The ugly truth of science

[alice wellintown]

Well, you go right on an post away. Not like anyone can stop you. Use
reason if that's what you think is best. I'll use what I think is best for
me.   The grass is always greener over the septic tank, so I'll cut the
crap, and you can cut the grass.

On Sunday, June 16, 2013, Monte Davis wrote:

> Alice, I am very happy to accord you – and everyone here -- the authority
> earned by well-reasoned, persuasive posts.****
>
> ** **
>
> I accord rather less to dozens, hundreds of posts that are (1) extended
> quotations with little or nothing of the poster’s own thought, or (2)
> brief, delphic, “playful” provocations, which the poster – if called on it
> – then denies, “forgets,” claims to be bored with, or turns into “you’ve
> got a stick up your ass.” The latter, hit-and-run style is virtually
> diagnostic of trolls.****
>
> ** **
>
> Believe it or not, I’ve never thought about any other (real or fantasized)
> grounds for your authority until very recently. Nor had it ever occurred to
> me to sketch my own background and experience. It’s you who got that going
> with your very own claims that you’re a science person, married to a famous
> scientist, prepared to kick my ass in the science ring, blah blah blah.***
> *
>
> ** **
>
> Cut that crap, Alice, and we’ll get along fine.****
>
> ** **
>
> Our own scuffles aside, beginning a few weeks ago with the renewed
> discussion of Pynchon’s “Luddite” essay and Snow’s ”The Two Cultures,” I’ve
> been trying in good faith to articulate and support a proposition of my own:
> ****
>
> ** **
>
> That while Pynchon’s work *does* embody, reinforce and advance the
> “literary/humanist” culture’s critique of science and technology (something
> very well explored in millions  of words of Pynchon criticism and here on
> the list)…****
>
> ** **
>
> There is also throughout his work much more evidence of familiarity with
> S&T, much more weaving of scientific and technological ways of thinking
> into *all* his voices – not just those surrounding a Nefastis, Hilarius,
> Pointsman, Mexico, Mason, or Vanderjuice -- than can possibly be explained
> as “Menippean  pseudo-erudition” or “Boy oh boy, he really knows his
> targets [the better to blow them away].” That evidence and that weaving get
> stronger over the years: it’s weakest in the short stories, and I’m happy
> to take Pynchon at his word (in the SL introduction) that he fumbled
> entropy. It’s you (not he) who talks about the use of integral calculus in
> TSI – perhaps because he knows he not only didn’t fumble it there , but
> would run if for multiple touchdowns in GR.****
>
> ** **
>
> I have offered evidence of that familiarity and weaving in his words on
> the page. I believe it is largely ignored in [my very limited knowledge of]
> the critical literature and in discussions here. I’d like to know what’s up
> with that. And I speculate that the very longevity, breadth and depth of
> the literary/humanist culture’s critique of science and technology creates
> an “occupational disability” or “learned incapacity” to see anything **but
> ** that critique in Pynchon… especially if the evidence suggests any
> positive valence for S&T at all. ****
>
>
> *****
>
> ** **
>
> Now: it’s not terribly responsive or interesting when you post another few
> score quotations from others expounding how Pynchon’s work embodies,
> reinforces and advances the critique—i.e., exactly what I stipulated above,
> and have stipulated all along. I’m after other game: might he be doing
> something else, too? (Or is that just too threatening? And if so, why?)***
> *
>
> ** **
>
> Nor is it terribly responsive or interesting to caricature what I say,
> throwing up the same straw men again and again: that Pynchon is a
> scientist, that one needs to be a scientist to appreciate his writing, etc.
> Neither I nor anyone else here has said or implied that. ****
>
> ** **
>
> Cut that crap, Alice, and we’ll get along fine. ****
>
> ** **
>
> Let’s revisit one specific point. Do you agree that Pynchon’s books
> combine elements of (1) history-book history, (2) more or less plausible
> history that might have happened without making it into the history books,
> and (3) “secret history” with a strong conspiratorial flavor… along with
> quite a lot of outright fantasy? Certainly a shitload of scholarly and
> critical work has gone into discriminating among those:  e.g., tracking
> dates and places of Tyrone’s odyssey in GR, cross-tabbing them with
> Christian and pagan holy days… exploring what Pynchon’s Tchitcherine does
> and doesn’t share with the historical Soviet diplomat, usw. And certainly a
> lot of criticism then uses those discriminations in interpretation.****
>
> ** **
>
> Now… I have never seen you deny that some small amount of historical
> knowledge about, e.g., WWII eases the way for even the casual reader of GR
> (fewer pauses to flip through Weisenburger, at the very least). And I have
> never seen you attack the many Pynchon critics who have found deeper
> familiarity with history – even some fresh research on occasion – helpful
> in finding and understanding less obvious connections and patterns. In
> fact, you’ve quoted some of those critics at length,  again and again (and
> again).****
>
> ** **
>
> But when I did exactly that in the case of AtD’s Tesla… when I used both
> history and my own (by no means deep or “elect”) familiarity with
> electrical science and theory to discriminate between (1) the historical
> Nicola Tesla, (2) his plausible but unproven/unproveable claims, and
> (3)/(4) the batshit-crazy “Tesla’s suppressed world-changing inventions”
> meme and Tunguska “connection” that peek into the book and bubble along in
> pop pseudoscience to this day… ****
>
> ** **
>
> And worse, suggestied that it might matter to our understanding of what
> Pynchon’s saying about science, technology, capitalism, and utopian dreams…
> ****
>
> ** **
>
> You got your panties all in a wad, and felt compelled to repeat four times
> in 16 hours that none of that is or could be interesting or significant --
> and oh yes, had I still not noticed that Pynchon is a novelist and not a
> physicist? ****
>
> ** **
>
> Cut that crap, Alice, and we’ll get along fine.****
>
> ** **
>
> And a happy Father’s Day and belated Mother’s Day to you, as well as a
> perpetual Digital Alter Egos’ day to yours.****
>
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