Sokol again, Drat!

[Mr Craig Clark]

Greg Montalbano writes:
 
> Listening to all these gripes about scientists writing & talking as if they
> & they alone had the passkey to Dame Truth's bedchamber, I have to wonder why
> this is so much more upsetting to you-all than when Christians, Republicans,
> Vegetarians or Flat-Earthers behave the same way;  could it be that YOU ALSO,
> deep down inside, think that science is the ONE TRUE ANSWER, and are hurt or
> embarrassed when its representatives act in a less-than-exemplary manner?

Absolutely (and I am speaking only for myself here): though like any 
human being who has had a good humanities education in the  last 
twenty years I recite each day a mantra that goes "Science is 
Ideology, not Fact", when push comes to shove I trust to science and 
to what the scientists say.

Generalisation alert, foax, but the reaction of the humanities crowd to the 
scientists' claims of truth always put me in mind of a Wiccan friend 
of mine who goes on and on about how intolerant Christians are. That 
is to say, he is as guilty of the vice of intolerance as those whom 
he is denouncing - and of course there are a good number of 
Christians who are far more tolerant of Wiccans than this one Wiccan 
is of Christians. 

As I understand the Sokal debate (well-briefed by HAG), one of the 
points Sokal was trying to make was that the radical 
deconstructionist school of academe is much less willing to subject 
radical deconstructionism as an intellectual tool to the kind of 
scrutiny that they apply to the physical sciences. In other words, 
the One Sacred Truth to which the Radical Deconstructiuonists alone 
are privy is that there are No Sacred Truths (save only for radical 
deconstructionism, of course). Sounds like a premise for collegiate 
empire-building to me.

Craig Clark

"Living inside the system is like driving across
the countryside in a bus driven by a maniac bent
on suicide."
   - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"