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Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 303.483
EAN: 9780801857072
ISBN: 0801857074
Label: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 348
Publication Date: November 06, 1997
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Studio: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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Editorial Review:With the emergence of "cultural studies" and the blurring of once-clear academic boundaries, scholars are turning to subjects far outside their traditional disciplines and areas of expertise. In Higher Superstition scientists Paul Gross and Norman Levitt raise serious questions about the growing criticism of science by humanists and social scientists on the "academic left." This paperback edition of Higher Superstition includes a new afterword by the authors.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Many valid points. Could use a bit more work.
The bad points, first:
1. Who was the book written for? There was lots of strange, inaccessible vocabulary throughout the text that made this suspiciously like many other texts that a person might encounter in a Philosophy class in undergraduate. (Think back to all those classes that you sat through where you thought that you might perish of boredom before the 50 minutes was up.) There are other books that have dealt with pseudoscience in a much more engaging manner (notably the Robert ... Read More
Rating: - why academics can't think
A thorough examination of the results of applying a confused literary philosophy to science. Covers postmodernism, feminism, radical environmentalism, multiculturalism and AIDS activism -- each of these areas has tremendous strengths, but the deconstructionist approach (aka political correctness) often leads to absurd positions. None of these discussions can be dismissed with sound bites, and this book is heavy going in places, but essential for anyone trying to work or think within modern science ... Read More
Rating:  - Still relevant after all these years...
Academic fads have a startlingly brief lifespan: Last year's new thing is supplanted by this year's new thing, which promises to transgress all previous boundaries and explode the oppressive partiarchal paradigms that are crushing the unprivileged. Everything that lies under the vague umbrella of "postmodernism" is one of those this-year's-new-things. But most of those academic fads didn't really go away; that's why, even though it was published in 1998, this is an important and still-relevant book. ... Read More
Rating: - Read this book. Now.
This is a very important book. Gross and Levitt are, respectively, scientists trained in biology and mathematics. They are also broadly-educated individuals who are able to deal with postmodern (and other) challenges to science on those challenges' terms. They have done considerable homework in preparing to write this book and some of their analyses of postmodern thought are among the most astute and crisp that I have seen. Moreover, the book is eminently readable. The style is firm but graceful. ... Read More
Rating: - Postmodernism exploded
Gross and Levitt do a fine job of demolishing postmodernism in its various guises. The authors' impatience with, and honest surprise at, the academic left's ridiculously incompetent attacks on scientific objectivity is expressed throughout the book alongside some penetrating analyses of, and cogent arguments against, a string of postmodernistic theses.
The book has, however, one serious shortcoming: The authors' justified impatience with the academic left too often seems to make them forget ... Read More
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