anti-science follies

Gross and Levitt's 1994 Higher Superstition was an incomparable survey of modern irrationalism. Science and Superstition reviews their book.

Dealing with so many academic disorders left little space in Higher Superstition for the curious notions circulating about "native science". A taste however can be had from an item appearing in Sociological Abstracts in the mid-1990s:

"The four dynamics that drive Indian Science (sic) are feelings, history as a tool, prayer as a medicine, and relations; its goal is reaching a state of balance . . ."

In Australia surprising claims have been made for the aeronautical revelations of the boomerang. Unnatural Science, a review of Lewis Wolpert's The Unnatural Nature of Science, suggests that these may be overstated.

Those who regard anthropology as having nothing whatever to do with science are probably right. What the discipline is really about is scrutinised in Hooked on What?, a discussion of a $50 million Australian initiative designed to spread anthropological enlightenment nationwide.

More philosophical matters are treated from an empirical standpoint in an essay on photography, Objective Graphics. This argues for the historical value of exosomatic recording devices of every kind. (This also available at "Film Theory")

"Science and Superstition", a review of Gross and Levitt's 1994 Higher Superstition, in the IPA Review

"Unnatural Science", a review of Lewis Wolpert's The Unnatural Nature of Science, IPA Review