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While this article is interesting, it does start from a pretty strong assumption: that the problem is specific to one branch (or family of branches) of Academia

by Yoric 8y ago

While this article is interesting, it does start from a pretty strong assumption: that the problem is specific to one branch (or family of branches) of Academia. I remember at least two similar scandals in very much non-social-justice-related branches of Academia. One was in postmodern studies, if I recall correctly, the other one I think in epistemology. In one case, the paper had been written to deliberately mean nothing, in the other one, I seem to remember that the papers had been generated with Markov chains. So, based on the same data, my personal conclusion is that some fields of Academia are vulnerable to bullshit, whether it's sophistry or simply using the right lingo. It is a pretty bad sign, and I suspect that it is correlated with fields in which results are hard to check/reproduce. It may also be correlated with ideology (I remember that this was the accusation towards postmodern studies), which doesn't mean that it is correlated with any specific ideology. In other words: promising research, but the starting hypothesis and its possible limitations need to be expressed more clearly, and much more data needed.

kryogen1c 8y ago
> I remember at least two similar scandals in very much non-social-justice-related branches of Academia. One was in postmodern studies, if I recall correctly, the other one I think in epistemology. In one case, the paper had been written to deliberately mean nothing, in the other one, I seem to remember that the papers had been generated with Markov chains. The article is very clear in it's methodologies and is interacting with the community in a long-term peer-reviewed manner. They were invited to peer-review other papers. This is not one substandard paper that was published in a no-name journal. If your field of academia is this vulnerable to nonsense, perhaps we should start considering the field not academic and purge it from out institutions of learning.
- Yoric 8y ago
  > If your field of academia is this vulnerable to nonsense, perhaps we should start considering the field not academic and purge it from out institutions of learning. I seem to remember that the non sensical paper was in the top journal of postmodern studies. I don't remember details about the Markov chain papers. Also, I have seen bullshit papers in established journals in computer science. Not many, but then, computer science results are somewhat harder to fake than humanities, and I don't think there were many social engineering attacks on CS journals such as the one described in the OP. So, yes, it seems that the OP describes a real problem. For the reasons mentioned above, I do not believe it is limited to social-justice-related-branches. You are right that this should serve as a wake-up call. Personally, I believe that such wake-up calls are useful for a domain, once in a while. The ball is now on the side of editors. If they manage to raise the bar for accepting papers, their field will have benefited from this work. It is also possible, as you suggest, that the field is not of academic interest. As I have read exactly 0 articles from the publications targeted by the OP, I have no factual base to discuss this. edit grammar
  - beautifulfreak 8y ago
    You might be thinking of the Sokal hoax. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
    - Yoric 8y ago
      Definitely am :)
      - foldr 8y ago
        Then you are mistaken. The Sokal paper was published in a fairly obscure journal ("Social Text") where submissions were not even peer reviewed.
        Yoric 8y ago
        Indeed, I just discovered that. My bad.
        UncleMeat 8y ago
        This is how this nonsense spreads. People hear this one example and assume that all of the humanities are bullshit without ever investigating further.
  - jlawson 8y ago
    I think it's good to separate the problems. 1. Lack of rigor. This just means poor quality papers get published. 2. Ideological pre-conclusion. This means the field is dominated by a moralistic ideology, instead of being about neutral truth-seeking as it claims. This means that papers which conform to the ideology's pre-conclusions get published, while those that contradict do not, with insufficient regard to rigor in either case. It also means scientists/students with non-conforming beliefs are purged from the field as a whole, again, regardless of actual ability. These are related problems but not exactly the same. Number 1 doesn't imply number 2, but number 2 requires number 1. The hoax attempts to demonstrate both.
- UncleMeat 8y ago
  Is it vulnerable? Publishing a paper doesn't matter. Getting the paper cited matters.
Sniffnoy 8y ago
I think you're mistaken, largely in that you're construing the ideology being targeted too narrowly. Note the bit at the beginning about "critical constructivism" -- this is certainly not only about Social Justice; that's just where it's the most obvious. In short, this isn't just about certain fields being vulnerable to sophistry and bullshit. This is about a number of fields or subfields which are dominated by (not merely vulnerable to) bullshit and sophistry for a common reason, namely, that they have, for what could be called ideological reasons, abandoned the preconditions that make actual truth-seeking possible. Social Justice and the postmodern studies are both part of this; they are related, contrary to what you claim.
- Yoric 8y ago
  > I think you're mistaken, largely in that you're construing the ideology being targeted too narrowly. Note the bit at the beginning about "critical constructivism" -- this is certainly not only about Social Justice; that's just where it's the most obvious. Good point. This appeared at the start of the OP, then basically disappeared from both the OP and my mind. > Social Justice and the postmodern studies are both part of this; they are related, contrary to what you claim. I'll admit to my lack of knowledge of both fields, but I suspect that you are right, insofar as they can probably be described as two applications of "critical constructivism". So, this does remove one of my criticisms on the OP. I'm still not happy about the phrasing (in particular the title) that turns it into a clickbait-let's-bash-at-social-justice-related-publications-without-looking-at-the-bigger-picture, though.
iagovar 8y ago
I studied Sociology in Spain. I'd say that this problems are correlated with almost anything related with the school of Frankfurt / critical theorists. Not only do they have this problems, but professors affiliated with this school of thought were incredibly pervasive, manipulative and conspirative against other professors and students that didn't agree with them or had other worldviews. I had feminist theory as subject. I remember one day we were talking about power dynamics in sex and all that Jazz. The professor said something along the lines that the state should teach people which sex positions were misogynist. She asked the students for opinions and I said that I wasn't cool with the state watching what people does in their bedroom. Exposed my arguments, and she was out of her mind, calling me a "neoliberal" in front of my peers, and even talking about me with other classes (other students told me). That was the first time that I was aware of this behavior. Later I found that this group of people maneuvered to make life difficult to other professors, sabotaging their research etc etc. Thankfully there was the other bunch of people that made it tolerable. Statistics I, II, III, Research Methodology I & II, Macroeconomics I & II, Anthropology (he was clearly a conservative) and some others I forgot. Maybe all this transfers to publishing. Speaking with students from other faculties in Spain and other countries, I've heard similar stories. To this day I think studying sociology was a waste of my time. It was interesting, and having statistics and research background made me employable, but to be honest the atmosphere was barely tolerable.
- candiodari 8y ago
  But that's the whole concept of social studies: identify grievances versus a given value system that is treated as dogma, and then threaten and shame society into (sometimes draconian) measures to fix those grievances. Is it any wonder they treat students the same ?
  - iagovar 8y ago
    Not at all. "Social studies" AKA Social Sciences are divided into, say, two ethical perspectives. In one sides is Marx and all the marxist school. This people believes that the social scientist has to have the desire of changing society, and he should act upon it. In the other side is pretty much everyone else (highly simplifying here), mostly people that believes that actual science has to be separated of any activism, and that achieving the highest degree of neutralism and detachment is desirable. While is not hard to detach science from activism, it is hard to not comment on what the actual desirable society would be, if you are involved in the field. IIRC you have examples of this in functionalism and simbolic interactionism schools, that had both descriptive and inferential studies, but didn't mix activism on it, as far as I can tell.
bloak 8y ago
I seem to remember articles from the early 1980s pointing out that some academic journals (literary criticism, ...) seem to be full of nonsense. Perhaps Martin Gardner wrote one such article, but I could be completely wrong about that. So, yes, I agree, it's not obvious that this is linked to a specific ideology.
no_identd 8y ago
More debate here: https://www.chronicle.com/article/Sokal-Squared-Is-Huge/244714 https://www.chronicle.com/article/Sokal-Squared-Is-Huge/2447...
imhelpingu 8y ago
> non-social-justice-related branches of Academia > postmodern studies > epistemology OK

by Yoric 8y ago

kryogen1c 8y ago

> I remember at least two similar scandals in very much non-social-justice-related branches of Academia. One was in postmodern studies, if I recall correctly, the other one I think in epistemology. In one case, the paper had been written to deliberately mean nothing, in the other one, I seem to remember that the papers had been generated with Markov chains. The article is very clear in it's methodologies and is interacting with the community in a long-term peer-reviewed manner. They were invited to peer-review other papers. This is not one substandard paper that was published in a no-name journal. If your field of academia is this vulnerable to nonsense, perhaps we should start considering the field not academic and purge it from out institutions of learning.

Yoric 8y ago
> If your field of academia is this vulnerable to nonsense, perhaps we should start considering the field not academic and purge it from out institutions of learning. I seem to remember that the non sensical paper was in the top journal of postmodern studies. I don't remember details about the Markov chain papers. Also, I have seen bullshit papers in established journals in computer science. Not many, but then, computer science results are somewhat harder to fake than humanities, and I don't think there were many social engineering attacks on CS journals such as the one described in the OP. So, yes, it seems that the OP describes a real problem. For the reasons mentioned above, I do not believe it is limited to social-justice-related-branches. You are right that this should serve as a wake-up call. Personally, I believe that such wake-up calls are useful for a domain, once in a while. The ball is now on the side of editors. If they manage to raise the bar for accepting papers, their field will have benefited from this work. It is also possible, as you suggest, that the field is not of academic interest. As I have read exactly 0 articles from the publications targeted by the OP, I have no factual base to discuss this. edit grammar
- beautifulfreak 8y ago
  You might be thinking of the Sokal hoax. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
  - Yoric 8y ago
    Definitely am :)
    - foldr 8y ago
      Then you are mistaken. The Sokal paper was published in a fairly obscure journal ("Social Text") where submissions were not even peer reviewed.
      - Yoric 8y ago
        Indeed, I just discovered that. My bad.
        UncleMeat 8y ago
        This is how this nonsense spreads. People hear this one example and assume that all of the humanities are bullshit without ever investigating further.
- jlawson 8y ago
  I think it's good to separate the problems. 1. Lack of rigor. This just means poor quality papers get published. 2. Ideological pre-conclusion. This means the field is dominated by a moralistic ideology, instead of being about neutral truth-seeking as it claims. This means that papers which conform to the ideology's pre-conclusions get published, while those that contradict do not, with insufficient regard to rigor in either case. It also means scientists/students with non-conforming beliefs are purged from the field as a whole, again, regardless of actual ability. These are related problems but not exactly the same. Number 1 doesn't imply number 2, but number 2 requires number 1. The hoax attempts to demonstrate both.
UncleMeat 8y ago
Is it vulnerable? Publishing a paper doesn't matter. Getting the paper cited matters.

Sniffnoy 8y ago

I think you're mistaken, largely in that you're construing the ideology being targeted too narrowly. Note the bit at the beginning about "critical constructivism" -- this is certainly not only about Social Justice; that's just where it's the most obvious. In short, this isn't just about certain fields being vulnerable to sophistry and bullshit. This is about a number of fields or subfields which are dominated by (not merely vulnerable to) bullshit and sophistry for a common reason, namely, that they have, for what could be called ideological reasons, abandoned the preconditions that make actual truth-seeking possible. Social Justice and the postmodern studies are both part of this; they are related, contrary to what you claim.

Yoric 8y ago
> I think you're mistaken, largely in that you're construing the ideology being targeted too narrowly. Note the bit at the beginning about "critical constructivism" -- this is certainly not only about Social Justice; that's just where it's the most obvious. Good point. This appeared at the start of the OP, then basically disappeared from both the OP and my mind. > Social Justice and the postmodern studies are both part of this; they are related, contrary to what you claim. I'll admit to my lack of knowledge of both fields, but I suspect that you are right, insofar as they can probably be described as two applications of "critical constructivism". So, this does remove one of my criticisms on the OP. I'm still not happy about the phrasing (in particular the title) that turns it into a clickbait-let's-bash-at-social-justice-related-publications-without-looking-at-the-bigger-picture, though.

iagovar 8y ago

I studied Sociology in Spain. I'd say that this problems are correlated with almost anything related with the school of Frankfurt / critical theorists. Not only do they have this problems, but professors affiliated with this school of thought were incredibly pervasive, manipulative and conspirative against other professors and students that didn't agree with them or had other worldviews. I had feminist theory as subject. I remember one day we were talking about power dynamics in sex and all that Jazz. The professor said something along the lines that the state should teach people which sex positions were misogynist. She asked the students for opinions and I said that I wasn't cool with the state watching what people does in their bedroom. Exposed my arguments, and she was out of her mind, calling me a "neoliberal" in front of my peers, and even talking about me with other classes (other students told me). That was the first time that I was aware of this behavior. Later I found that this group of people maneuvered to make life difficult to other professors, sabotaging their research etc etc. Thankfully there was the other bunch of people that made it tolerable. Statistics I, II, III, Research Methodology I & II, Macroeconomics I & II, Anthropology (he was clearly a conservative) and some others I forgot. Maybe all this transfers to publishing. Speaking with students from other faculties in Spain and other countries, I've heard similar stories. To this day I think studying sociology was a waste of my time. It was interesting, and having statistics and research background made me employable, but to be honest the atmosphere was barely tolerable.

candiodari 8y ago
But that's the whole concept of social studies: identify grievances versus a given value system that is treated as dogma, and then threaten and shame society into (sometimes draconian) measures to fix those grievances. Is it any wonder they treat students the same ?
- iagovar 8y ago
  Not at all. "Social studies" AKA Social Sciences are divided into, say, two ethical perspectives. In one sides is Marx and all the marxist school. This people believes that the social scientist has to have the desire of changing society, and he should act upon it. In the other side is pretty much everyone else (highly simplifying here), mostly people that believes that actual science has to be separated of any activism, and that achieving the highest degree of neutralism and detachment is desirable. While is not hard to detach science from activism, it is hard to not comment on what the actual desirable society would be, if you are involved in the field. IIRC you have examples of this in functionalism and simbolic interactionism schools, that had both descriptive and inferential studies, but didn't mix activism on it, as far as I can tell.

bloak 8y ago

I seem to remember articles from the early 1980s pointing out that some academic journals (literary criticism, ...) seem to be full of nonsense. Perhaps Martin Gardner wrote one such article, but I could be completely wrong about that. So, yes, I agree, it's not obvious that this is linked to a specific ideology.

no_identd 8y ago

More debate here: https://www.chronicle.com/article/Sokal-Squared-Is-Huge/244714 https://www.chronicle.com/article/Sokal-Squared-Is-Huge/2447...

imhelpingu 8y ago

> non-social-justice-related branches of Academia > postmodern studies > epistemology OK