Challenges [Paperback]

Serge Lang (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 30, 1997

This collection, based on several of Lang's "Files", deals with the area where the worlds of science and academia meet those of journalism and politics: social organisation, government, and the roles that education and journalism play in shaping opinions. In discussing specific cases in which he became involved, Lang addresses general questions of standards: standards of journalism, discourse, and of science. Recurring questions concern how people process information and misinformation; inhibition of critical thinking and the role of education; how to make corrections, and how attempts at corrections are sometimes obstructed; the extent to which we submit to authority, and whether we can hold the authorities accountable; the competence of so-called experts; and the use of editorial and academic power to suppress or marginalize ideas, evidence, or data that do not fit the tenets of certain establishments. By treating case studies and providing extensive documentation, Lang challenges some individuals and establishments to reconsider the ways they exercise their official or professional responsibilities.

Product Details

• Paperback: 211 pages
• Publisher: Springer; 1 edition (October 30, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0387948619
• ISBN-13: 978-0387948614
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,348,940 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exhaustively documented dishonesty among scientists, January 5, 2000

By 

Michael Buchanan - See all my reviews

This review is from: Challenges (Paperback)

Lang's Challenges is highly recommended for those who expect honesty and openness in academic science. Lang is very experienced in dealing with cases of academic fraud and coverup, and provides an excellent model for his successors to follow. In a series of four or five self-contained cases (termed "files") the controversy is presented from its source materials, then Lang describes his response, the subjects' counter-response, third party contributions to the controversy, etc. Much of this is through verbatim citations of correspondence, augmented with commentary on outcomes, the presentation of the controversy to the public, etc.

The controversies themselves are quite significant, revealing the impunity and fraudulence of prominent researchers, disturbing nonscientific and even scandalous behavior of major funding organizations, and the wholesale deception of the public in regard to the AIDS phenomenon. I expect intelligent readers of all fields will find this book to be a revelation in regard to the business of science in academia and government, and they will gain an understanding of what may lie behind the news from those areas.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A clean window into the realpolitik of science and academia, April 14, 2001

By 

textgenie "textgenie" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Challenges (Paperback)

This is a quite remarkable collection of insider documentation of the ways in which incompetent, hypocritical or even downright fraudulent star members of the science and academic establishment weasel, evade and lie when faced with the intellectual Exocet missile that is Lang.

Lang is a mathematician with zero tolerance for any reshaping of the truth and he evidently has a fierce passion for taking the lid off the instances he finds where the bureaucracy or the prestigious, Nobel laureated leaders of science are misleading the public or their students and collegues.

More than that, however, he has an infinite capacity for keeping to the exact point of his insistence on factual statements and this leaves his hapless victims no room for wriggling. The cases which he builds, reproduced here, which he calls Files because they are complete records of the exchanges he builds up in corresponding directly with the various luminaries he challenges, are rounded off with reprints of the published articles and other material evidence of the case at issue. These enable the readers to be fully informed and judge the case for themselves, and they are as factually objective as good mathematical proofs.

As a record of what happens when the cosy collegiate fudging and mutual backscratching and support against exposure that normally goes on behind the closed doors of the establishment, and a collection which includes personally directed letters and exchanges which are not normally exposed to public view, this stuff is unbeatable.

Any reader who has an ambition to lose the naive view and see what really goes on behind the scenes quite starkly illuminated, including cases which are in at least one instance - the case of AIDS-- evidently gigantic examples of scientific irresponsibility if not downright fraud, should buy this book. It shows convincingly how much of the conventional wisdom of the media in celebrating some figures and denigrating others in major scientific disputes, such as the Baltimore case, is evidently quite unjust.

There are no rivals I know of for this work by an established and reputable academic who is rare if not unique in putting truth above collegiality, even if it has won him a reputation as a crank. If he is a crank, he is certainly an informed one who makes the reader his equal in that respect. What a pity this hasn't yet reached a truly wide audience. It might change the ways things are done.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The review posted below from Boston is prize exhibit 1, July 15, 2004

By 

textgenie "textgenie" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Challenges (Paperback)

I hope no one will be put off by the review below this one, presumably some supporter of Huntingdon for reasons other than good logic.

The guy just completely missed the thrust of Lang's comment, which is to point out, as enlighted commentators always do (pity they have to bother, it is such an obvious fact) that such terms as Liberal or Conservative are impossible to define with any rigor, and should never be used in any purportedly rigorous academic discussion and analysis. So just the fact that Huntingdon sets out to do that proves him the ass that Lang finds him, and skewers so effectively.

These are journalistic terms and Huntingdon's level of thinking is that of a journalist, not an academic, as Lang shows in his file on Huntingdon. Nothing wrong with that, unless it is represented as academic rigor, which Huntingdon apparently does as a habit.

It is Huntingdon's hapless lack of rigor which infuriates Lang, and which the poster is too obtuse to understand. This is the whole point of Challenges, and one thing that makes it exceptionally useful as a reference. Standards of logic and evidence are loosening all over, it sometimes seems, and certainly Huntingdon is an example, as measured by Lang, unless he has reformed since (this is quite a long time ago).

Challenges is an expensive book at first glance but once one reads it one realizes that it is worth the price for every File included. This book has the power to make a difference, unless of course it is misunderstood for emotional reasons. It is the kind of work which justifies the search for intelligent life on earth, which can easily seem hopeless if one reads too much Huntingdon level commentary.

Once one has read Challenges, one realizes how fatuous the confortable analyses in the likes of Foreign Affairs and similar establishment pap journals are.