Sokal et al

[Paul Mackin]

> > One problem may be that the physicists and biologists often have a lot
> >  less confidence in the explanatory power of their theories than
> >  "the other" have.

Bill's response to Bonnie's reaction to my observation and her response back
turned out constructively. I see upon rereading that the original observation was ambiguous. For the record, I meant "less confidence" as a strenth Thanks
to  Bill for picking up on that aspect. He put things very well IMHO.

__________________________					P.

>  I think a fully Pynchonian response here would
> steer far, far away from the temptation of triumphalism.  Could it be
> that the physicists and biologists ("They"? Not exactly the same Them
> that TRP warns us about...) have attained higher social prestige than
> the purported "We" of the postmod humanities, not because of some
> buck-naked-emperor-type plot, but precisely because they retain more
> 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