Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science [Paperback]

Paul R. Gross (Author), Norman Levitt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 6, 1997

With the emergence of "cultural studies" and the blurring of once-clear academic boundaries, scholars are turning to subjects far outside their traditional disciplines and areas of expertise. In Higher Superstition scientists Paul Gross and Norman Levitt raise serious questions about the growing criticism of science by humanists and social scientists on the "academic left." This paperback edition of Higher Superstition includes a new afterword by the authors.

Editorial Reviews

Review

An original, brilliant, and important book. The authors clarify the impact, mostly malign, of postmodernism—at least postmodernism in the hands of the second-rate—on the evolving curriculum in higher education.

(Edward O. Wilson, Harvard University )

We should be thankful that Gross and Levitt have provided a wake-up call. Their significant overview of the thinking of those who teach our lawyers, journalists and teachers should be read by all who are concerned by the decline of the status of science in our times.

(Physics Today )

At last, somebody has performed the invaluable service of exploding the pretentions of those who think every equation derived this century undermines the fabric of western thought.

(New Statesman )

The authors' shredding of such luminaries of postmodernism and feminism as Stanley Aronowitz, Sandra Harding, and Evelyn fox Keller, among others, is not always charitable, [but] it is invariably compelling and frequently devastating.

(Elizabeth Fox-Genovese Washington Times )

Review

"An original, brilliant, and important book. The authors clarify the impact, mostly malign, of postmodernism -- at least postmodernism in the hands of the second-rate -- on the evolving curriculum in higher education." -- Edward O. Wilson, Harvard University

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 348 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press (November 6, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801857074
• ISBN-13: 978-0801857072
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #769,376 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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124 of 135 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Turning constructs on their head, June 2, 2002

By 

Francois Tremblay (Montreal, QC Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science (Paperback)

This book, by Paul Gross and Norman Levitt, both scientists (the former a biologist, the latter a mathematician), airs the grievances of science against the new post-modernist movement in the academia.

A movement that started as a deconstructionist method of literary criticism, postmodernism is now a way of thinking that is proposed by some proponents as an explanatory method for everything, including science. Briefly, post-modernism proposes that science is nothing more than a cultural construct, and has no more objective validity than any other form of knowledge. While natural sciences have remained untouched by this movement, it is taking over the social sciences, spurred over by the latter's failures at establishing its scientific basis as firmly as the former has done.

The subtitle of this book is "the academic left and its quarrels with science", and suitably, the first two chapters discuss politics. While politics should, ideally, be informed by science, it is a sad fact that science is also often informed by politics. The Academic Left demands that, rather than using science to inform the political process, the reverse should happen : feminist postmodernism demands "a complete overthrown of traditional gender categories", racial justice entails a society which prioritizes "black values" (in this case, Afrocentrism - the idea that Africa and black people are inherently superior), and environmental postmodernism "envisons a trancendence of the values of Western industrial society and the restoration of an imagined prelapsarian harmony to humanity's relations with nature".

The most used method to effect these views of the world is postmodernism, that is, the view that our ideological system (including science) is under the purview of cultural constructivism, that is, a product of the culture it exists in. It was first a product of literary criticism and history, places where no doubt it had much use, but is now widespread. Variants of this view posit that science is really a bourgeois construct, or the product of gender bias, or of a one-sided Western perspective, or of an impulse to objectify nature and alienate man from direct experience of nature.

Chapter 5 to 7 are worth the price of admission alone. Here, the authors examine the desperate attempts by "feminist" postmodernists (chapter 5), "environmentalist" postmodernists (chapter 6) and other movements - "anti-AIDS", animal rights, Afrocentrism (chapter 7). Note that I put their position in quotes : as I have mentioned earlier, what the postmodernist holders of these ideologies seek is not a reasoned position but brute social revolution thru obliteration of knowledge.

The most remarquable conclusion of these examinations is that, while the postmodernists in these disciplines claim that science is a social construct, they have very little actual evidence (the mere attempt to provide evidence is surprising, in the view that any ideology is a construct : we would expect total presuppositionalism here, but like any such people, they are forced to at least try).

For example, the best feminist attack against science we have are that : the little problems in math books (you know, the if-John-gives-half-his-money-to-Jill type of problems for children) are too white-male-oriented, and that the language used to describe sperm-ovula interactions are too aggressive. We have the idea that technological societies hate life more than others, and that to eat animals is born out of a desire to control.

The authors elegantly dispatch such nonsense and give us a bird's eye view of the biggest publications on the subject. The field is highly entertaining, and they do not hesitate to say what they think, even though science can be un-PC in many circumstances (such as when fighting Afrocentric myths). They state at the beginning that they intend to take no quarters, and they don't.

Science, despite its faults, is the crowning achievement of Western Enlightment. Books like "Higher Superstition" make us reflect on the intellectual threats to our future, and forces each of us to take a position. Despite some small ideological flaws, I give this book a hearty four out of five.

57 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Postmodernism exploded, September 30, 2005

By 

Philonous (Odense, Denmark) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science (Paperback)

Gross and Levitt do a fine job of demolishing postmodernism in its various guises. The authors' impatience with, and honest surprise at, the academic left's ridiculously incompetent attacks on scientific objectivity is expressed throughout the book alongside some penetrating analyses of, and cogent arguments against, a string of postmodernistic theses.

The book has, however, one serious shortcoming: The authors' justified impatience with the academic left too often seems to make them forget - repeated assurances to the contrary notwithstanding - that a good many honest scholars within the humanities departments are just as hostile to postmodernism as any scientist. Eager to disclose the nonsense behind the empty rhetoric of the "scholars" of postmodernism, Gross and Levitt simultaneously discloses what seems to me to be a far from praiseworthy disdain of the humanities in general.

I am educated in the humanities, but my attitude is very much pro science. I was therefore frequently frustrated when I read "Higher Superstition", because I felt stabbed in the back by the authors' propensity to treat humanities scholars as of all of the same kind - e.g. as mathematically "illiterate". Gross and Levitt ought to know that even though humanities scholars rarely know anything about avant-garde mathematical and physical research this does not in itself betoken a lack of abilities, skill or intelligence on the part of those scholars. Reality has many different and fascinating aspects and no one can be an expert within every field of research. We pick the subject that interests us the most, and Gross and Levitt should accept that not all intellectuals find mathematics or quantum mechanics as interesting as e.g. history, anthropology or psychology.

Unfortunately, Gross and Levitt too often seem to equate the liberal arts with some kind of cosy game that can lead anywhere because of a lack of rules. This is grossly unfair - not to say ridiculous and demeaning - to scholars within the humanities departments. But to me it is regrettably an altogether too typical example of the intellectual arrogance that typifies many scientists' attitude to any kind of research that is not about the "exact" or "hard" sciences. Why shouldn't the humanities pretend to study an objective reality by way of stringent methodological rules and in the hope of providing sound, corroborated theories and true propositions? Why can't there be a good theory of e.g. the origins of World War I? Surely, Gross and Levitt wouldn't want to claim that there can be no true or false statements within the humanities? Were that the case, Gross and Levitt would be exactly as naïve and unjustified as the postmodernists who level the same charge against science. The fact that the humanities don't use particle accelerators or advanced mathematics does not in itself falsify their claim to objectivity. Surely the nature of the subject matter - and not the postulates of arrogant scientists - must decide questions of methodology. Objectivity is not just a matter of expensive laboratories and men in white coats.

An obvious example of the authors' condescending attitude towards the humanities is their musings on the question of which of the two - science or the humanities - is least dispensable to the human race. Apparently, Gross and Levitt think that whereas a world without science would be a terrible place, a world without the humanities would only be marginally (if at all) worse than the present one. I find the question in it self rather childish - science and the humanities are not competitors - but were I to play this game I'd point out that a scientifically advanced world without an adequate appreciation of the arts, literature, ethics etc. would be a world in which any Hitler or Stalin wannabe had every chance of blowing everything apart. Science can tell us how the world is - but only the humanities can tell us about how we ought to live our lives and treat each other. Gross and Levitt would do well to learn this lesson. Their claim that they themselves could teach a course in the humanities is hilarious and it made me shake my head in disbelief. I've been taught philosophy and history by teachers who have spent a lifetime studying these subjects. But of course, Gross and Levitt are not only wiser by far than anyone else when it comes to mathematics and physics. They also know everything worthwhile about subjects outside their area of expertise! A modicum of respect and humility - or just plain old modesty - would not be amiss.

This criticism aside, there ought to be no doubt about the high quality of the authors' writing and logic. This is an important and well written book; it should command the attention of the intelligent reader and prompt some serious considerations of basic questions in epistemology and philosophy of science. I can heartily recommend this book.

52 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A scary crop of academia nuts, March 30, 2003

By 

Jeremy M. Harris (Worthington, OH USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science (Paperback)

Despite the subtitle "The Academic Left and Its Quarrels With Science," the dangerous aspects of the misconceptions exposed and dissected in this book are due much more to irrationality than to politics. Fortunately the authors take pains to clear up a potential misunderstanding by pointing out that there does exist a generous complement of academics who are left-leaning, rational, and not inclined to quarrel with science.

Gross and Levitt perform a valuable service in three parts. They take the time and trouble to wade through the more obviously idiotic postmodern anti-science drivel, they refute it, and they remind us that the purveyors of it are firmly ensconced in the faculties of major universities.

The authors of "Higher Superstition" are academics themselves, and write elegantly in prose laced with vocabulary-stretching words like hermeneutics, conspective, auspicating, tatterdemalian and weltanschauung. While not a particularly easy read, the book makes its main point clearly and simply enough: the postmodern science-bashers are aiming their largely spurious complaints at subjects they secretly resent and barely comprehend. Science has produced edifying, useful, beneficial results with more regularity and less ambiguity than any other field of human endeavor. To claim otherwise is deeply dopey. If academia tolerates a clique where such claims resonate, something is seriously out of whack and we must thank Gross and Levitt for providing fair and frightening warning. Self-styled progressives who berate science with politically correct non sequiturs are no less goofy than the religious zealots they so pointedly disdain.