At around 5/2/06 5:25 pm, Michael Perelman wrote:
> I find much POMO work overly pretentious and even worse,
> uninteresting...
>
Me too. Also a lot of science (in particular biology) and even some
mathematics. But worse: I find the ongoing shoot more and more rockets
into space stuff not only uninteresting (and pretentious in a different
sense) but actually harmful in terms of the public monies that are
wasted (The latter must be just my opinion I suspect, since nobody is
playing any pranks on NASA). The same goes for various theories in
psychology (pretentious, uninteresting, and harmful) and in programmes
like the strong-AI of the mid-80s to early-90s.
> Had it been an "in house" joke, it would be served a useful purpose.
> It should've been obvious to anyone that this prank would be used to
> denigrate academia and particularly the left.
The above is one of the significant points when analysing the Sokal
prank, and it substantiates the suspicion that this is not about
rescuing truth or the left, but is part turf war and part alpha
supremacy battle. As Ian Hacking writes:
=> [L]ong before the so-called 'science wars' Nature published an
=> article with a rogues' gallery of four photographs: of Popper, Kuhn,
=> Lakatos and Feyerabend. The article blamed Mrs Thatcher's decision to
=> abolish fundamental science in Britain - and public acquiescence in
=> this outrage - on the vicious philosophy of science propagated by
=> these four. Popper preached refutation, Kuhn urged the necessity of
=> scientific revolutions, Lakatos taught that all science wallows in a
=> sea of anomalies, and Feyerabend favoured anarchy, all of which was
=> bad for the masses, who should, the Nature article implied, admire
=> science and abjure critical thinking.
--ravi
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