On 15 January 2007 Bill Scott wrote re the Bogdanov affair [snip]: >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...
Sorry Bill, if you think it is a straightforward as that you simply dont comprehend the incredible (and I do literally mean incredible for most of us) complexities and daunting theoretical level of modern mathematical physics. Even in the case of the well-established quantum mechanics, the basic principles of which were laid down in the 1920s, Richard Feynman famously said that "nobody understands quantum mechanics", because it produces results at infinitesimal levels of measurement that are incompatible with everyday experience. (The physicist George Gamov wrote a book called *Mr Tompkins in Wonderland* to illustrate this incompatibility to non-scientists.) In that same period (mid-1920s) Louis de Broglie presented a Ph.D. thesis to Paul Langevin, one of the foremost physicists of the time, in which he proposed that material particles had wave properties. In other words, a stream of electrons (material particles) somehow has a wavelength and frequency just like a water waves. If someone had suggested that before 1900 it would have been regarded as fantasyland. Even in 1924 Langevin didnt know what to make of it, so he sent it to Einstein for his opinion. De Broglies conception chimed with some unpublished ideas Einstein himself had been working on, and he recommended that de Broglie be awarded his Ph.D. De Broglie later received the Nobel Prize for his work. Or we could take Paul Dirac, one of the great theoretical physicists of the twentieth century although little known outside physics. In the late 1920s his work on quantum mechanics led to equations which predicted the existence of anti-matter (i.e., material particles having negative mass). What is one to make of that? Possibly complete nonsense that happens to come out of the mathematics that Dirac was working on. In fact it was one of the major breakthroughs in particle physics, and played a part in Diracs Nobel Prize award. Thats not to say, of course, that the editors of any journal are beyond criticism, and certainly not the editor of the physics journal in question. Obviously I dont remotely have the kind of knowledge that would enable me to make a judgement on that. But there is no genuine comparison to be made between the situations facing the editor of the physics journal in relation to the Bogdanovs' article, and the editor of "Social Text", the journal that published the Sokal article. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org/ --------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 20:21:32 -0500 Author: "William Scott" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Education jargon > 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
