2000 HSS/PSA Program 1 - History of Science Society

Susan Lindee University of Pennsylvania
HSS Abstracts
Science Students and the Science Wars
Many of the undergraduates I teach are science students of various kinds. This
spring I opened my junior-level methods seminar with several (varied) readings
relating to the science wars, and found in our discussion that many of the
students were attracted to the arguments of Gross and Leavitt and Alan Sokal.
I wanted to permit this attraction, to let the students think through what was
appealing about such arguments and let them discuss the science wars in ways
that made them comfortable. At the same time, I wanted them (eventually) to
be aware of some of the weaknesses of such claims, and to be aware of the
broader context surrounding them. In my comments for this session, I will
speak generally to the problem of not foreclosing alternative interpretations
when a topic is sensitive, of immediate interest to the professor, or awkward
for the students. I think the science wars pose just such a problem, when the
differences between the perspective of the professor and that of the students
can be obvious even to the average sophomore. How can a sensitive topic be
presented and discussed in ways that both convey the intended message and
permit students to explore other messages? In my view, squelching any talk
sympathetic to Alan Sokal would have been a poor response. Yet I struggled
with how much to say as the discussion progressed.
H
S
S
Abigail␣ J. Lustig Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
Natural Atheology and Evolutionary Explanations of the Origins of
Religion
It is generally seen as unfortunate when scientists let their religious or other
metaphysical beliefs inform their science, which is supposed to be free of
external values. But the aims of evolutionary biology, which descends on one
side from theology, entail the extension of an a priori metaphysical rationalism
whose original aim was to upset the strongest rational argument for the existence
of God. I make this argument in two parts: In the first, I discuss the way that
Darwin’s own work transformed and subverted the literature of natural
theology, while retaining certain of its key presumptions. In the second, I will
talk about post-Darwinian evolutionary biology and the ways that these pieces
of covert theological reasoning have shaped the modern science both from
within and in its larger cultural context, using the example of modern
evolutionary theories about the origins of religion.
123