Rajendra Prasad

History and Philosophy of Science

The Program in History and Philosophy of Science (HPS) teaches students to examine the sciences, medicine and technology from a number of perspectives, conceptual, historical and social. The community of scholars includes core faculty and students in History and Philosophy and affiliated members in Classics, Anthropology, English, Political Science, Communication, and other disciplines. Together, they draw upon the multiple methods of their disciplines to study the development, functioning, applications, and social and cultural engagements of the sciences.

In the Struggle for Truth

The struggle for truth, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder. I read John Grants, The Vietnam War and the Struggle for Truth posted online, and was so impressed that a person could assemble so many untruths, half-truths, and misrepresentations in one essay. His first sentence is a gross misrepresentation about the US being forced to abandon artificially divided Vietnam. In the 1954 Geneva Accords which delineated North and South Vietnam, elections were to be held if the Viet Minh (fighters from the North) returned to the North and allowed free elections. The Viet Minh did not comply. There was still intimidation and terrorism by the Viet Minh on the populace in the South. There could not be free and fair elections. Mr. Grants reference to Eisenhowers memoirs stating that Ho Chi Minh would have won an election by 80% is about as an astute observation as noting that Saddam Hussein and Hafez Al Assad won elections by almost 100%. They had “democratic” elections, but consider the circumstances.