Prophets Facing Backward: Postmodern Critiques of Science and Hindu Nationalism in India

Rating:
Summary: Because I could not give it a zero!
Review: I regret having wasting my money in buying this book. I was attracted to the topic of the book, since I want to know how science and religion have been harnessed in India for various political ends. But I was a disappointed by the level of scholarship. I was reminded of the hoax of Alan Sokal in "Social Text" where intelligent sounding fragments were considered perfectly reasonable scholarship by unsuspecting editors.

The situation with this book is quite similar. At the micro-level the arguments of the book seem reasonable. But for anyone who knows science, it is clear that the author does not have knowledge of the primary texts (presumably because she does not know Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian) and she has knit together fragments from secondary sources in a manner that makes no sense.

I notice that the book has received a few "5 stars" for being "brave". But shouldn't "bravery" rest on impeccable scholarship, which is impossible without rigorous training. Nanda doesn't understand the arguments related to physics or psychology, and she adopts positions that betray this ignorance.

I am still looking for a good book on this subject.

Rating:
Summary: Because I could not give it a zero!
Review: Meera Nanda draws on her two PhDs, in microbiology and philosophy of science, along with work in research and science journalism, for this fascinating, alarming book. She explains the way postmodernist suspicion of science and postcolonial suspicion of the Enlightenment give (largely unintended) support to Hindu fundamentalism and its program to present Hindu scriptures as 'science'. Few people in the West are aware of this paradoxical situation; the book is an eye-opener.

Rating:
Summary: Nanda gets it wrong
Review: Meera Nanda really irritates me with a short-sighted defensiveness of humanistic naturalism. The argument posed here (which is nebulous to say the least) relies heavily on the belief that strict naturalism is fundamental to science-as-a-method and is inherently a complete system. That's silly.

Science at its best is only able to study natural phenomena, which we can interpret as things that are ultimately within human comprehension. However, the limits of human comprehension need not be the same as the limits of human perception. Even evolution implies that possibility by making it highly unlikely that there is not some post-human sensitivity that could expand post-human comprehension. Light-sensitivity contributed a fundamentally new sensitivity to simpler organisms, but it wasn't until a system developed to process that sensitivity that it could be considered comprehensible by an organism. There is a distinction between sensitivity (perceptibility) and comprehension.

Gaps between human comprehension (natural phenomena) and human perception (observable phenomena) are definitely NOT something incompatible with science, per se. Science is limited in that it may only address the comprehensible, but it does not, in itself, imply any limit to the observable.

Essentially, Nanda has it backwards. She says that the methods of science require that natural phenomena encompass all phenomena. However, it is simply the existance of natural phenomena - our ability to comprehend anything (hello Kant!) - that implies the study of itself by the scientific method. She is right that the limits of science are natural phenomena, but is wrong to say that the limits of observable phenomena are the the same as the limits of science.

Andrew

Rating:
Summary: Don't listen to the naysayers
Review: This is a much-needed argument, and excellent research. Nanda levels a devastating attack on the pseudo-science of the Hindu right. She also suggests that a wooly postmodernism in science studies and cultural studies are at best incapable of defending against Hindutva's form of anti-modern 'hybridity'. At worst, postmodernism is a direct asset to the ideology of Hindu nationalism.

Some of Nanda's points may be arguable, but this book is clearly written and well-researched. The arguments are forcefully presented and highly accessible. Academics and non-academics alike will be challenged by her points even if they disagree with her.