Scandalous Knowledge: Science, Truth, and the Human: Science and Cultural Theory

With keen wit, Smith demonstrates that the familiar charges involved in these scandals--including the recurrent invocation of "postmodern relativism"--protect intellectual orthodoxy by falsely associating important intellectual developments with logically absurd and morally or politically disabling positions. She goes on to offer bold, original, and insightful perspectives on the currently strained relations between the natural sciences and the humanities; on the grandiose but dubious claims of evolutionary psychology to explain human behavior, cognition, and culture; and on contemporary controversies over the psychology, biology, and ethics of animal-human relations. "Scandalous Knowledge "is a provocative and compelling intervention into controversies that continue to roil through journalism, pulpits, laboratories, and classrooms throughout the United States and Europe.