Higher Superstition & The Flight from Science and Reason

by Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt.
The Johns Hopkins University Press;
Baltimore & London, 1998. (328 + xiv) pp
ISBN: 0-8018-5707-4.
$16.95 paperback


Reviewed by Wilfred Niels Arnold


The story goes that a pair of Nobel Prize winners, coinvestigators that were husband and wife, became greatly excited by the findings of one of their postdoctoral fellows. This seemingly productive young man had gone on to his next professional appointment leaving a pregnant manuscript, ready for submission to the top science journal of the day. Full of enthusiasm but eternally cautious, the senior couple asked a newly arrived student to repeat a key experiment. The neophyte's lack of success was followed by a series of negative results from progressively more senior personnel. In due course the delicate phone call was placed to the departed author. "Your results are so interesting, but none of our people has been able to repeat your work! We are impressed by your hypothesis, but very frustrated. Sorry to bother you, but is there something beyond your notebooks that we are overlooking?" At the other end of the line a calm and thoughtful voice declared that nothing came to mind. A month passed without improvement. The female Laureate picked up the telephone and, forsaking ceremony this time, announced, "We cannot repeat your work, none of the postdocs can duplicate any of your data, even my husband has tried in vain!" After a few seconds of silence, "Oh well, he is the best, and if he can't do it then no one can."

One might add "it's all relative" for a second chuckle. But if someone tells you that this is the sort of thing that Albert Einstein's "relativity" is all about, it's too silly to be taken even humorously; or so I thought until recently. But there are people out there who have a different view and their numbers and agendas are growing and extending, as documented by the authors of "Higher Superstition." One example from the antiscience camp asserts that Werner Heisenberg's "uncertainty principle" is proof positive that there is nothing accurate in modern physics, especially that of Western European origin. Another purports that scientific discoveries are no more than socially constructed fictions. Others search for a more female essence within the hard sciences.

Paul Gross, former director of Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, and Norman Levitt, a professor of mathematics at Rutgers University, have taken on all those who would threaten traditional objective science and they are to be congratulated. They do vigorous battle against the proponents of postmodern philosophy, radical feminism, extreme environmentalism, Afrocentrism, and so on, in a lively book which was first published in 1994 and now appears in paperback edition with a new preface and added footnotes. They go out of their way to attempt fairness and understanding of the viewpoints that they subsequently attack and usually demolish by logic and example. In the end the easiest argument to embrace is that the science of Newton, Darwin, and Einstein obviously works. On the other hand, the modern day wonders who seek precursors to penicillin in ancient Egyptian religions and suggest that Newton's Principia be regarded as a "rape manual" are best judged as having resorted to unconvincing polemics. The amazing thing is that the critics of classical, objective science are not comic book characters but university professors who offer courses in everything from "alternative medicine" to "physics without mathematics." A considerable amount of work is required of the average citizen in order to obtain even a working knowledge of things scientific. I wonder if the driving force behind classroom support of the strange alternatives is that very little effort is demanded in a laissez faire atmosphere where unanchored suggestions float in and out of ears.

For many potential American readers the book's subtitle about the academic left will probably generate some distaste, albeit based upon flawed stereotypes within our politics and history. The authors rationalize their choice in the first chapter but it is an unfortunate one because the primary title could stand alone. If anything, by shoving all of their recognized subjects into the "Academic Left" a measure of unnecessary sympathy may be engendered for their opponents.

In the second volume, "The Flight from Science and Reason," Gross and Levitt were joined by Martin W. Lewis, professor of geography at Duke University and they have edited forty contributions from a 200 member conference in 1995, under the auspices of the New York Academy of Sciences. The book is organized into subtitles including "Health," "Environment," Feminisms," "Humanities" and seven more. There is much of interest to be found for any reader who aspires to keeping abreast of developments in this aspect of epistemology, no matter the degree of depression that some of the elements will elicit. Not surprising for such a diverse group of contributors the quality of the essays varies from the thoughtful and entertaining pieces by Gerald Weissmann on "Sucking with Vampires; the Medicine of Unreason" and "Ecosentimentalism: the Summer Dream beneath the Tamarind Tree" to the strange and (for me) incomprehensible "Constructivism in Psychotherapy: Truth and Consequences" by Barbara Held. Dr. Held blew me away in explaining "... the true meaning for psychotherapy of constructivism / constructionism" which is part of her text. In the first footnote she states that "I sometimes use the term "constructionism" or "constructionist" to include both doctrines. Where I use the term "constructivist" or "constructivism" alone, I mean only that doctrine, except in the title itself." Such word play is more common on the side that is being criticized!

Within the section on "The Public Image of Science" David Goodstein presents a careful analysis of "Conduct and Misconduct in Science." Important as this problem may be it does seem to lie apart from the general tenor of the other subjects in this compilation. The perpetrators of scientific fraud are usually well educated, expert in their own discipline, and then resort to deceit and fabrication. The antiscientists are typically poorly grounded but give the appearance of starting from a sincere position, even though their working hypotheses seem off the wall to most of us. Incidentally, the story of the first paragraph came to me second or third hand, but I have reason to believe it true in substance. Needless to say, the manuscript in that case was never sent. But the dud in the plot did go on to higher and higher office. I understand that he was eventually defrocked for demonstrable scientific fraud.

Both volumes are recommended to any audience that takes education seriously and is prepared to worry along with the authors about the potential threats to objective science that they have exposed. The repetitive setting up of straw men becomes a mite tedious at times and one wonders if some of the cases are extreme examples that have been dignified by the attention. But overall, "Higher Superstition" will remain a benchmark in this field and "Flight from Science and Reason" will be a useful source for years to come.