Higher Superstition
Keith Windschuttle
The Australian
January 1995

Over the last two years, some textbook committees of secondary school authorities in Berkeley, California, have been trying to ban history and social science textbooks which assert that Native American populations arrived on the North American continent from Asia towards the end of the last ice age. These origins, which have been identified and confirmed by generations of archaeologists, anthropologists and prehistorians, run counter to the myths of the Native Americans themselves. Academic supporters of the natives are now arguing that there is no reason why the findings of white scientists should be privileged over the narratives that the indigenes tell about themselves.

Australians who assume that this kind of thing is typical Californian nonsense which would get short shrift in this country should think again. At least one prominent local black activist and academic has recently argued in print that Aboriginal myths 'contradict' claims by white scholars that Aborigines arrived here by way of the Indonesian archipelago. In other words, Aboriginal myth has the same status and can be used to refute scientific claims.

In the United States, two distinguished scientists, Paul R. Gross, a biologist at the University of Virginia, and Norman Levitt, a mathematician at Rutgers University, have produced a courageous book which both describes and criticises a movement that has emerged within the academic community over the past decade with the aim of undermining the status of science and the way it is taught within the education system.

Titled Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrels With Science, the Gross and Levitt book provides a panorama of the assaults on science currently being made by literary and cultural theorists, poststructuralists, postmodernists, radical feminists, black separatists, Afrocentrists, deep ecologists and animal liberationists.

These assaults, Gross and Levitt record, have in some cases gone much further than mere verbiage. They include censorship of books and conference papers, re-writing or banning school textbooks (as at Berkeley), obstruction of research funding, incessant vexatious lawsuits, sabotage and raids on laboratories, not to mention death threats and assaults on some scientists who have refused to be cowed by their critics.

Few of those attacking science today have qualifications in a scientific discipline. The most prominent, such as Andrew Ross and Katharine Hayles, are employed by American universities to teach English literary criticism. They and their supporters nonetheless hold that the methodology of Western science is flawed in fundamental ways, that it is corrupted by its servile accommodation of power, and that it is the artefact of a world view that is now palpably on its last legs.

The critics argue that there are parallel, even superior ways of knowing -- those of postmodernism, or feminism or deep racial wisdom -- which are available for the evaluation of scientific questions. From the heights of these alternative epistemologies, the critics have claimed to identify fundamental weaknesses of traditional science, despite their own acknowledged ignorance of the substance and logic of the scientific enterprise. Andrew Ross brazenly announced his lack of scientific education by dedicating his 1991 book on science and technology, Strange Weather, to 'all of the science teachers I never had. It could only have been written without them.'

In tones that range from gentle irony to total scorn, Gross and Levitt sift their way through a wide range of the critics' claims. Here are some of their examples.

Postmodern science and chaos theory: Cultural critics and postmodern theorists are seeking not only to overthrow science but our idea of rational thinking itself. One of the leading lights of the movement, the University of Texas philosopher Steven Best, has asserted: 'Like postmodern social theory, postmodern science sees modernity and modern reason as inherently repressive. Postmodern science draws the conclusion that a new, postmodern paradigm is necessary, one which is philosophically sophisticated, scientifically complex, ethically sensitive, spiritually aware, and ecologically sane.'

The publication of James Gleick's 1987 bestseller Chaos: The Making of a New Science unintentionally provided many cultural theorists with what they imagined was powerful new ammunition to criticise Western systems of thought. Because chaos theory is based on nonlinear mathematics, they assumed its emergence represented the demise of linear modes of thought in all fields. To cultural theorists, the word 'linear' represents relentless sequentiality, single mindedness and the triumph of the instrumental -- all components of the supposed Western ethos of conquest, domination and objectification. 'Nonlinear', on the other hand, for them suggests many-sidedness, multi-culturalism, polymorphism and the effacement of traditional disciplines -- a world where multiplicity reigns in culture, sexuality and ethnicity and where old barriers may be freely crossed.

Gross and Levitt show, however, that this represents not only a ludicrous analogy between mathematics and culture but, in their haste to occupy this new territory, the cultural studies crew have displayed a laughable ignorance of scientific subject matter. Steven Best, for instance, discusses chaos theory and nonlinear mathematics as intellectual products that are opposed to the linear equations used in Newtonian mechanics. Gross and Levitt point out that this howler derives from his complete ignorance of the fact that Newton's laws of celestial mechanics and his equations of planetary motion are decidedly nonlinear. For this reason, some of the most interesting examples in chaos theory occur in classical celestial mechanics.

Quantum mechanics and uncertainty: Postmodern epistemology is a revival of the notion that what is known is not something objective, real or external but is always determined by the position or perspective of the knower.

Postmodernist theorists believe that quantum mechanics and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle (which holds you cannot measure both the position and momentum of a particle simultaneously) provides them with powerful support. They think it confirms their belief that physics does not provide reliable information about the physical world, has lost its claim to objectivity, and is now embedded in the unstable hermeneutics of subject-object relations.

One of those who take this position is the sociological theorist, Stanley Aronowitz, whose 1988 book Science as Power is motivated by the belief that since science and technology are key elements in the authority and dominance of modern capitalism, the duty of a social critic is to demystify science and to topple it from its position of reliability and influence.

Sadly for Aronowitz, he has chosen the wrong scientific theory to make his case. He argues that quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle mark a turning point in Western science that provides basic support for his position.

Gross and Levitt enjoy themselves hugely in tearing Aronowitz's position to shreds. If Heisenberg had chosen a less evocative term, they suggest, an awful lot of nonsense would never have seen the light of day. The uncertainty principle, they point out, is a predictive law about the behaviour of concrete phenomena that can be tested and confirmed like other physical principles.

'It is not some brooding metaphysical dictum about the Knower versus the Known, but rather a straightforward statement concerning the way in which the statistical outcomes of repeated observations of various phenomena must be interrelated. And, indeed, it has been triumphantly confirmed. It has been verified as fully and irrefutably as is possible for an empirical proposition. In other words, the uncertainty principle is a very certain item indeed. It is an objective truth about the world.' (their italics)

Feminism and physics: In the stakes over who has produced the most bizarre claims in this debate, academic feminists are in a class of their own. Science, especially physics, is seen by feminists as a socially-constructed and an essentially patriarchal activity.

One of the now classic texts of this genre, Sandra Harding's The Science Question in Feminism, calls Newton's Principia Mathematica a 'rape manual'. Harding propounds a doctrine called 'strong objectivity' which argues for quotas of disadvantaged groups to be applied to research teams and chairs in science on the grounds that, once more women, blacks, gays and lesbians join the ranks, science will become more open, more inventive and, above all, more 'objective'.

The same degree of insight is displayed by the literary critic Katherine Hayles in her 1990 book Chaos Bound. She claims that traditional physics (fluid dynamics in particular) derive from a world view deeply tainted with masculinist imagery. However, chaos theory, the uncertainty principle and quantum physics give her hope for change. There are deep parallels, she asserts, between the mathematics of chaos theory and the theoretical practices of poststructuralist textual critics. She believes that twentieth century discoveries in physics have left the discipline in a state of philosophical exhaustion and have validated the kind of critique she and other cultural critics are making.

Hayles claims, for instance, that 'the special theory of relativity lost its epistemological clarity when it was combined with quantum mechanics to form quantum field theory.' This, Gross and Levitt point out, will come as a terrible shock to physicists. 'Special relativity and quantum mechanics are as solidly confirmed as it is possible for physical theories to be,' they state. 'The special theory has always triumphantly passed every empirical test. However physics develops in the future, any modification must subsume rather than displace special relativity, just as special relativity subsumed Newtonian mechanics.'

Hayles ability to talk nonsense and to display ignorance in just about every discipline she discusses (she thinks that logical positivism was a theory of the nineteenth century rather than one of the leading philosophical approaches of the twentieth) have not, however, dampened her academic career in any way. In fact, the more howlers she produces the more she prospers. Her work is now published by a distinguished university press, and she has gained an endowed chair at a major university, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the presidency of the Association for Science and Literature and the chairmanship of the literature and science committee of the Modern Language Association.

Feminist algebra: One of the loopiest ideas Gross and Levitt discuss is feminist algebra. No, this is not some hoax invented by malevolent males to discredit the sisterhood. There was actually a paper read at a 1993 meeting of the Mathematical Association of America entitled 'Toward a Feminist Algebra' by Maryanne Campbell (a literary critic) and Randall K. Campbell-Wright (a mathematician).

Part of the paper was a call for an end to what it claimed were sexist stereotypes in college algebra textbooks. They disapproved of problems which used examples of a girl and her boyfriend running towards each other because this portrayed heterosexual involvement. On the other hand, they recommended approval of problems about Sue and Debbie, 'a couple financing their $70,000 home'. They wanted algebra problems to present female heroes, to analyse sex differences and to affirm women's experiences.

Taking to heart the absurd shibboleth of contemporary literary theory that all language is metaphor, Campbell and Campbell-Wright set out to prove that metaphor plays a central role in the language of mathematics. They do not demonstrate this through the obviously rather difficult cases of symbolic statements and formulae. Instead they offer verbal examples culled from textbooks -- 'manipulate an algebraic expression', 'attack a problem', 'exploit a theorem' -- as evidence that mathematics is a nest of aggression, violence, domination and sexism.

From this they derive postmodern literary dogma such as: 'Mathematics is portrayed as a woman whose nature desires to be the conquered Other.' They want the whole field of mathematics reappraised so that its imagined failings can be rectified and it can become a discipline fit for women to enter. Gross and Levitt, however, are more perceptive about their motives.

'The purpose of the carefully tailored feminist language and imagery is not primarily to build the self-confidence of women students, but rather to convert problems and examples into parables of feminist rectitude. It is, at bottom, not different from an imaginary Christian fundamentalist pedagogy requiring that all mathematics problems illustrate biblical episodes and preach evangelical sermons.'

Afrocentric science: The emergence of black studies and black separatist education in the USA has created a demand for black role models for young students of Afro-American descent. This has unfortunately led to what Gross and Levitt show are a number of flagrant falsifications of history, science and ethnography in the service of black chauvinism.

Students in black studies courses are now taught to regard all those inhabiting the African continent, including Egyptians and Arabs, as Africans. Hence the Greek geometrician Euclid, who worked in Alexandria, becomes an Egyptian, hence an African. Since students are taught that Egyptians are of the same racial stock as sub-Saharan West Africans, the founder of geometry becomes, by this sleight of hand, a black.

This claim, Gross and Levitt emphasise, is not made by some nonentity but by Ivan Van Sertima, professor of African studies at Rutgers University, in the book he edited called Blacks in Science which is one of the principal texts used in the black separatist education system.

Van Sertima is also responsible for the claim in his book They Came Before Colombus that seafaring explorers from West Africa discovered the Americas several centuries before the Europeans. These black explorers not only met the Native Americans without any of the violence or exploitation that accompanied the Spanish conquistadors but they passed on the ideas of Afro-Egyptian civilisation and thus provided the seed from which the South and Central American high cultures sprang. Gross and Levitt point out that Van Sertima fails to provide evidence of any kind to support this story.

There are even more fanciful Afrocentric claims than this. On the basis of one small wooden figurine of a bird made in Egypt, Afrocentric textbook writers have claimed 'African experimental aeronautics' existed during the Hellenistic period. The evidence? If you build a copy of the figurine in balsawood (rather than the original sycamore) and then add a vertical stabiliser (not present in the original) you get a passable toy glider. This supposedly proves that ancient Egyptians possessed full-sized working gliders that were in common use.

Hunter Adams, who writes textbooks for the black public school system in America, not only endorses the claim that Egyptians invented aeronautics but says that ancient African writings also indicate an understanding of quantum physics and gravitational theory.

As well as the above examples, Gross and Levitt discuss a number of other political movements which have become notorious either for distorting scientific findings for their own ends or for denouncing science as exploitive of their constituency. These include the environmental movement, animal liberation (from where most of the violence and death threats have come) and AIDS activists.

Gross and Levitt point out that most of these movements have originated within universities and have been nurtured by academic communities. What concerns them greatly is that these intellectual misadventures have been so well received in non-scientific academic circles, and that they provide the route to publication, tenure, reputation and academic authority for a growing body of would-be scholars.

At one point in the book they speculate that, the more real scientists grow impatient with the share of academic salaries and research funds that are being devoted to such pursuits as literary theory about physics and mathematics, the more calls will be heard for universities to maintain their integrity by jettisoning their faculties of humanities and social sciences altogether.

Real science, Gross and Levitt argue, will not be changed in any way by the movements and arguments they describe. Rather than the ostensible aim of some critics to attract more women and blacks to science, they are more likely to cause the opposite. Science does not work the way its critics say it does and many women and blacks with scientific talent who swallow their line will find themselves quickly excluded from serious scientific work.

However, in the unserious sectors of the education system -- and this includes the vegie maths and science courses now taught at Australian secondary schools such as 'Maths in Society and 'Science in Society', and in subjects such as sociology of science, literature and ecology and their ilk now proliferating within arts faculties at Australian universities -- the science critics can still expect growing support, to the great cost of both their students and the wider public which unwittingly provides the money to fund this embarrassing charade.

Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt, Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrels With Science, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1994