Book Review

The Flight from Science and Reason

N Engl J Med 1997; 336:300-301January 23, 1997

Article

The Flight from Science and Reason
(Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. Vol. 775.) Edited by Paul R. Gross, Norman Levitt, and Martin W. Lewis. 591 pp. New York, New York Academy of Sciences, 1996. $95 (cloth); $95 (paper). ISBN: 1-57331-002-6 (cloth); 1-57331-003-4 (paper).

During the past 25 years, opposing forces have been waging a battle over the validity of science and the scientific method. This culture war, sometimes pursued with fierce polemics, began in the 1960s with growing resistance to the view that the scientific method is the only source of knowledge — that a statement is meaningful only if it is empirically verifiable. The opponents of science are not just a ragtag band of New Age spiritualists, psychics, and fundamentalists. They are also university scholars who contest empiricism on philosophical, historical, and sociological grounds. Their argument, in broad terms, is that science cannot be segregated from the philosophical, economic, and political forces that support its activities. Most adherents of this so-called constructivist view agree that objectivity cannot be reached by scientific practice. But they disagree on the extent to which social forces determine scientific content. The claim that social forces — sex, race, economic class — influence empirical “truth” is one of the main points of contention. What raises the ire of scientists most is the assertion that ideology influences scientific theory, that science is no more than a rhetorical enterprise in which persuasion attempts to overwhelm the opposition.

The crux of the matter, as exemplified by the title of this book, is the assault not just on science but more deeply on the rational basis of the entire enterprise. Proponents of the scientific method are being challenged to lay out the criteria underlying their claims of rationality and objectivity. The attack on science is not merely an assault by antirationalists, religious fundamentalists, romantics, and disgruntled intellectuals, but a serious argument by enlightened skeptics about the basis of rationality's claim to truth.

The Flight from Science and Reason begins with a philosophical defense of rationality and continues with articulate essays on the antirationalist assault on physics, medicine, and the environmental movement; the scientific basis of the social sciences; and the influence of the argument against objectivity (constructivism) in the humanities, education, and religion. The essays by Stephen Cole, a professor of sociology, and Oscar Kenshur, a professor of philosophy and comparative literature, are particularly convincing analyses of these matters, albeit from a generally unsympathetic perspective. Most of the contributors take up the conceptual issues, and each takes a strong view opposing the critics of science, but they also attempt to outline the intellectual bases of their rebuttals.

The most useful essays are by Robin Fox, an anthropologist, and Simon Jackman, a political scientist. Social scientists are forever gauging their discipline for its scientific credibility, and not surprisingly, their contributions to the controversy swirling around science itself are the most circumspect. Taking a bead on constructivism, Jackman sees the question as an attack on liberalism and offers a strategy for dealing with it. To my mind, Fox presents the best analysis of the relativist's challenge, and by conceding that science may be wrong, biased, trivial, or used for evil, he reveals that all these objections are beside the essential point, which is the truth of scientific propositions. What separates Fox and Jackman from their colleagues is their success in finding a common ground for discussion. Polemics can be useful to a point, but there is no loss in having a critical eye in a controversy that has become more obscure as the proponents continue to shout past each other.

Despite the rhetoric, the scientific establishment can profit from its critics. Perhaps the greatest value of this anthology is that it alerts its readers to the challenge. One could blame the dispute on an antiscience cabal, but probing the underlying assumptions of science about reality can only strengthen the enterprise. The issue is really not scientific validity, but the endeavor by critics of science to broaden the philosophical foundation of truth. When one considers how the scientific method and the rationality upon which it is based might serve broad social values, a sensitive and nuanced assessment of the debate becomes even more portentous.

Alfred Tauber, M.D.
Boston University, Boston, MA 02118