Introduction

Abstract

Recent years have seen the emergence of new critics of modern science who have been described, and often describe themselves, as postmodernists, multiculturalists, or cultural pluralists.¹ Their attacks on modern science emanate from a number of different academic disciplines, including ecology, medicine, history, politics, sociology, and even literary criticism. These critics reject the commonly held view that current science is a culture-neutral enterprise of universal and cosmopolitan reach and the common heritage of humanity, despite its historical genesis within the geographical confines of Europe. Instead they maintain that the knowledge offered by modern science cannot be treated as universal, but has to be seen as inescapably rooted in the cultural singularities of the West. It leads them to demand greater recognition for the large reservoirs of indigenous knowledge carried by nonWestern cultures and reject as hegemonic and imperialistic the exclusive claims made for modern science.² Their stance is vehemently rejected by modernists, who view any accommodation with traditional knowledge as embracing archaic, mythical, superstitious, and irrational systems of thought that would return us to the medieval “Dark Ages” that preceded Enlightenment science.³ The resultant ferocity and intensity of the debates generated has led observers to describe them as the “science wars.”⁴