Dear Editor:

Neil Postman's latest anti-technology rant [October 9] deserves a response.

Those who have read Mr. Postman's screeds such as _Technopoly_ know that Mr.
Postman is not above lying to his colleagues [see pp. 56-58].  But since
those falsehoods are for a good cause (in the name of conducting social
science "experiments" in order to show that his co-workers are too
"credulous"), we are supposed to go along in good humor.  Now, in his
article "Virtual Students, Digital Classrooms", Mr. Postman has progressed
to actively distributing misinformation to his students and to Nation readers.

Contrary to Mr. Postman's claim, there has *not* "recently emerged evidence
of a `scientific' nature that when sick people are prayed for they do better
than those who aren't."  Mr. Postman is evidently referring to an article by
Randolph Byrd in the July 1988 Southern Medical Journal that purports to
show that prayer improved the recoveries of coronary care patients.  But Mr.
Postman neglects to tell us that (i) the results of previous studies (by
Galton; Joyce and Welldon; and Collipp) are quite different; indeed, in one
half of the Joyce and Welldon study, the *control* group actually did better
than the prayer group;  and (ii) serious doubts about the design of the Byrd
study have been raised by Tampa internist Gary Posner [Free Inquiry,
Spring 1990].

It would seem that Mr. Postman, who has frequently complained about the
credulity of others (and admits lying to them to demonstrate this) has in
this instance been overly credulous himself.

The common characteristic of the anti-technologists is that they seem to
know very little about the technology they purport to criticize.  An example
of this can be found later in Mr. Postman's article, where he says, "It is
... not easy to imagine research scientists all over the world
teleconferencing with thousands of students who are having difficulty with
their science projects.  I can't help thinking that most research scientists
would put a stop to this rather quickly." Mr.  Postman should join us in the
Usenet newsgroup "k12.ed.science" where research scientists from all over
the world advise young students on a daily basis.

It is certainly true, as Mr. Postman says, that there is a lot of hype
regarding educational uses of computers.  But Mr. Postman's criticism smacks
of hypocrisy; after all, on the back of his book, _Technopoly_, we find the
same kind of hype:  "With characteristic wit and candor, Neil Postman, our
most astute and engaging cultural critic, launches a trenchant ... warning
against the tyranny of machines...  _Technopoly_ ... is also a passionate
rallying cry filled with a humane rationalism..." I suppose this kind of
hype is justified because it is about Mr.  Postman's *own* work in the print
medium.  (Shhh -- let's not tell Mr.  Postman that almost certainly his book
was printed and distributed with the aid of those "tyrannical" computers.)

Yes, we need intelligent, informed criticism of technology.  But Mr.
Postman's work is, regrettably, neither.



Jeffrey Shallit