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Often it seems as though American higher education exists only to provide gag material for the outside world. The latest spectacle is an Ivy League professor threatening to sue her students because, she claims, their "anti-intellectualism" violated her civil rights.

Priya Venkatesan taught English at Dartmouth College. She maintains that some of her students were so unreceptive of "French narrative theory" that it amounted to a hostile working environment. She is also readying lawsuits against her superiors, who she says papered over the harassment, as well as a confessional exposé, which she promises will "name names."

The trauma was so intense that in March Ms. Venkatesan quit Dartmouth and decamped for Northwestern. She declined to comment for this piece, pointing instead to the multiple interviews she conducted with the campus press.

Ms. Venkatesan lectured in freshman composition, intended to introduce undergraduates to the rigors of expository argument. "My students were very bully-ish, very aggressive, and very disrespectful," she told Tyler Brace of the Dartmouth Review. "They'd argue with your ideas." This caused "subversiveness," a principle English professors usually favor.

Ms. Venkatesan's scholarly specialty is "science studies," which, as she wrote in a journal article last year, "teaches that scientific knowledge has suspect access to truth." She continues: "Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct."

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Dr. Venkatesan's response

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I never name-called any student in that class. I never name-called any student in that class. What happened was that I went into class after that whole clapping incident, and I said; “What you did was horrific. What you did was really bad.” Not bad, I didn’t accuse them of being bad, I said what you did was unacceptable. They started arguing with me. I said fine. You think you know everything. You think you know everything without the knowledge base to boot, without the training, you think you have a command of all the knowledge in the world at this stage in your life, then I’m sorry, that is fascism and that is demagoguery. When I made the two words fascism and demagoguery I looked at the picture on the wall.

I made sure that I did not look at the students, and that I did not make any personal attacks on them. The fact of the matter is that by being so arrogant about their command of knowledge about arguing with me about every point that I was making and that’s really arrogant. That’s very arrogant because frankly, and I’m not trying to be an academic elitist, but frankly, they don’t even have a B.A. They’re freshmen. They’re freshmen.

[...]

It’s basically we were talking about The Death of Nature by Carolyn Merchant. I believe I talked about how the scientific revolution—what effect it had on women of the period. In the context I brought up the witch trials of the Renaissance, and I was trying to make to make the claim—it was kind of a paraphrasing of Merchant’s argument, it’s not necessarily. . . . I made the argument that in many cases science and technology did not benefit women, and if women were benefiting from science and technology, it was an after-effect. It was not the goal of science and technology. It was a very feminist claim, and you may not agree with it. But that was Merchant’s argument; it wasn’t my argument, and I’m not a feminist scholar, so I was really making an argument that wasn’t mine and paraphrasing.

But there was one student who really took issue with this—and he took issue with this, and he made a very—I’d call it a diatribe, and it was sort of like, well—science and technology, women really did benefit from it, and to criticize patriarchal authority on the basis that science and technology benefited patriarchy or men, was not sufficient grounds for this type of feminist claim. And he did this with great rhetorical flourish; it was very invective, it was a very invective sort of tone. And I think what happened afterwards was that some people—I can’t name them, and I don’t know how many there were, but it was a significant number—started clapping for his statements.

It was a very humiliating moment to my life; it was extremely humiliating, that my students would clap against me, when all I was trying to do was talk to them about arguments and argumentation, in the light of what I had been trained with.

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Originally posted by Catchfire:
Wow, so this WSJ "editorialist" throws a few scare quotes around words like "problematize," "deconstructed" and "heteronormativity", removes any context around the alleged abuse, and dismisses accusations of racism out of hand so he can score a few cheap points against whatever he thinks postmodernism is. I'm also skeptical of his 'A' unless the academic integrity of Dartmouth is exceptionally low--which frankly would be unsurprising, considering the quality of the article.

Dr. Venkatesan's response

Personally, I think she sounds like she cannot handle the pressures of educating, but this does not discredit her scholarly work (which might also be poor--I don't know). But this article has far too much glee in "deconstructing" what it didn't even bother to report accurately. The "editorialist" could also use to learn what "deconstruction" actually is.

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Thanks for posting that link Catchfire, in her own words, very interesting to read.

It does seem to me that the brightest students, and the brightest classes, will be those who challenge the teacher more frequently. A lot of teachers complain about having only sleepy drones who write down, so she seems to have experienced an other extreme. She may be right about the students being arrogant.

You seem very defensive about the popular belief that sociology and post modernism are bullshit. While I personally realize these claims are exaggerated, I can see why people believe it. That's part of the reason I wish string theory would get a downgrade in status, otherwise I worry the physical sciences will be prone to the same attacks of manufacturing bullshit.

[ 27 May 2008: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]

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You seem very defensive about the popular belief that sociology and post modernism are bullshit. (500_Apples)

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Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but...to a social construct.

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Originally posted by 500_Apples:

You seem very defensive about the popular belief that sociology and post modernism are bullshit. While I personally realize these claims are exaggerated, I can see why people believe it. That's part of the reason I wish string theory would get a downgrade in status, otherwise I worry the physical sciences will be prone to the same attacks of manufacturing bullshit.

[ 27 May 2008: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]

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The "popular belief" in Germany in 1933 was that there was an international conspiracy of Communists, Jews and Bankers collaborating to rule the world. Not that anyone would be laughing at the idea of young National Socialist students harrassing Jewish professors at Hiedleberg in 1933. We might be calling that Fascism and Demagoguery.

So, are we absolutely sure here that the harrassment experienced by this Professor of South Asian origin was not actually a racially and gender motivated campaign of harrassment?

[ 27 May 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by martin dufresne:
A natural road apple for the Babble Hall of Shame:

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It is a popular belief...

[ 27 May 2008: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]

I also know what it's like to face aggressive/arrogant behaviour from students. I wouldn't consider this indicative of inquisitiveness. It's reactionary and is a block to learning, by flat out rejecting what is being discussed. It can get pretty hostile and rather personal -- if not overtly sexist, racist, and homophobic. I don't want sleepy drones, either, but rather students who can think and question without having to get in my face.

It is my view that the study of culture is one of the most important things in society. It structures our laws, our governance and the way we relate to each other every single day. And I will not stand by while ignorant writers for the WSJ mock what I do with my life.

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Originally posted by Makwa:
... some guy wank jumped up and made a speech about how science has saved all women and everyone everywhere from everything, and the class clapped and supported him, and it was all a hoot and a hollar, except for the disrespect given a new female lecturar who didn't know enough to tell asshole to sit down and shut up or get the fuck out.

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There have been times when I've wanted to say as much. In the worst cases, I've just had to shut down the discussion, mostly to pre-empt anything too egregious. For some of my friends and colleagues, though, the hostility continues after class and into office hours, email, etc. Fortunately, the departments I've worked for support their instructors who face this sort of harassment.

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Originally posted by Makwa:
From other articles I have read, and I shall get links when I find them, the instructor was merely outlining a reference which read something like 'science as a historical discourse (or something) is unfavourable to women'

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It seems to me that this is the kind of thing you start to notice when you're about twelve, i.e., that all thinking is historically conditioned (or, if you prefer, embedded in social constructs).

[ 28 May 2008: Message edited by: RosaL ]

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Ms. Venkatesan's scholarly specialty is "science studies," which, as she wrote in a journal article last year, "teaches that scientific knowledge has suspect access to truth." She continues: "Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct."

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So what does she do when she gets stressed? Visits a doctor:

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Ms. Venkatesan informed her pupils that their behavior was "fascist demagoguery." Then, after consulting a physician about "intellectual distress," she cancelled classes for a week. Thus the pending litigation.

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Derrida in other words.

In this case, it is almost impossible to tell that the quotes used in the article actually refer back to an interview. Nor do the meanings that are expressed in the original context, relate at all to the meaning they express in the new one. In fact if you googled the phrases particulated from the original interview, the original interview would likely not even appear in the search engine, or would be very low down on the list.

[ 29 May 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

[ 29 May 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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The funniest part of the WSJ article:

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The funniest part of the article and your response is that both you and the "journalist" are expressing intellectual disdain towards ideas that you don't comprehend in defence of a method of enquiry that you don't understand in a pique of slathering anti-intellectualism. Your attempt at displaying your intellectual superiority only highlights the degree of your ignorance. Do we really need another hackneyed "science vs. post structrualism" thread?

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So what does she do when she gets stressed? Visits a doctor:

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Not really surprising if she needed to take leave from work or was considering legal action. We live in a society that requires we have a medical doctor to legitimize our emotional experience or distress which is in reality quite ironic considering that Medical doctors by and large know very little about emotions or psychological distress apart from believing they occur in the brain and are rectified by pharmaceuticals.

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Did the physician diagnose her, or impose a social construct on her? Discuss.

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A diagonsis is a social construction especially in reference to experiences of social distress.

[ 29 May 2008: Message edited by: N.R.KISSED ]

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Originally posted by Cueball:
Yeah, that would be good, we could decontextualize that too.

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Do we really need another hackneyed "science vs. post structrualism" thread ?

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Original article:

Ms. Venkatesan's scholarly specialty is "science studies," which, as she wrote in a journal article last year, "teaches that scientific knowledge has suspect access to truth." She continues: "Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct."

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I totally agree with Ms. Venkatesan on this; I think I'd have enjoyed her class if this is any indication, and its nice to have unorthodox professors. Although I have thought this for a long time, as RosaL said,

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It seems to me that this is the kind of thing you start to notice when you're about twelve

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Although obviously if her students are any indication not everyone does!

But considering that her own work is the sort of thing I noticed as a young teenager I don't have much time for Ms. Venkatesan's complaint that her students shouldn't argue because,

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they don’t even have a B.A. They’re freshmen. They’re freshmen.

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They shouldn't argue because apparently they are idiots but even freshmen should understand the material she was teaching. I guess I'm saying that she is condescending on the wrong basis

I do have to say I tend to agree with Catchfire that,

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I think she sounds like she cannot handle the pressures of educating, but this does not discredit her scholarly work

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I defend against what I perceive to be anti-intellectualism and attacks against the humanities and arts because there is no other discipline in the world where I am expected to be embarrassed about what I have studied all my life.

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She continues: "Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct."

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It is too bad, but too much post-modernism is just a new way for old discredited thinking to be resussitated.

I consider that to be the Creationist position on evolution.

It is also the same position the church held when it punished Galileo for believing the earth circled the sun.

There ARE sophisticated discussions of the POSSIBLE, but not necessary, biases involved in scientific work. For example, Bourdieu:

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Bourdieu contended there is transcendental objectivity, only there were certain historical conditions necessary for its emergence. Bourdieu's ideal scientific field is one that persistently designates upon its participants an interest or investment in objectivity. Transcendental objectivity, he argued, requires certain historical and social conditions for its production. The scientific field is precisely that field in which objectivity may be acquired. The structure of the scientific field is such that it becomes increasingly autonomous and its "entrance fee" becomes increasingly strict. Further, the scientific field entails rigorous intersubjective scrutinizing of theory and data. This makes it difficult for those within the field to bring in, for example, political influence. Therefore, the structure of the scientific field imposes upon its participants a habitus that has tacit interest or investment in objectivity.

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Originally posted by B.L. Zeebub LLD:
So it's about your delicate self-image and the need to impress others.

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I consider that to be the Creationist position on evolution.

It is also the same position the church held when it punished Galileo for believing the earth circled the sun.

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Of course you're free to consider that statement by Ms. Venkatesan to be whatever you want. I personally consider yours to be ridiculous.

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The scientific field is precisely that field in which objectivity may be acquired.

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Thats so "sophisticated"

Why is any suggestion of the ignorance of science automatically dismissed as a product of ignorance itself?

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Posted by It's me D: I can still see plenty of ways in which science is an inherently flawed way of knowing; I will go out on a limb and venture that I am not the only one.

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So if enough people believed (like Sharon Stone) that the Chinese earthquake was some sort of divine payback for political repression in Tibet, you might accept this as a plausible explanation? Sorry, I'll continue relying on the scientific theory of plate tectonics as the much more likely explanation.

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So if enough people believed (like Sharon Stone) that the Chinese earthquake was some sort of divine payback for political repression in Tibet, you might accept this as a plausible explanation? Sorry, I'll continue relying on the scientific theory of plate tectonics as the much more likely explanation.

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Oh Sigh!!! Can you actually make a distinction between a critique and an outright dismissal. This is why these threads are so tedious they always tend to revolve around "fer or agin" binary. No one here is dismissing "science" outright and I would challenge you to find one theorist who makes a claim that even approximates what you are suggesting.

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Do people's biases and ideological filters (including those of scientists) sometimes lead to erroneous conclusions being drawn? Undoubtedly. Does this mean we should stop relying on the scientific method and critical thinking to explain the world around us? Absolutely not.

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Where has anyone stated that society abandon the scientific method? Understanding the limitations to science and the manner in which false assumptions and conclusions can be made actually makes a more informed science not an abandonment of the method.

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But anyone that makes seemingly nonsense blanket statements such as "science has suspect access to truth" is them self behaving in profound anti-intellectualism and demonstrating a void of comprehension.

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I'm not sure if taking a decontextualized quote embedded within an obviously hostile article is a particularly strong demonstation of "access to truth."

[ 29 May 2008: Message edited by: N.R.KISSED ]

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Originally posted by N.R.KISSED:

Where has anyone stated that society abandon the scientific method? Understanding the limitations to science and the manner in which false assumptions and conclusions can be made actually makes a more informed science not an abandonment of the method.

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Can you demonstrate the existence of such an informed critique?

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What matters about Maxwell's equations is that they work, very well, and that they're consistent.

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[ 29 May 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

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Originally posted by martin dufresne:
And yet, the physicists who created and applied these equations never ceased to treat them as suspect, to search for their limits, for the instances where they could be falsified, their falsifiability being a criterion of their truth value.
I suspect you would have more respect for Ms. Venkatesan's statement if it had been voiced by a white male such as Claude Bernard or Karl Popper; her (and their) critical approach to scientific "truth" has been part of the scientific method for more than 150 years.

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Originally posted by Michael Nenonen:
The implied allegation of racism aside, what's incoherent about Martin's post?

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Michael, a few posts above, I questioned whether it was possible for someone outside of science to, in N.R. KISSED's words "Understanding the limitations to science and the manner in which false assumptions and conclusions can be made actually makes a more informed science."

Can people who are outside the field, who are trained in a different manner, who do not recognize the jargon and the internal norms, who do not understand how one gets from point a to point b, truly make a critique of something they don't understand? And by that I mean bring new insights into the game, something very useful, that has not been thought of before?

Martin mentioned that physicists themselves questioned Maxwell's Equations, the examples I brought up. Of course they did. Maxwell's equations are a form of knowledge, and somehow increasing understanding of them, perhaps finding cases of where they can't work, would be very valuable. Physicists might be able to do this one day. I cannot conceive of how a sociologist would ever do this. How can an architect specializing in glass and steel ever write a constructive critique of the cooking methods of Australian aborigines? He cannot, that would be a category error.

Which is why Martin's response that physicists have searched for their limitations is irrelevant. He then switches to an accusation of discrimination with no intermediary logical sequence.

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Can you demonstrate the existence of such an informed critique?

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There are inummerable critiques you'll have to do your own work, try googling "philosophy of science" for a start.

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I'm skeptical that it is possible for people outside of science to argue in a manner that would lead to an informed critique.

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Posted by N.R. Kissed: Oh Sigh!!! Can you actually make a distinction between a critique and an outright dismissal. This is why these threads are so tedious they always tend to revolve around "fer or agin" binary.

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Perhaps I should have followed my first instinct and asked It's Me D to explain what the heck he meant by his statement that he "sees plenty of ways in which science is an inherently flawed way of knowing" and then justified this statement by saying he wasn't alone in thinking this.

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Furthermore anyone who dismisses critiques "outside" their particular discipline is only defending their ongoing ignorance. The problem with many working in science is not only that they have not done any reading/reflecting on the philosophy of science but they are openly hostile to the entire discipline.

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You are getting a lot of things wrong.

First, I have not rejected any philosophy of science in this thread as none has been offered. You for example were incapable of posting a useful criticism from the outside, so you feigned ability by referring to google.

Secondly most scientists enjoy philosophy of science, we discuss it quite frequently, there are a ton of science blogs if you take a look. We, however, like to discuss it on a very rigorous and serious level, as opposed to some inane and meaningless comments such as "Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct".

If you want to see some serious philosophy of science, see here:
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/0704.2291
http://cosmicvariance.com/2006/12/07/guest-blogger-joe-polchinski-on-the-string-debate s/

At this point I am the only person in this thread who has linked to constructive and useful philosophy of science.

What you'll notice in those two links is that the people discussing the issues mentioned actually know what they're talking about. You can dismiss experience all you want but it's very important in reality. That reality is why you are incapable of demonstrating the existence (let alone disproving uniqueness) of useful criticisms of science from the outside.

Galileo didn't randomly overthrow 1500 years of thinking. He first mastered the previous way of thinking, only then could he see its failures.

[ 29 May 2008: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]

His historical influence is pretty specific to a period, and the ramifications of his discoveries pretty localized and specific to European Christian society. What gives his innovations their historical signifigance, in fact is the relationship that they have to the social and the social construction of knowledge.

This is not to say that he was an idiot.

[ 29 May 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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First, I have not rejected any philosophy of science in this thread as none has been offered. You for example were incapable of posting a useful criticism from the outside, so you feigned ability by referring to google.

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It also misses the point to dismiss the behaviour as that of "assholes".

This would not of happened had this have been a white male prof. This kind of thing is very common in the academy where a prof who is a woman, a racialized person, someone who speaks with an accent, etc. is treated this way by white male students.

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Originally posted by N.R.KISSED:
You clearly demonstrate your ignorance concerning the depth and breadth of philosophy of science. I didn't respond to your request for two main reasons the first being I truly don't understand your inside/outside binary, I don't know what your definition of a "real" scientist is, who you consider and insider or outsider, the distinction in itself seems quite circumspect. Also one does not need to know all the present theory of a discipline in order to be aware in flaws in logic and questionable philosopical assumptions being made. I am not incapable of posting or linking you to basic concepts discussed in philosophy of science, I'm just not going to do the work for you and clearly a lot of work needs to be done.

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500_Apples: ...She is not being discussed as a philosopher but as a teacher, nobody here knows what her personal opinions are on epistemology

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[ 29 May 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

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Originally posted by Le Téléspectateur:
I really think that making this thread into a discussion of theory is missing the point, as has been pointed out by Makwa and alluded to by martin.

It also misses the point to dismiss the behaviour as that of "assholes".

This would not of happened had this have been a white male prof. This kind of thing is very common in the academy where a prof who is a woman, a racialized person, someone who speaks with an accent, etc. is treated this way by white male students.

Regardless of how I feel about the way this prof teaches or the theory that she was outlining to the students, it needs to be pointed out that this is how sexism and racist exists in universities.

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I dont think that getting excited about people discussing what post-modernism is is very helpful. While I agree substantially that the gender/race analysis should be forwarded directly here, as I pointed out near the top of the thread. The fact is that the article that begins this thread is using the professor as a tool to attack post-modernism, as well as ignoring largely the actual gender issues raised by the professor, as well as the possible race issues. Inherent in this attack on post-modernism, is also an attack on much of the social theory which is related to it, such as post-colonialist analysis, Edward Said, Frantz Fanon, Bell Hooks and the like.

Post-modernism, while somtimes abstract has served as a basis for questioning the asserted authority of modernist humanisism based in presumed European intellectual authority, I think both discussion points are interelated, especially since the nature of the harrassment by the student seems to have come in the ideological form of an attack upon the theoretical framework that has asserted the validity of non-western narratives, in support of gender and race analysis.

[ 29 May 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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It would be a lot more respectable for you to admit you have nothing to offer.

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Originally posted by N.R.KISSED:

I don't have anything to offer someone as unreceptive as yourself. You also flatter yourself in believing that you've said anything novel or interesting in this thread, but that was rather predictable.

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I'm actually very well-versed in the philosophy of science, having been through several university courses, many books, incessant discussions with my friends and colleagues and also as a writer of science. Nobody is debating philosophy of science as a whole, only specific memes of sociologists.

I merely asked if it was possible for constructive criticism of science to come from people who are outside of science. Outside of science is quite trivial to define in this context, it's any human being who has not spent many years practicing science. The possibility that someone could offer constructive criticism without direct knowledge from first-hand experience is not manifestly obvious. Your have failed to prove the existence of such a criticism and it is very obvious that it is because you are incapable to do so.

[ 29 May 2008: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]

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Originally posted by martin dufresne:
I don't know how or where you are discussing her other than slinging innuendo and insults. Venkatesan is clearly a teacher who offered a philosophical statement about science and about a common view of its claim to hegemony. She expressed suspicion about that view - as any careful scholar would, regardless of his or her field - and the male student who verbally assaulted her confirmed that he held such a naive view. So did apparently those who applauded his antics. So this is not about Venkatesan's "personal opinions", but about her challenge to a "popular belief", as you like to say and the sexist racist reception it received from both these students and the male-stream press.
I would add that nobody is "outside" science, as you claim and that you show remarkably little empathy for someone who was clearly harassed on the basis of her educated opinion and of some alpha males' sentiment that she had no entitlement to issue a strong statement about something that clearly has iconic status in their eyes, Science.
[ 29 May 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

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Cut the self-righteous crap nobody's buying it.

I ask a simple question: what is the support for the claims she paraphrased in class (her words), and how can those claims be informed? Is there empirical evidence that there be useful and original criticism of science from sociology? yes or no?

[ 29 May 2008: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]

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I ask a simple question: what is the support for the claims she paraphrased in class (her words), and how can those claims be informed? Is there empirical evidence that there be useful and original criticism of science from sociology? yes or no?

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Your rather limited understanding of what science is and your lack of ability to see the kind of science that you practice as just one part of "science" is a little concerning as you bill yourself as "a scientist".

The idea that only people who have been trained in your particular mode of science are authentic scientists, or "insiders" is also rather ridiculous.

The idea that only those from "inside" your sect can critic you believes and practices exposes the fact that you are talking about religion.

The fact that we are discussing philosophies of sciences and not talking about how racism and sexism is alive in the academy and the functions of that on the knowledge that is created by the academy is an ironic example of "empirical evidence" that critique needs to come from "outside".

edited for sp

[ 29 May 2008: Message edited by: Le Téléspectateur ]

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Originally posted by Le Téléspectateur:
Your rather limited understanding of what science is and your lack of ability to see the kind of science that you practice as just one part of "science" is a little concerning as you bill yourself as "a scientist".

The idea that only people who have been trained in your particular mode of science are authentic scientists, or "insiders" is also rather ridiculous.

The idea that only those from "inside" your sect can critic you believes and practices exposes the fact that you are talking about religion.

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I worded it a bit flippantly because your usual asshole-steamroller style of rhetoric pisses the hell out of me.

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Outside of science is quite trivial to define in this context, it's any human being who has not spent many years practicing science.

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It is not a "trivial question" it immediately raises the question of who fits your esteemed category of scientist? Is it only physical scientists,what about geographers or psychologists, anthropologists, archeologists or economists, physicians or engineers. Are mathematicians scientists? How about computer scientists? It also raises the question of what you mean by "practicing science" does that mean only experimentalists or does it include theorists? what about technicians? The reality of academic science is such that most senior experimental researchers don't actually engage in the hands on experimental work but depend on lab techs and grad students? Does that mean they are practicing science? The overarching question to ask after you have finshed with those questions is: What is the actual characteristic or trait or ability that your subcategory of "scientist" share that magically makes them more capable of raising questions of epistemology or methodological assumptions.

In terms of philosophy of science you make a ridiculous distinction based on your own bias and those you agree with you consider "scientists" and those you disagree with are sociologist. You may find it shocking but many of those in the discipline of philosophy of science are neither they are actually philosophers.

so don't ask me to answer stupid questions and get pissy with me when I don't answer them.

[ 29 May 2008: Message edited by: N.R.KISSED ]

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Before this goes any further, can I again repeat that there are elements of sexism and racism here that the participants in this thread, with some exception, are either not interested or unable to confront.

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Quick, a bit of math! How many self-identified female babblers are participating in this thread?

[ 30 May 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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500_Apples to martin:

Cut the self-righteous crap nobody's buying it.

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It actually seems like most people are "buying" martin's interpretation. I also agree with him on most points he's made in this thread.

I particularly liked,

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[Venkatesan] was clearly harassed on the basis of her educated opinion and of some alpha males' sentiment that she had no entitlement to issue a strong statement about something that clearly has iconic status in their eyes, Science.

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500_Apples: Do you speak for a silent majority?

[ 30 May 2008: Message edited by: It's Me D ]

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Originally posted by Cueball:
My thought really was that it was unfortunate that the women who seemed most interested in this type of theory, no longer post here. This might be part of the reason that there have few female respondents.

[ 30 May 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Well, I'm certainly interested in the types of questions being discussed and I suppose I am competent to discuss them. But, though a critic of modernity and literally "post-modernist", I'm not a "postmodernist" in the usual understanding of the term.

I live for questions like this and would thoroughly enjoy talking about them. But I've been accused of various moral/political sins once too often - not (to my mind) because I am guilty of these sins but because my way of approaching the issues is unfamiliar or unorthodox in the context of this forum. To my mind, that's neither discussion nor debate and it's worse than useless.

First, about the racism and sexism allegation. It is 100% possible and 100% impossible to know for sure. Between ~25 courses in CEGEP, 46 in undergrad, 5 courses in graduate school, and 4 occasions of being a teaching assistant, I've seen a lot of courses but it's a biased sample. What I've seen is professors command respect through the rigour of the course content, their level of formality and of preparedness.

To return to the topic I've been discussing, on the validity of different means of exploring how science is done:

Case 1: Fundamentalist physics: why Dark Energy is bad for Astronomy
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/0704.2291
In it, Simon White discusses many of the cultural differences between physicists and astronomers, the rise of big science, project-specific science, the aura of "fundamental work" and he does this to explain his view. An interesting comparison is presented between the Hubble Space Telescope and The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy probe, for example. His view is that a strong focus on dark energy research could be very harmful to astronomy due to a lot of these cultural aspects, it could very well crowd out other fields; and there are reasons why it is not inherently more interesting than other open questions, indeed even less interesting. These insights would not be possible from someone not familiar with the field.

Case 2: A Case Study of Gender Bias at the Postdoctoral Level in Physics, and its Resulting Impact on the Academic Career Advancement of Females
http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.2026
In this paper, Sherry Towers explores correlations between job performance and career advancement at the postdoctoral level, specifically at RunII Dzero experiments. Here, internal expertise is helpful on several front, as Towers used to work at Fermilab herself. Where that translated in this case, is that she had very rigorous and knowledgeable measurements of performance and career advancement. She doesn't look at total number of publications... she looks at total number of internal reports; which is a quirk to large-scale particle physics experiments. She uses clever measurements of influence on career advance, and very importantly she knows how to use statistics properly. As a counterexample, I remember when reading some articles on this subject by mainstream sociologists, they would often state the statistic that men and women get the same mean CGPA in undergraduate math courses, a statistic obviously irrelevant to anyone with a clue, but seemingly important to someone without. Here, Towers succeeded in demonstrating discrimination to a high level of confidence in a robust manner.

Case 3: String Theory and the Crisis in Particle Physics
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0805/0805.1911v1.pdf
Bert Shroer explores the rise of string theory as a dominant TOE in the particle physics community, the different sociological stratifications taking place, and the evolving structure of the physics body of knowledge. He explores how he believes string theory to be a bad development, and he makes, among other things, technical comparisons to previous attempts at a theory of everything. It is not obvious that there are is a crisis in particle physics, and many people have different opinions on the matter. Only one thing is certain, one cannot have an informed opinion on the matter in the absence of familiarity with particle physics. He links string theory's rise to the evolution in dual models, which is not at all obvious.

I highly recommend all these papers for reading. Both of them had huge reactions on the science blogosphere if you'd like to compare notes. I can only speak for myself and from hours of discussions with colleagues that they raise very critical points.

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It is not just about identifying issues, one needs to be able to state them in a coherent manner that others can then explore as well. One needs to come up with the right questions, and the right way to answer these questions, and when needed, using proper statistical methods.

Martin Dufresne thinks:

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500_Apples would probably turn various shades of purple if he ever heard about Sociology of science (a mere 207 000 entries in Google).

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Thus I restate my questions:
1) Is it possible for people without a clue of science to provide useful and original critiques of the sociology and philosophy of science?
2) If not, how much of a clue does one need?
3) What validity can there possibly be to the statement "Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct."

[ 30 May 2008: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]

[ 30 May 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

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First, about the racism and sexism allegation. It is 100% possible and 100% impossible to know for sure. Between ~25 courses in CEGEP, 46 in undergrad, 5 courses in graduate school, and 4 occasions of being a teaching assistant, I've seen a lot of courses but it's a biased sample. What I've seen is professors command respect through the rigour of the course content, their level of formality and of preparedness.

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How unscientific of you.

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Thus I restate my questions:
1) Is it possible for people without a clue of science to provide useful and original critiques of the sociology and philosophy of science?
2) If not, how much of a clue does one need?
3) What validity can there possibly be to the statement "Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct."

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You don't know what science is. You only read, think, do, listen to a certain kind of science. You ignorance, and the insistence that it is us who is ignorant, is annoying.

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Originally posted by Le Téléspectateur:
You don't know what science is. You only read, think, do, listen to a certain kind of science. You ignorance, and the insistence that it is us who is ignorant, is annoying.

By your own standard you should stop posting in any thread that deals with anything more than physics, which would include this one.

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Ah yes, answering questions with unsupported assertions and attitude, all the while acting insulted yourself. The Babble tradition lives on. You know, if you pomos only stuck with criticising the culture of science say, or popular notions of "progress", or even how useful tools in one field can have unwanted consequences in others (having no innate value or self-direction) you might actually gain a more receptive audience. But no, the problem is "science" itself, and those who just happen to practice it should just shut up and take it. I sometimes think you mislead your audience on purpose, as some sort of bait and switch tactic.

Not saying that the behaviour on this thread has beens so great, and a little more perusuasiveness might be in order, but if you look at the context of the thread, and how it is framed by a completely gratutious and bordering on persnally libelous drive by smear, and outright goading from the author of the original post, you can see why people are not really in the mood for civility.

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Originally posted by Cueball:
Speaking of the receptive audience, I think one of the most interesting thing about post-modernism is the almost fanatic antipathy many people, especially those in the estbalished elites, have towward it.

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Well what a nice surprise, Cueball again. Almost twenty four hour a day service when it comes to calling others defenders of "the establishment". Still no answers though. Sorry, but the growing impression among real outsiders is that post-modernism/structuralism, whatever, is very much part of the establishment now. Even if we do have to agree with one of the enemy occasionally.

If the question was only about the poor instructor who was blindsided like that, I'd say the university should give the students involved a stern lesson in respecting the right of teachers to teach, as they are supposed to be consenting adults now. Whether what she was teaching is valid or not is another question. All of which could be simplified by simply taking my simple advise -always be clear about your intended object going in, even if the subject itself isn't.

[ 30 May 2008: Message edited by: Erik Redburn ]

I asked you if you wrote that or not. Pretty simple to respond to that, I should think. Sorry if my questions are short, I am doing something else as we speak.

[ 31 May 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

http://www.secularstudents.org/node/462

I, for the record, agree with much if not most of what I hear so-called post-modernists say -when it comes to the social content- as they may be speaking from direct experience as well. It's mostly the way they get there that puts us mortals off -though we can never say for sure. Maybe another thread should be opened on "science and social constructs" in the Humanities forum, in respect to Writer's request. Maybe start with what's often called "scientism", as in the belief, that might be a better lead in.

[ 31 May 2008: Message edited by: Erik Redburn ]

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Originally posted by Cueball:
You said that "the text has no author".

I asked you if you wrote that or not. Pretty simple to respond to that, I should think. Sorry if my questions are short, I am doing something else as we speak.

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The post also raised the interesting topic of the perceived conflict between postmodernism and science. I think everyone on this board is a committed leftist. Nonetheless, I take exception to some things that have been said.

For example, Cueball said "The fact is that the article that begins this thread is using the professor as a tool to attack post-modernism, as well as ignoring largely the actual gender issues raised by the professor, as well as the possible race issues. Inherent in this attack on post-modernism, is also an attack on much of the social theory which is related to it, such as post-colonialist analysis, Edward Said, Frantz Fanon, Bell Hooks and the like."

No one mentioned post-colonialist analysis or any of these people before Cueball. If he's going to read such attacks into the article, then he should not be surprised that many people are going to read statements like "scientific knowledge has suspect access to truth" and "Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct", and conclude that they are attacks on science.

There are powerful, regressive, establishment forces in the world that would like to raise doubts about science. The cigarette companies, oil companies, churches, and their right-wing political allies would be very happy to cast doubt on the ability of science to reach conclusions about the causes of cancer, the existence of global warming, and the evolution of humans from earlier animals. Reagan said we should think about whether god created AIDS to punish gay people and drug-users (without concluding that our knowledge of science makes it clear that that's not how disease works).

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Originally posted by Snuckles:
The funniest part of the WSJ article:

Did the physician diagnose her, or impose a social construct on her? Discuss.

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Again coupling the theoretical attack upon post-modernism and the attack upon the professor, using the professors distress at what she believes to be a racist attack upon her as a tool to ridicule the professor and the theoretical framework she is using.

Nor am I particularly suprised by any of this, nor did I say anything in particular about science, in the way of saying it was not valuable. I would say though that even if it is valuable, it is also socially constructed. Many things that are socially constructed, remain valuable.

Who said they were not?

[ 31 May 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by PB66:
many people are going to read statements like "scientific knowledge has suspect access to truth" and "Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct", and conclude that they are attacks on science.

There are powerful, regressive, establishment forces in the world that would like to raise doubts about science. The cigarette companies, oil companies, churches, and their right-wing political allies would be very happy to cast doubt on the ability of science to reach conclusions about the causes of cancer, the existence of global warming, and the evolution of humans from earlier animals. Reagan said we should think about whether god created AIDS to punish gay people and drug-users (without concluding that our knowledge of science makes it clear that that's not how disease works).

When provocative language is used to raise subtle questions about the exact nature of science, it is easy for some of us to see that as providing, intentionally or not, intellectual cover for very regressive ideas and groups.

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Originally posted by Cueball:
Nor am I particularly suprised by any of this, nor did I say anything in particular about science, in the way of saying it was not valuable. I would say though that even if it is valuable, it is also socially constructed. Many things that are socially constructed, remain valuable.

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[ 31 May 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Cueball:
Again why are you asserting that because something might be defined as "socially constructed" this lessens its meaning/value (power). It seems to me that where knowledge (science) becomes increasingly socially constructed, is when it enters the greater discourse.

[ 31 May 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Lorentz invariance would be true even if there were no humans around to comment on it. Saying it's a social construct, equivalent to modern art or to chocolate dessert is to lessen its significance, and inevitably, its validity.

In high school, we had an economics teacher, who one time went on a tangent of her beliefs on human evolution. She didn't think human beings had cross the Bering strait, or other similar events; she thought that homo sapiens had evolved independently on the Americas. Her belief was socially constructed, inspired by a sort of misguided romanticism. The objective truth is that homo sapiens evolved once, probably in Africa, and spread out from there. By being true, it achieves a greater value.

With beliefs all you can do is talk and argue. Truth is something you can use to build things and theories that work. And that's why Lorentz Invariance is important - because it works.

A good analogy would be different cosmological models. You can make up all sorts of universes on a computer. But only with specific values for the key parameters can you simulate something that looks like THIS universe.

[ 31 May 2008: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]

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Originally posted by 500_Apples:

Lorentz invariance would be true even if there were no humans around to comment on it. Saying it's a social construct, equivalent to modern art or to chocolate dessert is to lessen its significance, and inevitably, its validity.

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There would be no "Lorentz invariance" at all if "there were no humans around to comment on it," as you indicate when you say "something that looks like THIS universe." Who is doing the looking, anyway?

[ 31 May 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Cueball:

There would be no "Lorentz invariance" at all if there were no humans around to comment on it."

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Yes Cueball, I realize that the term itself would not exist without humans having called it that.

I was speaking of the underlying physical principles of the speed of light being a constant in all inertial reference frames and of causality. Causality and the speed of light precede the evolution of human beings by about 13.7 billion years - at least.

[ 31 May 2008: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]

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Originally posted by 500_Apples:

Yes Cueball, I realize that the term itself would not exist without humans having called it that.

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Originally posted by Cueball:

Good. Obvious of course. And I note so much of this is obvious that it amazes me there are arguements about it. But perhaps the implications are not so obvious, for example humans determine what they are looking at.

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Indeed we do.

For example, there is more research going into extrasolar planets in this galaxy than in other galaxies.

That's not a "social construction" but a "technological limitation".

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For example, there is more research going into extrasolar planets in this galaxy than in other galaxies.
That's not a "social construction" but a "technological limitation".

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[ 31 May 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

[ 31 May 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

Such claims of total equivalence are also used by fundamentalists to support the teaching of intelligent design. In short, it appears to me that such claims waste time on the left and support the right.

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Originally posted by PB66:
I'd agree with "our knowledge of scientific facts correspond to natural reality but also conform to a social construct" or "The ability of scientists to gather facts about natural reality is constrained by social factors". I'd object to the claim that scientific facts do not correspond to reality in anyway. How's this fit with what other people say?

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I'd go further than that. The technologies we use to arrive at "discovery" - knowledge - define and limit what it is we "discover". Not only that, but what we design as our methodology, or tool (eg; microscope, eg; empirical testability) is both a product of who we are socially, culturally, historically, biologically, and also a defining limit, in fact directing what it is that we'll discover.

There's nothing wrong with this in itself. It's when people equate that cumulative and ever-revising body of knowledge with "the truth" and the only truth that's a problem, when in fact that knowledge is merely a map that we draw for ourselves, to navigate this vast physical reality that itself is full of phenomena that cannot be measured or identified by our rudimentary tools.

So when, for example, certain babblers here say that when certain phenomena cannot be empirically perceived or measured, it therefore is not real or not valid, they are doing science a disservice, and obviously don't properly understand what scientific inquiry is. All they're doing is pointing out the limitations of that particular method of inquiry.

[ 01 June 2008: Message edited by: jas ]

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Originally posted by Cueball:
After all, it is also a narrative. What is in question is the rightful dominiance of that narrative over others, which seems to be the presumption.[/QB]

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