more on the reverse Sokal

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Sat Nov 9 17:11:32 PST 2002


andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> >
> > As I remember the heat of the Sokal affair, there
> > were all kinds of
> > claims for the rigor of experimental science,

This hardly seems a useful place to start out. (Unless our purpose is not to discuss science but to replay some old list feuds.) If we want to talk about science, we have to start with the best science (and I'm quite aware that there are rather thick fuzzy boundaries to that concept -- but it is nuttier than the nuttiest science around to deny that such a core exists).

Probably most of the people on this list don't remember when polio was a terror -- I do; I had polio myself back in the fall of 1946. Luckily, a very light case, but the night I entered the hospital a kid across the hall died. All night long I had heard this click-hiss, click-hiss, and I had been unable to attract the attention of a nurse to complain about my extremely severe gas pains: the click-hiss came from an iron lung, and the nurses were busy trying to keep the kid alive. I believe that before going off on cockeyed amateur criticisms of science of the sort any reasonably bright but undisciplined highschool student can come up with one ought to acknowledge that it wasn't by mere accident that we don't have polio to worry about anymore.

I haven't read yet the post Justin is quoting, but I hope it isn't Doug. He has devoted rather many posts over the years insisting on the benefits capitalism has brought us: almost _all_ those benefits come directly from physical science, and from capitalism only in so far as it has encouraged physical science.

Carrol



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