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Again on a niggling point of fact: Sam Harris doesn't "pimp" for Intelligent Design.

Post Hoax, Ergo Propter Hoax » American Scientist

But I [Bérubé] am convinced that theories of social justice are qualitatively different things than, say, neutrinos or Neptune. I'm therefore inclined to accept John Searle's distinction between the worlds of "brute fact" and "social fact," and to insist that in the world of social fact, things like "theories of social justice" are indeed socially constructed.

This position puts me at odds with people such as Sam Harris, whom Sokal discusses at length in his chapter on religion. Harris writes, in The End of Faith,

In philosophical terms, pragmatism can be directly opposed to realism. For the realist, our statements about the world will be "true" or "false" not merely in virtue of how they function amid the welter of our other beliefs, or with reference to any culture-bound criteria, but because reality simply is a certain way, independent of our thoughts. Realists believe that there are truths about the world that may exceed our capacity to know them; there are facts of the matter whether or not we can bring such facts into view. To be an ethical realist is to believe that in ethics, as in physics, there are truths waiting to be discovered--and thus we can be right or wrong in our beliefs about them.

"Postmodern" pragmatists such as Rorty and myself [Bérubé] think this is a truly unfortunate way of thinking about truths in human affairs.

My own view is close to Bérubé's - who goes on honestly to point out loopy postmodern behaviour (and this is the "pimping for ID"):

Post Hoax, Ergo Propter Hoax » American Scientist

Case in point on the opposite side: Unwittingly bolstering Sokal's argument, one prominent science-studies scholar has recently weighed in on the side of people who believe in angels: Not long after enthusiastically blurbing Meera Nanda's book, saying "this first detailed examination of postmodernism's politically reactionary consequences should serve as a wake-up call for all conscientious leftists," sociologist of science Steve Fuller arrived in Dover, Pennsylvania, to testify in favor of the teaching of "intelligent design" in that school district's seventh-grade science curriculum. And he did so, tellingly, by deliberately confusing the context of discovery with the context of justification, arguing that intelligent design is worth pursuing partly because great scientists of the past--such as Newton--believed in God.

So we have a science-studies scholar criticizing postmodernism and stumping for creationism, religious fundamentalists calling on God to smite the infidels, and "ethical realists" arguing for a moral absolutism. Sokal is appropriately alarmed by the first two of these phenomena, but, unfortunately, his book's closing argument--which, again, echoes that of Harris--is that all human beliefs should be judged by the degree to which they are supported by verifiable empirical evidence. That rationalist dog just won't hunt;

This leaves me a touch mystified by your reference to Harris and ID (a Google search for some other place where Bérubé discussed this has your comment above in first place among the search results..!).

Overall, here and in the longer and more recent The Science Wars Redux, (which is dated Winter 2011 and is perhaps the recent revisit you mentioned), I find Bérubé's attitude towards Sokal balanced, even conciliatory:

Michael Bérubé for Democracy Journal: The Science Wars Redux

But what of Sokal's chief post-hoax claim that the academic left's critiques of science were potentially damaging to the left? That one, alas, has held up very well, for it turns out that the critique of scientific "objectivity" and the insistence on the inevitable "partiality" of knowledge can serve the purposes of climate-change deniers and young-Earth creationists quite nicely. That's not because there was something fundamentally rotten at the core of philosophical anti-foundationalism (whose leading American exponent, Richard Rorty, remained a progressive Democrat all his life), but it might very well have had something to do with the cloistered nature of the academic left.

What he's interested in, it seems to me, is getting out of a sterile face-off between a "hard-science" left and a "social-relativist" left (my approximate terms) and into something more positive, like making the world a better place, that science twinned with socio-cultural understanding may address. And:

Michael Bérubé for Democracy Journal: The Science Wars Redux

the world really is divvied up into "brute fact" and "social fact," just as philosopher John Searle says it is, but the distinction between brute fact and social fact is itself a social fact, not a brute fact, which is why the history of science is so interesting.
by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Wed Mar 23rd, 2011 at 05:55:31 PM EST
[ Parent ]
We're both wrong on another niggling point.

One, I was wrong about Harris. I meant the other guy, Fuller is the ID pimp.

But Berube uses Fuller as an example of empiricist craziness, not Postmodern craziness. That's why he brought him up in the first place.

This is what he says:

So we have a science-studies scholar criticizing postmodernism and pimping for creationism ... and ethical realists calling for moral absolutism.

Read your longer quote again. Berube is saying that Fuller (the loopy one) believes postmodernism's politically reactionary consequences should concern leftists. In other words, he critiques postmodernity. Berube characterizes him as an ethical realist, a group he situates within the realms of scientific empiricism. The passage is a bit confusing because he writes that Fuller unwittingly bolsters Sokal's argument. Unwittingly why? Well, in the first place, he's a science-studies scholar who--according to Berube--gets it wrong. But Berube continues and wonders why scientists such as Sokal are not dismissive of ethical realists such as Fuller. It's only reserved for poststructuralists.

As for the last bit, I'll emphasize again that he is referring to the REACTION to the hoax, and not the essence of the hoax. I seriously doubt his critique of the essence of the hoax has changed. It couldn't have since Sokal misrepresented the people he was reading in the same manner that he argued science-studies people were misreading science. It was the blind talking to the blind. The reaction to the hoax is interesting. I can't say it isn't. But Berube is saying that not only has science-studies been co-opted, butt hat so has Sokal. He has. I mentioned David Horowitz. People trot out Sokal all the time.

We live in an insipid media-dominated culture in which anyone with anything complex to say is drowned out instantly. I would say that it all becomes reducible, science-studies and science itself. If you read the American Right's "rigorous" rationale's for almost any position--whether we should be shooting immigrants like pigs, or whether rape is a young girl's fault, or whatever flavor of the week they are bloviating against--well clearly this is a problem of something other than insular academia. The levels of philosophical discussion in this debate do have an impact on the culture, but not an immediate one and certainly one that can be extrapolated and distorted. But to say it can be is not to say that it should be. My Hitler and Nietzsche analogy was meant to convey this idea.

Now I'll be forced to go into Zizek in depth here, but maybe not until later on.

by Upstate NY on Wed Mar 23rd, 2011 at 06:39:19 PM EST
[ Parent ]
well clearly this is a problem of something other than insular academia

Which no one here has claimed, and the depravity of the right has nothing to do with Zizek's bullshit, lack thereof, or relevance in general.

you are the media you consume.

by MillMan (millguy at gmail) on Wed Mar 23rd, 2011 at 06:49:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]
You're saying people aren't claiming academia is a hoax?
by Upstate NY on Wed Mar 23rd, 2011 at 10:20:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]
By the way, the fallout from the Sokal Hoax is about the right's co-optation of leftist critique.
by Upstate NY on Wed Mar 23rd, 2011 at 10:23:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Yes, you're right about Fuller, the nonsense there exploded my head!

Upstate NY:

he is referring to the REACTION to the hoax, and not the essence of the hoax.

Well, that's what matters, imo. The hoax was carried out with an intention, and how it was received/perceived is arguably the most important thing about it. From that angle, Bérubé is arguing for a necessary end to hostilities of the kind ThatBritGuy alludes to:

ThatBritGuy:

I remain mystified why both sides are attacking each other while academic economics continues to drive the world over a cliff.

Bérubé (again!):

Michael Bérubé for Democracy Journal: The Science Wars Redux

it [the hoax] may have helped set the terms for an eventual rapprochement, leading both humanists and scientists to realize that the shared enemies of their enterprises are the religious fundamentalists who reject all knowledge that challenges their faith and the free-market fundamentalists whose policies will surely scorch the earth

A fitting conclusion on Bérubé, for me. On Zizek, if you want to write on him, great. I won't promise to read his books, though...

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Thu Mar 24th, 2011 at 05:10:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]
it [the hoax] may have helped set the terms for an eventual rapprochement, leading both humanists and scientists to realize that the shared enemies of their enterprises are the religious fundamentalists who reject all knowledge that challenges their faith and the free-market fundamentalists whose policies will surely scorch the earth

I'd disagree to the extent that it's not the free-market and religious fundies who are the problem, but the processes by which their ideas become influential.

See earlier comments about Dawkins, etc. I think attacking the ideas on their own terms is tangential, because the ideas are disposable and can be replaced by other idiocies at short notice.

The underlying power relationships - the means by which the ideas can influence populations and eventually direct policy choices - are far more relevant to a social critique, because it's the processes themselves that create conformity and leverage.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Thu Mar 24th, 2011 at 07:06:16 AM EST
[ Parent ]
The hoax was carried out with an intention, and how it was received/perceived is arguably the most important thing about it.

There is a well organized anti-academic attack in the USA funded by corporate and ideological interests. My younger brother has a friend who makes attack dog propaganda films, and for some reason he sends me an email of his latest release. He accidentally includes ccs and an email list. The names of some very prominent people, including the funders of the attack on academia are on it. In the USA, there are student groups dedicated to taping their professors' lectures waiting for a gotcha moment. In 99% of the cases, the moments are edited for maximum propaganda value.

I think the kinds of distortions that occur AFTER an event cannot be the responsibility of those who set it into motion, so I disagree with Berube there. The distortions serve a political purpose which exists prior to the event. Here, I find myself defending Sokal because I think his hoax has been used as a tool by rightwingers to bludgeon leftwingers. The actual hoax itself was a tempest in a teapot. You get much more vociferous banter in a quarterly journal. In this case, the scandal of a hoax is what got people interested. If Sokal had taken on the science studies people head-on, no one would have ever heard about it. The hoax itself was really easy pickings for a non-peer reviewed journal.

The rightwing will say anything. In order to prevent your words from being misused, you shouldn't say anything.

by Upstate NY on Thu Mar 24th, 2011 at 09:10:31 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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