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Re: Conference AnnouncementAlx V. Dark (avd5863@IS.NYU.EDU)Wed, 19 Oct 1994 12:56:52 -0400
> Well at least Mr. Garelli has indicated where he stands by posting the > announcement from the National Association of Scholars. Where do the rest > of us stand? Well, the program announcement of the National Association of Scholars, which expressed some desire to address "pseudoscience" (undefined) in the social sciences, made it pretty clear that the opinions of social scientists were not, in fact, necessary at the conference: panelists included physicists and medical/biological scientists only. I do wonder, when physicists get to talking about pseudoscience, whether they are talking about "new age" appropriations of science as a kind of authorizing discourse for their beliefs, or fundamentalism, or if they might not also be referring to cultural anthropologists who suggest "science" is as much a culturally and socially embedded practice as any other set of activities which don't aim at the rationalization of conduct per se. Physicists often don't want to hear, for example, that their work, and their knowledge, has been shaped by cold war economic and military priorities, not simply by the hypothesizing and falsification of theory. When "us social scientists" suggest this, I think we get uninvited to the roundup of the wagons. ______________________________ ____________________________ Alx V. Dark Department of Anthropology internet: avd5863@is.nyu.edu New York University "Wash your brains, think 25 Waverly Place again, double check" -- H3O New York, NY 10003 USA
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