist Experiments with Cultural Studies," Lingua Franca, May/June 1996, pp 62-64.
  8. ^ Baringer, Philip S. "Introduction: 'the science wars'", from After the Science Wars, eds. Keith M. Ashman and Philip S. Baringer. New York: Routlege, 2001. p. 2

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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