Provost Office

The discussions in this book are all of a piece. Each is part of a larger endeavor to evaluate the role and veracity of truth in the realm of science. During the 1990s, when I composed the majority of these projects, postmodernists appeared to gaining the upper hand in the Science Wars. To put it bluntly, postmodernists had declared that science was evil and truth was dead. Although certain elements of the postmodern critique clearly had merit, the broader implications for truth and science were more problematic.
In the chapters that follow, I develop a critical analysis of the philosophy and practice of science. While I acknowledge the ticklish problems that coercive power often exercises over knowledge, ultimately, I arrive at a very different conclusion than postmodernists about the value of truth and the future of science.

Science created the modern world, and Good Science explains why.

Good Science examines the way that science has transformed fantasies–such as Jules Verne’s Nautilus and JFK’s lunar ambitions–into reality. Although scientific discovery is often imperfect and unpredictable, nevertheless, Good Science argues that the path of science represents the surest route to the brightest possible future.

Drawing upon a sequence of the most important breakthroughs in the history of science, Good Science develops a ground-breaking argument about the evolution of social reality. From Galileo, to Darwin, Einstein and beyond, landmark achievements in science have transformed the way that we perceive and live in the real world. Indeed, science routinely transcends the boundaries of lived reality; transforming what was once fantasy, such as space travel or thinking computers, into commonplace features of everyday reality.

Though science has routinely produced marvels of thought and technology, scientific achievements have also brought about dire threats to human existence, such as overpopulation, ecological disaster, and nuclear annihilation. As such, science must be understood as the most important, and simultaneously, the most hazardous invention that humans have ever conceived. Indeed, some have argued that, due to the unforeseen ills that it has introduced, science is a fundamentally destructive endeavor.

Nevertheless, Good Science asserts that the fortunes of humanity have always been closely associated with the pursuit of more and better knowledge: truth. Thus, imperfect as it may be, science offers the most efficacious means of confronting global crises, redefining reality and creating the abundant opportunities for humanity to thrive in the future.