Science vs. Populism: Stalking Dr. Steere

[Mark Rickling]

From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>

> The article has nothing to do with either populism in the late 19th
> century or Hofstadter's interpretation.

> Populism in the subject line is just a loose label for the rhetoric
> that pits "established experts" against "lay persons" & "maverick
> experts" & finds the former's findings to be automatically suspect.
> The rhetoric has ill served the patients in the article.

I agree that the patients described in the article suffer from very real
grievances, and their responses to their problems are not very productive,
to say the least. Of course the article you forwarded had nothing to do with
historical populism of Hofstader. But your current usage of the term
populism -- referring to the irrational responses of common people to forces
they dimly perceive -- has much to do with historiographical interpretations
of historical populism, such as Hofstadter's.

mark