ABSTRACT
Confidence in the scientific model of reason, which has been fundamental in Western culture, rests on the positive assumption that modern science provides the best method of uncovering truth. Recently, however, there has been a discernible cultural shift away from the ideal of scientific reason, reflected both in popular culture and in academic discourse. And while the denigration of scientific reason is something to applaud to the degree that it deflates the hubris of the Enlightenment ideal of scientific reason, the devaluation of science in contemporary culture is having deleterious, indeed destructive, effects in the processes of constitutional democratic governance. Multicultural critiques of the scientific project of the West allege that modern science is just another Western tradition that should not be used to rationalize Western superiority over non-Western cultures, for science has been utilized as a means of cultural objectification of so-called primitive societies and physical control of native populations.
