Denying reality makes one a “far-right conservative goofball,” perhaps?]”
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Correct me if I am wrong
[Very roughly] There are several uses for the term neo-con.

Original meaning referred to a small group of mainly liberal New York city Jews who broke with the left primarily over foreign policy in particular what they saw as the lefts inadequate support of Israel and its sympathy with Marxist’s revolutionaries and the Soviet Union. Norman Podoritz Irving Kristol, their sons and Commentary Magazine. They identified more with the strong anti-communism of the pre-McGovern Democratic party.

Later technical meaning Conservatives who shared the Hawkishness of the above and in particular a belief that US Military Force should be used to reshape the middle east in a way more favorable to Us and Israeli interests. For Ex: Pre-emptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Current misuse- A general pejorative for Conservatives who support President Bush or a strong forceful US military foreign policy or exercise of force to further perceived US interests.

The term neo-con is used mostly by individuals on the left who are convinced their ideological opponents are stupid and evil.
I think the equivalent terminology the right uses would be “a bunch of Moveon.org types” “Marxists” .

A word about the source. The WSJ article was written by an alum who was a former Dartmouth Review staffer. The DR is a right-wing paper that is funded heavily by outside money and which has, for more than two decades, been a reactionary voice on campus. The right-wing “noise machine” has for many years had it in for academia, about the only place on the cultural spectrum where the left has any voice remaining, and it feels as if Dartmouth has been a particularly juicy target, despite it being arguably the most conservative school in the Ivy League. This is a very, very long story, and a huge topic, but — I have science to do, classes to teach, and so on.

Pieter hasn’t said anything to illuminate science as *merely* effectively a political party. Notice how he pointed out that decades post-discovery, no one has figured out what quantum mechanics “really is”. This is because it’s not just a political device. The theory of QM is extremely successful experimentally. It’s possible to falsify it. That’s scientific. If someone is uncomfortable not knowing what QM “really is”, then it’s that individual’s own problem. There are several common *interpretations* of QM. But interpretation of theory is not the theory itself. The theory says what it says, but offers no opinions about itself. Interpretations are offered as brainstorms, to assist in thinking about it in new ways which may or may not bear fruit in the form of a further generalization of the theory. Philosophers are welcome to debate the metaphysical meaning of a scientifically arrived at theory all day long. The theory in the mean time will have spent that day delivering the goods.

Now, as for the New Guineans, their lack of insight into scientific practice isn’t my problem. Lack of science isn’t an invalidation of science, nor does it make science into a political phantom. One may as well point out that ants don’t think scientifically. They’re certainly socially oriented creatures. They also lack scientific thought. How ants think doesn’t relegate science to the heap. It’s science which will allow us some understanding of both real ants and the metaphorical ant within each of us.

And even if you wish to naively insist that every doctor in Nazi Germany was giddy with childlike delight to be of service to the Party’s eugenics policies, this also bears no weight. Eugenics per se is not an invalid principle. Anyone who’s bred cattle or flowers knows that eugenics works. People are at this very moment practicing eugenics, as they choose with whom they will and will not procreate. It certainly is possible to execute a eugenics program scientifically. Science is like a box of tools. There’s more than one task which can be done with those tools. If the Nazis used scientific methodology in studying eugenics, then that’s how they did it. What questions people ask and tackle scientifically isn’t the issue. Elsewhere in Germany during the war von Braun was busy engineering the A-4 rocket. I challenge anyone to show that all the physics, chemistry, metallurgy, etc employed in that project were pretty much just the fashion of the day.

Exactly the point. In their society science either does not exist or is construed differntly than you and I understand it, demosntrating that science is a social construct.

Pieter Kok above said it much better than me, look at his psot jsut above yours.

Incidnetly, the nazi doctors didn’t go along with genocide out of fear, they were the one who started pushing for it on their own initiative, begining with euthanizing (as they saw it) the hanicapped.

The New Guineans didn’t arrive at their rejection of the disease theory scientifically. They did so in a most unscientific manner: dogma. The Nazi doctors? You’ve got to be kidding. They weren’t being scientific. They weren’t even in a position to be scientific. Under such conditions, being freely scientific about the issue would’ve been an act of suicide.

It is unfortunate that the postmodern social constructivists have perverted a perfectly sound intellectual discipline like Philosophy of Science. But that does not mean we can just ignore the problematic relationship between science and “reality”. Our most successful theory, quantum mechanics (in all its forms), does not have a generally accepted realist interpretation. More than 70 years after the birth of the theory, and we don’t seem to converge on what it really means. Stick that in your philosophical pipe and smoke it!

But of course, some people said I should propose alternate theories etc etc. You know guys, these arguments (If you fell of the flour yoy would see if gravity is true eyc) are not very original, and within the field I am humbly besieging you to spend some of your time before passing judgement, have been dealt with, one way or another.

And I should clarify again that personally I am not that great a fan of either postmodernism or relativism. But some of the opinions formed here are just way to simplistic. And I tried in good faith to propose some books that may clarify the issue (books well established and generally respected). But after all, everything is OK. The point is to discuss such things before forming opinions.

Thanks for your time