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Science kitsch? Like Dawkins on a beer mug? Shermer on a chocolate wrapper?

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Well, not exactly. It’s more the attitude that a recent journal article takes issue ith, according to David Tyler.

David Tyler talks about that at Access Research Network here, commenting on a recent article:

This first genre of science kitsch may be identified as confusing science with a presupposed philosophical stance. In Crick’s case (and many like him), the philosophy is naturalism that is presented as the essence of science. The problem then is a close-minded dogmatism about the way the world works. It is not possible for naturalistic scientists to follow evidence wherever it leads because their philosophy of naturalism is presupposed as true. This closes off all consideration of any evidence indicating intelligent agency. This is not the authentic spirit of science, and it is rightly described as science kitsch.

Disillusion kitsch is expressed not just by science popularisers, but by numerous leaders within the world of science. Perhaps the most widely cited is by Richard Dawkins:

“Theologians worry away at the ‘problem of evil’ and a related ‘problem of suffering’. [. . .] On the contrary, if the universe were just electrons and selfish genes, meaningless tragedies like the crashing of this bus are exactly what we should expect, along with equally meaningless good fortune. Such a universe would be neither evil nor good in intention. It would manifest no intentions of any kind. In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. As that unhappy poet A.E. Housman put it: ‘For Nature, heartless, witless Nature Will neither care nor know’. DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.” (Dawkins R., “River out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life,” Phoenix: London, 1996, p.155.) More.

Here’s the abstract for the article, which appeared in Public Understanding of Science:

Science kitsch and pop science: A reconnaissance

Eduard Kaeser

Science kitsch? The combination of these two words rings like an oxymoron. Science – as the common saying has it – exposes, discovers, tells the truth; kitsch conceals, covers, lies. I think, this “shadow” of science deserves a specific scrutiny, not only because it reflects the altered place and role of science in contemporary “knowledge” society but also because it pinpoints the task of relocating science in the “multicultural” context of postmodernism, with its different epistemic claims. The genre of science kitsch may help to regain credit by working as a probe to detect false pretensions, explanatory exuberance and exaggerations in science.

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