Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Miscellaneous The Sokal Hoax The Sokal Hoax In Fall of 1994, New York University theoretical physicist, Alan Sokal, submitted an essay to Social Text, the leading journal in the field of cultural studies. This essay, entitled "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity," pretended to be a scholarly article about the "postmodern" philosophical and political implications of the twentieth century physical theories. However, as Sokal later revealed in the journal Lingua Franca, his essay was merely a mixture of deliberately concocted blunder, stitched together so as to look good and to flatter the conceptual views of the editors. After review by five members of Social Text's editorial board, Sokal's "cartoon" was accepted for publication as a serious piece of scholarship. It appeared in April 1996, in a special double issue of the journal devoted to rebutting the charge that cultural studies critiques of science tend to be riddled with incompetence (Boghossian). Sokal's essay seems to show a few important things. The views about the concepts of truth and evidence have gained widespread acceptance within the present day academy. This has had precisely the sort of harmful consequence on the standards of scholarship and intelligent responsibility. Neither of the above two claims needs to reflect a particular political point of view (Boghossian). Sokal starts off by establishing his postmodernist credentials. He ridicules scientists for continuing to cling to the post-teachings of authority over the Western intellectual outlook. There is a way that human beings can obtain reliable knowledge of these properties. He states that this belief has already been thoroughly undermined by the theories of general relativity and quantum mechanics, and that physical reality has been shown to be at bottom a social ladder (Boghossian). Sokal then goes on about his views on quantum gravity and physical theory. He tries to generate political and cultural views from these views. His reasoning is supported by nothing more than a "hazy patchwork of puns." When he does this, how is it that credential scientists can claim to have a complete understanding on scientific knowledge in their field? They accepted an article that was a total hoax and didn't realize it! This article was an impenetrable swamp of jargon and citations. At the same time this article was printed, Sokal published an article in Lingua Franca revealing that the article was a total hoax, and more or less was to show the intellectual absence in the field of those that had published it. There were many different reactions to the publishing of Sokal's essay. Some applauded him for putting many of the "too smart for their own good/think their so smart" scientists in their place. It was an ingenious act. Then there were those who frowned upon his actions in that he had no right to have such an article published. The following are some arguments that are opposing Sokal's "misuse of knowledge." A one sentence summary: "its bad enough, being in a physics department, seeing physicist compete to try to prove they're smarter than each other all the time; the last thing I need is to see them acting out this compulsion to prove that they are intellectual kings of the entire academy"(Weiner). True, but if there weren't people like Sokal, what would happen to the competitiveness of the field of study? How would you put some of these stuck up scientists in their place without pulling a stunt like Sokal's? First, Social Text is not a peer-reviewed journal. It has an editorial board and that's it. They should and do have egg on their face, but the people cheering this stunt should be more embarrassed by their gleeful willingness to stoop to deception to attempt to score points (Baez). Yes, the editors have egg on their face, as well they should. But the people applauding the article aren't stooping to a low level, they are congratulating a brilliant man on pulling the wool over the eyes of a bunch of scientists. It took a smart man to accomplish such a feat. I regard the submission of a paper whose contents the author believes to be false as a breach of scientific or academic ethics. It may be funny….but none of us have the time and go out and verify other people's conclusions. We have to take it on faith that everyone else is being honest. This probably isn't outright fraud, as fabricating data is. But it is certainly unethical (Baez). HELLO?!?!?!…Take it on faith that everyone is being honest???? Where are you from? Never, never, never put trust in someone you don't truly know. That's part of the point, that the editors didn't have the time to go out and make sure Sokal's essay was kosher. They didn't have the time because it would take too long to review something that was too technical and they didn't understand. In other words, they shouldn't be editing for a publication if they don't know what they are talking about. If this happened more often the system would break. Would you agree to review papers, or edit a journal, if you always had to worry about whether the authors were trying to pull a fast one on you, and whether you would look bad if you erred on the side of kindness and recommended acceptance (Baez)? If it happened more often then maybe editors would take a closer look at what was being submitted to their publication. And then they would have to know what the hell they were talking about and be able to block essays such as Sokal's hoax from being published. Sure, this is the kind of practical joke that is really funny to think about playing. And it's even funnier when you play it. But the next day it's a lot less funny (Baez). This kind of joke IS funny, but I think it's only a lot less funny only to those who it was directed to. Again, Sokal had a point to get across and had the guts to actually go so far as to get it in print. The last point is the reason I have bothered to write all this and post it, where I expect to get a lot of responses and flames for being too liberal. My point is that the joke is indeed funny, but unfortunately it is on us (Baez). Damn right it's funny! But, it's not necessarily on "us". I see it as being only on those who believe they are more knowledgeable in their field than they really are. I do referee papers once in a while and I do not pass things based on authors name, or their institutional address. I check the science, including going over equations, checking consistence in data and verifying that there is some relationship between what the author does and his conclusions. While I do not start with an assumption that the authors try to pull a fast one, I'm also not assuming that they have any idea what they are talking about (Weiner). Now, this excerpt from Weiner makes no sense. Does he check the articles or not? How can you check some articles and not others? He is an intelligent person for checking all incoming articles, if he checked all of them. To block a publication from being trashed by a hoax, you have to be thorough in your research that you perform on them before they get published. No matter how many people complain and disagree with Sokal's hoax, there is no reason to say he was wrong in getting it published. I, for one, am glad he did. He must be very intelligent to slide a hoax like his by a so-called group of educated scientists. Sokal goes out of his way to leave telltale clues as to his true intent - the conclusion is inescapable that the editors of Social Text didn't know what many of the sentences in Sokal's essay actually meant; and that they just didn't care (Boghossian). So overall, Sokal's hoax seems to be a brilliant piece of work. Hopefully the editors of many publications have learned something from his "performance." Bibliography: Works Cited Boghossian, Paul. From the Times Literary Supplement, Commentary. December 13, 1996, pp.14-15 http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/~bweiner/sokal.html#post1 http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty/boghossian/: Baez, John. Baez@guitar.ucr.edu Weiner, Ben. Bweiner@electron.rutgers.edu Word Count: 1353
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