Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science. Este artículo no está disponible.Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science

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". As literary theorists deconstruct scientific "texts" and feminists condemn scientific "patriarchy", they argue, principles and practices that underlie 300 years of scientific acheivement come under attack from scholars with little actual knowledge of science. Gross and Levitt explore the origins and history of the trend and examine examples of "science bashing" from an array of currently fashionable viewpoints - postmodernism, feminism, radical environmentalism, multiculturalism, and AIDS activism. They find the origins of antiscience attitudes not only in modern discontents but also in a long tradition of Romantic unhappiness with Rationalism. Their concerns, however, are clearly for the present and the future. They question how far the university community should go in validating nonscientific judgements of science. And they warn that the long-term consequences of these trends - for science education and for public judgement of scientific issues - may be infinitely more serious than the "political correctness" wars currently being waged on university campuses.

Paul R. Gross, former director and president of the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, is University Professor of Life Sciences, Emeritus, at the University of Virginia and a visiting scholar at Harvard University.

Norman Levitt is professor of mathematics at Rutgers University and the author of Grassmannians and Gauss Maps in Piecewise-Linear Topology.