In Oreskes and Conway’s The Collapse of Western Civilization, the authors make the speculative, future perfect-tense assessment that positivism and market fundamentalism has led to the destruction of Western civilization in the twenty-first century. This assessment is critical of both the internal workings of science and how it operates among other social institutions. The critique of positivism depends on a flawed placement of science in society, and is inconsistent with the subsequent historical narrative. These inconsistencies result in a weak rhetorical argument against positivism, and place an implicit emphasis on the flaws of market fundamentalism in order to construct a narrative that achieves the original thematic goals. The authors
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The citizens of the neocommunist Second People’s Republic of China valorize the very scientists who participated in the archaic and positivist methods of Western civilization. A genetic engineer from Japan saved the world with her lichenized fungus (p. 32). It is difficult to imagine a more reductionist profession than that of a genetic engineer studying one or two species of fungi in isolation from other scientists. It is also not immediately apparent how the institution of science has changed in response to the climate change catastrophes presented in the story. Governments and other non-scientific bodied perform the actionable measures identified by the authors. For example, the narrator identifies mass relocation in response to sea level changes in China as a measure made possible by the centrally planned nature of the neocommunist regime (p. 51). These inconsistencies in the authors’ analysis of science and positivism weaken the rhetorical argument that they majorly contributed to the collapse of Western civilization. In particular, the inconsistent analysis prevents them from being able to convincingly identify the causal mechanisms behind the collapse. It follows that the subsequent analysis of market fundamentalism is critical to their crafting a coherent argument that completes the thematic image portrayed by the
The citizens of the neocommunist Second People’s Republic of China valorize the very scientists who participated in the archaic and positivist methods of Western civilization. A genetic engineer from Japan saved the world with her lichenized fungus (p. 32). It is difficult to imagine a more reductionist profession than that of a genetic engineer studying one or two species of fungi in isolation from other scientists. It is also not immediately apparent how the institution of science has changed in response to the climate change catastrophes presented in the story. Governments and other non-scientific bodied perform the actionable measures identified by the authors. For example, the narrator identifies mass relocation in response to sea level changes in China as a measure made possible by the centrally planned nature of the neocommunist regime (p. 51). These inconsistencies in the authors’ analysis of science and positivism weaken the rhetorical argument that they majorly contributed to the collapse of Western civilization. In particular, the inconsistent analysis prevents them from being able to convincingly identify the causal mechanisms behind the collapse. It follows that the subsequent analysis of market fundamentalism is critical to their crafting a coherent argument that completes the thematic image portrayed by the