But pomo only descends so far in science - by the time you get to
crystallography you are back into pre-modern religion - the R gods!
Simon
On 7 Oct 2009, at 09:56, Kevin Cowtan wrote:
William G. Scott wrote:
On Oct 6, 2009, at 1:32 AM, Morten Kjeldgaard wrote:
teleports the students across the hermeneutic circle ;-)
(As a consequence, I recommended the postmodernism generator
website to the students: http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/ )
It is easy to mock postmodernism, but it needs to be treated
seriously. It is based on a valid set of critiques of the modern
paradigm, some of which have arisen from within science (notably the
cognitive sciences, complex systems and QM).
While pomo reacts against the problems in the modern worldview, and
in doing so overreacts going off into fantasy land, any useful 21st
century philosophy of science needs to take the critiques of the
modern worldview - which itself has been significantly shaped by the
scientific revolution - very seriously indeed, otherwise it will end
up being irrelevant. If scientists remain entrenched in the broken
modern paradigm, they will be increasingly unable to communicate
with the outside world, and the pomo paradigm shift may become more
deeply anti-science.
The failure of many scientists and scientific communicators to take
an interest in philosophy of science and sociology have been a
significant handicap in the countering of arguments from the
creationists, IDers, and climate change deniers, who have
(ironically and unwittingly in some cases) tapped into pomo rather
more successfully. The pomo suspicion of arguments-from-authority
threatens scientific funding and evidence-based policy making at a
more general level.
However, the modern worldview is broken, and the pomo paradigm shift
may well be a juggernaught. We cannot stop it, we need to both
understand it and respond constructively if we are going to advocate
and communicate science.
The hermenutic circle is one starting point in understanding where
pomo comes from. The idea that a text has a meaning is highly
problematic and may well be dualistic.
