Old Email Archive

digest 1997-10-10 #001


11:21 PM 10/9/97 -0700
From: "Society for Literature & Science" 

Daily SLS Email Digest
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 9 Oct 1997 17:04:20 -0700
From: Andrew Russ 
Subject: N. David Mermin critiques Latour's critique of Einstein
Hello,
Some of you might be interested in looking up N. David Mermin's
"Reference Frame" article in the Oct. 1997 _Physics Today_,
entitled
"What's Wrong With this Reading".  Mermin is a well-known
physicist who frequently contributes his column to _Physics Today_,
the American Physical Society magazine.
Mermin looks at Bruno Latour's essay "A Relativistic Account
of Einstein's Relativity" and concludes that it isn't the nonsense
that people like Alan Sokal and Steven Weinberg have indicated.  There
may still be some technical errors/problems with the physics, but
these are in details, rather in the large scale.  Mermin also gives
some
interpretation (some through his anthropologist daughter's words)
of what the article is saying, which may serve as an interesting
example of how to explain critical theory and the like to scientists
(an ongoing problem at SLS that affects "the climate" that
scientists feel here).
I'm not going to repeat the whole article (it's worth
looking up), but will quote a couple excerpts:
"I recommend two principles to guide what we scientists
say in our exchanges with science critics.  First, assume, at least
as a preliminary working hypothesis, that you are reading intelligent
people trying to make serious points, writing within a literary
tradition that is as technical and unfamiliar to you as the
professional idiom of your science may be to them.  Second, technical
criticisms should be based on reasoned argument.  Ex cathedra
sneering at selected sound bites demeans scholarly debate and is
unlikely to persuade the sneered-at of one's serious intent.
Try to think imaginatively about the rather subtle constellation
of issues that may becloud superficially obvious 'refutations'
of 'error'."
"The science critics may get many things wrong, but
we have to take more care explaining why, or we will only lend
further credence to some of their worst misreadings of what
we are up to."
andrew russ