http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=menstrual+poststructural...

It's funny at first, but after a while just kind of draining.

In the long run the mediocrity gets stripped away, and we're left with the interesting ideas. Phlogiston dominated scientific discourse for far longer than it needed to.

This is my question exactly. I would like to see a short intro to postmodernism that starts with Wittgenstein and explains in relatively clear language what new insights it produced. I don't know if it's safe or unsafe to assume that the postmodernists read Wittgenstein.

Post-modernism (in the sense of this type of thing, anyway) arose and mostly deals with literature, where imagery, symbolism, and metaphor are the main carriers of meaning rather than spelling things out literally. Also, its purpose isn't so much to interpret the work itself as it is to look through it and see what it says about the writer and the reader. In this case, it's the same thing applied to science rather than a novel, and while it might not be very relevant to fluid mechanics, it might be saying something worthwhile about scientists and gender roles (in a stylised and heavily symbolic way) once put back into context.

That said, 90% of everything is crap and I've no doubt that this is too; it does certainly seem to be on the surface.

Edit: I'm different than that other 'crux' who is also standing up for postmodernism here. Odd coincidence!

For what?

> it might be saying something worthwhile about scientists and gender roles (in a stylised and heavily symbolic way) once put back into context.

Please, humor us. What might that "something worthwhile" be?

Are you saying the language in the quote above isn't loaded down with symbolic and metaphorical imagery? Or, more specifically, that it isn't drawing metaphorical parallels, rather than literal ones, between physical concepts and cultural ones?

> Please, humor us. What might that "something worthwhile" be?

Please, spare me your sarcasm and scare quotes.

Should I interpret your scepticism as a belief that there is nothing at all worthwhile to say about gender and culture in science?

No, I'm asking what her statement is a metaphor for.

A conversation along these lines should look like the following:

Crux: "I wouldn't take that vacation if I were you. A rolling stone gathers no moss."

Jib: "What do rolling stones have to do with anything?"

Crux: "I was speaking metaphorically. What I mean is that as long as you keep going (like the stone,) you'll keep your momentum (won't gather moss.)"

> Should I interpret your scepticism as a belief that there is nothing at all worthwhile to say about gender and culture in science?

No, just that her quote isn't saying anything worthwhile about gender and culture in science. The fact that you can't identify anything it even "might" be saying is evidence for this.

In general, our conversation seems to fit the following pattern:

A: "There are many zorks in this world."

B: "Really? Name one."

A: "Are you saying there's no such thing as a zork? Prove it!"

B: "..."

I don't believe I could say without either more context, or without just making up one of my own.

I was simply pointing out that to try and take the quote literally would be absurd.

> No, just that her quote isn't saying anything worthwhile about gender and culture in science.

I myself am not convinced that it does (note my use of "might" in the first reply here!) -- again, it was a completely context-free excerpt. But as a whole, it (or other writing of a similar nature), certainly could be saying something interesting, yet you deny the very possibility.

I'm not interested in inventing meaning from a short quote and putting my words into the author's mouth, and I do not have the time to go read the originals. So: you will get no satisfaction from me when it comes to a summary of the original unexcerpted work.

Suffice to say that I believe there are many interesting things to be said about gender and science, from the obvious statistics, anecdotes and trends, to the less obvious -- such as the historical, cultural, and linguistic parallels between science and authoritarian patriarchy, for example.

A side note: I myself have never claimed to be speaking metaphorically, nor used an obvious metaphor, so your sarcastic exchange (haven't I asked you to spare me it?) is rather off the mark.

I think we have very different rules of discourse, because I wasn't being sarcastic. Where I come from, that sort of conversation is what one goes through when a metaphor isn't understood. (If you claim that some statement is a metaphor, it is generally implicit that you understand it, and can thus explain it; so it is entirely reasonable for someone to ask you to explain it.)

Anyways, yes, I'll admit that it's possible that the original quote has (an intelligent) meaning. Hell, it's possible that timecube.com has such a meaning. I don't find either proposition terribly likely. My guess would be that Luce Irigaray is an intelligent woman who likes to say things which sound interesting; in this case, she was talking about things she didn't understand. It's possible that my guess is wrong, but you've provided very little evidence on this point.