Quotes from Lingua Franca

There is a real world; its properties are not merely social constructions; facts and evidence do matter. What sane person would contend otherwise? And yet, much contemporary academic theorizing consists precisely of attempts to blur these obvious truths.

it also follows that the oppressed can't criticize the powerful. The only remedy, so far as I can see, for what threatens to be a strongly conservative upshot, is to accept an overt double standard: allow a questionable idea to be criticized if it is held by those in a position of power-Christian creationism, for example-hut not if it is held by those whom the powerful oppress-Zuni creationism, for example.

Prior to deciding whether science intrinsically tells the truth, we must ask, again and again, whether it is possible, or prudent, to isolate facts from values. This is a crucial question to ask, because it bears upon the kind of progressive society we want to promote.

However, these criteria, admirable as they are, are insufficient for a liberatory, postmodern science: they liberate human beings from the tyranny of absolute truth and objective reality, but not necessarily from the tyranny of other human beings. In Andrew Ross's words, we need a science that will he publicly answerable and of some service to progressive interests 0991, 29).