[MD] Science Wars

[MarshaV]

Greetings Ham,

Are the things Science tell us Truth or just useful truth?  Is 
Evolution the Truth?  Is Quantum Theory and the Special Theory of 
Relativity the Truth?   Science is funded by corporate and political 
interests.  Is Gobal Warming the Truth?  Science creates machines to 
test their hypothesis that have a built-in bias.  Science expects the 
public to accepts TiTs that are beyond experience.  The history of 
scientific theories is one of displacement.  According to some in 
this forum, Scientistic pronouncements should be considered beyond 
question much like a new religion.

I had not heard of the 90's Science Wars until a few weeks ago, and 
can think of nothing more important to consider from a MOQ 
point-of-view.   Well, that is imho.


Marsha


At 02:34 AM 4/16/2009, you wrote:

>Marsha, Willblake2 --
>
>
>What's all this about Science Wars in the 1990s?
>
>Science and religion have always been in conflict ideologically, and 
>I could see how the Scopes trial of 1925 might be regarded as the 
>opening skirmish in the "battle" between the Darwinians and the 
>Creationists.  But science wars in the 1990s in which, Marsha (the 
>sophist) conjectures, "RMP led the attack against Science"...?
>
>To see what I'd missed in the last decade, I checked Wikipedia 
>(which seemed to be the only reference), and learned that the 
>cultural journal 'Social Text' was the first to use the term in May 
>1996 when it ran a "Science Wars" issue with essays contributed by 
>controversial writers in the social sciences and humanities.  Among 
>the contributors was Alan Sokal, who submitted a paper purporting to 
>argue that quantum physics supported postmodernist criticism of 
>scientific objectivity.  Sokal, a physicist, later confessed it was 
>a "...hoax 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".  The incident 
>became known as "the Sokal Affair".
>
>In a 2001 book titled "Making Social Science Matter", Dr. Bent 
>Flyvbjerg, writes: "However entertaining for bystanders, the 
>mudslinging of the Science Wars is unproductive.  The Wars 
>undoubtedly serve political and ideological purposes in the 
>competition for research funds and in defining what Charles Lindblom 
>and Michel Foucault have called society's 'truth politics.'  Judged 
>by intellectual standards, however, the Science Wars are misguided."
>
>My Google search also revealed that Wikipedia has itself been 
>criticized for promulgating a case for the Science Wars.  Stuart 
>Geiger, a Georgetown U. graduate who has submitted a number of 
>articles to Wiki, notes: "Instead of debating about the efficacy and 
>authority of science, academics are now debating the efficacy and 
>authority of Wikipedia."  He's probably on to something.
>
>Personally, I think the so-called "wars" are overblown if not 
>actually bogus.  Despite the hand-wringing of Nicholas Maxwell and 
>others who would "humanize" the methodology of Science, the 
>empiricists should continue doing what they have done so brilliantly 
>for more than a century, and the philosophers and social scientists 
>should have the wisdom to get off their back.
>
>(That's my opinion anyway.)
>
>--Ham
>
>
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