The Flight from science and reason

Abstract

Evidence of a flight from reason is as old as human record-keeping: the 'fact' of it certainly goes back an even longer way. Flight from specifically, among the forms of rational inquiry, goes back as far as itself...But rejection of reason is now a pattern to be found in most branches of scholarship and in all the learned professions.--from the introduction In the widely acclaimed 'Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science,' Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt offered a spirited response to the science bashers, raising serious questions about the growing criticism of scientific practice from humanists and social scientists on the academic left. Now, in 'The Flight from Science and Reason,' Gross and Levitt are joined by Martin W. Lewis to bring together a diverse and distinguished group of scholars, scientists, and experts to engage these questions from a wide variety of perspectives. The authors take on critics of whose views range from moderate to extreme, from social constructivists to deconstructionists, from creationists and feminists to Afro-centrists. They discuss the rise of alternative medicine and radical environmentalism (here skewered as ecosentimentalism). They explain why the uncertainty principle does not work as a metaphor for ambiguity, and why chaos theory cannot be invoked without an understanding of mathematics. Throughout, they grapple with the paradox inherent in arguing with opponents who contend that reason itself, and thus logic, is suspect. 'Distributed for the New York Academy of Sciences'