god, philosophy, religion in general, poetry, anti-intellectualism— it's all, to varying degrees, and with varying degrees of inherent rage, a response to the idea that physics, the physical universe, has "laws" that we can't simply choose to transgress. Our whole American (?) identity is founded on the power that we have to break any law we don't agree with. So it makes sense that we would grow, as a sugar-fed, self-congratulatory, exceptionalistic society, to resent science—and to take that resentment out on scientists. cf: [the Sokal hoax](http://www.chronicle.com/article/Anatomy-of-a-Hoax/238728?key=bB4GOexLsAk2KfnFOkgPCGZJodsq8kA9po7j3SWdw46rznQiP0fbjiAll6EEXwldVmZKeFJMcVFVNGduaGJGZTllUVZseUhJLWRCaDJwekdXNlZuZm5KdjNEUQ) > STAR: A lot of the erstwhile antagonists have realized that they actually have a lot in common with each other. Those battles seem less contentious when you realize that you share a commitment to the university as a place of relatively unfettered intellectual inquiry and autonomy, and to support that against budget cuts and political interference and so forth is really important. > BÉRUBÉ: Now that we’re officially "post-fact," I think the hoax has a certain urgency. I was already starting to go back five years ago to give him his due on what thoroughgoing epistemological skepticism could do when it’s mobilized by the right for climate change, or for that matter for any scientific question. (2017)