Oh teh noes, science fascism!

[Cain]

Sadly yes

http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/swfuller/entry/norman_levitt_rip/

I  believe that Levitt's ultimate claim to fame may rest on his having been as a pioneer of cyber-fascism, whereby a certain well-educated but (for whatever reason) academically disenfranchised group of people have managed to create their own parallel universe of what is right and wrong in matters of science, which is backed up (at least at the moment) by nothing more than a steady stream of invective. Their resentment demands a scapegoat — and 'postmodernists' function as Jews had previously.

But wait, it gets better!

I did not have the Holocaust in mind, since as far as I know Levitt didn't even succeed in exterminating an idea, let alone an entire population. (I may be disrespectful but I'm not crazy!) You may recall that the Nazis scapegoated the Jews for all sorts of problems besetting Germany for nearly 20 years before exterminating them. It's that orchestrated Anti-Semitism that is the basis of my comparison with the treatment of postmodernists, who ever since the end of the Cold War have been scapegoated for every public and policy ill that seems to have befallen the scientific community. I actually think the comparison is very apt.

In short, some postmodernists, ie; Steve Fuller, are still butthurt that they got routed in the science wars and in the manner of bad losers everywhere, comparing the victors to fascists.

[Brotep]

Hahaha.  There is legitimacy in the pomo critique.  It just gets taken too far.

[Kai]

Pomo: SCIENTIFIC THEORIES ARE JUST SOCIAL CONVENTIONS!

Science: Um, no it's not, and heres the evidence.

Pomo: FASCISTS!1

Me: 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Pomo: SCIENTIFIC THEORIES ARE JUST SOCIAL CONVENTIONS!

Science: Um, no it's not, and heres the evidence.

Pomo: FASCISTS!1

Me: 

If you stop laughing for just a minute and listen very closely, you can actually hear the world getting dumber.

[Kai]

There have always been stupid people. These days they just have internet connections.

[Thurnez Isa]

I just masochistically sat through 20 minutes of "Disaster Movie"
I agree with Roger

[Brotep]

Hey, what if you take out the "just" and replace it by "influenced by" in "scientific theories are just social conventions"?

I guess then you'd also have to replace "scientific theories" with "the direction of scientific inquiry"...But hopefully someone sees the point here.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

There have always been stupid people. These days they just have internet connections.

Yes, and stupidity is contagious.  You catch it through your screen.  Care for evidence of this?

[Cain]

Hey, what if you take out the "just" and replace it by "influenced by" in "scientific theories are just social conventions"?

I guess then you'd also have to replace "scientific theories" with "the direction of scientific inquiry"...But hopefully someone sees the point here.

Oh I certainly think the PoMo crowd has a point about the influence of social convention generally, and especially in the humanities, literature, etc.  But with science, there does seem to be a hardcore crowd who are convinced any universal rule is not only pure dogmatism, but also a form of totalitarianism (the tyranny of the factual).  Interestingly, when you actually read some of the PoMo philosophers they are supposedly working from (Foucault and Derrida seem prime suspects in this, sometimes Lacan too), they actually didn't seem to think what these philosophers say they did, and are almost always being misrepresented.

The Anglo-American philosophical establishment has always sucked at putting PoMo into a proper context though.  They either dismiss it entirely, or turn into facile, fanatical acolytes of their idols (prime offender: Yale English Department in the 80s).  Which is why I tend to ignore anyone with an Anglophone name on the subject.

[Kai]

Karl Popper did a good job of covering social influences upon scientific pursuits.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

Hey, what if you take out the "just" and replace it by "influenced by" in "scientific theories are just social conventions"?

I guess then you'd also have to replace "scientific theories" with "the direction of scientific inquiry"...But hopefully someone sees the point here.

Oh I certainly think the PoMo crowd has a point about the influence of social convention generally, and especially in the humanities, literature, etc.  But with science, there does seem to be a hardcore crowd who are convinced any universal rule is not only pure dogmatism, but also a form of totalitarianism (the tyranny of the factual).  Interestingly, when you actually read some of the PoMo philosophers they are supposedly working from (Foucault and Derrida seem prime suspects in this, sometimes Lacan too), they actually didn't seem to think what these philosophers say they did, and are almost always being misrepresented.

The Anglo-American philosophical establishment has always sucked at putting PoMo into a proper context though.  They either dismiss it entirely, or turn into facile, fanatical acolytes of their idols

This.


I'm not sure whose bright idea it was to pit postmodernism against science, though. The overlap should be about as minimal as the overlap between philosophy and history.

[Reginald Ret]

its even worse, parts of history deal with philosophy but there is no science in postmodernism.