more on entropy

[Bonnie Surfus ENG]

This line on "sloppy science" never ceases to amaze/confound/confuse me.  
For Pynchon's deployment of science in his work seems well-conceived, to 
me.  He does not overwhelm.  Rather, in deference to an audience most 
likely knowledgeable of the principles he "uses" only in the most 
rudimentary ways, he speaks as a human voice calling up what 
oversimplified, overgeneralized versions at his disposal.  Isn't this how 
we "use" science?  Laypeople?  And does it make our talk any less 
provocative and informed?  I think not.  I have students who know 
something of the Second Law of Thermodynamics speaking of it in everyday 
conversation;  they have to make themselves understood and do so.  With 
very much the same kind of limited treatment.  And they make sense.  And 
we comprehend.  Then there's the concept of science itself as socially 
embedded, pointing a finger at us and laughing at our unwillingness to 
consider it as anything but geeks in a vacuum, one of "Two Worlds," etc.  
I appreciate that Pynchon takes complex concepts and uses them 
reasonably, intelligently, and in ways that enrich his stories by merging 
"Two Worlds" (as is the case . . .)

Bonnie