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> You seem to think that the papers that got accepted were 'banal', but that doesn't change the fact that they were accepted. The banality of the papers is the

> You seem to think that the papers that got accepted were 'banal', but that doesn't change the fact that they were accepted. The banality of the papers is the central weakness of the whole thing. The whole point of Sokal- or SCIgen-style hoaxes is that the papers were gibberish - so when a journal publishes one, the author can legitimately say "Hey look, this journal published gibberish!". The authors here can't say anything like that. They wrote real papers, arguing real conclusions they thought the journals might agree with. Then those papers got rejected, so they toned it down and wrote more, and then they got peer-review feedback so they changed things in response, etc. The most one can fairly say about the results is "Hey look, these journals published papers that we think are really bad". Which is fair enough, but surely they could say the same thing about most of what those journals already publish, right? The liberty of the whole thing is writing it all up as if a Sokal-style "we got them to print gibberish" narrative had occurred, when that seems clearly not to be the case.

darawk 8y ago
> The banality of the papers is the central weakness of the whole thing. The whole point of Sokal- or SCIgen-style hoaxes is that the papers were gibberish - so when a journal publishes one, the author can legitimately say "Hey look, this journal published gibberish!". My point is that most of them were not banal. In that line, I was responding to an isolated point of tptaceks. If all the papers were banal, i'd agree. But they were not.
- tptacek 8y ago
  Most of the papers were rejected! The ones that were accepted did tend to be banal!
  - darawk 8y ago
    Sure, most got rejected. But 7 got accepted. And while banality is obviously a subjective value judgment, I don't think it applies to all of them. Just to enumerate the hypotheses that were accepted: > That dog parks are rape-condoning spaces and a place of rampant canine rape culture and systemic oppression against “the oppressed dog” through which human attitudes to both problems can be measured. This provides insight into training men out of the sexual violence and bigotry to which they are prone. > That it is only oppressive cultural norms which make society regard the building of muscle rather than fat admirable and that bodybuilding and activism on behalf of the fat could be benefited by including fat bodies displayed in non-competitive ways. > That it is suspicious that men rarely anally self-penetrate using sex toys, and that this is probably due to fear of being thought homosexual (“homohysteria”) and bigotry against trans people (transphobia). (It combines these ideas into a novel concept “transhysteria,” which was suggested by one of the paper’s peer reviewers.) Encouraging them to engage in receptive penetrative anal eroticism will decrease transphobia and increase feminist values. > That men frequent “breasturants” like Hooters because they are nostalgic for patriarchal dominance and enjoy being able to order attractive women around. The environment that breastaurants provide for facilitating this encourages men to identify sexual objectification and sexual conquest, along with masculine toughness and male dominance, with “authentic masculinity.” The data are clearly nonsense and conclusions drawn from it are unwarranted by it. (NB. One reviewer did raise concerns about the rigor of the data) > That academic hoaxes or other forms of satirical or ironic critique of social justice scholarship are unethical, characterized by ignorance and rooted in a desire to preserve privilege. > No clear thesis. A rambling poetic monologue of a bitter, divorced feminist, much of which was produced by a teenage angst poetry generator before being edited into something slightly more “realistic” which is then interspersed with self-indulgent autoethnographical reflections on female sexuality and spirituality written entirely in slightly under six hours. > That feminism which foregrounds individual choice and responsibility and female agency and strength can be countered by a feminism which unifies in solidarity around the victimhood of the most marginalized women in society. I will grant you that 'breastaurants' and the Mein Kampf one are fairly banal. The Mein Kampf paper is really only shocking if you happen to know that it is an excerpt from Mein Kampf. But the rest seem pretty non-banal to me, at least with regard to being published in an academic journal.
    - fenomas 8y ago
      The relevant measure of banality here is in comparison to what the journals normally publish. What makes e.g. Sokal's hoax important is that he exposed a journal for publishing something the editors didn't even understand. Here, the journals weren't duped into anything - they read and understood the papers, and apparently considered them worth publishing. That's what's so banal about the whole thing.
      - darawk 8y ago
        > The relevant measure of banality here is in comparison to what the journals normally publish. I completely disagree. The point of this story is exactly that this stuff is line with what the journals normally publish. Their entire point is that the stuff they wrote is indistinguishable from these journal's normal fare.
        fenomas 8y ago
        > Their entire point is that the stuff they wrote is indistinguishable from these journal's normal fare. Journals publishing papers indistinguishable from their normal fare is the null hypothesis! If accomplishing that was the authors' goal they could have taken ten months off, surely ;)
        darawk 8y ago
        Do you not understand what i'm saying? They're criticizing the content of these journals.
        fenomas 8y ago
        In their capacity as authors of a blog post, sure - but in their capacity as conductors of a social science experiment they're also claiming to have verified a hypothesis (that certain journals would publish absurd papers), and that's the claim I think is weak. Please understand I'm not defending the content of these journals - I'm saying that this ten month hoax doesn't appear to have established anything.

darawk 8y ago

> The banality of the papers is the central weakness of the whole thing. The whole point of Sokal- or SCIgen-style hoaxes is that the papers were gibberish - so when a journal publishes one, the author can legitimately say "Hey look, this journal published gibberish!". My point is that most of them were not banal. In that line, I was responding to an isolated point of tptaceks. If all the papers were banal, i'd agree. But they were not.

tptacek 8y ago
Most of the papers were rejected! The ones that were accepted did tend to be banal!
- darawk 8y ago
  Sure, most got rejected. But 7 got accepted. And while banality is obviously a subjective value judgment, I don't think it applies to all of them. Just to enumerate the hypotheses that were accepted: > That dog parks are rape-condoning spaces and a place of rampant canine rape culture and systemic oppression against “the oppressed dog” through which human attitudes to both problems can be measured. This provides insight into training men out of the sexual violence and bigotry to which they are prone. > That it is only oppressive cultural norms which make society regard the building of muscle rather than fat admirable and that bodybuilding and activism on behalf of the fat could be benefited by including fat bodies displayed in non-competitive ways. > That it is suspicious that men rarely anally self-penetrate using sex toys, and that this is probably due to fear of being thought homosexual (“homohysteria”) and bigotry against trans people (transphobia). (It combines these ideas into a novel concept “transhysteria,” which was suggested by one of the paper’s peer reviewers.) Encouraging them to engage in receptive penetrative anal eroticism will decrease transphobia and increase feminist values. > That men frequent “breasturants” like Hooters because they are nostalgic for patriarchal dominance and enjoy being able to order attractive women around. The environment that breastaurants provide for facilitating this encourages men to identify sexual objectification and sexual conquest, along with masculine toughness and male dominance, with “authentic masculinity.” The data are clearly nonsense and conclusions drawn from it are unwarranted by it. (NB. One reviewer did raise concerns about the rigor of the data) > That academic hoaxes or other forms of satirical or ironic critique of social justice scholarship are unethical, characterized by ignorance and rooted in a desire to preserve privilege. > No clear thesis. A rambling poetic monologue of a bitter, divorced feminist, much of which was produced by a teenage angst poetry generator before being edited into something slightly more “realistic” which is then interspersed with self-indulgent autoethnographical reflections on female sexuality and spirituality written entirely in slightly under six hours. > That feminism which foregrounds individual choice and responsibility and female agency and strength can be countered by a feminism which unifies in solidarity around the victimhood of the most marginalized women in society. I will grant you that 'breastaurants' and the Mein Kampf one are fairly banal. The Mein Kampf paper is really only shocking if you happen to know that it is an excerpt from Mein Kampf. But the rest seem pretty non-banal to me, at least with regard to being published in an academic journal.
  - fenomas 8y ago
    The relevant measure of banality here is in comparison to what the journals normally publish. What makes e.g. Sokal's hoax important is that he exposed a journal for publishing something the editors didn't even understand. Here, the journals weren't duped into anything - they read and understood the papers, and apparently considered them worth publishing. That's what's so banal about the whole thing.
    - darawk 8y ago
      > The relevant measure of banality here is in comparison to what the journals normally publish. I completely disagree. The point of this story is exactly that this stuff is line with what the journals normally publish. Their entire point is that the stuff they wrote is indistinguishable from these journal's normal fare.
      - fenomas 8y ago
        > Their entire point is that the stuff they wrote is indistinguishable from these journal's normal fare. Journals publishing papers indistinguishable from their normal fare is the null hypothesis! If accomplishing that was the authors' goal they could have taken ten months off, surely ;)
        darawk 8y ago
        Do you not understand what i'm saying? They're criticizing the content of these journals.
        fenomas 8y ago
        In their capacity as authors of a blog post, sure - but in their capacity as conductors of a social science experiment they're also claiming to have verified a hypothesis (that certain journals would publish absurd papers), and that's the claim I think is weak. Please understand I'm not defending the content of these journals - I'm saying that this ten month hoax doesn't appear to have established anything.