IRONIC SCIENCE: SOME REMARKS ON HUMANISM, SCIENCE, AND LITERATURE

MALTE HERWIG

Let no man upon a weak conceit of sobriety or an ill- applied moderation think or maintain, that a man can search too far, or be too well studied in the book of God’s word, or in the book of God’s works; divinity or philosophy: but rather let men endeavour an endless progress or proficience in both; only let men beware that they apply both to charity, and not to swelling; to use, and not to ostentation; and again, that they do not unwisely mingle or confound these learnings together.1

Since what has been considered to be the scientific revolution of Bacon’s day, the humanities and the sciences have been somewhat uncomfortably housed under the same roof in the learned institutions of Western civilization. The analytical, explanatory, and manipulatory powers of science have gained it unprecedented importance in modern society. Scientific discoveries, technological development, and the immense increase in the empirical knowledge of nature have shifted disciplinary boundaries and challenged established hierarchies. As is the way with revolutions, existing systems of belief and the social order they tacitly support have been challenged. Undoubtedly, the increasing complexity of knowledge means that a Baconian synthesis cannot be achieved by a single person any longer. Specialization has opened and deepened the gap between two differing factions, one applying itself to the book of nature, the other to the book of God or literary discourse in general. Of course, there are crossovers, but they often tend to be viewed with suspicion, or indifference, on both sides. I will explore here some literary examples that show how a valid synthesis of science and

1 Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning and New Atlantis, London, 1951, 11. 168 Malte Herwig literature can be achieved within, and under the specific premises of, a literary text. For this undertaking, contrary to certain relativist approaches, it is precisely necessary to distinguish fact from fiction when analysing the various elements and layers of a text. One has to appreciate the differences between the discourses (or, to use a more neutral term, methods) employed in the two fields in order to see on what basis and on what premise a real synthesis can be achieved, and where it is not advisable “to mingle and confound”. To begin with, a closer look at the history of the debate between scientists and humanists will help to resolve some underlying misunderstandings and frictions, but will also highlight actual problems involved in cross-disciplinary exchange. Since my main concern is science in fiction, I shall then limit myself to examining how science and humanism can be reconciled in works of fiction, leaving aside explicitly philosophical, ethical and religious speculation as to their compatibility.

Two cultures? Sokal and Bricmont’s Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science is one of the most recent examples of interdisciplinary unease. The authors attack the way in which French intellectuals such as Lacan, Kristeva, Latour, and Baudrillard are in their view abusing science in their work.2 Significantly, Sokal and Bricmont do not include works of fiction in their criticism and profess to restrict themselves to pointing out factual misrepresentations of scientific theories in the wide-ranging philosophical treatises of the Paris intelligentsia. It is important that the authors do not attack interdisciplinarity per se, but, like Bacon, they caution us not to “unwisely mingle or confound” two different areas of intellectual enterprise. Nevertheless, what became the “Sokal Affair” caused

2 Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont, Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectual’s Abuse of Science, New York, 1998. Two years earlier, Sokal, a physicist at New York University, had published an article on the similarities between quantum gravitational theory and postmodern thinking in the renowned journal Social Text, shortly afterwards revealing that it was a intended as a parody of the seemingly erudite and impenetrable lingo used by postmodern intellectuals (“Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity”, in Social Text, 46/47 [1996], 217-52).