> They just published absurd papers in ostensibly serious journals. You and I can say the papers were absurd, but an argument is only meaningful to the extent

> They just published absurd papers in ostensibly serious journals. You and I can say the papers were absurd, but an argument is only meaningful to the extent that it has persuasive power to someone who doesn't already agree with it. For anyone who disagrees that the papers were absurd, the hoax has no argument to make - that's where it falls down compared to Sokal, or SciGen-style hoaxes, etc. I mean honestly, did you read the authors' writeup? I remember it had a bit in the summary like: "so what has this experiment proved exactly? Well, we'll leave that for you to decide". If that's a study that's proved its thesis, I'm a banana. > Therefore, the hoax shows that you do not need to be trained in these fields to publish in these journals. I don't know what special training an academic from one branch of the social sciences would need to publish in another, but again you're claiming the study proves something the study authors didn't even discuss. That's not a tenable position to hold, and you might reconsider why you hold it.