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Postmodernism disrobed by Richard Dawkins

physics.nyu.edu

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Re: Postmodernism disrobed by Richard Dawkins

#21

Post by Adlai »

akamaka wrote: post #20
crux wrote: post #17

I am generally aware and wary of the hackerish tendency to deride mightily any intellectual undertaking or material that doesn't triumph, confirm, or conform to their strictly rationalist view of the world and its every corner. I find it boorish and stifling. More to the point, I have some incredibly intelligent friends who have spent a good amount of time with Deconstruction (not identical with Pomo, of course) and…

I'm embarrassed every time an article like this gets posted to Hacker News. I don't think anyone here would take Ray Kurzweil's books seriously, but quite a few people would upvote an article by Dawkins or Chomsky, whose books have contributed to their respective fields in the same way that Kurzweil has to ours -- which is to say, not at all. P.S. The last time someone submitted an article about the Sokal affair, I p…

Dawkins... , whose books have contributed to [his field]... not at all.

Ever heard of a "meme"?

Dawkins has contributed plenty to his field, and he writes very accessible books.

That essay by him obviously doesn't criticize the entire field. He's just telling his readers to put up some nonsense filters before they start reading padded fluff.

Re: Postmodernism disrobed by Richard Dawkins

#23

Post by akamaka »

Adlai wrote: post #21
akamaka wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm embarrassed every time an article like this gets posted to Hacker News. I don't think anyone here would take Ray Kurzweil's books seriously, but quite a few people would upvote an article by Dawkins or Chomsky, whose books have contributed to their respective fields in the same way that Kurzweil has to ours -- which is to say, not at all. P.S. The last time someone submitted an article about the Sokal affair, I p…

Dawkins... , whose books have contributed to [his field]... not at all. Ever heard of a "meme"? Dawkins has contributed plenty to his field, and he writes very accessible books. That essay by him obviously doesn't criticize the entire field. He's just telling his readers to put up some nonsense filters before they start reading padded fluff.

Memetics was influenced by him, since he coined the term, but it's hardly a "field" in the same sense as Computer Science!

In writing his book, Dawkins ignored the last 2000+ years of scholarship on the nature of ideas, and influenced a tiny group of academics who are completely isolated from any other form of philosophy.

The Journal of Memetics (which was the only one of its kind) ceased publishing in 2005.

Re: Postmodernism disrobed by Richard Dawkins

#24

Post by Confusion »

crux wrote: post #17

I am generally aware and wary of the hackerish tendency to deride mightily any intellectual undertaking or material that doesn't triumph, confirm, or conform to their strictly rationalist view of the world and its every corner. I find it boorish and stifling. More to the point, I have some incredibly intelligent friends who have spent a good amount of time with Deconstruction (not identical with Pomo, of course) and…

Two possible explanations:

1) He was clever, had many interesting ideas, but was caught up in a culture that caused him to publish his ideas in essays/aticles that were largely meaningless, causing the ideas to go mostly unnoticed.

2) Even a defective clock tells the correct time twice a day.

Re: Postmodernism disrobed by Richard Dawkins

#26

Post by Confusion »

shalmanese wrote: post #15

I don't know why everyone constantly brings up Sokal without also mentioning the Bogdonav Affair: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_Affair . Seems like the pot calling the kettle black.

The difference is that the Bogdanov's did their best to seem real, while Sokal et al. did their best to seem fake.

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/bogdanov.html

Re: Postmodernism disrobed by Richard Dawkins

#27

Post by xtho »

abstractbill wrote: post #5

The privileging of solid over fluid mechanics, and indeed the inability of science to deal with turbulent flow at all, she attributes to the association of fluidity with femininity. Whereas men have sex organs that protrude and become rigid, women have openings that leak menstrual blood and vaginal fluids... I'm having a hard time believing this can be anything other than satire.

At a certain point in history, those sentences were capable of initiating a new way of thinking that was impossible before. 30 years later, Mr. Dawkins enjoys himself beating a dead horse.

Re: Postmodernism disrobed by Richard Dawkins

#29

Post by ewjordan »

Estragon wrote: post #7

There's a lot of crap in postmodernism, probably more than in other disciplines, because it recognizes every framework of inquiry as contingent, and this can be abused to excuse sloppy inquiry. But the fact is, there's crap in every discipline. Have you seen the CS paper generator[1]? Have you read "Genetic evidence for complex speciation of humans and chimpanzees"[2]? Sokal et al. acted in bad faith by cherry-pickin…

Just to take on [1], the difference between computer science papers and the postmodern papers that involve physics is that while both may seem unintelligible to someone unskilled in the field, real computer science papers actually mean something if you know the terminology. Whenever postmodernists venture into areas where scientists can competently evaluate what they're talking about, the verdict is that they spew absolute rubbish, so it should make us think hard about whether any of the other stuff makes any more sense than it appears to.

It's not proof that the whole field is garbage by any means, but it is at least clear evidence that a lot of respected names in the field are publishing crap that they provably don't understand. That's really not a good sign - there may be crap published in fields like physics, but it's not coming from the Feynmans, it's coming from the relative unknowns.

Re: Postmodernism disrobed by Richard Dawkins

#30

Post by telma »

Confusion wrote: post #26
shalmanese wrote: post #15

I don't know why everyone constantly brings up Sokal without also mentioning the Bogdonav Affair: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_Affair . Seems like the pot calling the kettle black.

The difference is that the Bogdanov's did their best to seem real, while Sokal et al. did their best to seem fake. http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/bogdanov.html

How convenient.
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