Sokal et al

[Brett g Porter]

I think you're thinking of John Horgan, from Scientific American, author of
_The End of Science_. You can find a debate on the matter between Horgan
and Stuart Kauffman (of the Santa Fe Institute) in HotWired's "Brain
Tennis" series at:
http://www.hotwired.com/braintennis/96/25/index0a.html

Dig.
BgP

At 04:13 PM 05-12-96 -0500, you wrote:
>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
>> 
>> \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
>> \ Bill Millard 
>> \ millard at cuadmin.cis.columbia.edu
>> \ Editor, 21stC, Columbia University
>> \ http://www.21stC.org
>> \ Voice, bass, and songs, Shanghai Love Motel 
>> \ http://www.columbia.edu/~wbm1/slm.html
>> \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
>> 
>> 
>
>Keep cool, but care. - TRP
>Easier done than said. - HDM
>
>http://www.nicom.com/~gravity
>
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