I specifically begin with a discussion of a novel, but Albert misreads this too. I found leaden prose on both sides of the debate, but of all the pieces I found Noam Chomsky's by far the most difficult to follow. In short, we have heard the tone and content of these denunciations before, coming from Roger Kimball, Dinesh D'Souza and the National Association of Scholars, from people whose aim, I would think, has little in common with the aims of the three respondents to our pieces. I think it is because the basic terms of the debate were not sufficiently defined beforehand. Not so, said I. Not so, said Barbara Ehrenreich.
Words are social constructs with long histories.
One cannot simply will them to have other meanings. Truth as it truly is is not the weapon of oppression, marginalization and silencing that you and your cohorts are talking about. When practiced by 'real scientists,' it is this benign, neutral, and necessary tool for making the world more civilized, getting rid of dangerous ideas like Islamic Science, which claim to be the truth but aren't. What we want is more of it, not less. A few years ago I found a quotation by Albert Einstein that I have since taken as a raison d e'tre for my involvement with the issues raised in this debate.