Among
the many cultural myths surrounding the relations between science and
contemporary China, the notion of a ruthless totalitarian state that unscrupulously
persecutes their own scientists and the pursuit of science, is not alien to an
average American ear.
The infamous physicist Alan Sokal, who gained a
"reputation" in SSK and STS by his critical parody "Transgressing the
Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity"
published in Social Text in 1996,
launched another assault on what he called "pseudo-medicine" in his
public lecture "What is science and why should we care?," given on
February 27, 2008 in London.
