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- The Anatomy of Judgment
Resource Type: Book
Published: 1990
Tracing the emergence of science and the social institutions that govern it, The Anatomy of Judgment is an odyssey into what human thinking or judgment mean.
- Astrology
True or False?
Resource Type: Book
Published: 1988
- Connexions Library: Science Focus
Resource Type: Website
Published: 2009
Selected articles, books, websites and other resources on science.
- Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science
Resource Type: Book
Published: 1998
The authors criticize postmodernism in academia for its misuses of scientific and mathematical concepts in postmodern writing. Fashionable Nonsense examines two related topics: (1) The incompetent and pretentious usage of scientific concepts by a small group of influential philosophers and intellectuals; (2) the problems of cognitive relativism, the idea that "modern science is nothing more than a 'myth', a 'narration' or a 'social construction' among many others". The stated goal of the book is not to attack "philosophy, the humanities or the social sciences in general...[but] to warn those who work in them (especially students) against some manifest cases of charlatanism," and in particular to "deconstruct" the notion that some books and writers are difficult because they deal with profound and difficult ideas. "If the texts seem incomprehensible, it is for the excellent reason that they mean precisely nothing." The book includes long extracts from the works of Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, Paul Virilio, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Luce Irigaray, Bruno Latour, and Jean Baudrillard who are considered by some to be leading academics of Continental philosophy, critical theory, psychoanalysis or social sciences. Sokal and Bricmont set out to show how those intellectuals have used concepts from the physical sciences and mathematics incorrectly. The extracts are intentionally rather long to avoid accusations of taking sentences out of context.
Published in French as Impostures Intellectuelles and in the United Kingdom as Intellectual Impostures.
- A field guide to critical thinking
Resource Type: Article
- Harter's Precept: Review of The Social Misconstruction of Reality: Validity and Verification in the Scholarly Community
Resource Type: Article
Published: 1997
Hamilton gives three major examples of erroneous theses that gained the status of fact in social science despite the absence of evidentiary support: (1) Max Weber's thesis that the Protestant Ethic spurred the advance of capitalism; (2) the widely accepted thesis that Hitler's main electoral support came from the lower middle classes (the despised petit bourgeoisie of Marxism); and (3) Michel Foucault's thesis that the modern prison evolved not as a more humane alternative to the cruel physical punishments of earlier centuries, but as part of a wide-ranging scheme by sinister forces to enforce a pervasive social conformity.
- The Immortalists
Charles Lindbergh, Dr. Alexis Carrel, and Their Daring Quest to Live Forever
Resource Type: Book
Published: 2007
This book centres on the period of Charles Lindbergh's life when he was working with Dr. Alexis Carrel of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, covering historic events, controversial decisions and disastrous consequences.
- Observation
Sources Select Resources Encyclopedia
Resource Type: Article
Observation is either an activity of a living being (such as a human), consisting of receiving knowledge of the outside world through the senses, or the recording of data using scientific instruments. The term may also refer to any datum collected during this activity.
- Postmodern Disrobed
Review of Intellectual Impostures
Resource Type: Article
Published: 1998
An admirable job of exposing the daffy absurdity of postmodernism intellectuals.
- Rationality/Science
Resource Type: Article
Published: 1995
Chomsky writes: "It strikes me as remarkable that the left today should seek to deprive oppressed people not only of the joys of understanding and insight, but also of tools of emancipation, informing us that the "project of the Enlightenment" is dead, that we must abandon the "illusions" of science and rationality--a message that will gladden the hearts of the powerful, delighted to monopolize these instruments for their own use."
- Science, Myth, and History
Resource Type: Article
Published: 2012
The story of ‘Kennewick Man’ - the debate around a 9000-year old skeleton and what it reveals about current ideas of culture, race and science.
- Scientific method
Sources Select Resources Encyclopedia
Resource Type: Article
Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning
- Scientific method: Timeline of the history of scientific method - Wikipedia
Sources Select Resources Encyclopedia
Resource Type: Article
Shows an overview of the cultural inventions that have contributed to the development of the scientific method
- Scientific skepticism
Connexipedia Article
Resource Type: Article
A practical, epistemological position in which one questions the veracity of claims lacking empirical evidence.
- Strange Fruit
Why Both Sides Are Wrong in the Race Debate
Resource Type: Book
Published: 2008
Malik makes the case that most anti-racists accept the belief, also held by racialists and outright racists, that differences between groups are of great importance. While racialists attribute the differences to biology, anti-racists attribute them to deep-rooted cultural traditions which are typically seen as inherent in the group. Malik argues that these positions are actually quite similar, and makes the case that racism and racial inequality are best combatted by focusing not on our differences but on what unites us. Malik also strongly criticizes the cultural relativism of many anti-racists, and their increasing tendency to reject science as some kind of western imperialist conspiracy to oppress the rest of the world.
- Superunknown: Scientific Integrity Within the Academic and Media Industrial Complexes
Resource Type: Article
Published: 2018
Mattis provides an analysis of the competing priorities of scientists, funders and the media that together, create a perfect storm of "unscientific science".
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