The ideal of scientific objectivity has been subverted — even in the world’s most prestigious universities — by the pernicious and pervasive influence of postmodernism, laments scientist Dr Walter Starck.
Over recent decades a few widely publicised instances of scientific misconduct have occasioned much concern. All have involved fabrication or misrepresentation of data in the highly competitive big budget area of biomedical research.
Remarkably, however, in some other areas of research, similar and often even more egregious breaches of scientific ethics have become such common practice as to pass without comment. In such areas the ideal of scientific objectivity has been abandoned for overt advocacy, with cherry-picking, misrepresentation and suppression of data becoming near normal.
Moreover, any attempt to question such claims is met not with reasoned argument but appeals to authority, claims of expert consensus and personal denigration. How this gross departure from what were once core scientific values deserves consideration.
The scientific method has been the most effective means yet developed to understand our world. It has resulted in longer, healthier, safer, more interesting and comfortable human lives than ever before. Essential to this success has been a philosophical approach in which understanding is evidence-based, logically consistent and subject to revision in the light of new evidence or more comprehensive explanation.
In science the highest goal has been a pursuit of truth as determined by reason and empirical evidence. Disregard for truth and false evidence are unacceptable for any reason.
The history of science has been an ongoing account of the discovery of previously unthinkable new under-standings of the world and the abandonment of previously accepted ones. A heliocentric solar system, a multimillion-year-old Earth, evolution, continental drift, relativity, quantum theory — every new perception that challenges established belief always meets strong resistance regardless of the weight of reason and evidence to support it. The core strength of science is that it fosters such challenges and demands their acceptance if they cannot be refuted.
Whether or not one approves of all its findings, the success and authority of science are difficult to deny. Attempts to adopt its methodology and lay some claim to its authority have been made with varying success in other fields of study. In the humanities and so-called social sciences the result has been decidedly mixed. Part of the difficulty has been the inherent complexity of the subject matter, but the conflict between unavoidable conclusions from evidence-based analysis and deeply held beliefs has also been a major obstacle. Too much in careers, reputations and convictions rests on foundations inconsistent with empirical evidence to permit easy acceptance of fundamentally different ideas.
Increasingly, however, the findings of science have begun to impinge upon the established order in the humanities. Postmodernism has been in large part a response to this challenge. It ignores the irrefutable success of science in permitting us to better understand our world; it rejects its authority as being simply a cultural artefact, no more or less valid than any other belief. Truth, facts, reason and objectivity are rejected because in practice the aim does not fully achieve the ideal.
Uncomfortable scientific findings are then “deconstructed” so as to dismiss or reinterpret them as desired. Into the vacuum of ethics and meaning it seeks to fill, this nihilistic pseudo-philosophy then inserts its own agenda, a new edition of the old leftist catechism re-branded as a form of moral righteousness we recognise as political correctness.
Postmodernism is now as predominant in academia as the socialism it has replaced. Although the latter attracted many scientists, their professional activity had limited relevance to social concerns and there was little direct influence on the practice of science itself.
Postmodernism, however, recognises the increasing influence of science on social issues and has attacked, co-opted and subverted it with considerable success. This has been made easier by the absence of any formal study of logic or the philosophy of science as a part of scientific training.
Awareness of the philosophy and ethics of science is something scientists are simply assumed to absorb from their environment, although these are matters which seldom arise in the normal course of events. Although a PhD purports to be a doctor of philosophy, most holders of the degree are in fact advanced technicians with highly specialised training, and with neither the breadth of scientific understanding nor philosophical knowledge the degree implies.
On the other hand, various issues of political correctness are virtually daily fare in the broader academic environment of which scientists are a part. Although few scientists might consider themselves as politically correct or (heaven forbid!) postmodern-ists, many, perhaps most, do subscribe to the prevailing attitudes of an academic community heavily influenced by this view.
Postmodernism has focused its concern and had its greatest effect on those areas of science which bear most strongly on societal matters. Behavioural and environmental studies have been notably influenced.
Such influence has taken manifold forms. A common one has seen many scientists abandon any attempt at an objective search for truth in favour of outright advocacy, in which evidence is misrepresented, ignored and suppressed to accord with some objective deemed to be socially or environmentally correct.
Regardless of the fact that dishonest scientific claims are often the basis for laws and restrictions that wreak havoc on people’s lives, or even criminalise otherwise harmless activity, perpetrators of such dishonesty are seldom held responsible for any harm they cause. Ironically, incorporating similar misinformation in support of a public share offering would make one subject to criminal prosecution.
In environmental matters, dishonest scientific claims have become so widely practised and accepted that questioning or exposing them is the only thing now treated as a breach of ethics!
The penalties start with personal attack and denigration. For those in business it often includes severe legal and regulatory harassment. For researchers it can entail withdrawal of research support, publishing rejections, shunning by peers and even dismissal from employment. Such threats are very real and examples are common enough to deter all but the most determined or reckless.
Lawrence Summers after Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences passed a no-confidence vote against him.
Two examples — one specific, the other general — clearly illustrate the pernicious and pervasive influence of postmodernism on science. Harvard University is one of the world’s most prestigious academic and research institutions. Last year its president, economist Lawrence (“Larry”) Summers, gave a conference address entitled “Diversifying the science and engineering workforce: women, underrepresented minorities, and their S&E careers in Massachusetts”.
In it he considered that social attitudes and discrimination might not be the sole reason for under-representation but that family vs. career choices and innate aptitudes might also be involved. He referred to indicative evidence and suggested that further research and a more objective approach could be useful.
His overall tone was moderate, unassertive and reasonable. By any normal standards of discourse he offered only a modest suggestion. However, the mere suggestion of any possibility of innate differences in aptitude between genders provoked a storm of protest. Those from aggressive women’s activists groups might not be too surprising, but a threatened vote of no confidence by Harvard’s powerful Faculty of Arts and Sciences led to his forced resignation.
Although he retained the support of many faculty students — with even an apparent majority among other faculties — it seems ironic it was the science community that demanded his head. In subscribing to irrational belief it seems that recent converts must always compete to demonstrate their commitment. As to the outcome, one can reasonably assume his replacement will not be likely to again suggest a rational scientific approach to such issues.
At the time of this writing, a brilliant young theoretical physicist at Harvard, Lubos Motl, has reportedly had his position terminated as a consequence of his outspoken support for Larry Summers and for his criticism of discrepancies between the claims of global-warming alarmists and the fundamental radiative physics involved. With this happening to the brightest at the best institutions, one can hardly expect better elsewhere.
A more general and closer-to-home example of postmodernist thinking involves the management of Australian fisheries. Australia has the largest fishery-zone per capita, yet the lowest harvest-rate in the world. The latter is only 1/30 of the average rate. The total catch is only half that of New Zealand and very close to that of PNG, Italy, Poland and Portugal.
Much of our fishery zone is in fact not fished at all. Despite this indisputable reality, our resource managers claim our fisheries are widely threatened with over-fishing and the world’s most restrictive and costly management has been imposed. For the Commonwealth-licensed fishing fleet, annual management costs are in excess of $100,000 per vessel.
The result of such (mis)manage-ment is a rapidly declining industry and rising imports. Seventy per cent of domestic seafood consumption now comes from imports. All these come from areas much more heavily fished than our own. Thailand is the largest supplier. It produces 11 times our total catch and from a fishing zone only 1/20 as large.
The cost of seafood imports is currently $1.8 billion annually, and a CSIRO study projects a 400 per cent increase in consumption by 2020. To make matters worse, prices are increasing steeply with Asia’s growing wealth and demand.
In effect, we are selling off non-renewable mineral resources to buy a renewable resource we have in abundance but which, thanks to mismanagement, we cannot harvest. In a superb example of bureau-speak, this is then touted as “sustainable management”. To top it off, those responsible for this travesty of management have proclaimed the result to be the “best-managed fisheries in the world”.
Bureaucratic empire-building, research promotion, media sensationalism, environmentalist ideology and political pandering have all played a role in this situation, but postmodern thinking has greatly facilitated it by sanctioning the abandonment of truth and evidence in favour of advocacy for the higher purpose of protecting our precious environment.
Although the bureaucrats, researchers, journalists, activists and politicians involved all have their own agendas, they share a common tertiary academic background wherein postmodern ethical influence prevails. This makes advocacy in accord with perceived political correctness a virtue, and disagreement politically incorrect. The more irrefutable any conflicting evidence presented, the greater the righteousness in its rejection.
With the collapse of socialism, disapproval of existing society has regrouped around the environment, but the agenda of restructuring society by coercion remains the same. The purported concern has simply shifted from downtrodden workers to the birds and bees. This accords well with the neo-pagan romanticism of nature popular among an overwhelmingly urbanised middle-class disconnected from the realities of the productive activity which supports them.
Societal disconnection from reality is a recurrent theme in human history. It may be imposed or may emerge when good fortune lasts long enough for people to begin to accept it as a given and even their just due.
Such delusions may sometimes be corrected if a leader is daring enough to state the obvious, and or may be abandoned en masse, as happened with the collapse of communism.
More often they self-correct by consequences resulting in disaster. With a chronic trade deficit, foreign debt growing at twice the rate of the economy, declining manufacturing and a looming global fuel shortage, Australia appears headed for a severe economic readjustment, but our delusions prevent us from doing anything or even recognising the situation.
A new, more holistic and realistic view of human ecology is overdue. Also needed is a leader who will dare to challenge the orthodoxy of environmental correctness. Hopefully, this will occur before the consequences of self-inflicted economic, energy and environmental impediments impose their own harsh corrections.
Dr Walter Starck is a marine scientist with 50 years’ worldwide experience in reef biology.
————–
First published in News Weekly and reproduced here with permission from the author.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
So someone thought this drivel was worth publishing somewhere?
What a pile of simplistic trash, but sadly typical of so called ‘intellectual debate’ amongst some crowds.
The clear headed master of science informs us (or is that tries instill fears in us)
“Australia appears headed for a severe economic readjustment, but our delusions prevent us from doing anything or even recognising the situation.”
Yet seems likely to hurl abuse at anyone who might promote a ‘catastrophic’ view (only those po-mo, lefty bastards catastrophize everything of course, we inform).
“Australia appears headed for a severe ecological readjustment, but our delusions prevent us from doing anything or even recognising the situation.”
This article seems to provide further evidence that hypocrisy and bullshit truly is a widespread and universal human phenomena.
Also further evidence for the study that found so called experts are mostly useless, or dangerous.
Don’t Trust Experts’ Forecasts, Study Suggests
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070828154939.htm
“Uncomfortable scientific findings are then “deconstructed” so as to dismiss or reinterpret them as desired. Into the vacuum of ethics and meaning it seeks to fill, this nihilistic pseudo-philosophy then inserts its own agenda, a new edition of the old leftist catechism re-branded as a form of moral righteousness we recognise as political correctness.”
I know, global warming deniers are so predictable.
And the post modernists attack and deride a position by insult and invective.
Even here.
Belief and religion collide.
Ha,
A position?
You mean the hundreds of word of unreferenced, unsubstantitated bullshit above?
Insults and invective?
You the mean the few sentences and quote in reply? With a reference to a scientific study that reports that many so-called expert opinions (such as the article above) are useless or dangerous?
Not only don’t you get it, but you appear to be a thin skinned idiot, aside from believing any old bullshit that happens to support your prejudice.
I found this an interesting and relevant article, particularly Dr Starck’s argument that there is an “absence of any formal study of logic or the philosophy of science as a part of scientific training.”
I have a feeling that many of the comments on this thread will provide ample confirmation of Dr Starck’s point.
His statement about suppression or omission of relevant information reminded me of countless examples where Tim Flannery has been permitted to advocate the development of geothermal energy on the ABC without declaring a pecuniary interest – he is a shareholder in Geodynamics, “a company exploring Hot Fractured Rock Geothermal Energy”.
For example:
http://www.abc.net.au/capricornia/stories/s1854185.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2007/s1844491.htm
I dont think that there is too much of a problem with Flannery’s investments as long as he declares that interest, at least he is willing to put his money where his mouth is.
Vested interests can be financial, or emotional, or intellectual. Declaration of the first can be a sin, the second an honour and the last an endorsement.
I cant see the geothermal thing taking off, or being profitable – the Cooper Basin plan is too far away from the grid.
I think its a case of the pot calling the kettle black here.
Dr Starck exhibits all the trade marks of the post-modern education he is trying to criticise. He is interpreting and moulding truth to fit his own warped, heavily subjective vision of the way the world works.
This was an evidence-free polemic that the Germaine Greer’s of this world would be proud of.
Unfortunately, to qualify as science, Dr Starck requires more than a handful of subjectively interpreted anecdotes.
I may have mentioned it before, but an interesting read is the 1998 book ‘Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals Abuse of Science’, by Alan Sokal (mathematician) and Jean Bricmont (physicist). Alan Sokal submitted a hoax article to the postmodern journal ‘Social Text’. It was refereed and accepted. He then revealed that it was a deliberately meaningless word-salad of notions from mathematics and physics. Oh dear! I think Walter Starck might have a point. Are there those who make word-salads out of climate notions? Surely not … any comment, SJT?
P.S. For those who seek political implications, Alan Sokal is well known for his leftish views.
P.P.S. There is a fair bit of word-salad in ecology too.
Davey, I think Dr Starck is the one making ‘word salad’ out the the themes of postmodernism, subjectivity and objectivity.
‘Word salad’ is generally found wherever the author is either
a) not a very good communicator (happens a lot in all walks of life, not just ecology, but economics, pub conversations, and especially board room meetings)
b) trying to bolster the strength of an opinion because they have doubts (whether real of unfounded) about whether their opinion will be authoritative (also happens in all walks of life).
———
Sokal was poking fun and applying criticism to a trend amongst humanities academics to make analogies to quantum physics and mathematics when making a point in their own humanities field. I think the humanities academics liked the way that the pop science accounts of the uncertainty and randomness in quantum physics and chaos mathematics meshed with their postmodern thinking).
Sokal was suggesting a lack of rigour and knowledge amongst such humanities academics, when trying to draw on discourse beyond their field of expertise.
Perhaps your reference to Alan Sokal’s trick is more useful in describing the pitfalls for mining engineers, economists, and lay blog commentators in understanding and debating climate science, without years of training, study and experience?
Or the pitfalls for a reef scientist when trying to discuss postmodernism and the social/political treatment of contemporary science?
Steve,
Interesting comment. Deeper thought than many on this blog. I support your proposed motives for word-salad.
Yes, my main point in mentioning Alan Sokal was the plethora of word-salad, from many sources, on blog sites. At the same time, I think Walter Starck makes some valid points. You may agree with him or not, but he is not, in my view, pretentiously obscure.
Perhaps we should develop a ‘Word-Salad Index’ (WSI) based on James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake. Any ideas?
Thanks Davey,
And yes, that’s a fair view I think, I wouldn’t rate Dr Starck as pretentiously obscure, I guess I was just trying to promote some caution, before accepting Dr Starck’s view, because the argument can be turned on the author.
Word salad index. Hmmm. Wouldn’t it be great if there was such a thing?
I tend to view any piece of writing that I can’t understand quickly as being in need of some word-smithing to make it clearer.
But that is as much about taste, and skill of the reader I guess. When I don’t understand, then I am probably more to blame 🙂
Still, I have read some authors who seem to have a knack for turning the most obscure, and unusual of thoughts into clear, beautiful writing that I feel I can understand.
And other authors who turn trivial ideas into convoluted and ugly writing or speech.
I think a Word Salad index might be something that would work among people you had a like mind with, but there would definitely be differences of opinion.
Some people don’t like this book so much, but I enjoyed reading “Death Sentence: the decay of public language” by Don Watson, the ex speech writer for Paul Keating who wrote about this kind of stuff.
Here’s a news story on the book:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/10/31/1067566083688.html
PS. Haven’t read Finnegan’s Wake.
All of the key facts mentioned in regard to Harvard, Australian fisheries and the Australian economy are easily verifiable in a few minutes search. Formal references were not provided as they would not be used by the popular media for which the essay was intended. Rejection of readily confirmed information because it is not spoon fed to you is hardly the hallmark of an inquiring mind.
It would be helpful to any genuine discourse if anyone could specify with what it is that they so vehemently disagree. It is unclear if postmodernist influence on science is being denied or only that it is undesirable. Similarly it is not clear if having the world’s lowest fishery harvest rate and importing from nations with orders of magnitude higher rates is being disputed or is seen as a good thing rather than a bad one. Likewise, is having the smallest manufacturing sector and highest foreign debt among developed nations and an economy overwhelmingly based on selling off non-renewable resources being denied or defended, or is it just something that properly shouldn’t be talked about?
I would ,however, like to thank my critics for their superb confirmation of my thesis. The knee jerk anger, denial, and personal vilification displayed has been exemplary. The failure to address even a single fact has been equally impressive.
Walter Starck
Settle down Dr Starck, I wouldn’t want to have to accuse you of knee jerk anger, or of drawing an excessively strong conclusion from a small amount of low quality data (the blog comments).
I agree that there are influences on science, though I think you are a long way from what seems the intended purpose of your essay which is to argue that there is a noteable ‘postmodern’ influence on science, and that it is at play in the handful of examples you cite.
“Moreover, any attempt to question such claims is met not with reasoned argument but appeals to authority, claims of expert consensus and personal denigration. How this gross departure from what were once core scientific values deserves consideration.”
This is the main reason why I think your don’t have an argument, but are instead just constructing a polemic:
You have no proof that the paragraph I quote is true.
I am sure that there are countless examples in the blogosphere and newspapers where your paragraph makes sense. But in the mainstream annals where scientific research is debated by scientists who have earned the right to participate in the scientific debate, I’m not sure what you say is at all true. The only example provided from a peer-reviewed publication was provided by Davey, not you.
I would also disagree that appeals to authority and expert consensus are a gross departure from core scientific values.
As you would know, a scientist could conduct the most flawless experiments there have ever been, but until they publish the details and results of their experiments and subject it to the scruitiny of their peers, have their peers repeat the experiments and draw the same conclusions, it isn’t science outside of their own head. And one person’s head is subject to a high risk of biases, distortions, if not mental illness, that might result in a warped and incorrect view.
It is absolutely *implicit* in science that there is a need for consensus and also authority: nobody cares what 1000 reef scientists think about brain surgery when a couple of qualified brain surgeons with 20 years experience each disagree with that 1,000. Appeals to *valid* authorities are perfectly logical.
What I am saying is not an appeal to a postmodern interpretation of the scientific method. I am not suggesting that truth is relative.
What I am suggesting is that it is *common sense*, it is “folk knowledge”, that climate scientists writing in well known and respected climate journals about climate science constitute the best authority on climate science, and if non-climate scientists disagree in non-peer reviewed literature, such as a weblog like climate audit, it is of little consequence.
I would also suggest that to the majority of people, it is *common sense* that the IPCC provides the most authoritive account of climate science, and there is no dissenting publication that comes even remotely close to it in authority. What are politicans to rely on when developing a policy on climate change, if not the IPCC?
I think the postmodern tag is more appropriate to apply to the denialists and contrarians – such as yourself – who believe that the mainstream arteries through which scientific knowledge flows are somehow corrupt. You are a PhD, and here you are trying to make a difference on someone elses weblog, instead of publishing in peer-reviewed fashion more typical of a scientist. The fact that some denialists feel they aren’t listened to is not a sign of postmodern infection, it is simply a sign that the denialist lacks sufficient authority to be listened to on the subject – they are talking about brain surgery without qualifications.
You have not made the case that postmodernist thinking pervades science. You given a few examples where you think that postmodernist thinking is responsible for failures of *policy*. You have suggested that this is because politicians, journalists, etc share a common, postmodern, academic background. But you haven’t proven the case, or even presented a compelling one.
I think it is absurd and smacking of another conspiracy theory to suggest that failures of policy are a result of most politicians etc being products of a postmodern education. For that to be true, it would require that people in generally are more easily lead and less capable of independent thought than is realistic.
Sounds pretty straight up to me Steve
Dr Stark, the fact that it is not clear to you what exactly I might have been alluding too serves only to further enforce my belief that you are engaging more with your own perceptions and prejudices.
Not exhibiting any understanding of others perspectives, beliefs or motivations, despite attempting to convince anyone else via your so-called article.
My sense is despite your suggestion that you have some insight into the psycho-social make up people in every specific social niche or category, you really don’t get it all.
Ignorance of your own limits in understanding other people, their perceptions and motivations is stupidity. It has in the past cost individuals and societies a lot, and probably will in the future.
A fool who knows himself to be a fool, is just a fool. A fool who believes himself to not be a fool, is a complete bloody idiot.
bye
Somehow the current debate evokes a distinct sense of déjà vu in resonance with a long ago discussion with a creationist about evolution . In view of the futility of such argument I will confine this comment to a few items that may be of interest to the uncommitted.
In contrast to the vituperation of the coterie of pseudonymous critics here, the wider response to my essay has been surprisingly widespread and strongly favourable. It seems strange that these same critics seem so compelled to expend such remarkable amounts of time on a blog they clearly deem to be less than worthless. Are they that desperate for attention, or are they just bored academic/government employees killing time at taxpayers expense or have they perhaps even been assigned to such a task? It would be most interesting to have a look at the blog webstats to see the domains of these pseudonymous serial posters.
The critics here seem to now be suggesting that the idea of a postmodern influence on science is solely my own baseless construct. A quick net search on “postmodern science” will reveal an extensive literature including many references in peer reviewed journals. For quick perusal I can recommend.
Luboš Motl on academia
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/lumidek/6529479513990054138/?src=hsn
Postmodernism disrobed by Richard Dawkins (Published in Nature)
http://physics.nyu.edu/~as2/dawkins.html
Faith-based Fisheries by Ray Hilborn
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/PFRP/large_pelagics/Hilborn_2006(faith).pdf
Freeman Dyson: Climate models are rubbish
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/14/freeman_dyson_climate_heresies/
Walter Starck
Thanks Walter,
I had read Sokal and Bricmont’s little book, but did not know Richard Dawkins had done a review. Excellent work, as you would expect. Amazingly, I still get email invitations to seminars with a post-modernist aroma at a local university. Perhaps I will attend one, just for fun. In the nude?
Some appropriate comments below extracted via one the numerous blogs one can find on the net.
Unless of course you happen to limit your perspective to only those who agree with your own prejudice.
Why bother with names/social status (iob/income) and IP domains? To see if your fantasies about other people are really true?
bye
Quotes taken from Psychology Professor Bob Altemeyer, in his book The Authoritarians:
“A high [right-wing authoritarian] can have all sorts of illogical, self-contradictory and widely refuted ideas rattling around in various boxes in his brain, and never notice it. . . .
Research reveals that authoritarian followers drive through life under the influence of impaired thinking a lot more than most people do, exhibiting sloppy reasoning, highly compartmentalized beliefs, double standards, hypocrisy, self-blindness, a profound ethnocentrism, and — to top it all off — a ferocious dogmatism that makes it unlikely anyone could ever change their minds with evidence or logic.”
As Altemeyer acknowledges, everyone of every type is prone to contradictory and self-interested reasoning. But, as his research demonstrates, those whose primary allegiance is to authority figures and whose identity is centrally grounded in their authority-based political movement have, as their overarching goal, a defense of their movement and attacks on the enemy.
Dr Starck, I’ve decided to ignore your =invalid= ad hominem commentary (one of the joys of using a pseudonym is that it stops you from effectively making such pathetic attacks)
and instead, I have reviewed the references that you “recommend”.
The first one to Lubos Motl is, I am assuming, a mistake on your part. It links to a comments message board, nothing substantive.
The second is to writing by Richard Dawkins, who comments on the misuse of science by humanities academics at the vanguard of postmodernism. Humanities academics. It is nothing to do with your argument, which was that postmodernism has corrupted science itself.
THe third is a link to an article appearing in the journal (magazine? newsletter?) of the American Fisheries Society. In it, the author disagrees with the arguments put forth in a range of peer-reviewed journal publications, cites allegedly dissenting papers, and then concludes that the peer-review process is corrupt and faith-based.
IF the author had a problem with the peer-reviewed articles, then there are ample avenues in the same publications to dispute the findings.
The leap to a sweeping and calamitous conclusion – that peer-review is faith-based – is not justified or suported. A more conservative response when one disagrees with peer-reviewed findings is to produce peer-reviewed research of your own.
Failure to do otherwise is simply conspiracy mongering and doomsaying of a kind. It might suit your ideology to leap to the conclusion that prestigious, peer-reviewed journals are corrupt with postmodern infection. However, a conservative mind will avoid leaping to such conclusions without better evidence.
THe final link is to someone writing about the views of a single physicist on climate change. I note that while he may be an esteemed physicist, Freeman Dyson is not a climatologist. I note further that the author of the article probably spins and cherry-picks Freeman Dyson’s views to some extent. His wiki entry, for example, presents similar views, but with a less extreme tone, more in the spirit of debate and dissent than all out conspiracy and calamity. Nothing to do with postmodern influence in science in any case.
Walter, none of your references support your point. You didn’t engage my reasonably polite (at least for this blog’s comments) debate, you just adopted a thin-skinned, evade the argument, attack the character of the debater approach. And to be honest, after a few years of insults from Ian, even your insults are lightweight, flaccid, and not very entertaining.
You haven’t ruled out that the problems in the example you site might simply be mistakes, or bad policy, or good policy but YOU are unable to see the positives due to your narrow focus.
I don’t know anything about fisheries, but I have enough common sense and knowledge of govt policy formulation to see that there is an argument, not trivially dismissed, that if Australia zealously protects its fisheries, this might influence other countries to do likewise, even if in the short and medium term we are importing from countries with more relaxed regulation. Haven’t you heard of the concept of “lead by example”? The appropriate response if you disagree with this is to disagree with it and say why. Participate in the policy development process. Not to start spouting a bunch of baloney about all politicians and journalists having a postmodern education that is the root of all our problems.
Perhaps you could send a few links to a few of the writers who have apparently well-received your poorly constructed argument?
By the way, I don’t regard this blog as useless. Unlike you it seems, I actively seek out people I disagree with to have a discussion, in the hope of learning something.
Lastly, I don’t think you are across what postmodernism means, or what it means for science. Otherwise you would realise that to characterise science as being infected with postmodernism is to criticise dissenting climate skeptics.
Postmodern criticism of science suggests that no science is objective, that each scientist brings his own baggage of ideology to their work, and there is no real truth or objective reality.
The postmodern view of science is decidedly non-conservative, radical and subverts the comfortable, common sense view of science, where you can trust scientific societies to be right and objective, and trust the peer-review process. Attacks on prestigious journals and on the peer-review process have a decidedly post-modern flavour.
You and other climate deniers and whiners share more in common with the postmodern view than do environmentalists or climate scientists, writing in mainstream peer-reviewed journals.
You are criticising yourself. A view that rejects the postmodern critique of science would stick with mainstream science, stick with well known publications and peer-review, and avoid wallowing around in the cesspool of blogosphere contrariness.
Joe Blo,
I’ve never heard of ‘Psychology Professor Bob Altemeyer’ so your appeal to authority fails. From what you report, he sounds a bit authoritarian (high or low, right or left wing). From your aggressive and abusive style, so do you. You said earlier ‘A fool who believes himself to not be a fool, is a complete bloody idiot’. I agree. So would Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont.
This Jo Blo is obviously some sort of rehabilitated “Stassi” operative who has just graduated from retraining in planet salvation.
A very good paper Walter. And the fact that you have attracted such vehement abuse from the scumnoscenti merely emphasises how close to the mark you have been.
The question is whether there is any common thread between Summers’ bad relations with Harvard faculty and this Australian controversy. Summers’ remarks were criticized for being unrigorous and unread in the relevant literature; moreover his troubles with his faculty seem to have had more to do with management, construction of a new campus and so forth. On the fisheries side, the very weakness of “postmodern thinking has greatly facilitated it by sanctioning the abandonment of truth and evidence in favour of advocacy” is a clue to how tenuous the connection is.
I’ve found it a pretty reliable rule: the term “postmodernism” is used by folks like Starck as a license to cite zero literature and use anecdote in place of evidence, plus a lot of bluster — in short, to do precisely what they accuse un-named postmodernists of doing.
The commenter above who uses the word “flavor” is typical: rants about postmodernism are allergic reactions by people who haven’t kept up with the literature, see a word or term that rubs them the wrong way, and get upset.
How about we agree on the need for evidence and distinctions and careful reasoning in *all* areas — in natural science *and* in our analyses of the social world in which governments and academic institutions function. I don’t think you would be very impressed if I made an argument about biology by combining an anecdote about my cat with some observations about growing vegetables.