| Challenges Softcover Repri Edition Contributor(s): Lang, Serge (Author) |
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ISBN: 0387948619 ISBN-13: 9780387948614 Publisher: Springer OUR PRICE: $49.49 Product Type: Paperback Published: October 1997 Annotation: This collection, based on several of Lang's "Files," deals with the area where science and academia meet the worlds of journalism and politics: social organization, government, and the roles that education and journalism play in shaping opinions leading to policy decisions. In discussing specific cases in which he became involved, Lang addresses general questions of standards: standards of journalism, standards of discourse, and standards of science. Recurring questions concern: - How people process information and how misinformation is spread and accepted - Inhibition of critical thinking and the role of education: teaching students to think clearly and independently -- or conditioning them to accept dominant modes of perception uncritically - How to make corrections, and how attempts at corrections are sometimes obstructed - The extent to which we submit to the authority of those higher up, and whether one can keep the higher ups accountable, possibly in the face of evasions, stonewalling, and intimidation - The competence of so-called experts - Our responsibility for what we say or write - The use of editorial and academic power to suppress or marginalize ideas, evidence, or data that do not fit the tenets of certain establishments By dealing with case studies and providing extensive documentation, Lang challenges some individuals and establishments, at the same time that he challenges us to reconsider the ways they exercise their |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Science | Philosophy & Social Aspects - Business & Economics | Business Ethics - Philosophy |
| Dewey: 174.909 |
| LCCN: 94007180 |
| Physical Information: 1.49" H x 6.11" W x 9.21" (2.49 lbs) 816 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: I am very thankful to Springer-Verlag for publishing a collection of some of my non-mathematical works-I call them political works. in the broad sense of the word political. Three of these have appeared in print: - My article on the Ladd-Lipset sUIvey. which appeared in the New York Review of Books. 18 May 1978; and also in The File (Springer-Verlag. 1981). - My article on the Baltimore case. which appeared in the Jour- nal of Ethics and Behavior. February 1993. - My articles on HIV and AIDS. which appeared in the Yale Sci- entific (Fall 1994 and Winter 1995). reprinted updated in the book AIDS: Virus-or drug induced? Kluwer Academic Pub- lishers. 1996. pp. 271-307. The first item. "Academia. Journalism. and Politics." is itself a book based on my Huntington file. The "Background and Motiva- tion" section of this sub-book can be used as a foreword for all my "political" works. and also contains an explanation of how I use the word "political." In that section. readers will find a general discussion of the way I process information and some criteria I use in discourse. |