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Title: A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodernist Myths About Science by Noretta Koertge ISBN: 0-19-511726-3 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.75 (8 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: Why all this claptrap against postmodernism?
Comment: Above all, postmodernism worships the god of the free market. Right wingers should be happy.
Rating: 2
Summary: interesting but Misguided
Comment: Noretta Koertge is somewhat engaging but fails to make a strong case. Too many people seem to form knee-jerk opinions about these issues, which only leads to misunderstandings by both sides of the debate.
Ian Hacking's The Social construction of what? and Michael Ruse's Is Evolution a social construction?, treat the issues with honesty and fairness. Both these men have a firm background in science as well as philosophy.
So rather than snorting and sneering about the perceived attack on science and reason, readers would be well advised to look into the so called " science wars" a little more deeply.
Rating: 5
Summary: Counterstrike from the besieged
Comment: Noretta Koertge deserves the highest praise for assembling this group of essays. Anyone feeling the "postmodernist" assault on literature or philosophy has deteriorated will learn that science remains besieged by the cult of "cultural relativism". Each author provides a counterstrike against selected issues the "pomos" have launched to discredit science and/or scientists. In brief, postmodern attacks on science are uniformly devoid of understanding how science works. The critics of science distort history, fabricate or selectively edit texts and create meaningless issues. The collection illuminates these practices, exposing a wealth of poor scholarship and specious reasoning.
The writing quality in these selections is uniformly good, although some topics may prove difficult for readers unfamiliar with the material. "Superstring" theory, for example, is perhaps the most arcane topic in physics, but Norman Levitt underscores its importance in a finely developed essay on the future of science. Difficult subjects may cause some readers to avoid delving into this collection as being too remote. Never fear - this anthology has urgent value for you. To best understand why, you should read this series starting near the back. Koertge's essay on the impact of postmodernism on education is more than a little frightening. Koertge labels the application of "pomo" on education as "Civilian Casualties", amply demonstrating why this book should receive wide readership. She clearly demonstrates how far ideology attempts, and to some extent succeeds, in distorting the teaching of many fields such as mathematics.
While the essays cover a wide spectrum of topics, a recurring theme is the impact of "feminist" writers. Feminist attacks on science hinge on the dominant role men have played in science in the past. Instead of simply calling for more women to enter research fields, feminist ideologues blitz the entire scientific programme. Koertge and the others here demonstrate that science and mathematics teaching is being politicised. "Feminist science", whatever that is, aims to revise fundamentally how science is done. These essays confirm that ambition is misleading and destructive. Yet, as the collection clearly shows, this objective has permeated North American education and media. "Ethnoscience", a derivative of the feminist ideology and purporting to supplant empirical science methods, is in ascendancy here and elsewhere. Koertge and her colleagues examine and repudiate the underlying concepts of this movement. A telling essay by Meera Nanda shows how postmodernist ideology has invaded the Third World in fomenting bad science in the name of ultra-nationalism and against a perceived "neo-colonialism" from the West. Proponents of "Islamic Science" have openly adopted Western feminist writers in their tactics.
This book is a campaign document, but shouldn't be faulted for that. It is, after all, responding to a crusade eroding three centuries of effort by dedicated researchers and thinkers. Science is fundamental to our daily living, something its transparency leads us to forget. These authors restore the respect science deserves. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
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Title: Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science by Alan D. Sokal, Jean Bricmont, Alan Sokal, J. Bricmont ISBN: 0312204078 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 01 October, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels With Science by Paul R. Gross, Norman Levitt, N. Levitt ISBN: 0801857074 Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press Pub. Date: 01 December, 1997 List Price(USD): $20.95 |
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Title: The Sokal Hoax: The Sham That Shook the Academy by The Editors of Lingua Franca, Lingua Franca ISBN: 0803279957 Publisher: University of Nebraska Press Pub. Date: September, 2000 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: The Flight from Science and Reason by Paul R. Gross, Norman Levitt, Martin W. Lewis, N. Levitt ISBN: 0801856760 Publisher: New York Academy of Sciences Pub. Date: 01 April, 1997 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Facing Up: Science and Its Cultural Adversaries by Steven Weinberg ISBN: 0674011201 Publisher: Harvard University Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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