I. It’s not just angel books, astrology, and acupuncture.

A front-page article in the New York Times of October 22, 1996 (subscription required), delved into the ‘conflict’ between two views of where Native American populations originated—the scientific archaeological account and the account offered by some Native American creation-myths. According to the former, humans first entered the Americas from Asia, crossing the Bering Strait more than 10,000 years ago. This answer, I should hope for most readers, provides an authoritative, extensively confirmed, scientific answer.

Some Native American creation accounts hold that native peoples have always lived in the Americas. That is, Native Americans have been present ever since their ancestors first emerged onto the surface of the earth from a subterranean world called the Lower Regions. If there’s anything we know, it’s that some things are definitively wrong.

That’s one of ‘em.

Yet, the Times noted that many archaeologists, torn between their commitment to scientific method and their appreciation for native culture, ‘have been driven close to a postmodern relativism in which science is just one more belief system.’ Roger Anyon, a British archaeologist who has worked for the Zuni people, was quoted as saying: ‘Science is just one of many ways of knowing the world. … [The Zunis’ worldview is] just as valid as the archeological viewpoint of what prehistory is about.’

That is essentially postmodernism in a nutshell. Apparently science does not provide a unique epistemological path to truth. It is the aim of this fairly lengthy post to demonstrate that this notion is not beholden to members of nutty liberal academia or multiculturalist scientists, but to many positions of the Religious Right. In fact, theocratic belief in the United States is a strange amalgamation of both postmodernist thinking and absolutism, just as manyAs an absurd list of examples of the primacy of politics over science, little tops arguments that come from the feminist movement. There are ways to make science more ‘female friendly’, as Rosser’s recipes prescribe the inclusion and validation of personal experiences as part of the laboratory exercise and a deemphasis on objectivity (1993, 196). feministsRosser recommends that students investigate problems of a more “holistic, global scope,” using “interactive methods” instead of trying to set up isolated systems or controlling variables. Ross also calls for a thorough overhaul of scientific practice: “[We need] to talk, about different ways of doing science, ways that downgrade methodology, experiment, and manufacturing in favor of local environments, cultural values, and social justice. This is the way that leads from relativism to diversity” (1996, 4). did in the 80’sMary Daly, a radical feminist philosopher at Boston College, describes as necrophilia the essential message of science under patriarchy and states that “phallotechnology” has “rapism as its hidden agenda and destruction of life as its final goal” (1987, 217). Sandra Harding claims that in Bacon’s influential writings, “both nature and inquiry appear conceptualized in ways modeled on rape and torture—on men’s most violent and misogynous relationships to women—and this modeling is advanced as a reason to value science” (1986, 116). and 90’sJane Caputi, a professor of American studies, claims to show a “compelling connection between incest and nuclearism” ranging from “the nuclear- father figure” and “the predominantly masculine character of the abusive cohort” to “the cult of secrecy, aided by psychological responses of denial, numbering, and splitting (in both survivor and perpetrator)” (1993, 118). Kathy Overfield sums up this perspective succinctly: “Male science furthers the capitalist, imperialist tradition in which it was begotten: it exploits, rapes, destroys” (1981, 247). attempt to deconstruct much of the epistemic of science and yet retain its authority.

On one hand, these ideologues discount science as a valid epistemological venue, while also claiming to know such truth. If their beliefs are undermined by science, the natural thing to do is to resort to showing that science is not epistemologically unique, to undermining science for political ends, with the result being epistemological anarchy: resorting to pseudoscientific or antirational arguments. But first, I should clarify what exactly postmodernism has to say about science. One telling example is this passage from Collins and Pinch’ The Golem, in a section entitled ‘Science and the Citizen’: The idea that knowing more science would help the public make more sensible decisions ‘ranks among the great fallacies of our age’ (1993, 144). Through their case studies, they claim to ‘have shown that scientists at the research front cannot settle their disagreements through better experimentation, more knowledge, more advanced theories, or clearer thinking. It is ridiculous to expect the general public to do better’ (1993, 144– 45). They argue that students should be disabused of any ideas they might have picked up about the epistemic desirability of reproducible experiments, controlling variables, statistical analysis, and all the other staples of modern science. After describing the bungling efforts of schoolchildren to determine the boiling point of water, they claim that the ‘negotiation’ of their results in the classroom does not differ significantly from the behavior of great scientists working at the frontier: ‘Eddington, Michelson, Morley… are Zonkers, Brians, and Smudgers with clean white coats and ‘PhD’ after their names’ (151). Apparently ‘the natural world has a small or non-existent role in the construction of scientific knowledge,’ as sociologist of science Harry Collins claimsH. M. Collins, “Stages in the Empirical Programme of Relativism,” Social Studies of Science 11 (1981): 3–10, and ‘reality is the consequence rather than the cause’ of the so-called ’social construction of facts,’ as Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar assertBruno Latour and Steve Woolgar, Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts (London: Sage, 1979), 237..

I say, when someone confronts you outside of a lecture hall saying, ‘There is an elephant in the room,’ you eyes do not deceive you when you too see the elephant.

II. Now, how are we to make sense of this?

Let us examine the Zuni creation-myth for a moment. The claim that the myth can be “just as valid” as the archaeological theory can be read in one of three different ways: (i) as a claim about truth, (ii) as a claim about justification, or (iii) as a claim about purpose.

Interpreted as a claim about truth, the suggestion would be that the Zuni and archaeological views are equally true. Yet, this is demonstrably impossible, since they contradict each other (something cannot, by definition, be both a and ~a). If I say that the earth is flat and you say that it’s round, one of us is wrong. Postmodernist philosophers like to respond to this sort of point by saying that both claims can be true because both are true relative to some perspective or other and there can be no question of truth outside perspectives. Thus, according to the Zuni perspective, the first humans in the Americas came from a subterranean world, and according to the Western scientific perspective, the first humans came from Asia. Since both are true according to some perspective or other, both are true. But to say that some claim is true according to some perspective sounds simply like a fancy way of saying that someone, or some group, believes it. The one thing not to say, it seems to me, on pain of utter unintelligibility, is that both claims are true.

How does it fare when considered as a claim about evidence or justification? So construed, the suggestion comes to the claim that the Zuni story and the archaeological theory are equally justified, given the available evidence. Now, in contrast with the case of truth, it is not incoherent for a claim and its negation to be equally justified, for instance, in cases in which there is very little evidence for either side. But prima facie, anyway, this isn’t the sort of case that’s at issue, for according to the available evidence, the archaeological theory is far better confirmed than the Zuni myth. To get the desired relativistic result, a postmodernist would have to claim that the two views are equally justified, given their respective rules of evidence, and add that there is no objective fact of the matter which set of rules is to be preferred.

Indeed, it would follow that we could justify the claim that not every rule of evidence is as good as any other, thereby forcing the postmodernist to concede that his views about truth and justification are just as justified as his opponent’s. Presumably, however, the postmodernist needs to hold that his views are better than his opponent’s; otherwise, what’s to recommend them? By contrast, if some rules of evidence can be said to be better than others, then there must be perspective-independent facts about what makes them better and a thoroughgoing relativism about justification is false.

It is sometimes suggested that the intended sense in which the Zuni myth is “just as valid” has nothing to do with truth or justification but, rather, with the different purposes that the myth subserves, in contrast with those of science. According to this line of thought, science aims to give a descriptively accurate account of reality, whereas the Zuni myth belongs to the realm of religious practice and the constitution of cultural identity. It is to be regarded as having symbolic, emotional, and ritual purposes other than the mere description of reality. And as such, it may serve those purposes very well—better, perhaps, than the archaeologist’s account. I’ll discuss this point later.

III. But why postmodernism? And this is the crux…

In the United States, postmodernism is closely linked to the movement known as multiculturalism, broadly conceived as the project of giving proper credit to the contributions of cultures and communities whose achievements have been historically neglected or undervalued. In this connection, it has come to appeal to certain progressive sensibilities because it supplies the philosophical resources with which to prevent anyone from accusing oppressed cultures of holding false or unjustified views.

Even on purely political grounds, however, it is difficult to understand how this could have come to seem a good way to conceive of multiculturalism. For if the powerful can’t criticize the oppressed, because the central epistemological categories are inexorably tied to particular perspectives, it also follows that the oppressed can’t criticize the powerful. The only remedy, so far as I can see, for what threatens to be a strongly conservative upshot, is to accept an overt double standard: to allow a questionable idea to be criticized if it is held by those in a position of power, Christian creationism, for example, but not if it is held by those whom the powerful oppress, Zuni creationism, for example. Familiar as this stratagem has recently become, how can it possibly appeal to anyone with the slightest degree of intellectual integrity, and how can it fail to seem anything other than deeply offensive to the progressive sensibilities whose cause it is supposed to further?

IV. po-TAY-to, po-TA-to.

But I think the vocal domionists today engage in postmodernism themselves, co-opting language from historical and empirical science in all manner of issues while they’re muddying up the waters with alternative ‘facts’. Their goals are accomplished two-fold: (i) they erode respect for science that is unfavorable to their belief (ii) and get a free ride of what remains of lay-people’s credulity for scientific-sounding jargon. What comes to mind from philosophical postmodernists are misused scientific theories, such as the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, Gödel’s theorem, quantum decoherence, or relativity. Really, postmodernists don’t understand these highly complex scientific principles, so they can say what they will about how science validates their social theories. There’s Jacques Lacan and Luce Irigaray on differential topology, Jean-François Lyotard on cosmology, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari on chaos theory, Michel Serres on nonlinear time — the list goes on.

From the theological postmodernists, they too co-opt science: there is abstinence-only education, the belief that condoms don’t work, so teaching about their use is dangerous. Never mind that condoms do prevent disease and do not promote promiscuity. Behind this is a philosophical objection to the very idea of safe sex, and apparently this ‘truth’ must supersede scientific truth. A little white lie is allowed to perpetuate: Abortion increases the risk of breast cancer, even though the ABC method has been fully discounted by the WHO. When does scientific truth matter when another alternative ‘viewpoint’ can mar the one-sided scientific debate?

Apparently, remote prayer cures disease and homosexuality is a choice, and can be ‘cured’. Many in the Religious Right see the immorality of the HPV vaccine, or that ‘Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV… Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a licence to engage in premarital sex.’ (the Family Research Council’s Bridget Mahr told New Scientist). Of course, this goes far beyond a benign postmodernism, to a national policy dedicated to relativistic belief when it comes to truth, but absolutist on the subject of morality (one wonders, I suppose, on the coherence of such a belief). W. David Hager, a member of the advisory board of the Medial Institute for Sexual Health, a Christian nationalist organization, was nominated to the FDA’s Reproductive Health Advisory Committee. He was an ‘obstetrician-gynecologist with scant credentials and highly partisan political views… best known for co-authoring a book that recommends particular scripture readings as a treatment for premenstrual syndrome.’ It was Hager that blocked over the counter access to the morning-after pill and other emergency contraception. Hager wrote the famous memo, arguing that greater access to emergency contraception would increase ‘risky’ behavior among young adolescents. ‘I argued from a scientific perspective, and God took that information and he used it through this minority report to influence the decision… Once again, what Satan meant for evil, God turned into good.’

There’s a superabundance of other examples, such as ‘post-abortion syndrome’ (see Religious Tolerance), ‘Terri Schiavo could have gotten better’, ‘This is a Christian Nation’, ‘The Founding Fathers were Christian’, ‘the acceptance of evolution causes existential despair’ (or, even in some cases, ‘being the source of every imaginable evil in our society: drugs, crime, prostitution, corruption, war, abortion, death…’, from Panda’s Thumb), the validity of Intelligent Design Creationism, and the supposed demonic objectives of ‘liberal’ organizations. For instance, in 2003, Jerry Falwell broke the news: ‘Seven high school students in Westfeld, Mass., have been suspended solely for passing out candy canes containing religious messages. … The fact is, students have the right to free speech in the form of verbal or written expression during non-instructional class time. And yes, students have just as much right to speak on religious topics as they do on secular topics — no matter what the ACLU might propagate.’ (Whirled Nut Daily) Yes, the ACLU did submit a brief ‘propagating’ something — a defense of the students, on the grounds that ’students have a right to communicate ideas, religious or otherwise, to other students during their free time, before or after class, in the cafeteria, or elsewhere.’ Nevertheless, stories about the ACLU and its evil plan continued to proliferate in the right-wing media. Why should it matter if something is empirically true if the political ends are desirable! How Machiavellian! How postmodern! How amoral!

V. Don’t believe me?

Recall the notorious phrase:

The aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.‘ I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.’ (N.B.: bold added; New York Times)

To put it a bit more explicitly, there is the passage from Three Views on Creation and Evolution, a 1999 book edited by Discovery Institute felows John Mark Reynolds and J.P. Moreland. An essay defending young earth creationism, — written by Reynolds and Discovery fellow Paul Nelson.They are honest enough to admit that the evidence from natural science is against them, but they don’t accept the primacy of natural science over scripture. For them, an old earth has nothing except logic to recommend it. ‘In a postmodern world, we see no reason for traditional Christians to give up on an idea that intrigues them,’ they wrote. These conservative postmodernists have developed their own alternative, parallel research institutions, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, the Washington Times, the Chalcedon Foundation, the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, the Discovery Institute, and the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. If the facts disagree with your belief, you can always make up your own and call it a day.

VI.

I believe we can resolve this conflict: I propose a new look at Gould’s ‘non-overlapping magisteria’. Just as liberalism is not invalidated by liberal postmodernists, religion is not invalidated by conservative postmodernists. Science is for discovering truth, and is a unique venue towards truth; religion is not about truth. I care not for the truth of religion, but that it provides a ready vehicle for living justly in a modern society. Religions that properly engage in desirable ends, those religions that have had their claws removed are excellent conduits — that is if they fully accept science, abhor violence. If they meet this requirement, I see nothing really wrong with religion. There is Unitarianism, the Religious Society of Friends, Buddhism, Bahá’í, and many denominations of both Judaism and Christianity.

By the way, Happy 4th of July!

A supplementary

Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona told a Congressional panel Tuesday that top Bush administration officials repeatedly tried to weaken or suppress important public health reports because of political considerations.

The administration, Dr. Carmona said, would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues.’ (New York Times)