9 ms·

Humanities student-turned software engineer here. Was once into PoMo studies. I don't know about the Social Text bullying issue (I'd never heard of Social Text

Humanities student-turned software engineer here. Was once into PoMo studies. I don't know about the Social Text bullying issue (I'd never heard of Social Text, so I didn't think its publication that significant), but Sokal's Intellectual Impostures picks apart most of those writers' abuse of scientific concepts extremely fairly and sensitively. He takes great care not to comment on their philosophical writing outside of its scientific content, and even then takes care to distinguish between literal and metaphorical use.

zwischenzug 10y ago
Also, I see little evidence of the 'bullying' mentioned here. Do you have any evidence to share? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair#Publication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair#Publication
mistersquid 10y ago
I was mistaken about the peer review, as _Social Text_ was not peer-reviewed. The article I was remembering discusses how Sokal refused to make the edits requested by _Social Text_'s editors. [0] > Having established an interest in Sokal's article, we did > ask him informally to revise the piece. We requested him (a) > to excise a good deal of the philosophical speculation and > (b) to excise most of his footnotes. Sokal seemed resistant > to any revisions, and indeed insisted on retaining almost > all of his footnotes and bibliographic apparatus on the > grounds that his peers, in science, expected extensive > documentation of this sort. Judging from his response, it > was clear that his article would appear as is, or not at > all. At this point, Sokal was designated as a "difficult, > uncooperative author," a category well known to journal > editors. We judged his article too much trouble to publish, > not yet on the reject pile, perhaps of sufficient interest > to readers if published in the company of related articles. http://linguafranca.mirror.theinfo.org/9607/mst.html http://linguafranca.mirror.theinfo.org/9607/mst.html
- FabHK 10y ago
  It is understandable that Sokal was hesitant to remove the footnotes: they contain many of the best jokes and outrageous postmodern quotes (and also make it quite clear to any reader with a basic knowledge of the sciences that this was not meant seriously).

zwischenzug 10y ago

Also, I see little evidence of the 'bullying' mentioned here. Do you have any evidence to share? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair#Publication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair#Publication

mistersquid 10y ago

I was mistaken about the peer review, as _Social Text_ was not peer-reviewed. The article I was remembering discusses how Sokal refused to make the edits requested by _Social Text_'s editors. [0] > Having established an interest in Sokal's article, we did > ask him informally to revise the piece. We requested him (a) > to excise a good deal of the philosophical speculation and > (b) to excise most of his footnotes. Sokal seemed resistant > to any revisions, and indeed insisted on retaining almost > all of his footnotes and bibliographic apparatus on the > grounds that his peers, in science, expected extensive > documentation of this sort. Judging from his response, it > was clear that his article would appear as is, or not at > all. At this point, Sokal was designated as a "difficult, > uncooperative author," a category well known to journal > editors. We judged his article too much trouble to publish, > not yet on the reject pile, perhaps of sufficient interest > to readers if published in the company of related articles. http://linguafranca.mirror.theinfo.org/9607/mst.html http://linguafranca.mirror.theinfo.org/9607/mst.html

FabHK 10y ago
It is understandable that Sokal was hesitant to remove the footnotes: they contain many of the best jokes and outrageous postmodern quotes (and also make it quite clear to any reader with a basic knowledge of the sciences that this was not meant seriously).