Death of Stanislav Andreski

I was sorry to read of the death of Professor Stanislav Andreski, the
Polish-British sociologist. As the obituary in The Independent reports:

'Andreski always wrote a clear, impeccable and attractive English that was a
pleasure to read. He held in contempt those social scientists who were
obscurantists and jargon-mongers, and in 1974 published an attack on them in
his best-selling Social Sciences as Sorcery. It was very popular with the
public but infuriated those of his colleagues whose careers were based on
concealing behind verbiage the fact that they had nothing to say. Andreski was
equally contemptuous of bureaucracy and when he received an absurd
questionnaire from the Social Science Research Council asking him what method
he used, he replied "thinking".'

In my later career as an editor of academic texts, I had reason to be grateful
to Andreski for honing my bullshit detectors, as I was often (too often)
called upon to edit texts by academics "whose careers were based on concealing
behind verbiage the fact that they had nothing to say". There was even an
entire discipline, Fundamental pedagogics, based on that principle.

There's more on my blog: Notes from underground: Stanislav Andreski dies:

http://methodius.blogspot.com/2007/10/stanislav-andreski-dies.html

Independent obituary at:

http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article3041101.ece


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

Thank you for the notice on Andreski, Steve. It is very sad how the
Social Sciences nad Philosophy both went from honest enquiry in plain
lanugage to become the jargon laden pseudo sciences they are today. He
was, indeed, a very clear and valuable thinker.

Steve Hayes wrote:

>I was sorry to read of the death of Professor Stanislav Andreski, the
>Polish-British sociologist. As the obituary in The Independent reports:
>
>'Andreski always wrote a clear, impeccable and attractive English that was a
>pleasure to read. He held in contempt those social scientists who were
>obscurantists and jargon-mongers, and in 1974 published an attack on them in
>his best-selling Social Sciences as Sorcery. It was very popular with the
>public but infuriated those of his colleagues whose careers were based on
>concealing behind verbiage the fact that they had nothing to say. Andreski was
>equally contemptuous of bureaucracy and when he received an absurd
>questionnaire from the Social Science Research Council asking him what method
>he used, he replied "thinking".'
>
>In my later career as an editor of academic texts, I had reason to be grateful
>to Andreski for honing my bullshit detectors, as I was often (too often)
>called upon to edit texts by academics "whose careers were based on concealing
>behind verbiage the fact that they had nothing to say". There was even an
>entire discipline, Fundamental pedagogics, based on that principle.
>
>There's more on my blog: Notes from underground: Stanislav Andreski dies:
>
>http://methodius.blogspot.com/2007/10/stanislav-andreski-dies.html
>
>Independent obituary at:
>
>http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article3041101.ece
>
>
>
>