My Explaining Postmodernism was recently published in Hebrew translation, which led to this interview with Israeli scientist Roi Yozevitch. We focus on the inroads that political correctness and postmodernism are making are making into science.
Dr. Roi Yozevitch, “Free Speech and PC in Academia, Science and Society. A conversation with Professor Stephen Hicks.”
Tracing postmodernism from its roots in Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant to their development in thinkers such as Michel Foucault and Richard Rorty, philosopher Stephen Hicks provides a provocative account of why postmodernism has been the most vigorous intellectual movement of the late h century. Why do skeptical and relativistic arguments have such power in the contemporary intellectual world? Why do they have that power in the humanities but not in the sciences? Why has a significant portion of the political Left – the same Left that traditionally promoted reason, science, equality for all, and optimism – now switched to themes of anti-reason, anti-science, double standards, and cynicism? Explaining Postmodernism is intellectual history with a polemical twist, providing fresh insights into the debates underlying the furor over political correctness, multiculturalism, and the future of liberal democracy. This Expanded Edition includes two additional essays by Stephen Hicks: *Free Speech and Postmodernism* and *From Modern to Postmodern Art: Why Art Became Ugly*.
Shocking that you bring up, as an “example”, the difficulty in how to say, “There is a difference in IQ between ‘whites’ and ‘blacks’. ” So, Mr. Yozevitch, what is the best way to say, “IQ measurements have always been flawed as a measurement to determine ‘intelligence’, because, being deemed a ‘scientific method’ of measuring what some call ‘intellectual ability’, the ‘scientific method’ is actually impossible to follow in measuring a variable called, very unscientifically, ‘intelligence’. Neither have the variables of the scientific method ever been such that they can be controlled for in such a test designed and applied by inherently biased humans, and used on human subjects from countless cultures and languages and backgrounds, and a host of other variables present in such an endeavor.” Let me know what the “best way” is to say that. Thank you.