Why English Professors Should not Talk about Physics

Sokal was a jerk.

While I admit that one can dispute the legitimacy of his methods, how can you call him a "jerk"? I thought his hoax probably had a very positive effect in these sketchy areas of "cultural criticism" and the fringes of literary criticism and social science, by heightening vigilence against sham work.

It was a clever stunt, if anything. Certainly it shows that people presuming to comment on science should learn some before going to far.

I didn't know about this until now, and although I thought the article was silly when you posted it, I thought there was a vanishingly small chance you agreed with it, whatever it was. Sometimes I can't tell when you're joking. Like with the Intelligent Design one some years ago.

Ari.

From the Wikipedia article, it sounds like the paper in which he published his famous article had some concerns about the article, so they went back to Sokal and asked him to verify the legitimacy of the article and make a few revisions. Sokal insisted it was indeed legitimate, and refused to make the revisions. It seems like the only fault of the publishers was trusting him, and he betrayed their trust.

I think your criticism about Sokal's lack of genuineness is a legitimate one. A lot of people say the same thing. I still disagree though. Suppose Sokal was genuine. Does that make the fact that Social Text published a piece of meaningless garbage as legitimate inquiry any less damning? Moreover, it disturbs me that Social Text's editors had some concern about the piece (which they admit they did), but published the article in spite of their doubts and the author's lack of willingness to cooperate.

Still, you're right that lying is bad in principle. It's even worse in academia, where everything depends on people's genuine pursuit of knowledge and truth. Then again, perhaps the sort of pseudoscientific sham work that was (and still is, I presume) being produced in some fields doesn't seem much better than Sokal's pointed deception.

Social Text is a non-peer-reviewed paper; articles it pubishes don't portend to be rigorous science, but rather ideas that people have. So, let's say Sokal was just a wacko who genuinely believed in what he published. Social Text publishes the paper, and gives this nut job a voice in a non-peer-reviewed paper. Further discussion reveals that he's crazy: end of the road. Not that big of a deal. I suspect that people publish legitimate ideas in Social Text that turn out to be rather delusional.

Now, if Social Text was peer-reviewed, and articles published in it were more than just fleshed-out ideas, then Sokal would be a true whistle-blower, and this thing would be a much bigger deal. But to me, it seems like that's not the case. He used his academic reputation to play a dirty joke on a fairly legitimate paper, betraying the trust of the general academic community in the process.

Even if you're not a rigorous scientist, you aren't allowed to spew scientific nonsense (if you haven't read his paper, I really recommend it--it's hilarious). I don't think it matters whether Sokal is insane or not. The fact is that this journal can't distinguish blatant nonsense from what they view as scholarship.

But if non-peer-reviewed journals in this area can't distinguish the wheat from the chaff, then why should they exist? Isn't Sokal's exposure of this characteristic meaningful by the simple fact that it raises the level of rigor in these areas?

Okay, I guess it is pretty significant. But I'd hardly say that the ends justify the means in this situation. Sokal may have had a positive influence, but he was still a jerk.

Exactly what element of Sokal's stunt was extreme or over the top? He was certainly within his rights to submit a paper to the journal, and certainly within his rights to refuse to edit it. The quandary the journal is in is their own fault, since the selection process is of their design and administration.

I would say that the fact that he knew better is irrelevant; the point is that they didn't. And, not knowing, they shouldn't have published it.

Ari.

Adam

I have to admit I found your reaction to the Descarte paper suggestion amusing. It certainly echoes something I would have said as a first-year. However, in my second-year I registered for a class in the New Collegiate Division called "Aims and Rules of Physics". It was taught by an old Russian physicist named Leo Nedelsky. The premise of the course was that the writings of Descarte, Rousseau, Spinoza, Voltaire, and other philosophers provided both some insight and and some of the framework for the thinking of physics. When I asked him if, as a physics major who, of course, approached physics from a mathematical perspective, it would be appropriate for me to take the course. His reply: "I see no reason why a physics majors shouldn't be educated also." In reality, his sequence was one of the most vital courses I took. It changed the way I looked at ideas in physics, my conceptual framework for physics, and resulted in me becoming a much more intuitive and elegant problem solver in physics. I doubt I ever would have been able to do graduate work in Physics if I hadn't taken it. So, even though such a course is not offered since Nedelsky is dead, don't be too quick to write-off the idea that Descarte and others like him have something to contribute to the thinking, development, and understanding of physics.