Science and Postmodern Criticism
RESEARCHERS IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES TODAY often experience a conflicting sense of awe and bewilderment. One easily senses the astonishing advances in medical science and technology in the post–World War II era. On the other hand are signs of crisis of faith in science. Folk or “natural” therapies compete with scientifically tested methods of health care. This apparent retreat to pseudoscience reflects uneasiness commonly voiced that science is an impersonal and technocentric “paradigm.” Rising popular sentiment seems to be that other ways of knowing and conceptualizing the body are equally valid—even preferable.
More incredulous to scientists is the cynical view in which science is often cast among colleagues in the social sciences and humanities. Natural sciences have become a significant target in so-called culture wars: the conflict between Enlightenment-inspired rationalism and humanism, and its postmodern critics.
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