The blogosphere is alight with the story of a (former) professor at Dartmouth named Priya Venkatesan. Teaching is a tough job and I have the highest regard for some of the amazing teachers I’ve had the privilege of learning from over the years. Priya, however, is apparently not quite in that class (pun intended).
The WSJ provides one summary of the case –
Priya Venkatesan taught English at Dartmouth College. She maintains that some of her students were so unreceptive of “French narrative theory” that it amounted to a hostile working environment. She is also readying lawsuits against her superiors, who she says papered over the harassment, as well as a confessional exposé, which she promises will “name names.”The trauma was so intense that in March Ms. Venkatesan quit Dartmouth and decamped for Northwestern. She declined to comment for this piece, pointing instead to the multiple interviews she conducted with the campus press.
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p>What praytell were these unruly students doing to our poor teacher? And, aside from her personal ethnicity, is there a desi angle to the story?
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p>First, it appears that the students in her class shared a good chunk of my aversion to the PostModernist deconstruction of Science –
Ms. Venkatesan lectured in freshman composition, intended to introduce undergraduates to the rigors of expository argument. “My students were very bully-ish, very aggressive, and very disrespectful,” she told Tyler Brace of the Dartmouth Review. “They’d argue with your ideas.” This caused “subversiveness,” a principle English professors usually favor.Ms. Venkatesan’s scholarly specialty is “science studies,” which, as she wrote in a journal article last year, “teaches that scientific knowledge has suspect access to truth.” She continues: “Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct.”
In my book, folks like this deserve much of the same scorn as Creationists. One finds a benevolent God having begat a weird brand of science; the other a malevolent Rich / White / Old / Male power structure. All the while, neither seem to have problems with the products of said science ranging from airplanes, to the Internet, to medicine.
A few students’ course evaluations are online and highlight a toxic classroom environment –
If she teaches here… don’t take this course. Period. She defines a terrible prof, she is offended when people ask questions about her lectures and does not grade/give feedback on papers. Grade based solely on if she likes you/ you writing reflects her “sophisticated” ideas.
…Aside from the fact that I learnt nothing of value in this class besides the repeated use of the word “postmodernism” in all contexts (whether appropriate or not) and the fact that Professor Venkatesan is the most confusing/nonsensical lecturer ever, the main problem with this class is the personal attacks launched in class. Almost every member of the class was personally attacked in some form in the class by either intimidation or ignoring your questions/comments/concerns. If you decide to take this class, prepare to NOT be allowed to express your own opinions in class because you have “yet to obtain your Ph.D/masters/bachelors degree”.
And, one particularly brave student sounds like he had enough. Priya – to her credit – tells the tale in a blog interview –
[Priya:] I made the argument that in many cases science and technology did not benefit women, and if women were benefiting science and technology, it was an aftereffect. It was not the goal of science and technology.
…But there was one student who really took issue with this–and he took issue with this, and he made a very–I’d call it a diatribe, and it was sort of like, well–science and technology, women really did benefit from it, and to criticize patriarchal authority on the basis that science and technology benefited patriarchy or men, was not sufficient grounds for this type of feminist claim. And he did this with great rhetorical flourish; it was very invective, it was a very invective sort of tone. And I think what happened afterwards was that some people–I can’t name them, and I don’t know how many there were, but it was a significant number–started clapping for his statements. It was a very humiliating moment to my life; it was extremely humiliating, that my students would clap against me,
Priya goes on to describe how that student caused her to have some sort of breakdown that sent her to the (womyn-friendly?) hospital and miss a week of class. Personally, if I could find that student, I’d contribute to his college beer fund.
What took the crap to a level beyond a run-of-the-mill student teacher disagreement, however, was Priya’s truly bizarre response. She threatened a lawsuit in widely circulated emails to her class –
Dear Student:
As a courtesy, you are being notified that you are being named in a potential class action suit that is being brought against Dartmouth College, which is being accused of violating federal anti-discrimination laws. Please do not respond to this email because it will be potentially used against you in a court of law.
Priya Venkatesan, PhD
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p>And she’s already promised a tell-all book –
[I’m] writing a book detailing my experiences as your instructor, which will ‘name names’ so to speak. I have all of your evaluations and these will be reproduced in the book.”
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p>The Desi angle? As Harvard’s Crimson reports, that card was introduced by Priya –
Last week, a few students in the Dartmouth writing class “Science, Technology, and Society” received a nasty shock. When they checked their inboxes, they learned that their professor, Priya Venkatesan, was planning to sue them for discrimination. Later investigations revealed that she also planned to sue the College and several faculty members, not referring to any particular episode, but mentioning the “hostility” she felt during her time as a professor and saying that “maybe it has something to do with my ethnicity or my gender.”
Let’s be clear – there absolutely are real instances of ethnic and gender discrimination in the world. However, Priya’s screed is a fantastic example of the “race to the 3rd rail” caricature of the argument. When racism/sexism becomes a reflexive, defensive rush for cover, it raises the burden of proof for other folks in other cases where the argument might actually hold merit. Still, I suppose for Priya Venkatesan, PhD, there’s a certain consistency in claiming ethnic/sexual victimization when so much of her teaching is basically about… well… victimization.
[PS – it’s worth noting that the lawsuit appears to have been dropped…]
I do understand. I should just have said scientists try to get at what is alreay out there in a flux. My point actually was that some of the more airy sciences try and make it seem that science is on the same level as them, i.e., constructed out of whole cloth. You have to remember, entire generations have grown up believing that penis envy is a phenomenon restricted to women, or that little boys want to sleep with their mothers – and this is just in one discipline by way of example. Scientists too have made outright mistakes, but not outrageous ones.
Btw, you do realize, as some wise soul once observed, commonsense is not so common 🙂
divya, couldn’t agree more!
commonsense: certainly in short supply; including myself, of course!
Excellent @ 295.
All this time I was struggling (in spurts of 10 minutes or less stolen from a mountain of responsibilities) to say that my concerns include more ‘upstream’ concerns in the practice of science such as trends in funding, fashionable fields (just wait till people hear about fashionable topics in vet med these days), systematic filtering at every stage of documentation, non-random mapping/documentation/patching of human knowledge, etc. But while I decided to give up struggling, commonsense came up with that perfect post–respect for people, simple language, understandable examples, insightful understanding of the issues in a practical world. His/her knowledge and confidence came through with grace. He/she didn’t need to resort to sarcasm, high-handedness, confusing tactics.
Note to self: Need to read more academic theory / non-fiction books. Whining that my day job owns me and thus justifying the choice of only literary fiction/non-fiction for hobby time reading shows up as half-hearted arguments on discussion sites filled with opinionated people.
Thanks Malathi-the-Vet,
Just attempting to inject some commonsense….not claiming that I am right!
Commonsense: I didn’t read the two sources on mapmaking, but I think it actually comes from Jorge Luis Borges’ short (very short) story “Exactitude in Science.” (yes, the entire story is one paragraph) https://notes.utk.edu/bio/greenberg.nsf/0/f2d03252295e0d0585256e120009adab?OpenDocument
What I meant is that I haven’t read Kitcher or Gieryn, but it’s quite possible they are drawing on Borges themselves.
possibly true! gieryn also uses a quote from Huckleberry Finn (sp?).
Gosh. Pure science is difficult enough to comprehend on its own terms. I can’t imagine post-modernist outsiders and the like passing sweeping judgments about that which they can’t even begin to know. When all is said and done, you simply cannot disprove science using philosophical arguments, because modern science has long since gone beyond the horizon of common sense, e.g. quantum, string theory, etc. Unless Venkatesan & friends mean the “utility” of science along with its social implications, which is something totally different – that really has nothing to do with the “validity” of science in general.
commonsense’s comments are common-sensical, and his/her plain language stands in great contrast to the obtuse, impenetrable french narrative theory of lacan and derrida for example…which leads me to believe these comments don’t really have that much to do with the school of thought Venkatesan is
indoctrinatingteaching, though i could be wrong since i’ve never read venkatesan.commonsense seems to be addressing science studies the way a traditional academic would, exposing social constructions and ethnocentrisms as a way to get past bias and see the world as it is, not as it appears due to our prejudices. Of course science, and the language it uses, are social constructions vulnerable to society’s influence.
but french narrative theory and its philosophical predesesors (like heidegger, neitzsche, husseral, and even marx or freud) go well beyond this to varying degrees and nuances depending on the thinker. if “god is dead” as nietzsche proclaimed, so is the gods eye point of view. nature may as well be an illusion, since we have no way of seeing it objectively. truth becomes relative. nietzsche, granted, is the most radical; but his ideas have influenced generations of postmodernists.
the next step is to politicize this theoretical insight, to moralize even though morality is impossible. marx led the way by proclaiming political philosophy cannot exist, only ideology, ie, false systems of thought perpetrated by the ruling class to justify their rule in the eyes of the ruled; like the divine right of kings or classic liberalism for that matter. on college campus’, the “ism”–racism, classism, sexism, and recently fatism–are the great sins in part b/c they are the ultimate social constructions, the ultimate illusions, the ultimate ideology forming a web of oppression. that’s why studying human nature is problematic, as larry summers and charles murray found out.
so i suspect a connection between the profs behaviour and her science studies.
Folks, thanks for the feedback. I will write a bit more on this issue later (sounds like a threat!!).
I wince each time i see Nietzsche’s name associated with the likes of derrida. He’s my God 🙂 Besides his God is Dead statement was a lament and not a proclamation (although that doesn’t take away from your point). It is one of the saddest things in life, imo, how the works of sincere and passionate thinkers can go on to fuel the most vapid pseudo-intellectual movements. Kuhn too would probably be turning in his grave to see what his ideas led to. Not to mention Marx. C’est la vie. But I think Nietzsche will live forever, whereas derrida and freud will be forgotten.
Folks,
Once again, thanks for the feeback. Manju has raised an interesting point ie. “”so i suspect a connection between the profs behaviour and her science studies.”” I would have to respectfully disagree, but do not have much time to digress on this issue, but for sure, comes a time when it’s later….
Manju also wrote:””commonsense seems to be addressing science studies the way a traditional academic would, exposing social constructions and ethnocentrisms as a way to get past bias and see the world as it is, not as it appears due to our prejudices.”” And later, that I have not addressed issues raised by “”french narrative theory and its philosophical predesesors (like heidegger, neitzsche, husseral (Sic! husserl), and even marx or freud)””. You don’t have to, but take my word for it, I am intimately familiar with these thinkers since I teach about them in relation to science and technology. The real issue is how to present their ideas, along with Foucault, Derrida, Bourdieu, Latour etc. without falling victim to the seductions of mimicking their style of writing. I suspect (but I may be completely wrong), that Dr. Venkatesan tried to mimic their style of writing and made no sense to undergraduate students. This is why I suggested that she probably needs some counselling about how to teach. At the end of the day, whatever scholars may write in books and articles, in a class-room setting, it is a different ball-game altogether. It is all about effective communication. I suspect that Dr. Venkatesan was unable to do this, her students were frustrated ( as in “what the FISH is she talking about?”), she was frustrated that she could not get through. When it comes to expressing one’s point of view, either in a class-room or in a text, my gurus are the late American sociologist C. Wright Mills and the late American literary scholar Edward Said. One can easily churn out passages such as the one appended below. Indeed a lot of graduate students and new assistant professors do exactly this. But at the end of the day, one has to ask, is this intellectual game worth the candle? The passage (a real one, not a parody!):
“”Total presence breaks on the univocal predication of the exterior absolute the absolute existent (of that of which it is not possible to univocally predicate an outside, while the equivocal predication of the outside of the absolute exterior is possible of that of which the reality so predicated is not the reality, viz., of the dark/of the self, the identity of which is not outside the absolute identity of the outside, which is to say that the equivocal predication of identity is possible of the self-identity which is not identity, while identity is univocally predicated of the limit to the darkness, of the limit of the reality of the self). This is the real exteriority of the absolute outside: the reality of the absolutely unconditioned absolute outside univocally predicated of the dark: the light univocally predicated of the darkness: the shining of the light univocally predicated of the limit of the darkness: actuality univocally predicated of the other of self-identity: existence univocally predicated of the absolutely unconditioned other of the self. The precision of the shining of the light breaking the dark is the other-identity of the light.””
C. Wright Mills the sociologist, wrote this, not in response to the above, but in response to how academics were writing in his own time, and yes, that time was way back in 1956!! From his book The Sociological Imagination (1956, many reprints)
p.239: “”I know you will agree that you should present your work in as clear and simple language as your subject and your thought about it permit. It has been said with authority that there is a serious crisis in literacy, a crisis in which social scientists are very much involved. Is this peculiar language due to the fact that profound and subtle issues, concepts, methods are being discussed? Is it really necessary to your proper work? If it is, there is nothing you can do about it. If it is not, then how can you avoid it? Such lack of intelligibility, I believe, has little or nothing to do with the complexity of subject matter and nothing at all with profundity of thought. It has to do almost entirely with certain confusions of the academic writer about his(her) own status. To overcome academic prose you have first to overcome the academic pose….clarify your own answers to these three questions: (1) How difficult and complex after all is my subject? (2) When I write, what status am I claiming for myself? (3) For whom am I trying to write? But, you may ask, do we not sometimes need technical terms? Of course we do, but “technical” does not necessarily mean difficult, and certainly it does not mean jargon. If such technical terms are really necessary and also clear and precise, it is not difficult to use them in a context of plain English and thus introduce them meaningfully to the reader. My first point, then, is that most “socspeak” is unrelated to any complexity of subject matter or thought. It is used – I think almost entirely – to establish academic claims for one’s self; to write in this way is to say to the reader (often I am sure without knowing it): “I know something that is so difficult you can understand it only if you first learn my difficult language. In the meantime, you are merely a journalist, a layman or some other sort of underdeveloped type”. There are some four broad possibilities available to the social scientist as a writer. If he recognizes himself as a voice and assumes that he is speaking to some such public as I have indicated, he will try to write readable prose. If he assumes he is a voice but is not altogether aware of any public, he may easily fall into unintelligible ravings. If he considers himself less a voice than an agent of some impersonal sound, then – should he find a public – it will most likely be a cult. If, without knowing his own voice, he should not find any public, but speaks solely for some record kept by no one, then I suppose we have to admit that he is a true manufacturer of the standardized prose: an autonomous sound in a great empty hall. It is all rather frightening, as in a Kafka novel, and it ought to be: we have been talking about the edge of reason. To write is to raise a claim to be read, but by whom? You are to assume that you have been asked to give a lecture on some subject you know well, before an audience of a leading university, as well as an assortment of interested people from a nearby city. Assume that such an audience is before you and that they have a right to know; assume that you want to let them know. Now write. Avoid the Byzantine oddity of associated and disassociated concepts and mannerisms of verbiage. Avoid using unintelligibility as a means of evading the making of judgements upon society – and as a means of escaping your readers’ judgements upon your own work. “” END OF QUOTE
Now, my views may sound “traditional” because I deliberately avoid using jargon in an attempt to make myself understood. Similarly, Edward Said, even though he used Michel Foucault’s ideas for his Orientalism. Imagine, if he had written in the a self-consciously Foucaultian style! At least any intelligent person, without ever having to master any jargon, can immediately figure out whether he/she hates or likes Said’s ideas. I realize there has been a lot of debate about jargon vs. non-jargon, and Judith Butler even wrote an oped in NYT about this, but this is an issue I choose not to compromise on. If I have something to say, I’d rather say it in plain English or some other language, as opposed to consciously using a style that is patently non-democratic and elitist. I think (and I may be wrong!), Dr. Venkatesan got carried away with a particular narrative style and I can well imagine the effect such style (as quoted above) can have on undergraduate students. They got pissed off, she threatened to sue them….total lack of communication, which is of course, pretty sad.
Sir Shankar (#308) remarks that “science studies” might question the “validity” of science. The many over-enthusiastic and bombastic proponents of science studies notwithstanding, I think not! Scholars of “science studies” do not seek to debunk or question science. But, more on this later!
Divya:
“”It is one of the saddest things in life, imo, how how the works of sincere and passionate thinkers can go on to fuel the most vapid pseudo-intellectual movements.””
Absolutely!! Each year I tell my grad students something like: “”look these folks were writing the way they were beacause they could not help it, because this is how they experienced the social world and their vocation and real life were not separate domains. Even though mimicry is a form of flattery, please and few folks are immune to flattery, try not to copy their style. They would not be flattered! They were genuine thinkers who lived what they wrote about (huh, except Heidegger’s caving in to Hitler, oh well, these things happen!)”. Of course the students listen intently and yet most, not all of them, churn out barely-digested, quite unreadable prose….it is all very frustrating, but then again, I try to understand their anxieties, their fears of possible coming across as “pedestrian”, “traditional”, “not stimulating”…..such is life, especially academic life, no pun intended!
312 · commonsense said
commonsense, my one of favorite criticisms of scholarly writing is martha nussbaum’s ‘the professor or parody‘ on judith butler. apparently earnest nussbaum tells paraphrases butler’s writing at one point, and shows her how it’s done.
and this one is dedicated to manju, my favorite (living) conservative in the whole world:
309 · Manju said
derrida penetration is a cherished goal that many share.
ps: What of Foucault’s tribute to Nietzsche’s ‘Genealogy of Morals’ approach?
314 · blonde beast said
Why thank you, Blonde Beast, but surely you prefer Limbaugh’s Nietzschisn hyperbole, or perhaps Nussbaum’s diplomatic approach?
But seriously, that is a great quote…making the shock felt by the academic left, when paul de mann and martin heidegger where revealed, seem so naive.
Nietzsche genealogy is very scary and very realistic, as anyone who has spent time in real class societies knows. nietzsche can be difficult too, but more like interpreting poetry than reading the gobblygook of the french school. i read it as a prediction that we return to the old world, to cultures that will inevitably fight wars with each other, as cultures do but liberal democracies do not, at least with each other. the pomo’s looking for a happy ending are just going to end up like eliot spitzer. I’m not really familiar with foucault though, i meant to say Marcuse earlier, when I was referring to the postmodern conceptions of freedom of speech.
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blockquote>Of course the students listen intently and yet most, not all of them, churn out barely-digested, quite unreadable prose
commonsense, I’m one of the ones who would be guilty of churning out undigestible stuff. There’s too much coursework to be able to think straight. But I think with time the essentials start sinking in, that is if one really cares.
Manju, I haven’t read the geneaology yet, but am familiar with the main ideas in it (I think). I don’t find them scary. I find the denial of them scary. That is why I have now come to develop a fascination for cultures like India where people recognize differences. As long as the values of justice also prevail this seems to me to be the best model. It takes into account both differences in social strata as well as cultural preference. So, for example, vegetarians and meat eaters are both happy in their cocoons without any of them inflicting their values on the other. Notice in a culture like the US this is interpreted as being evil instead of as something only natural. Instead this can be extended to almost all spheres of life like abortion, stem cell, etc. where conservatives/liberals will never both be happy in cultures like the US. And legislation is not the way to go, imo, but instead social values.
Sorry about the formatting. Only the first line is a quote, the rest is me.
blonde beast #314,
Yep, C. Wright Mills, the man from Waco Texas who died way too young, was doing exactly what Nussbaum has done. He took huge chunks of the writings of Talcott Parsons at Harvard, and translated them into four or five sentences, usually starting with “In plain English, what he means is….”. And yes, it isn’t just the French who are guilty of writing in a particular form. Parsons was American. Yes, I am all too familiar with the argument that writing in plain English sugar-coats and Readers-Digestifies the complexity of this complex world etc. etc. But I don’t buy it! Among other things, the result of course is that folks like Dinesh D’Souza and Limbaugh etc. rule the roost, while as Edward Said once wrote somewhere (paraphrase, not a direct quote) “our literary theorists, the deconstructionists, the postmodernists etc. etc. pretend they are subverting the power structures everywhere, when all they are subverting is each other’s schools, and sometimes not even that”. In terms of the politics of writing style, I think Said had it right, regardless of whether one agrees with his views or not. I go back again to a fraction of a quote of Mills that refuses to leave me when I encountered it first as an undergrad; yes, it is not easy, to live up to this expectation, but I try, with mixed results:
“”To write is to raise a claim to be read, but by whom? You are to assume that you have been asked to give a lecture on some subject you know well, before an audience of a leading university, as well as an assortment of interested people from a nearby city. Assume that such an audience is before you and that they have a right to know; assume that you want to let them know. Now write. “” (C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagaination )
apologies for the mangled sentences in # 319! (speaking of clear writing!)
commonsense – good stuff! ’nuff said.
316 · Manju said
with purdy call-girls who charge hundreds per hour? if a lit ph.d can do that for you, sign me up! i think said had it right, yes, and nussbaum as a philosopher, has impeccable writing (whether or not you agree with her universalism). ‘the fragility of goodness’ is beautiful, but of course, her sources provide for very rich and engaging literary fodder. i like how she is able to make the ancients relevant today in an intellectually serious manner (ie without romanticizing and sentimentalizing).
it is scary in the sense that it fits in very well Foucault’s nihilistic tendencies. Nietzsche (and for the same reason Marx) can be difficult to read because they seem to asserting something which seems outrageous when literally interpreted, but actually means something different given their historical context. Nietzsche is a very powerful and vital writer, I think; very good at exploiting imagery. Not your standard, careful philosopher, making measured claims, sacrificing flair for precision.
i am assuming commonsense is not homi k. bhabha 🙂 good luck and hope more people like you get tenure!
eeeks, “subaltern speaking”!! homi k. bhabha?? me?? as somebody else put it, homi bhabha and his ilk represent a new breed of scholars who teach English but for whom English is a second language!! but methinks he is over adolescent fantasies of “let me impress everyone, especially the goras” stage, (sarcasm alert! and will soon learn how to write in plain English. No, I would have been flattered if you’d compared me to Terry Eagleton instead. I forgot to mention him when I was dropping names earlier: C. Wright Mills, Edward Said and Terry Eagleton! Yes indeed. Check out a recent piece by Eagleton on Zizek in a recent issue of TLS and you will know what i mean re: writing in plain English about complex and complicated theoretical issues! And of course, Eagleton’s After Theory is simply priceless! I was laughing my head off while reading his takes on convoluted continental theorists. I will, if the editors permit me, type in some really hilarious examples from Eagleton, if somebody really wants proof that it is indeed possible to write with a light touch (aka plain English) about complex issues, without reducing those issues to a process of Readersdigetification. Of course, Eagleton’s piece on our desi Spivak in the LRB, some five years ago or so, was simply too good to be true. With apologies to die-hard fans of Spivak-speak!! (Sarcasm alert and apologies for the same….not quite my style to be sarcastic, but some people do really get my goat and have me screaming “What the FISH!!?””, but that’s just me!!)
When I say “what the FISH!!”, I don’t refer to Stanley Fish. Just making sure I’m not misunderstood…..
325 · commonsense said
sounds fishy
324 · commonsense said
if it wasn’t clear from what i linked to, the smiley, and the “not”, i wasn’t comparing you to him, in fact it was a sarcastic remark about homi bhabha.
subaltern speaking, I know! i just shamelessly exploited the opening offered by you to go off on a rant while pretending it wasn’t quite a rant – as in appending “sarcasm alerts” after each sarcastic comment 🙂
To go back to the issue of whether Dr. Venkatesan’s “problems” were caused, so to speak, by “science studies”, I would have to say, probably not. You have these issues in any field. And these problems aren’t caused by nor limited to the “flaky”, high-strung liberal arts types. In 1992, a mechanical engineer, Valery Fabrikant actually shot and killed a few of his colleagues http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concordia_University_massacre. Not sure how “science studies” per se could be blamed for Dr. Vekatesan’s predicament. As in any other field, some “science studies” folks do turn out indigestible sludge that only members of their cult can understand. However, a majority of work in this area is not of that bent.
Coming to Sir Shankar’s (#308) point about science having moved on and that “”Pure science is difficult enough to comprehend on its own terms. I can’t imagine post-modernist outsiders and the like passing sweeping judgments about that which they can’t even begin to know.””: not sure if the outsider/insider distinction is valid, nor is a clear cut-distinction between “pure” and “applied science”. Whatever might have been the case in the past, no funding agency will offer millions of dollars for research unless there is some expectation of some pay-off, even if this may not happen right away. Even in the most esoteric of fields, such as the study of the origins of the universe, or the nature of matter, none of it is justified, even by scientists, by the argument “because it is good for science”. The super-collider project in the US was cancelled because the scientists were unable to convince the Congress that the millions they asked for was justified and could not be spent better elsewhere. The “”human genome project””, sold as promising to decode “the book of life” and further pies-in-the-sky such as cutting edge genetic therapies, and perhaps even eliminating death itself, was of course fuelled by a number of interested agencies and scientists. The Department of Energy was interested in finding out the effects of radiation on genes (in case of nuclear attacks); biologists were interested in getting big money for big science, that until then was going mostly to various fields in physics, due to the space program; corporations naturally latched on the human genome project for the usual reasons etc. etc. And of course there were the other complex motivations and passions that adhere to any intellectual pursuit. The point of all this is NOT that these interests question the VALIDITY or the FINDINGS of the human genome project or anything like that. To use the map-making analogy again, there are many factors that go into producing certain maps of nature while neglecting other possibilities. It is precisely here that social factors play a significant role, and the fact that social factors are involved, does not mean that folks in “science studies” claim that science is simply a myth, not valid, cannot come up with reasonably reliable findings that will of course be modified once the very reality it studies, changes, partly as consquence of the finding themselves that allow us to act on the natural world. Just as maps allow us to intervene in this world, creating new entities and thus necessitating new maps and the cycle continues. The issue is not of truth or falsity, but of “significant truths” (Philip Kitcher). Despite a few examples here and there, most fraudulent science is usually caught out (The David Baltimore case etc.) But one kind of “significant truth” may not be “significant” for other scientists, as all of them do have their own hobby horses, just as non-scientist scholars do. So, how and why a certain field in science grows, is supported or not supported, this is certainly an area where both scientists and non-scientists are implicated. If for nothing else, the enormous budgets for science, as in other non-scientific fields are, at the end of the day, justified on the basis of “its good for society”. Well, society is not a homogenous entity. Some roads taken are good for some members of society, while other roads forsaken might have been better etc. etc. At the end of the day, the issues of political economy (or Marxian concerns if you will), ie. the issue of who gets what and who gets nouught, is moot. Will certain therapies promised by genomics be available to most people? Will the high cost wreck the socialized medicare systems in countries that do have it? And if so, should this necessarily mean that there should be no research in genomics? Must we necessarily turn our backs on science? Complex issues for sure, but issues that cannot be answered easily by some “science studies” folks such as our desi Vanadan Shiva for example who offers a simple image of a science that will be radically different from what we have. Nor by some of the continental theorists (and non-continental ones) whose writings are barely comprehensible by even members of their own cults (but at least it gives their students to write more dissertations explicating “What So and So really meant, paving ways for jobs, journals and intellectual empires). OK, this may sound like “traditonal” science studies, but, for me at least, these are issues that matter. Needless to add(then why add??!), I am not foolhardy enough to assume that my intersts apply to all. Yes, for those tired of “traditional” (euphemism for “pedestrian”, “commonsensical”, but that’s my nick!!)I could introduce the ideas of a lot of “cutting edge” science studies scholars, but I doubt that, despite the entertainment value of tortured prose infused by convulsive self-importance, I doubt that it would add anything new (my own convulsive self-importance alert!)
References: (and no, my own earth-shattering books on these issues are not, included below! no self-advert this…)
Chandra Mukerji _A Fragile Power: Scientists and the State (Princeton University Press)
Daniel Kevles and Leroy Hood The Code of Codes: Scientific and Social Issues in the Human Genome Project (Harvard University Press)
Sheila Jasanoff, The Fifth Branch: Science Advisors as Policy Makers (Harvard University Press)
Thomas F. Gieryn Cultural Boundaries of Science: Credibility on the the Line (U of Chicago Press0
Daniel J. Kevles _The Baltimore Case: A Trial of Politics, Science and Character _(Norton)
Philip Kitcher _ Science, Truth and Democracy_ (Oxford U Press)
Daniel Kleinman, Politics on the Endless Frontier: Postwar Resarch Policy in the United States (Duke U Press)
Daniel Kleinman, Impure Cultures: University Biology and the World of Commerce (Univ. of Wisconsin Press)
Daniel Kleinman, Science, Technology and Democracy (State Univ. of New York Press)
Kitcher is slimy. Not sure whether that’s applicable to his ideas/arguments.
While what you say about science studies not questioning the validity of scientific “truths” has merit, such questioning is a standard and valid position in the philosophy of science. But that is another thread altogether.
I find it a pity that few desis in science are interested in the foundations of scientific knowledge. It is an area where we should excel, given that Indian philosophy presents the most sophisticated debates on epistemology out there. Oh, well.
IanHackingFan,
about kitcher being slimy, fair enough! (Keecher = slime, literally, in desi lingo!). However I do find him very useful (my personal views) because even though he is a philosopher, he helps me negotiate my way out of pointless (in my view!) cul de sacs and onto the stuff of social life! that line from old man Marx (paraphrase) “the relationship of philosophy to the study of the real world, is the same as onanism is to real love” (with sincere apologies to philosophers and lovers of onanism).
IanHackingFan,
Not to mention the fact that I love Hacking’s work a lot too (no, not a slimy, keecher attempt to get you on my side!). actually, i attended a lot of his courses, oh, way back when and learnt much of what I did, from him. Too bad he’s not a good speaker…oh well!
commonsense @329. I’m curious, does that utilitarian sort of account not leave you a bit cold? Whatever happened to good old-fashioned wondering for no particular reason? Not to mention earthshattering discoveries made from a net investment of 50 cents on pencil and paper.
good point divya….unfortunately, the “good old fashioned wondering” has not been true for a long time, certainly not since the time of newton and most probably much earlier. i may be wrong here; however, my account above is not necessarily “utilitarian”, since a complex range of motives and interests are involved. what does happen is that there are a lot of totally unintended consequences and unanticipated paths, forks and discoveries. the whole idea of “serendipidity (sp?)”, a term derived from sri lanka, but developed further by the Columbia U sociologist of science, Robert Merton. thus, the initial “utilitarian” impulse does not necessarily yield to pre-determined goals and outcomes, and hence the notion of unanticipated discoveries. seriously, in this day and age, where any science, even the most “theoretical” one, that may, in theory, require little more than a pen and paper, is not possible without enormous amounts of cash. it simply does not happen. since the 17th century at least and probably earlier, the formula is clear”: “no patronage, no sciencë” (or perhaps no viable science). so, it is true that scientists may pitch their claims in terms of “benefits to society” when all they want is to pursue their intellectual interests, but at the end of the day, they cannot do this for too long. even the most “esoteric” projects that have no possible “application” do have enormous applications. think of any field, and most policy analysts will be able to point out the potential applications that some scientists will deny by pointing to “pure science”. chandra mukerji (UC San Diego) does a great job of analyzing this by deliberately choosing some of the most non-applied fields in her A Fragile Power: Scientists and the State (Princeton U Press). the notion that one can, in this day and age, pursue one’s whims and fancies, at least in science, is not too accurate. It is not even accurate in the humanities: we are “configured”, so to speak by institutional trends, “what sells”, “hot topics”, the payoffs vs. costs, down to the very language, discourse and expressions we use or deliberately chose to ignore. Just my views though, not at all claiming that I am right!
Divya,
As we all know, all those stories about Newton sitting under an apple-tree and reflecting on gravity are just-so stories. A great “deconstruction” (long before this term was fashionable!) of this view can be found in Nikolai Bukarin The Social and Economic Roots of Newton’s Principia (1936).
sorry, that’s nikolai bukharin, not bukarin!
IanHackingFan,
For an interesing philosophical discussion, of the kind you rightly point out, is missing, check out Arun Bala’s The Dialogue of Civilizations and the Birth of Modern Science (2007?)
so what if it didn’t really happen. that doesn’t make it untrue in a manner of speaking (it’s legend). I just googled the Bukharin paper and read about it even though I didn’t find the actual paper. of course the impetus to do things has to come from somewhere – whether social, political, economic. it can even just come from a dream (didn’t watson just half dream up the dna helix?), and someone else just saw a serpent eating its tail and came up with the shape of some cell or the other, and einstein’s frustrations with his slow train made him ponder about time and speed. all of these things don’t have the calculatedness that the Bukharin paper seems to want to push. But generally I’d agree with your point that that is now a bygone era.
it can even just come from a dream (didn’t watson just half dream up the dna helix?),
It was Kekule’s Benzene structure. He was half asleep in a stage coach when he figured out sp2 hybridization in benzene. Double heliz discovery is another amazing story, where sometimes, thinking out of box lead to breakthroughs, as I showed in Rutherford’s conclusions from a simple scattering experiment.
I would have loved to have discussion with commenter commonsense but have some real serious deadlines in next 2 months. He is only right in a small part, science has been done in all shapes and sizes, in past in, and also, today. As I said, it is curiosity that drives it. Sometimes, society helps it, and sometimes not. Commonsense is not wrong in his discourse but is touching a tiny fraction of the quest of science since ages.
Examples when society helped: Atomic Age, and Rocketry
Examples when society did not help: Age of Chemical Theory, where Lavousier was beheaded for his experiments. Age of Earth, going back to the days of Charles Lyell, Hutton and all.
Often the most brilliant science is done not from funded science even today, but on side, or a mid night oil. The most famous Vine and Morley hypothesis happened because the Director of Scripps (a retired Admiral) on one of the seafloor mapping expedition, tagged on a magnetometer on the bottom of the ship. That was not mission of the expedition, at all.
The most famous Vine and Morley hypothesis: is that mid ocean ridges is the source of new earth’s material that drives earth’s plate tectonics.
Sure, the discovery of plate tectonics was driven by cold war politics, but Alfred Wagener’s original continental drift is not.
Benzene, and snake biting the tail
Some of the greatest experiments of our time, even in 20th century (deBroglie’s, Rutherford’s, Millikan’s) were done on shoe string budgets, so much singing praises for big money science.
commonsense, supercollider was canceled because of loss of mojo by Senator Llyod Bentson of Texas, at that time, as also John Breaux from Louisiana. The life and times of supercollider project had lot to do with pork, and the politics that goes with it.
Divya,
In DNA double helix, one of the amazing piece of evidence that never got it’s due is Rosalind Frankln’s xray diffraction of DNA, that was an inspiration to Watson and Crick, and an independent proof.
She (Rosalind Franklin) should have shared the Nobel Prize.
If one studied atomic age, since the days of John Dalton, to Otto Hahn to Neils Bohr to Fermi to Manhattan Project, you would see genius of mankind played out in all ways, group science, solo science, funded science, non-funded science, garage science, to one of the most massive undertaking ever taken by mankind to make the bomb.
Gauss figured out the sum of numbers is n(n + 1)/ 2…..a brilliant piece of work, he was just bored, and he figured it out.
A little story here shows when men takes risks, scientifically, politically, and personally, great breakthroughs can be made – all of them against the grain of society at that time. From wikipedia:
Until 1938, it was believed that the elements with atomic numbers greater than 92 (known as transuranium elements) arise when uranium atoms are bombarded with neutrons. The German chemist Ida Noddack proposed an exception. She anticipated the paradigm shift of 1938/39 in her article published in the journal Angewandte Chemie, Nr. 47, 1934, in which she speculated:
But no physicist or chemist really took Noddack’s speculation seriously or tested them, not even Ida Noddack. The idea that heavy atomic nuclei could break down into lighter elements was regarded as a totally inadmissible theory and impossible to test experimentally.
On July 13, 1938, with the help and support of Hahn, Lise Meitner, who was at great risk as she was of Jewish ancestry and had lost her Austrian citizenship after the Anschluss, emigrated to Stockholm, Sweden by crossing the German-Dutch border illegally.[1]
Hahn continued to work with Strassmann on elucidating the outcome of bombardment of uranium with thermal neutrons. In December 1938, when Hahn and Strassmann looked for transuranium elements in a uranium sample that had been bombarded with neutrons, they found traces of barium. The barium was detected by the use of an organic barium salt constructed by Wilhelm Traube, a Jewish chemist who was later arrested and murdered despite Hahn’s efforts to save him.[citation needed]
thanks, for all the interesting and important comments. it is late, and my mojo is on the blink, plus real life concerns…. comes a time, when it’s later….thanks again! this is most interesting!
Before i step into the land of nod, I just want to say that I do not at all disagree with all the examples of metaphors, accidents, dreams etc. My point simply is that many folks have such insights, but not all of them are necessarily in an institutional setting, made possible by massive funding/cash, to make their insights/dreams/metaphors a part of mainstream science. think of Kary Mullis, the guy who got a Nobel Prize for PCR…brilliant, but working in a cafe in california….but his insights found a home only while working for Cetus….where he was a maverick, even pulled a gun on one of his desi colleague etc….attributes his success due to strange imaginations while driving thru california etc. but sure, this would not have been possible had he not been picked up by Cetus where he found an institutional setting that made possible for his “wild imaginations” to become real, institutionally speaking….of course metaphors/dreams/imagination/inspiration are crucial, but they are not sufficient, although necessary. Think of desi Srinvasa Ramanujan…where would his ideas be, had he not spent time at Cambridge, but had continued insteas, to be a shipping clerk in Madras? I do not wish to sound “reductionist”, but really, many folks have great ideas, imaginations and dreams, but not all of us have the opportunity to translate them into scientific narratives….BTW, Bukharin (1936) is a book, not an article…it focuses on Newton’s job/contract with the english navy/maritime industry/military that played role in his thinking about the laws of motion, how far a projectile will go when pitched at a particular angle etc. that had lot to do do with the emergence of Britain as a naval power in the seventeenth century. Of course, his genius was important, but his ideas found a congenial home in a particular socio-economic and political context….
Someone mentioned Northwestern not being a step down from Dartmouth and wondering how she got hired.
I go to Northwestern, and word is that it’s possible that the news broke after she’d already been hired.
Not sure if that’s true, or not, but if they hired her for a research position (have heard she’s in the nanotech area doing some type of research, but not teaching writing as far as I know), then perhaps she’s at least capable of doing some type of lab work, the kooky “French narrative theory” in what was supposed to be a writing class aside.
By the way, if the media covering academia follies ever read these comments, please…I beg of you…do some reporting on the crank Freudian theory that some in the humanities and social sciences are still upholding as valid. It’s pure bunk (being disproved by modern neuroscience), but we had some nutcase licensed clinical psychologist teach a psych class, and he was acting like Freud was correct. Baloney!
Please…people will continue to believe this bunk unless the MSM does more reporting on the more weirded out stuff some of these academic cranks are into.
Postmodernism is scary, yes, but please report on Freud. I beg of you. Some idiot tried to infer that someone might be suicidal (at least in thought, even if not in actual behavior) just because they wanted to report on some literary figure who had all kinds of issues with alcohol and other stuff. They thought that if you had an interest in the subject, it meant something of deep personal significance. That’s just insane theory, and yet they have licensed psychologists teaching this crap.
Get to the Freud-bashing, please! Chop chop.
Someone mentioned Northwestern not being a step down from Dartmouth and wondering how she got hired.
I go to Northwestern, and word is that it’s possible that the news broke after she’d already been hired.
Not sure if that’s true, or not, but if they hired her for a research position (have heard she’s in the nanotech area doing some type of research, but not teaching writing as far as I know), then perhaps she’s at least capable of doing some type of lab work, the kooky “French narrative theory” in what was supposed to be a writing class aside.
By the way, if the media covering academia follies ever read these comments, please…I beg of you…do some reporting on the crank Freudian theory that some in the humanities and social sciences are still upholding as valid. It’s pure bunk (being disproved by modern neuroscience), but we had some nutcase licensed clinical psychologist teach a psych class, and he was acting like Freud was correct. Baloney!
Please…people will continue to believe this bunk unless the MSM does more reporting on the more weirded out stuff some of these academic cranks are into.
Postmodernism is scary, yes, but please report on Freud. I beg of you. Some idiot tried to infer that someone might be suicidal (at least in thought, even if not in actual behavior) just because they wanted to report on some literary figure who had all kinds of issues with alcohol and other stuff. They thought that if you had an interest in the subject, it meant something of deep personal significance. That’s just insane theory, and yet they have licensed psychologists teaching this crap.
Get to the Freud-bashing, please! Chop chop.
Ooops! the piece on Newton is indeed a paper by Boris Hessen in a book edited by Nikolai Bukharin et. al (1930’s). I mis-wrote while half-asleep.
Wildcat, you seem to be unduly exercised by long dead (not intellectually) Freud. It’s not a question of proving or disproving him thru neroscience! Some of Freud’s ideas are very important and useful. I don’t have the time to expand on this, but, those who find his ideas intriguing, will apply them. If you can’t stand him, best to stay away from him. Rather than instigating us to create a stink about him in the media!! Academics are already a reasonably pilloried lot and surely, whatever damage they may or may not do, the dmage inflicted even by “kooky” French narrative theory or “postmodernism”, pales in comparison to the havoc wrought and to be wrought by our politicians and much of mainstream media. So, you are, in all seroiusness, asking us to alert the media about the alleged damage wrought by Freud? (Actually, I don’t want this to become a debate or argument, so I’ll leave it there…..pretty convenient huh? slimily giving myself the last word!!)
Kush – thanks for all the interesting info and links. Glad to see the spirit still alive and come to think of it, even recetnly it’s been the guys working out of their garages that come up with the winning algorithms.
commonsense,
Yes, I know this is hugely important and I’m always more aware of it when travelling in India. Think of the many einsteins there must be hidden away in those villages who barely get to go to school. However, when it comes down to a discussion about the construction of science vis-a-vis the construction of the social sciences, I’m not convinced if this is a significant point (to use your handy word). It’s just a trivial truth about anything in life, imo, and the junk sciences cannot simply use this to validate their status or to drag the purer sciences down to their level.
Really late to this post: and I just read the last few comments. Commonsense makes some excellent points, so do Kush and Divya. There are both kinds of scientists, those who do amazing things just sitting down with a pen and paper, and the ones who need millions of dollars to run huge programs, whatever. I think there’s an old seers vs. craftspeople argument around this, and also about who is more important, wagerah, wagerah 😉 .
For those who want an easy jargon-free introduction to these ideas, I’d recommend the last five chapters of Lee Smolin’s ‘The Trouble with Physics’. If you don’t trust humanities profs can take heart: its written by a physicist, and a well-respected one at that. Though most of what he says is derived from Feyeraband, Kuhn, Popper, etc.