Review

The Flight from Science and Reason

There are numerous books that criticize one or two irrational trends (such as environmentalism, multiculturalism or pseudo-science) in a vacuum. This book, though, is far more ambitious: it takes aim at dozens of such trends – and hits its targets decisively.

An anthology of over 40 scholarly papers by experts in science and the humanities, the book ranges from identifying the philosophic foundations of physics to refuting the premises of feminism and religion. Its theme is that modern intellectuals are engaged in a "new and more systematic flight from reason and science."

The authors of these essays are able to grasp the basic similarity among the many attacks on reason because they grasp the importance of philosophic fundamentals. Many of the articles are dedicated to the epistemology of science – both physical science and social science – and to the ways in which irrationalist movements contradict that epistemology. As a result, this book does much to establish a proper philosophy of science.

The essays are not merely negative polemics. For example, in answer to the claim that science, like religion, is based on emotions, an article analyzes the roots of scientific belief. The author finds that feelings are not valid grounds for belief. They may make someone want to believe a given conclusion, but a belief based on a desire, rather than on evidence, is not a knowledge, but a blank-out:

To assert that [a man] believes something (in the sense that a scientist believes) without having at hand the rather elaborate justification mechanisms that warrant calling a belief "scientific" is fatuous. At best, he has acquired the habit of rote recitation of a proposition.

Since most of the contributors are scholars in scientific fields, they bring an extremely well-informed perspective to bear on their topics, often providing interesting new angles on old issues. For example, anyone familiar with the Austrian school of economics has heard the argument that "mathematical economics" represents a misunderstanding of economics. An essay here by a mathematician points out that it also represents an abuse of mathematics, because it requires treating the numerically unquantifiable (such as man's value-choices) as if they were variables in a mathematical equation.

Unfortunately, because this is an academic book, it is infected with the disease of scholarly "tolerance." Its criticisms are typically muted by the assumption that even the worst irrationalist is, in the words of one contributor, "hewing to reason, but hewing to it unreasonably." Another article, by an Egyptologist, is titled "Building Bridges to Afrocentrism."

These flaws, however, do not change the essential fact that this book represents an enormous achievement. Across all the major scholarly disciplines, it challenges the roots of today's prominent anti-reason trends. While there is an inevitable range of quality in such a comprehensive volume, its overall spirit is one of strong devotion to the value of reason and science.

(600 pages)

This review is courtesy of and copyright © by the Ayn Rand Bookstore.

Books

• The Flight from Science and Reason by Edited by Paul Gross, Norman Levitt and Martin Lewis.