Re: [Pen-l] Jared Diamond and the New Yorker, part 2

[ravi <ravi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On May 8, 2009, at 6:43 PM, raghu wrote:
> I think Ravi was objecting to the tyranny of science. Science in the
> 21'st century has become what the Bible was in the middle ages - the
> ultimate arbiter of every important question.

That's approximately my usual lament, but in this case my point is  
simpler: Jared Diamond is interested in impressing and maintaining  
stature among fellow intellectuals and scientists and in the current  
climate that means to pooh-pooh at what is considered romanticising of  
other cultures and other such sentimentalities. Similar to Summers on  
women: I have the best interests of women at heart, trust me, but it’s  
a sad truth of hard science that .... blah blah.

This attitude is not that different, IMO, from that of other leftists  
over-eager to distance themselves from any sort of hippie association  
lest they be found lacking in heft (an attitude which it seems is only  
at best ambiguously present in their man, Karl).

The above is regarding the second point I made in my post.

	--ravi


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