"Casey O'Donnell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > So in part the editors of Social Text explained that they were trying > to bring scientists into their conversation. Unfortunately at that > moment Alan had the bright idea of playing a hoax, rather than really > attempting to engage with science studies.
One wonders why they didn't notice the hoax. In any case, the explanation reminds me of the explanation Jim Cramer has given of why he told someone on the air not to sell their Bear Stearns stock mere days before the company went belly up. (His claim is that what he was *really* saying was that accounts at Bear Stearns were safe.) > The point that, "Reflections on an Intellectual Life That Came and > Went in 15 Minutes," makes is that Alan never chose to engage with > science studies. Instead he chose to be a critic. Not to approach > science studies critically, or physics critically. Scientists approach science critically every day. Entire paradigms of science get tossed out the window at periodic intervals -- see, for example, the destruction of the notion of simultaneity at the hands of relativity, or the destruction of deterministic behavior at the hands of quantum theory. Right now there is a big debate in physics about whether string theory is a worthwhile study or has just become hip dogma. That's an actual critical discussion. However, the way scientists approach their critical treatment of science is rather different from the way the various "X studies" groups in the humanities treat it. They demand rigor, for example. Worse still, they demand content, reason, and clear exposition. Worst of all, they demand evidence and verification. Here is my acid test: there are plenty of "science studies" people who claim that there is no actual truth, that science is just a social construct. Who among them will demonstrate the courage of their convictions by shooting up with an HIV contaminated needle to demonstrate that there is no reality underlying the idea that the HIV virus is deadly? Jenner demonstrated the courage of his convictions, after all, by vaccinating his own son. Who among the critics will demonstrate the courage of their convictions by forgoing antibiotics the next time they get a bacterial infection, bacteria being, doubtless, a "social construct"? Most importantly, when will one of them walk out a window and hover before us, demonstrating that gravitation is a mere social construct? Perry
