The Higher Moral Panic: Academic Scientism and its Quarrels with Science and Technology Studies

Abstract

'Higher Superstition' calls for scientists to symbolically take up arms against an anti-science movement (the academic left) which it claims has taken over a large part of the social studies of science, feminism, environmentalism and cultural studies. Despite its simplistic typecasting, unusually vitriolic and dismissive rhetoric and lack of interest in scholarly engagement with the fields of study under attack, ‘Higher Superstition’ has received considerable attention, much of it positive. It has become one of the most widely cited texts in the so-called ‘Science Wars’. Numerous explanations for the emergence of such extreme claims and their positive reception have been canvassed. The lack of focus of the attack of the ‘Science Wars’ and the variety of explanations for its emergence suggests that the question of what constitutes an effective response from the humanities is a complex one and that the extreme ‘Science Wars’ rhetoric of texts such as Higher Superstition is unlikely to assist ‘the sciences’ address real issues in a substantial way.