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 (more on lecture).
His talk commenced with his
discontent and fury with the school of "social construction of science/scientific
knowledge/scientific facts" by quoting excepts from notable scholars in
SSK and STS – such as H.M. Collins, B. Latour, B. Barnes, D. Bloor, and K.
Hayles – and demonstrating how their writings on "social construction of
science" constitute a hazardous move toward intellectual relativism and
vanity. Then he traversed to what he conceptualized as a "second set of
adversaries of the scientific worldview,” namely the advocates of
pseudo-medicine. By "pseudo,” he meant the sloppy and unscientific
mechanism by which alternative therapies, such as homeopathy, can function
within the existing knowledge system in science. According to Sokal, the utter scientific
implausibility of homeopathy lies at its "unproven (or disproven)
mechanism by which homeopathy could possibly work, unless one rejects
everything that we have learned over the last 200 years about physics and
chemistry...." and that "existence of such a phenomenon would contradict
well-tested science, in this case the statistical mechanics of fluids."
In short, Sokal was angry about the
sum of money spent on promoting homeopathy because he saw homeopathy as
antagonistic to "credible" methodology in Western science. Since Western
science is the canonical archetype among the existing knowledge systems,
everything against it is relegated as "bad science."
What is the other side of the story?
According to some defenders of homeopathy, the preference for homeopathy stems
partly from the recognition of the impossibility of separating such an
ever-changing body from its environment – health is affected by diet, water,
air, mood, stress, relationships, the past, colors, work, and so on. Often,
people turn to alternative medicine to address these concerns. NYU’s Emily Martin
elaborated on the interconnection between the (internal) immune system and the (external)
environment:
“Inside the
citadel of science, there is a group of scientists who are focusing on the
links between the immune system and the world outside the body, much as
alternative medicine treats the body in its life environment. They are claiming that the immune system is a
self-organizing network, a complex system of the sort Vera Michaels
evoked. But today these scientists are
considered ‘unconventional’ and their views controversial.” (“Anthropology
and the Cultural Study of Science: From Citadels to String Figures”
in Anthropological Locations: Boundaries and Grounds of
a Field Science by Akhil Gupta, James
Ferguson, 1997: 139)
Alright, enough of the acrimonious
dispute. Now, is there any way to reconcile the dichotomous views? If we
believed in Sokal's criticism on the deconstructive (and thus destructive)
signpost the school of "social construction of science" is taking us
to, how can we be more constructive? Apparently some people believe in
homeopathy and some people don't. But is it simply a matter of faith? What is
at stake here? Power asymmetry? Credibility & authority? Misconception?
Disciplinary and institutional barriers?
Are sarcasm and parody and mutual hatred the best ways to handle the dispute?
About the author: Christine Luk is a doctoral student and participant in CSPO’s Alternative Imaginations Research Cluster.
