Sokal et al

[Henry M]

Who is that author for one of the major mags (was it a science mag) 
that is postulating  that we are witnessing the end of science? Has a 
book out and is making the radio talk-show rounds suggesting that the 
big questions have been answered and that now we are only refining 
and inventing.

Been said before, hasn't it? Oh, yeah, and the novel is dying, also. 
Haven't all the great books already been written?

> From:          "Bill Millard" <millard at cuadmin.cis.columbia.edu>
> Date:          Thu, 5 Dec 1996 15:35:03 EST
> Subject:       RE: Sokal et al

<snip!>

> humility toward their theories' explanatory power?  Science -- not to
> be confused w/ scientism -- continually strives for better answers,
> not The Absolute Objective Right Answer; thoughtful scientists know
> that the process is eternal, that closure ain't an option.  
> 
> Contrast this with the astonishing arrogance of various totalizing
> theorists (everybody will have their own favorite examples here, but
> I'd cite the Lacanians and Freudians as particularly noisome
> occupants of a cloud-cuckoo-land of circular logics and groundless,
> pseudoscientific, ahistorical baffle-gabbing rhetorical strategies)
> who lack the intellectual honesty and humility to subject their own
> discourse to the kinds of real-world corrective processes that are
> SOP in the physical- and biological-science communities.  Is it any
> wonder that Sokal's hoax basically worked, that the real buck-naked
> emperors and authority-mongers turned out to be the likes of Ross?  
> 
> I'd suggest that the Pynchonian binarism of
> Them/Counterforce does NOT map accurately onto the professional
> categories science/non-science.  After all, look at Alan Sokal's
> history of personal political engagement: he's clearly a hard-sci guy,
> and also clearly a member of a counterforce worth the name.
> 
> I'm not so sure that "confidence in explanatory power of theories" is
> such a valuable thing after all; it may be the confidence of a
> confidence man.  Maybe working in a field where hard data can verify
> or disconfirm one's ideas leads to an admirably Pynchonian humility,
> even a more social style of knowledge-construction (ever notice how
> few litcrit writings, compared w/ scientific monographs, are
> collaborations?), and maybe all the leftish posing in the world isn't
> going to make anything truly liberatory out of Ross's brand of cult
> studs.  (Not to give the whole CS discipline a bad name, but his
> performance in l'affaire Sokal didn't exactly do the field any
> favors.)  
> 
> I don't have my _GR_ handy here at this office, but the appropriate
> passage on science 'n' humility (one with some semi-obvious
> applications to CS as it's been developing) would seem to be that
> epigraph from "Tales of the Schwarzkommando" about letting the
> observable data determine one's mental constructs, not the other way
> around.  (Anybody wanna fill me in on chapter & verse here?)
> 
> Strapping on my Kevlar flameproof jacket,
> Bill Millard
> 
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> \ Bill Millard 
> \ millard at cuadmin.cis.columbia.edu
> \ Editor, 21stC, Columbia University
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> 

Keep cool, but care. - TRP
Easier done than said. - HDM

http://www.nicom.com/~gravity