Tag: science

Michael Rectenwald: Postmodernism, the Academic Left, and the Crisis of Capitalism

First posted March 11, 2013 Those who are obsessed by language finally come to the conviction that there is nothing but interpretation: Stanley Rosen in Hermeneutics as Politics (1987) It seems almost unnecessary to note that this theoretical perspective is matched by the self-abnegation of its praxis. To be sure, postmodern theory itself arose due to the… Read More Michael Rectenwald: Postmodernism, the Academic Left, and the Crisis of Capitalism

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The Dangerous Populist Science of Yuval Noah Harari

The best-selling author is a gifted storyteller and popular speaker. But he sacrifices science for sensationalism, and his work is riddled with errors Darshana Narayanan Watch videos of Yuval Noah Harari, the author of the wildly successful book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, and you will hear him being asked the most astonishing questions. Harari’s… Read More The Dangerous Populist Science of Yuval Noah Harari

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Professor Latour’s Philosophical Mystifications

by Alan Sokal The debate over objectivity and relativism, science and postmodernism, which for the past eight months has been rocking American academic circles — particularly those of the political left — has apparently now arrived in France. And with what a bang! Following Denis Duclos (Le Monde of 3 January), we now have the eminent sociologist… Read More Professor Latour’s Philosophical Mystifications

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Devi Sridhar: A scientist in the public eye has taken her own life. This has to be a wake-up call

Lisa-Maria Kellermayr, an Austrian GP, was a doctor who dedicated her life to her patients and was vocal about the risks of Covid-19 on Twitter and in the media. She had endured months of death threats from Covid conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers. Colleagues expressed frustration with the lack of support she received for dealing with… Read More Devi Sridhar: A scientist in the public eye has taken her own life. This has to be a wake-up call

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Peter Kreko, Alan Sokal: In defence of the objective world

Postmodern ideas have gained the status of absolute truths. Relativism, selectively appropriated into the language of both left and right politics, has metamorphosed into dogma. As oversimplification distorts communication, public trust in scientific fact has eroded. Could renewed ideas of objectivity be a way out? ‘A relativism metamorphosed into dogmatic absolutism is obviously logically incoherent,… Read More Peter Kreko, Alan Sokal: In defence of the objective world

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Masked cancer drug trains immune system to kill tumors while sparing healthy tissues

Many cancer treatments are notoriously savage on the body. Drugs often attack both healthy cells and tumor cells, causing a plethora of side effects. Immunotherapies that help the immune system recognize and attack cancer cells are no different. Though they have prolonged the lives of countless patients, they work in only a subset of patients.… Read More Masked cancer drug trains immune system to kill tumors while sparing healthy tissues

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Apocalypse now? The alarming effects of the global food crisis

Apocalypse is an alarming idea, commonly taken to denote catastrophic destruction foreshadowing the end of the world. But in the original Greek, apokálypsis means a revelation or an uncovering. One vernacular definition is “to take the lid off something”.  That latter feat is exactly what Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, achieved last week,… Read More Apocalypse now? The alarming effects of the global food crisis

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Book Review: “Fashionable Nonsense” 20 Years Later

In 1996 physicist Alan Sokal published a seemingly pretentious but otherwise innocuous paper entitled Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity in the postmodern journal Social Text. After its publication, Sokal announced that the paper was designed as a deliberate parody of post-modernism’s appropriation of scientific jargon. It was filled with largely meaningless or even… Read More Book Review: “Fashionable Nonsense” 20 Years Later

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