5.1.1.9.3 Postmodernism and science

The Postmodernism argument runs that economic and technological conditions of our age have given rise to a decentralized, media-dominated society in which ideas are “simulacra” and only inter-referential representations, mere copies or echoes of each other, with no real original, stable or objective source for communication and meaning. Globalization, brought on by innovations in communication, manufacturing and transportation, is often cited as one force which has driven the decentralized modern life, creating a culturally pluralistic and interconnected global society lacking any single dominant center of political power, communication, or intellectual production. Scientific publications, whose conclusions change from year to year demonstrate (in their opinion) that there is no solid basis to scientific investigation - that scientists publish to boost their individual reputations and to secure grant money, not to advance a solid body of knowledge.

Given the antipathy of postmodernism to reason, logic, and science, what is the basis of its attack? Fundamentally, it consists of an attempt to reduce science to yet another belief system supported by cultural norms and biases – no better or worse than any other, and on a par with religion, political dogma, or historical tradition. The Postmodernists, radical skeptics of all knowledge, claim that science is a mythic narrative - one among many others. It is just one other way of looking at the world, subject to its own faith claims, with its own priesthood, just like a religion.

Susan Haack, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Miami, admits that it is true the science has some figures that are regarded with some deference, and it has its share of jargon which is practically impenetrable to the lay person. But it is not just one of many legitimate ways of figuring things out. Every day all of us engage in various kinds of empirical inquiry. You might try a variety of routes to get to work, finding some that get you there faster than others. What is it that makes one route superior? Fewer stop signs, faster speed limits, less traffic? The inquiry of science is continuous with this sort of ordinary every day inquiry. As Thomas Huxley wrote, science is more careful, it's more detailed, and it's more scrupulous. But even though its language is difficult to master, it is not impenetrable at its core. It is an extension of how we all, everyday, get through the world. It is continuous with an activity with which each of us is familiar: ordinary, everyday, empirical investigation. Ordinary common sense is continuous with science. The practice of science is not different in quality from the normal empirical activities we exercise every day during our normal interactions with the world, as we test the environment around us.

However, it should be emphasized that scientific knowledge does not always resemble common sense knowledge. In many ways, the presently accepted scientific theories of the world are very unlike what we think of as common sense beliefs about the world. On the contrary, they frequently defy common sense. The argument that the methods of science are like the methods of everyday life is not a claim about the body of currently accepted scientific theories, but is rather a claim about how scientific inquiries proceed. What distinguishes the sciences in this area is that they have developed an enormous array of techniques and tools for conducting their inquiries that make them much more powerful - mathematics, methodology, computers, statistics, measuring tools, instruments of observation that extend our unaided senses, and a centuries old expanding and self-correcting body of knowledge. Science has organizational methodologies that allow enormous amounts of information to be evaluated, cataloged, understood, and related to other knowledge. However, given all these advantages over commons sense, we should keep in mind the quote from Einstein, "science is a refinement of everyday thinking".

The postmodernist argument also misses the important point that science is an open system of inquiry that is subject by its very methods to outside falsification – even from external reality itself. Faith and dogma, on the other hand, are closed belief systems reliant upon authority or revelation. Stanley Fish, a Postmodernist apologist, argues,

“But what about reasons? Isn’t that what separates scientific faith from religious faith; one is supported by reasons, the other is irrational and supported by nothing but superstition? Not really.”

He asks this rhetorically, because the article in which this quote appears attempts to show that the reasons for trusting rationality and evidence are as arbitrary as the reasons for trusting any other non-rational explanatory system.

This perfectly expresses the core misunderstanding of Postmodernist criticism of science. Although there is plenty of “reason” to have confidence in the explanatory structure which is science, it is not this set of reasons which separates science from faith, but rather, it is methodology. Fish paints a picture of science as a game of inventing reasons to explain specific beliefs (the context of discovery) in something of a post hoc manner. Rather, science is much more about testing those reasons against reality and previously elaborated theories (the later justification which follows discovery). This second, often overlooked, aspect of science is utterly lacking from faith-based belief systems. The glamour is in the discovery, but the bulk of the work is in the painstaking justification, cross-checks, tests for consistency, and confirmation exercises that follow.

Postmodernists also counter scientific falsifiability by attempting to argue that science picks and chooses convenient sources for what it would consider adequate falsification, just as any other belief system would. For example, they might ask,

“Is there something that would falsify a religious faith in the same way that some physical discoveries would falsify a scientist’s belief in natural selection? As it is usually posed, the question imagines disconfirming evidence coming from outside the faith, be it science or religion. But a system of assumptions and protocols (and that is what a faith is) will recognize only evidence internal to its basic presuppositions. Asking that religious faith consider itself falsified by empirical evidence is as foolish as asking that natural selection tremble before the assertion of deity and design. Falsification, if it occurs, always occurs from the inside.”

This is consistent with Thomas Kuhn, who wrote that paradigms can only be judged from within the paradigm itself, not falsified from the outside. And when one paradigm shifts to another it happens for quirky and subjective (i.e. cultural) reasons. Kuhn and Fish miss the whole “later justification” thing that is central to scientific methodology. They miss that science itself is not a set of beliefs but a set of methods. Yes, culture plays its role as it does in every human endeavor. But it is not the driving force, and (in a free inquiry) science does not reach its conclusions to achieve social goals.

Two common Postmodernist critiques of science runs like this: “Because of the subjectivity of the human object, anthropology, psychology, and other human studies, cannot be science; and in any event the subjectivity of the human subject precludes the possibility of science discovering objective truth of any sort. Second, since objectivity is an illusion, science subverts oppressed groups, females, ethnics, third-world peoples" (Spiro 1996). These objections are self contradictory. They purport to make some sorts of truthful statements about the world. Any argument that is based on the assertion that “Everything is subjective." runs into immediate problems. This idea is nonsensical. Anti-postmodernist Thomas Nagel has written, "for it would itself have to be either subjective or objective. But it can't be objective, since in that case it would be false if true. And it can't be subjective, because then it would not rule out any objective claim, including the claim that it is objectively false."

The imminent analytic philosopher, Willard V. O. Quine, maintains that scientific reality is indeed a somewhat arbitrary social construct. He says:

Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer . . . For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing, the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conceptions only as cultural posits.

Sokal and Bricmont, in their book Intellectual Impostures — Fashionable Nonsense, highlight the rising tide of cognitive relativism, the belief that there are no objective truths but only local beliefs whose truth value is relative to the social group or individual which holds the belief. They draw attention to the abuse of concepts from mathematics and physics, such as:

• Using scientific or pseudo scientific terminology without bothering much about what these words mean.


• Importing concepts from the natural sciences into the humanities without the slightest justification, and without providing any rationale for their use.


• Displaying superficial erudition by shamelessly throwing around technical terms where they are irrelevant, presumably to impress and intimidate the non-specialist reader.


• Manipulating words and phrases that are, in fact, meaningless. Self-assurance on topics far beyond the competence of the author and exploiting the prestige of science to give discourses a veneer of rigor.

Relying as it does on deconstruction, postmodern analysis is built on questioning the assumptions underlying any text, “deconstructing” its meaning. The problem is, it’s rare that a postmodernist critique of anything doesn’t consist of some of the densest, most impenetrable verbiage in existence. These sorts of arguments often claim that rationality, logic, and empiricism are nothing more than a hegemony of the dominant power structure being imposed upon the very definition of “data” or “reality,” the implication that it is the “dead white males” whose hegemony is being served. Ironically, it is Postmodernism itself which commits this intellectual crime in the most flagrant manner. As Steven Novella wrote,

Philosophers of science have largely moved beyond the postmodernist view; they now understand that this view was extreme and not an accurate description. In fact, the specific criticism is that this view confused the context of discovery, which is chaotic and culturally dependent, with the context of later justification. Regardless of how new ideas are generated in science, they are eventually subjected to systematic and rigorous observation, experimentation, and critical review. It is later justification that gives science its progressive nature