Rating: 
Summary: Lower sub-stition
Review: When I first read this book I found it hilarious and in so far as I don't ride with postmodern appropriations of science I thought it merely odd. But with the passing of the Sokal episode and its trivia the basic issues have resurfaced and the harm done by this book suddenly came home to me. Let's face it, the book is more stupid than what it critiques. Science is failing. Period. It has failed on the theory of evolution, and given us reductionist views on man the average Buddhist finds embarrassing. Whatever the sins of the postmodernists they at least sensed the problem.
The most pathetic bit in this forgettable book is the excoriation of Jeremy Rifkin's Algeny, admittedly a book hard to take, and one that caused palpitations in Gould who reviewed it. I actually tracked the book down and discovered a very acute critique of Darwinian theory. It is no great shakes as a book, but at least the author could see the problem.
That's the point where this science arrogance is so ill-advised and misleading, the tactics those of the Big Science bullies preening with their positivistic idiocy. For a history of the science wars, cf. The One Culture? J. Labinger, ed
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