An Annotated Bibliography of Nonsense

http://www.kenanmalik.com/essays/sokal.html
Malik, Kenan

Date Written:  05/08/08
Year Published:  1998   First Published:  1998
Resource Type:  Article/Report/Letter
Cx Number:  CX7906

Academic critics today not only question the impact of science upon society, but they also question the very idea of scientific rationality. What characterises today's generation of historians, sociologists and philosophers of science is a relentlessly relativist outlook. Scientists' claim to objectivity, they believe, is mere ideology. They deny the idea that science is in any way universal and argue instead scientific knowledge is relative to the societies or cultures that produce them. The orthodoxy within science studies is that the claim to objectivity and rationality is a 'Eurocentric' viewpoint. Malik argues that these arguments are both irrational and counterproductive. The relativist arguments erase the distinction between science and superstition, between reason and unreason, and make it much more difficult to have an informed debate about science and society.

Subject Headings

• Biology
• Darwinism
• Post-Modernism
• Science
• Science & Society