Levitt, Norman 1943–

PERSONAL:

Born August 27, 1943, in New York, NY; son of Saul and Molly Levitt; married Renée Greene, November 28, 1971; children: Steven, Heather. Education: Harvard University, B.A., 1963; Princeton University, Ph.D., 1967. Politics: "Left-liberal." Hobbies and other interests: The U.S. Civil War, collecting art.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

New York University, New York, NY, instructor, 1967-69; Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, professor of mathematics, beginning 1969. University of Western Ohio, Nerenberg memorial lecturer; visiting professor, Århus University, Stanford University, and University of British Columbia.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fellow of Open Society Institute.

WRITINGS:

Grassmannians and Gauss Maps in Piecewise-Linear Topology, Springer Verlag (New York, NY), 1989.

(With Paul R. Gross) Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science, Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore, MD), 1994.

(Editor, with Paul R. Gross and Martin W. Lewis) The Flight from Science and Reason, New York Academy of Sciences (New York, NY), 1996.

Prometheus Bedeviled: Science and the Contradictions of Contemporary Culture, Rutgers University Press (New Brunswick, NJ), 1999.

Contributor to books, including A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodern Myths about Science, edited by Noretta Koertge, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2000; What It Is to Be Human: What Science Can and Cannot Tell Us, edited by Kenan Malik and others, Institute of Ideas (London, England), 2001; and Archaeological Fantasies, edited by Garrett Fagen, Routledge (New York, NY), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS:

In 1994 mathematician Norman Levitt became a public figure in the "science wars" when he and coauthor Paul R. Gross published Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science. Since then Levitt has written and edited several other books on the role and value of science within society, including The Flight from Science and Reason and Prometheus Bedeviled: Science and the Contradictions of Contemporary Culture.

In Higher Superstition Levitt and Gross discuss the attacks against science made by members of other academic disciplines, such as those in the social and political sciences and in the humanities. Some critics of science attempt to dismiss science as a manifestation of a particular culture rather than as a method for testing data to arrive at reliable knowledge. According to Levitt and Gross, critics of science are found at leading universities and often come from such groups as Marxists, feminists, literary critics, and environmentalists, though these groups do not oppose the value of science. The antiscience critics view science as a tool for maintaining hegemony by Western males over other cultures and blame it for pollution, warfare, racism, and sexism. They decry its hegemony over other ways of knowing and assert that science has no superiority over other belief systems. Employing a number of examples, Levitt and Gross demonstrate that many of the criticisms leveled against science are made by people who are ignorant of the science they criticize or misunderstand its principles. Finally, the authors discuss why it is important to counter the attacks made against science and in support of pseudo-science. Levitt and Gross maintain that science can withstand the inept attacks of its critics but are concerned with the reception of anti-science attacks by nonscientific circles within academia and by the general public via the news media.

Higher Superstition caught the attention of many in academia and generated controversy. "Written in a lively style, with an admirable edge of intellectual disdain, Higher Superstition deals with all aspects of leftist hostility to science," reported Society commentator Stanley Stewart. Calling the work "a very remarkable book," Keith M. Parsons wrote in the Skeptical Inquirer that it is "brilliantly written and cogently argued…. Time and again the appalling scientific ignorance of the antiscientists is exposed…. The shallowness—indeed silliness—of their arguments is made glaringly clear." Ben W. Bloch wrote in Society: "I agree with and admire almost everything that is said in this book." He continued, "This is a book that should be read, especially by scientists, for its courageous stand in defense of science and of the scientific method. As a general survey of the attack by the academic Left on science, it is hard to beat."

Commentators had several criticisms, however. In a review for Science, Bennett M. Berger suggested that Levitt and Gross's selection of examples included only extreme cases demonstrating an antiscience stance. "I think that Gross and Levitt are correct in intuiting an anti-science animus in some of the work they consider … but I also think that most of the serious relativist work in the history, sociology, and philosophy of science is inspired by deep respect for science (in its generic sense as knowledge) and can best be seen as part of the effort common to all learned professions to get at the roots of how we know," Berger added. Bloch pointed out some uneven writing and suggested that the tone of superiority in which the book was written might discourage general readers from considering their arguments. Stanley Rothman touched on this fact in an article in National Review: "This is an important and angry book. It is important because the authors document a trend, especially in the academy, toward the denigration of science—a trend with which many scientists are unfamiliar, and one that few really understand. It is angry because the authors … are impatient with the illiteracy of many of the attacks on science. If their anger sometimes detracts from their analysis, it is nevertheless understandable." Parsons commented, "The chief drawback of Gross and Levitt's book is that it probably will not be read by those who need it most." Robert Storey of Reason noted, "Gross and Levitt have written an important book, albeit one likely to be ignored by the academic left itself." Storey continued: "Still, to the degree that Higher Superstition exemplifies the informed scholarship that is the best antidote to ‘postmodern theory,’ Gross and Levitt contribute to the eventual discrediting of the academic left." Berger concluded, "The culture wars are now a permanent part of the social process and ideological work a major occupation. Let me welcome Gross and Levitt to the fray."

As one of three editors, in The Flight from Science and Reason Levitt compiles the papers of a diverse gathering at a meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences whose members met to discuss the challenges made to the primacy of science. About this work Paul Forman wrote in Science that the papers were of uneven quality in their arguments and ability to persuade readers. "Despite the rhetoric, the scientific establishment can profit from its critics," noted Alfred Tauber in the New England Journal of Medicine. "Perhaps the greatest value of this anthology is that it alerts its readers to the challenge. One could blame the dispute on an anti-science cabal, but probing the underlying assumptions of science about reality can only strengthen the enterprise." In the publication Prometheus Bedeviled, Levitt continues to explore the relationship between science and democracy that he discusses in Higher Superstition. He explains the importance of science, the value of scientific method, and the distinction between science and pseudo-science. Moreover, he recommends improvements to the teaching of science. R.M. Davis, writing in Choice, pointed out that Levitt documents his points well, and in the view of a Publishers Weekly critic, "There is a great deal of thoughtful material here."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Choice, November, 1999, R.M. Davis, review of Prometheus Bedeviled: Science and the Contradictions of Contemporary Culture, p. 560.

Commentary, June, 1994, Jeffrey Salmon, review of Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science, pp. 53-54.

National Review, October 10, 1994, Stanley Rothman, review of Higher Superstition, pp. 70-73.

New England Journal of Medicine, January 23, 1997, Alfred Tauber, review of The Flight from Science and Reason, pp. 300-301.

New Statesman and Society, May 20, 1994, Marek Kohn, review of Higher Superstition, pp. 38-39.

Publishers Weekly, June 21, 1999, review of Prometheus Bedeviled, p. 47.

Reason, January, 1995, Robert Storey, review of Higher Superstition, pp. 58-61.

Science, May 13, 1994, Bennett M. Berger, review of Higher Superstition, pp. 985-987; May 2, 1997, Paul Forman, review of The Flight from Science and Reason, pp. 750-752.

Skeptical Inquirer, March-April, 1995, Keith M. Parsons, review of Higher Superstition, pp. 44-46.

Society, July-August, 1995, Ben W. Bloch, review of Higher Superstition, pp. 95-96; July-August, 1996, Stanley Stewart, review of Higher Superstition, pp. 94-96.