Paul Brandon sez: "Slightly different --In the Bogdanov case the question is whether the papers were a hoax, or whether they were too idiosyncratic to be understood. Sokal on the other hand was an admitted and deliberate hoax." -----------------
Yes, there is the motivational difference regarding whether or not there was a deliberate hoax. But in either case, the editors were faced with papers that were coming from authors whom they believed to be sincere and the papers were published even though none of these papers made good sense to anyone (presumably including the editors of the implicated journals). I don't think the motivation of the authors means anything as to whether or not the paper should be published. The response to the Sokal hoax (as it was to the Rosenthal hoax regarding psychiatric pseudopatients) was that no one in this situation should be judged for not detecting a hoax -- that is not their job. True, but detecting meaninglessness in the submission should be their job. Editors failed in both affairs. Deliberate hoax vs. too idiosyncratic to be understood is not a relevant distinction. Bill Scott >>> Paul Brandon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 01/15/07 12:36 PM >>> At 12:15 PM -0500 1/15/07, William Scott wrote: >Stephen Black writes: > >"If there's one thing that Alan Sokal's brilliant "Transgressing" hoax >on >the journal _Social Text_ tells us, it's that the people who claim to >understand such nonsense really don't. It's not even clear that the >people who _write_ the stuff understand it. Postmodernists seem to have >academic defecation disorder (ADD). It's writing to impress, not to >communicate. information. > >So who cares what the author may or may not have been trying to say. If >it can't be understood without the need for someone else explain it to >us, let's just flush it down the toilet. > >Note: I'm not talking about legitimately difficult exposition such as, >for example, in modern mathematics. Mere mortals cannot understand such >writing, not because it lacks meaning, but because it deals with >genuinely difficult matters which only the seriously smart can >understand. This, alas, is not the case with postmodernist babble." >-------------------------------------------------------------- > >The problem is one for math and physics also, as evidenced by the >Bogdanov affair. >See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_Affair Slightly different -- In the Bogdanov case the question is whether the papers were a hoax, or whether they were too idiosyncratic to be understood. Sokal on the other hand was an admitted and deliberate hoax. -- * PAUL K. BRANDON [EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Psychology Department 507-389-6217 * * 23 Armstrong Hall Minnesota State University, Mankato * * http://krypton.mnsu.edu/~pkbrando/ * --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english
