Higher Superstition

With the emergence of "cultural studies" and the blurring of once-clear academic boundaries, scholars are turning to subjects far outside their traditional disciplines and areas of expertise. In this text, scientists Paul Gross and Norman Levitt raise serious questions about the growing criticism of science by humanists and social scientists on the "academic left." This paperback edition includes a new afterword by the authors as well as the full text of Alan Sokal's "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity."

“We should be thankful that Gross and Levitt have provided a wake-up call. Their significant overview of the thinking of those who teach our lawyers, journalists and teachers should be read by all who are concerned by the decline of the status of science in our times.”

Physics Today At last, somebody has performed the invaluable service of exploding the pretentions of those who think every equation derived this century undermines the fabric of western thought. New Statesman The authors' shredding of such luminaries of postmodernism and feminism as Stanley Aronowitz, Sandra Harding, and Evelyn fox Keller, among others, is not always charitable, [but] it is invariably compelling and frequently devastating. -- Elizabeth Fox-Genovese Washington Times

Paul R. Gross, former director and president of the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, is University Professor of Life Sciences, Emeritus, at the University of Virginia and a visiting scholar at Harvard University. Norman Levitt is professor of mathematics at Rutgers University and the author of Grassmannians and Gauss Maps in Piecewise-Linear Topology.

With the emergence of ''cultural studies'' and the blurring of once-clear academic boundaries, scholars are turning to subjects far outside their traditional disciplines and areas of expertise. In Higher Superstition scientists Paul Gross and Norman Levitt raise serious questions about the growing criticism of science by humanists and social scientists on the ''academic left.'' This paperback edition of Higher Superstition includes a new afterword by the authors .

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