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They weren’t outside the field though. They did a deep dive, learned the language, and relied on a definition of “absurd” rooted in their own ideology rather th
by Fomite 7y ago
They weren’t outside the field though. They did a deep dive, learned the language, and relied on a definition of “absurd” rooted in their own ideology rather than reason.
In doing so, they ended up mimicking the field too well.
- jerf 7y agoAgain... even that is still pretty serious condemnation. If you can "deep dive" that many fields to the point that you're fooling the gatekeepers, a "deep dive" must not actually be all that "deep". I mean, we can try to puff up Sokal as some kind of massive genius who got to publication-quality skill levels in multiple fields in less than a year, but... in that case, why shouldn't I accept his take on the results, since he's apparently that much of a genius? There just isn't a way around it. If it's that easy to get to "publishable", it isn't worth being an academic discipline. Compare someone in one of those fields trying to publish a particle physics paper by just imitating what they think are the important characteristics.
- Fomite 7y agoNote we’re not talking about Sokal, but a separate hoax that decided to call itself that and which was distinctly less impressive. They started, at best, one field adjacent from what they targeted. I’m not at all surprised they managed, after devoted effort to do so, in having middling success getting papers into some okay journals.