Talk:Fashionable Nonsense/Archive 1

More to come later. It must be pointed out that Sokal and Bricmont's findings of "incorrect" usage of scientific concepts is not contested and is perfectly NPOV. What their opponents denounce is the importance of those "incorrections" and S&B's alleged motivations. David.Monniaux 21:23, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

• Huh? The discussion below proves otherwise. 21:39, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.29.21.220 (talk • contribs)
  • David, I must disagree. I'm most familiar with their discussion of Lacan, but within that section I've found numerous problems with their arguments. There's a pretty lively debate about the content of the book and it's dishonest to claim otherwise. I deleted the claim that "Neither the quotes, neither the incorrect usage of scientific concepts that they showed, were contested." Deleuze 14:10, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
    • agreed with deleuze/utc. in fact, Badiou specifically contests that claim with respect to his own work in the preface to the english translation of Being and Event Jimmyq2305 08:44, 14 August 2006 (UTC).

References to Fashionable Nonsense in other articles

I deleted the mentions of Fashionable Nonsense in the articles of some of the individuals that Sokal attacks, as a heads up. Without substantive treatment of opposing views, it didn't seem NPOV to only mention Sokal - particularly when, within the intellectual context that Kristeva, Lacan, et al were working, Sokal really has very little respect. Snowspinner April 18, 2004

Why did you also delete the Bouveresse link? Also, I don't think that "particularly when, within the intellectual context that Kristeva, Lacan, et al were working, Sokal really has very little respect" is a valid argument. In the intellectual context that Sokal and many others are working, Kristeva, Lacan and al. often enjoy fairly little respect. Also, the Fashionable Nonsense book got much media attention, contrary to most academic controversies. David.Monniaux 10:34, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Because in the articles on specific thinkers, I think that referencing totally separate fields of study is silly. I mean, we do not mention people who disbelieve cause and effect in every single article on a scientific concept. Major attacks on specific thinkers that come within the field of study is one thing, but I think that the context just isn't there otherwise. As for Boveresse, the controversy surrounding Sokal is sufficently large that I thought one mention of a specific supporting or opposing view was so inadequate as to be POV - especially when that author lacks an entry as well. If someone wants to do a proper bibliography of responses to Sokal, that's one thing, but as it stood, I felt that the article looked better without the information than with. Snowspinner 17:31, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

"I mean, we do not mention people who disbelieve cause and effect in every single article on a scientific concept." Well, if there had been a major controversy on a scientific concept (major being measured as "susciting many columns in the general press), then I'd think it'd be worth mentioning. For instance, we mention the controversies arising from Darwin's assertions on evolution, even though most people involved in the debates have no qualifications in biology. Furthermore, I think that the issue here is not whether Derrida, Lacan et al. respect the canons of postmodernist philosophy, but whether postmodernist philosophy deserves to be considered an academic subject worthy of an official position in universities - that surely involves an external judgment, doesn't it? David.Monniaux 18:05, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I think that, in that case, the discussion is better suited to a general article on postmodernism than on specific pages for concepts and figures within postmodernism. If you wanted to add a paragraph or two about Sokal to Postmodernism that would be a different matter - I would consider that a worthwhile endeavor, and if there's not one already there, I may go add it if there's nothing else interesting to Wiki atm. But individual and specific pages within a field of study can safely assume that the field is accepted. Debate on the validity of field ought to occur on the highest possible level of subdivision. For reference, although Evolution acknowledges Creationism, Punctuated equilibrium does not. Similarly, Lacan ought not mention a challenge to post-modernism at large, which is what Sokal's work is.Snowspinner 18:54, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Usage of the word "intellectual"

I'm a bit unsure about the part on "leading intellectuals". First, there's this fairly annoying way of talking of some circles in the humanities and journalism where "intellectual" is a synonym for some kind of humanities professor that makes philosophical statements. When you look in a dictionary, an "intellectual" is a person who uses his/her mind creatively; an engineer or a scientist are intellectuals too. Second, I'm not really sure whether the cited people are so "leading". I'd settle for "leading academics". What do you think about it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by David.Monniaux (talk • contribs) 13:05, 19 April 2004

Leading academics works for me. Snowspinner 18:48, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)~

The word 'intellectuals', unquoted, does exhibit a ridiculous point of view, which equates "intellectuals" with media-savvy academics working in the humanities. Usage of 'intellectuals' to denote this meaning is journalistic speech contributing to an aggrandized vision of the importance of the work of those academics with respect to Thought, in general. David.Monniaux 19:20, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Quoting it, on the other hand, makes the active claim that they are so-called intellectuals. Academics is a suitably neutral term, and I can accept its use, but, honestly, I object strongly to the anti-humanities bias being displayed here. Creationism and astrology seem to get more respect here than the humanities, despite the fact that departments of English and Philosophy are generally among the largest departments at a given university. Snowspinner 19:24, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the last statement you make (even by replacing "English" by "literature", which is less culture-dependent). :-) Besides, I don't think that the argument that something should deserve respect because many people adhere to it is valid. In many countries, astrology is considered valid by a sizeable part of the population (far bigger than the part holding a degree in the humanities, by the way), yet that does not make it a respectable discipline. The fastest growing discipline in French universities is sports techniques, should it mean that sports techniques are a fundamental field that is above criticism?David.Monniaux 19:43, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

While potentially valid, those concerns are all very POV. Wiki's job is to present the disciplines' best points and claims alongside with the best claims of their critics, and some accounting of how the arguments of the two sides are responded to. That necessarily means that terms like "scholar", "intellectual", "academic", and others are going to be used broadly, and that not everyone classified as one is going to be agreeable to everybody. These things happen. Snowspinner 19:57, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

There is a difference between saying something is above criticism and saying that we shouldn't make snide use of quotation marks. -Seth Mahoney 19:49, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The abuse of the word 'intellectual' is also very contemptuous, with the underlying assumption that there's nothing intellectual out of the narrow field of academic philosophy and associated areas.David.Monniaux 20:11, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I suppose it doesn't help to note that a number of postmodernist scholars appear on Richard Posner's list of public intellectuals?Snowspinner 20:32, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

"Public intellectual" would probably be better, since it emphasizes the importance of the mediatic treatment of the person with respect to his or her status. Note that some have noted that Posner's definition of "intellectual" excludes many people whose work can definitely be called intellectual.David.Monniaux 20:47, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I think since we all agreed on academic, this debate is itself, shall we say, academic. =) Snowspinner 20:53, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

NPOV

I removed a good deal of crud from the article. Good lord, that was not NPOV! There probably should be a section an the political elements of the book, but it should sound less like some right-wingnut saying "Even the leftist Sokal says that postmodernism is crap."

Second it's "the strong programme of science studies". (Diderot)

No, it's the strong program of Postmodernism, according to S&B. David.Monniaux 19:27, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

There is no "strong programme in postmodernist philosophy". There isn't even a postmodernist programme. Science Studies does not form a part of postmodernism. Frankly, most of the time they don't even like each other. S&B are guilty of more than a bit of bait and switch in the book because they attack what they call postmodernist thinkers for misusing science, and then attack science studies people as if they were one and the same. It is fundamentally important to make this distinction, one which S&B do make, although not nearly strongly enough. (Diderot)

In fact, S&B never attack the "science studies" per se in their book. David.Monniaux 19:27, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Then what is that whole chapter on Latour? I can't find a single reference to a "strong programme in postmodernist philosophy" on the net, while I am quite familiar with "the strong program in the sociology of science", which dates back to David Bloor at Edinburgh and is closely linked to people like Latour who have very little to do with postmoderninsm or critical theory. Furthermore, a check of reviews of Fashionable Nonsense finds plenty of references to the strong programme in the sociology of science or in science studies. I changed the subhead to "The Postmodernist conception of Science" because I think it is important to distinguish S&B's critique of postmodern science abuse from their complaints about the striong programme. Diderot 20:18, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Derrida is not even discussed in Fashionable Nonsense because he never writes about science. Sokal quoted Derrida grotesquely out of context in the Sokal Hoax article. (Diderot)

If I'm not mistaken, Derrida IS cited in Fashionable Nonsense. David.Monniaux 19:27, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

As follows: "Bien que la citation de Derrida reprise dans la parodie de Sokal soit assez amusante, elle semble être isolée dans son oeuvre; nous n'avons donc pas inclus de chapitre sur Derrida dans ce livre."

It was in an interview where Derrida wasn't talking about science, and where the interviewer prompted him to make a judgement about scientific concept which he was clearly unfamiliar with. See [1] Diderot 20:18, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

At any rate, I removed the material that struck me as too POV. I've probably made the article sound too POV against S&B now, so someone ought to add a bit more to it or edit it. But if you're going to talk about the strong programme, you have to know what it is.

Diderot 13:23, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

I should dig out the book to re-read the parts on Bruno Latour. David.Monniaux 19:27, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

I'm sure there are better uses of one's time than reading anything about Bruno Latour. Snowspinner 21:46, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, I should say I used to read columns from Bruno Latour in some magazines (I think it's La Recherche) and I wasn't impressed. However, this is a problem of factual accuracy. :-) David.Monniaux 08:20, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

I removed the part about Sokal and Bricmont ceasing to discuss such matters, as if it were a sign that they were wrong. Both of them are paid to do physics, not philosophy. It is my experience with scientific colleagues who got into the news that writing books and answering journalists is a full-time occupation, which wears out people not accustomed to it. David.Monniaux 19:27, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Other than the small change I made to one header, I'm okay with the article now. Diderot 20:18, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Pricks

To whomever left the HTML comment "<!-- you know, this argument makes S&B sound like elitist pricks -->" in the source after the item:

• the authors [whom Sokal and Brickmont quote] cannot claim to be using those concepts as valid metaphor or imagery, since these are advanced scientific concepts that few in their readership are likely to understand. Imagery is normally used for explanations by illustrating some unfamiliar notion by a more familiar one, not the reverse.

I wonder if you've actually read the book. Many of the ideas they're referring to are, in fact, advanced scientific concepts allusions to which someone without an advanced degree in the subject would probably not understand. So their argument makes perfect sense. It's kinda like how a heuristic path-integral approach indicates a duality between background-free string theories and generally covariant gauge theories, with the loop transform relating the two. (No, I don't know what that means, but I found it on the web. :) - dcljr 03:17, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Imagine if someone from religious studies bitched about Maxwell's demon, claiming that physicists who use this construct to make a point about thermodynamics are clearly blitheringly ignorant of Christian religious symbolism, and that their use of elements of a subject as complicated as European demonology showed a contempt for religous studies and a false erudition about its contents. You might claim that they were being idiots about science, since Maxwell's demon is a construct intended to make a point and is not intended to have any religous content. You might also suggest they were pricks if they thought that demonology was beyond the abilities of anyone without an advanced degree in religious studies. You might suggest that their complaints about references to Maxwell's demon in scientific literature, which do not place it in a framework of standard theological thinking about demons are just a crock of extrement. Then, imagine that they turned around and said they weren't interested in defending religous studies from scientists, they were trying to defend the Left from scientific ignorance of religion. You might well consider such sentiments laughable, and I would hardly blame you for doing so.

That would be roughly my feelings towards S&B.

It makes S&B sound like pricks to bitch about writers in the social sciences, claiming that a non-scientist audience surely can not understand the difficult scientific notions they are using. Even when true - and it is almost universally false in science studies - it is still an awfully elitist thing to say and hardly something likely to elicit sympathy for them.

On the other hand I believe Richard Dawkins said "there are no relativists at 30,000 feet" - a statement as demonstrative of pure ignorance of philosophy as any S&B have cited. And yet, people in the humanities seem unfazed by the use and abuse of notions from the humanities by many, many scientists who engage philosophy. Dawkins, of course, tends to shoot his mouth off a lot, as do a few big names in critical and social theory. And yet, I don't think anyone would be impressed if I suggested that scientists are generally too ignorant of the philosophy of knowledge for its concepts to be meaningful to them. I suspect scientists would be quite dismissive of me if I were to say that the principles and problems of critical theory are too difficult for them to understand without an advanced degree in the humanities. But this is exactly how S&B are treating academics outside of the hard sciences.

And yes, I have read the book, in both English and French, and I have a degree in Physics and another in Computer Science, and three years of grad school in the humanities. I am, in fact, in the target audience of some of those authors, and I do think I generally understand references to the hard sciences, and when I don't I generally have the brains to figure out where to look them up.

Don't make such assinine assumptions about people in the humanities. It's bad enough that Sokal and Bricmont do.

Diderot 13:02, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I disagree. You don't have to understand demonology to understand Maxwell's demon - you just have to know that the "demon" is some kind of powerful creature that manipulates a trapdoor. In comparison, to understand a comparison with notions of mathematical topology like compacity, you have to have some familiarity with these notions.

It would have been ok if the cited people had used "compact" (or other concepts) as some kind of everyday word (much as you can use "demon" without knowing the details of European demonology). It's not ok if they claim to make a valid comparison to topology. Words like "compact", "open", "closed" designate concepts that have a faint resemblance to the familiar meanings of these words.

Another over-used concept is Gödel's theorem. It's perfectly acceptable to talk informally of certain systems of thoughts and say that their bases must be external, much as coherency cannot be proved in formal systems containing Peano's arithmetic according to Gödel's theorem. However, it is fundamentally wrong to discuss some informal concept and declare, by an argument of authority, that Gödel's theorem proves this concept "incomplete". David.Monniaux 09:16, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You mean people without degrees in physics or math shouldn't use the word "chaos"? Like the way Sokal trash Deleuze and Guattari for using the words "the limits of chaos" claiming that they are holding forth on Chaos Theory when they are not talking about chaos theory at all. [2] The word "chaos" long predates chaos theory. I don't think physicists can claim ownership.

Or Luce Irigaray, talking about borders in the context of some very fuzzy sorts of social phenomona - quoted in Fashionable Nonsense - and briefly dismissing set theory as probably not very useful to her pursuits because it has little to say about sets with indistinct bounds. This rhetorical device - of little more significance than suspecting that demonology has little to do with thermodynamics - is true as far as it goes. I doubt differential topology has much to offer a discussion of the culturally fixed borders of behaviour, which are fluid, indistinct and for all that not terribly hard to formalise. Yet to hear S&B talk about it, she is making grand statements about topography. Perhaps you think there is a sociological significance to set theory?

Nor do I see the great sin in Lacan using the Moebius strip as a metaphor for what he is trying to say about psychology - even if I find Lacan's reinvention of Freud pretty silly on its own merits. It's not as if Moebius strips are terribly hard to make or understand. The notion that "cut" could appear in the same sentence as "Moebius strip" without meaning the same thing that it does in geometry never seems to occur to S&B. We might be able to judge for ourselves with some context. But I'll bet you you've never read a Lacan book.

And those are just the examples I scammed from Gabriel Stolzenberg. None of the concepts evoked are specialised to the sciences or math. Nor do they involve especially advanced concepts, nor contain claims about math or science. They don't even include the profoundly stupid things S&B had to say about science studies.

Sokal carefully mislead the editors of a scholarly journal, people who assumed that he would at least know physics, people who asked him to remove some of the more obtuse content of his hoax article - which he refused to do. [3] It should hardly seem surprising when an article in a journal of critical theory does not get sent off to a physicist to peer review. It got published much later in a special edition on science studies, where the opinions of a scientist might be expected to be of interest to readers regardless of the physics in them. Then, Sokal goes and publishes his gotcha in another journal. He blames the victims of his hoax for trusting him. I'm sure none of them will trust a scientist again. And people are supposed to trust anything Sokal says after this?

Then, he and Bricmont write a book on it, claiming to show that the humanities are full of empty suits. To do this they grossly and intentionally misread quotes taken woefully out of context. They declaim any real background in philosophy, and then hold forth on why everyone who deviates from strict scientific realism are just a bunch of fakers and charletans, never actually asking why people might have problems with that philosophy. They never engage the questions that the bodies of theory they deride tried to answer. They then peddle this heap of crap to a bunch of arrogant science geeks - which at the time was a category I fell under - who have never read anything written by Derrida, or Guattari, or Irigaray, and who never will.

And I am supposed to stand aside and take it up the ass when someone claims that humanities people aren't smart enough to use the word "chaos", or that scientific concepts are incomprehensible without an advanced degree? For Christ's sake, Goedel's theorem is not that hard. Computer science students - who are not the most mathematically sophisticated kids out there - learn it as a side effect of trying to understand the halting problem. I explained it to my mother once, and she's an elementary school teacher.

If I sound angry, it's for a reason. When I first read S&B I agreed with them. I'm pissed off at them for passing such crap off on ignorant science students who are all too willing to agree with their conclusions - which reinforce their own sense of superiority - and will never bother to listen to someone else's point of view of them. And I'm doubly pissed off that I was one of them.

Diderot 19:56, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

In response to the very touchy Diderot (note: I'm not responding to the comment immediately above this one, as I have not read it yet): "You might claim..." Actually, I would not make any of the claims you mention, except perhaps that the sentiments of those hypothetical religious studies people would be "laughable". It is true that many of the concepts S&B cite as being "abused" can be explained to a non-scientist/mathematicians, and S&B cite several failed attempts to do exactly that — attempts that leave doubt as to whether these astute authors themselves understand the concepts they're alluding to. And it is true that (potentially) valid comparisons between the concepts can be made if the audience is familiar with both the mathematical/scientific meaning of the terms being used and the non-math/sci ideas being discussed. IMO this is not what most of these authors (that S&B cite) are doing. They're either just just "name dropping", or they're trying to talk about novel concepts in terms of technical terminology from a completely unrelated field. Forget Maxwell's Demon, it's more like trying to "introduce a romance into the proof of the Pythagorean theorem", or however Woody Allen put it. How this makes any sense to anyone is beyond me. (Lacan, in particular, seems to be talking complete nonsense.) As for "scientists who engage philosophy", I think there's a lot of "reaching" going on there, too. But I wouldn't call any social scientists who (would) take them to task for it "idiots" or "pricks". Finally, regarding your resume, I'm somewhat surprised that with all that sheepskin, you (apparently) don't see the ridiculousness of a lot of the examples they cite. Obviously I agree with S&B's main point; if you don't, then fine. But calling people pricks isn't going to enlighten anyone. - dcljr 20:19, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

After reading Diderot's latest remarks: I have nothing more to add. - dcljr 20:24, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I agree that Gödel's theorem is not that hard. (David.Monniaux)

I disagree. As you say below, it takes some work and hard thought before even understanding precisely what the statement of it is (1st or 2nd). Revolver 23:41, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

However, it definitely takes some work for a person who has no ideal of formal logic to understand what Gödel's theorem means. Similarly, compacity is not a very difficult mathematical concept - if I remember well, it can be done in the first year of college math studies. But it requires some basic definitions and work on topology. (David.Monniaux)

I don't know what it is studied in "first-year college math" where you are...here in the U.S., it's usually calculus or linear algebra. Even so, compactness requires a knowledge of a number of various definitions before the definition can be precisely understood: a topological space is compact if every open cover has a finite subcover. Understanding this definition requires understanding the following terms:

• topological space
• open cover and subcover
• finite

Each of these, in turn, requires knowing a similar list of definitions, including e.g. topology, open set. I can certainly give a "rough definition" to someone not familiar with geometry, say, "A compact set is one that is 'small' is a certain sense, or well-behaved with respect to processes that occur in/on it." But that's quite vague. The precise definition requires knowing these definitions. And this is what bothers science/math people about what they call "abuse" of science/math (and which was not expressed or shed light on much by Sokal, I don't think) — it is not the use of the ordinary English or natural language definitions of these terms in philosophy that angers science/math people, nor is it the use of the rough, vague definitions and explanations meant to shed light on real science/math concepts (hell, math/science people do this all the time amongst themselves!!). Rather, it is the use of these terms with the implication that their precise mathematical or scientific meaning is intended, when the author clearly has no understanding of that precise definition. Maybe some of this comes from the difference between the two general areas — in humanities and philsophy, it's never quite possible to precisely define something. In math esp., it is fundamental. What I disagree with Sokal on is criticism of things like using the Mobius strip as an analogy for whatever...obviously, it's visualisable by anyone, and so why shouldn't they talk about it? I didn't read that the particular usage of it was intending to make use of the mathematical definition or mathematical properties. Similarly for other things. Also, science/math people are not immune from misusing philsophical terms they don't understand. Revolver 23:41, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That's really not the point. The point is that those concepts have a technical meaning of which most people out there, including the vast majority of people in the humanities, don't have the faintest idea. I fail to see how they can be used as enlightening metaphors.

The authors cited by Sokal and Bricmont are by far not the only authors guilty of using abstruse concepts when they're not really warranted. My opinion is that there's a certain academic industry in mathematics and theoretical computer science where simple ideas are described in the most abstract and confusing way so as to make hollow ideas sound deep; a favorite of this tendency is the (ab)use of category theory. One difference is that people who indulge in this bad tendency tend to understand the definitions of the terms they use.

I also beg to disagree with your attack on "ignorant science students who are all too willing to agree with their conclusions". Should I put myself in that category? It's all too easy to dismiss entire groups of people as "immature". David.Monniaux 21:59, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Dcljr - I did not say in the comment that S&B were elitist pricks. I said that that line makes it sound like they are. My point in leaving that comment was in hopes that someone who is more sympathetic to S&B might reword it to make them sound less like S&B are holding themselves up as judges of what sorts of concept are and aren't within the grasp of people outside the hard sciences. In that, I have clearly failed.

For example, one might say that S&B believe that discussions of the contents of scientific theories ought to begin with a clear understanding of how scientists understand those concepts. That would lend the reader to believe less that S&B have an elitist conception of the knowlege of non-scientists and might lend someone to think their intentions were good, even if they think their project is foundationally unsound. As it stands, they sound pretty elitist, more so than I think they would like.

As for seeing the foolishness in S&B's examples, I have ask if you have read any of those authors in a context outside of Fashionable Nonsense? (Diderot)

(For the record: No. - dcljr)

David, my big complaint about S&B's interpretations are that in every case I have investigated, I can easily construct far better interpretations of those remarks by the simple expedient of placing them in context, and then making the plausible assumption that the authors - rather than holding forth on the contents of scientific theories - are actually talking about the subjects they claim to be talking about.

The world is a big place, and I would not claim that no one, ever, in any of the humanities, has ever said anything stupid about the sciences. But S&B's conclusion is that these are affectations designed to impart a patina of knowledgability. This strikes me as a false conclusion. The reuse of terms - giving them meanings within a different body of theory - is a widely deployed method in parts of critical theory. This strategy has serious drawbacks, but it is not the same as saying foolish things about the hard sciences.

If I can not trust S&B on science studies, and I can not trust them on Derrida, Irigaray, Lacan or Deleuze, can I really trust them on any of their other examples?

As for dismissing science students as ignorant, they are on the whole ignorant of exactly the elements of critical theory S&B are addressing, as are S&B. There are, in all likelihood some exceptions. But they are few. My brother's engineering department used to sell a T-shirt labeled "After graduation." On it were two images, one labelled "Engineering Department", which showed a man looking over a blueprint. The other, labelled "English Department", showed a man working the counter at a fast fodd restauarant, asking "Do you want fries with that?" This perspective is pretty common in the hard sciences. You may not share those values, but I doubt very strongly that you haven't been exposed to them, or that you are so resistant to intellectual flattery. Very few people are - I'm not - and I am sceptical of others who claim they are.

As for finding obfuscation outside of the humanities, the field I work in now - linguistics and cognitive science - is notorious for just such nonsense. I'll take Derrida over Chomsky any day. As you point out, obfuscation as an industry exists in quite a few places, including parts of physics. But it is not quite so easy to tell obfuscation from talking about things that are slippery and difficult.

I work in applications of information theory to translation theory. The first is a very specific domain in mathematics, the second the most anti-scientific of the humanities, a field that rejects mainstream linguistics, and has even less to with math. If I were to resist using notions form math and sciences in fields where they are not well understood - if I did not take the chance that conflating one thing with another might produce interesting results - I would not be able to do my work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Diderot (talk • contribs) 18 August 2004

Honesty--Bias

"They ultimately dropped a planned critique of Jacques Derrida from the book because they found that Derrida rarely ever talks about science, and does not generally use scientific imagery in his work. This, of course, points to their honesty rather than dishonesty."

The second sentence here needs to go. The first sentence does not directly point to "their honesty." Claiming that it does reveals a strong bias. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.58.241.222 (talk • contribs) 18:37, 24 November 2004

Is this also missing the point?

After reading the Sokal Affair and now this article, I still can't find a clear statement of "the problem". That is, as I see it, the key reason that Sokal (or any of the other people involved, and there are a few) even bother to comment. For the basis of discussion I will start with this:

To the outside observer, postmodernist writing, and deconstructionalist crit-lit in particular, appears to be an algorithm-based essay writing contest. Authors are given marks for picking a famous "text" to work from, dropping names, making remarks about hidden sexism/racism/agism etc., and using key words. The value of this effort appears, to the observers, to be very close to zero.

Due to the nature of postmodernism and its rejection of absolutes and truth, the sciences are often a target of these writings. Using the same algorithm on scientific topics often leads the authors to make rediculous sounding statments, that appear to demonstrate they really have no idea what they are talking about.

Now maybe you agree or disagree with this statment, but I'm pretty sure this is what Sokal's real complaint it. There are two important issues involved: 1) the sciences write about crit-lit very infrequently, the opposite is not the case, and 2) the statements offered in evidence really do seem to match his complaint. I'm sorry, but I think most people would consider the claims of sexism in E=mcc to be laughably stupid.

But the article does not contain any comment on the setup, and I think that does it a disservice. Sokal is not interested in all of postmodernism, sociology or philosophy, he is interested in a particular and somewhat defined area, and I think that needs to be pointed out.

Does anyone agree? Should I take a stab at this?

Maury 13:30, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 19:37, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)) Having once read the book, and just now browsed the article, I don't quite see whats wrong with its current statement of "the problem", which seems clear enough. But if you really want to write about the book, shouldn't you read it, rather than just guessing?

clarity

"While the utility and validity of this perspective may well be debatable, neither is it so ignorant of science or so unsophisticated."

What does this mean? The language seems puffed up with cliché and does not flow - possibly the result of an incomplete edit? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.63.47.144 (talk • contribs) 08:18, 6 February 2005

Balance

I just wondered upon this article when I wanted to know what the book was about - As a wikipedian, I am disappointed that over 1/2 the article discusses crticism of the book rather than a more complete summary of the author's arguments. Since I know nothing other than this book being sited as a reference, I am not in a position to correct this but if anyone more knowledgeable is watching this page I would appreciate a more complete summary. Additionally, a more complete summary seems more NPOV than the current state of the article which implies that the book has been discredited since the criticism section is so long - thanks for those that have provided the external references, etc so I can continue my research. Trödel|talk 04:04, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Same here. David.Monniaux 14:59, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Alleged lack of honesty???

(William M. Connolley 15:05, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)) To me, this para appears badly broken.

Sokal and Bricmont's own honesty has come under fire in recent years. They ultimately dropped a planned critique of Jacques Derrida from the book because they found that Derrida rarely ever talks about science, and does not generally use scientific imagery in his work.

Why is this supposed to have any bearing on their honesty, except to indicate that they are?

Some, however, have claimed that this points to their honesty rather than dishonesty, but this claim is compromised by the aggression to which Derrida is nonetheless subjected.

There is no evidence for this latter assertion.

The use of Derrida in Sokal's original hoax drew primarily on a recycling of quotes drawn unreasonably out of context (according to Gabriel Stolzenberg, Sokal professed himself to be inspired by one book in a series of previously misconceived critcisms of Derrida), and these were not withdrawn but used to argue for the general integrity of both the hoax and the co-authored book.

Where? Who by? All this stuff is just vague allusions.

One may on this basis assess the honesty and authority of Sokal and Bricmont's study not simply on what they concede to be the infrequency of Derrida's objectionable uses of science but whether the instance cited supports their arguments in the first instance. Sokal and Bricmont's vague allusion to Derridas alleged nonsensical use of the "Einsteinian Constant" has been considered as being symptomatic for their unscholarly carelessness towards the context of particular quotes. In this case Derridas discussion on the place of "concepts" within linguistic structuralism, a field of study of which Sokal and Bricmont show no evidence having any knowledge. It is debated whether this was a one-time offense or undermines Sokal and Bricmont's critique in general for being flawed by the very inaccuracy they are critisising many authors in the humanities of having.

And that last para is just a rant.

Well, no. The Stolzenberg essay linked at the end of the article elaborates on the issues and should be directly sourced. The question raised is generally sustainable, although I haven't caught up with edits made earlier today which seem on first reading a little too emphatic in peddling a conclusion. (Disclosure: I wrote the first sentence, the rest was very recently added.) Derrida has a fairly strong case for saying that Sokal and Bricmont don't have a leg to stand on with him, and, further, that what they are standing on isn't particularly theirs in the first place, which makes the argument that Derrida wasn't an extensive abuser less than sustainable. 15:48, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Buffyg (talk • contribs)

I must agree that this is vague illusions and needs to be clarified. It is currenlty not understandable enough. Trödel|talk 21:13, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The entire section on "alleged lack of honesty" is utterly incomprehensible. I cannot figure out what the allegations are. I'd rather see the whole damn section deleted than read such confusing prose.

I would try to clean it up myself, but I honestly don't know what the main points are. Could someone please revisit it with an eye to simplicity? Much thanks. Phiwum 19:37, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Godwin's Law probably applies to Lenin as well

I removed the following link from the Links section:

• http://reverent.org/sokalenin.html Is this quote from Sokal & Bricmont or from Lenin? A quiz

This is blatantly unfair and ad hominem. Including it does not add anything of value to the article, regardless of what your opinions on the matter are. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.210.241.233 (talk • contribs) 05:41, 29 May 2005

I agree completely. And Lenin's "materialist"-bent philosophy of science was hardly unique to him. --Fastfission 14:38, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Alan Sokal wrote to me "That is a very interesting and clever quiz!". In addition it is listed in Mozilla directory and Looksmart directory.--Mikhail Simkin

A user from reverent.org regularly spam links all sorts of articles - abstract art, Charles Dickens etc. Please delete on sight. -- Solipsist 08:45, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Derrida and honesty

I removed the section under the heading "Alleged lack of honesty". It circles about one specific accusation made by Stolzenberg, concerning a statement by Derrida that was taken out of its context. It is one of the many episodes of the Science Wars, but it has hardly any connection with Fashionable Nonsense (Derrida plays almost no role in this book) and has nothing to do with S&B's honesty or dishonesty. The statement was taken out of context by Gallo, and then by Gross and Levitt. Sokal was aware of the the full context. He deliberately put it into a completely fabricated context as part of his hoax. This is not an attack against Derrida. (Sokal also quoted Heisenberg and Bohr in the parody article. Has anyone ever accused him of attacking Heisenberg and Bohr?) Even if Derridas statement makes sense, Sokal still makes his point with the hoax, since he has proven that the editors of Social Text didn't have the faintest idea what Derrida meant (otherwise they would have easily spotted the hoax). (Zumbo)

Steven Weinberg surely never accused Sokal of attacking Heisenberg. But he did seem to believe that Sokal's quoting what Weinberg called the "dreadful examples of Heisenberg's philosophical wanderings" constituted a well deserved attack on the great German physicist. (See Weinberg's "Sokal’s hoax" NYRB pp 11-15, August 8 1996.) Gabriel Stolzenberg 01:08, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Here's the removed section:

Sokal and Bricmont's own honesty has come under fire in recent years. They ultimately dropped a planned critique of Jacques Derrida from the book because they found that Derrida rarely ever talks about science and does not generally use scientific imagery in his work. Some have claimed that this points to their honesty rather than dishonesty, but this claim is compromised by the aggression to which Derrida is nonetheless subjected. The use of Derrida in Sokal's original hoax drew primarily on a recycling of quotes drawn unreasonably out of context (according to Gabriel Stolzenberg, Sokal professed himself to be inspired by one book in a series of previously misconceived critcisms of Derrida; see [4], also cited below), and these were not withdrawn but used to argue for the general integrity of both the hoax and the co-authored book. One may on this basis assess the honesty and authority of Sokal and Bricmont's study not simply on what they concede to be the infrequency of Derrida's objectionable uses of science but whether the instance cited supports their arguments in the first instance.

(Zumbo)

In an interview on NPR, Sokal said that he was inspired by reading Higher Superstition. And to illustrate what he found so inspiring, he read aloud from the one paragraph of the book devoted to the Derrida quote (p.79), almost all of which is devoted to ridiculing it. Gabriel Stolzenberg 01:08, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I also removed the following sentence, which followed immediately afther the section above, under the same chapter heading:

Furthermore, their attacks on Bruno Latour have proven considerably less defensible than they believed, in part because Latour, who is explicitly a researcher in science studies, might well expect his audience to be familiar with scientific concepts.

It is out of context here, and it has nothing to do with "alleged lack of honesty". S&B criticised some philosophers' use of scientific concepts as methaphors, even when their audience is unfamiliar with these concepts. (Which means that the metaphors are obscuring, not enlightening). But S&B never specifically accused Latour of doing this. Either general accusations should be treated in general, or, when one is defending Latour, one should refute the specific accusations made against Latour. --Zumbo 18:41, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Seems OK to me. William M. Connolley 19:09:10, 2005-07-20 (UTC).

When you say that there is "hardly any connection with Fashionable Nonsense (Derrida plays almost no role in this book)", you are obliquely acknowledging the following claim in the introduction that refers back to the Social Text article: "Bien que la citation de Derrida reprise dans la parodie de Sokal soit assez amusante, elle semble être isolée dans son oeuvre; nous n'avons donc pas inclus de chapitre sur Derrida dans ce livre." (I have quoted this in French as Sokal and Bricmont offered it in response to a letter from Derrida to Le Monde.) They do not simply quote Derrida but offer a characterisation of his remark. This is definitely being offered as a criticism, despite your claims. Stolzenberg elsewhere quotes Plato to remark on Thomas Nagel laughing at Irigaray: "Socrates: What’s this, Polus? You’re laughing? Is this yet another kind of refutation which has you laughing at ideas rather than proving them wrong?"

Your remarks about the treatment of Heisenberg and Bohr as being equivalent by virtue of simple citation is accordingly misleading. Stolzenberg's account is that Sokal and Bricmont stand by the previous claim in Fashion Nonsense, and they repeated it again in their letter to Le Monde responding to letters from Derrida and Max Dora. The qualifier they introduce is that the abuse is not "systematic" and their treatment of it accordingly minimal. The appearance of the remarks in the book and their content is verifiable.

Stolzenberg claims that this remains a misrepresentation because the incident in question should not be taken as an abuse of scientific or mathematical terminology of any sort and that passing it off as even an isolated example of nonsense is dishonest; his claim is not that Derrida claims scientific expertise and seeks to demonstrate it in his impromptu exchange with Hyppolite but that the remark does not have obviously contradict a reasonable understanding of relativity physics if read in context ("the very concept of the game which, after all, I was trying to elaborate").

Stolzenberg also points out that they reference Plotnitsky's criticisms in Fashionable Nonsense" and that the reference is abusive, as is the logic they apply to rebut it. Sokal and Bricmont, as quoted by Stolzenberg:

For an amusing attempt, by a postmodernist author who does know some physics, to come up with something Derrida’s words could conceivably have meant that might make sense, see Plotnitsky (1997). The trouble is that Plotnitsky comes up with at least two alternative technical interpretations of Derrida’s phrase “the Einsteinian constant”, without providing any convincing evidence that Derrida intended (or even understood) either of them.

Stolzenberg's comment: This is bad reasoning. Such evidence is not needed to refute an alleged justification of such a charge. Think of the case of mathematics. To refute an alleged proof of a claim, it is sufficient but not necessary to refute the claim itself. As far as giving people a possible measure of Sokal and Bricmont's scholarly honesty, I should think this can be argued to be indicative. It is certainly verifiably part of the book. Although you say that Sokal was aware of the full context, there is agreement that failure to referency constancy and systematic play in their relevance to Derrida's essay and therefore the line of questioning indicates that the context in which the quote is offered by Sokal was misleading. If Sokal is aware of the full context, he does not say so but could be argued to be misleading us if he did not explicate the context in returning to Derrida's remark. In any case, to the extent that the quote is simply cited without adequate context, even that use would be dishonest. After all Stolzenberg's interest in the matter arose largely from his view that he could not judge the quote in the limited context of its citation by Sokal. (Buffyg)

In the preceding sentence, "by Sokal" should be replaced by "in Higher Superstition." My interest in this matter began when a colleague who was a fan of Higher Superstition shoved the quote in front of my nose and said "Read it, it's important." I did, reluctantly, and immediately saw that he expected me to say that it was gibberish. Instead, I told him that I had no idea what it meant and added, "Derrida is a hard read." But he remained morally certain that the quote was gibberish. Gabriel Stolzenberg 01:08, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Stolzenberg is outraged to hear Sokal on NPR reading the quote without providing a context or attempting to explicate it. He simply reads it and pauses in anticipating laughter from the interviewer.

Actually, I wasn't outraged. I was surprised. Several years earlier, I had investigated the treatment of the Derrida quote in Higher Superstition enough to conclude to my satisfaction that the authors could not back up what they had said and that, moreover, they probably didn't care. So, imagine my surprise at hearing, several years later, a physicist offering this very passage on the radio as his one example of the inspiration he derived from the book. Gabriel Stolzenberg 01:08, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Roger Hart offered the following concession to Stolzenberg about such a lack of reasoned argument:

You are, of course, absolutely correct that assertions that Derrida's statement is "an error of scientific fact" or "nonsense" require an argument: the burden of proof must be on the person who makes any such assertion; it is inadequate simply to claim that one does not understand Derrida. You have convinced me that these assertions have been made by dismissing Derrida without offering any argument whatsoever, and shown that I too was guilty of dismissing Derrida's statement without evaluating whether or not it might be correct under a charitable interpretation.

Any defensible interpretation, charitable or not, requires a reasonable evaluation of context. There is no question that the claim in question appears in the book or, perhaps more importantly, that it came to play a role in critical discussion, so there is a basis for asserting relevance. The point is certainly not that Sokal is somehow vindicated because Andrew Ross did not demonstrate that he understood the Derrida quote as miscontextualised (which is quite different in any case from the proof you claim to discern). The matter of honesty does not come down to deciding whether a claim was important to larger arguments. If this were the case, one might begin by noting that Sokal and Bricmont chose to remark on a transcript of an impromptu exchange on the subject of a Derrida lecture with no apparent connection to science and was therefore not a reasonable target in the first place. They have, however, over objections stood by remarks that are of questionable validity, and in so doing attached their credibility and that of their book to it. Buffyg 00:28, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

S&B don't want to "prove" anything about Derrida. They don't claim to offer any new insights on his work and they don't refute any part of his philosophy. They just think this remark is amusing, and they can't make any sense of it. Finding a remark amusing is not something one has to justify or to prove, and it has nothing to do with honesty. Not understanding Derrida can hardly be considered a major offense, either. (It would be a valid point of criticism if they had made a serious attempt to refute Derrida.)

S&B have studied Physics and they can't understand Derrida's reference to the theory of relativity. Sokal commented it in a totally absurd way, submitted it to Social Text, and the editors didn't object. Plotnitsky tried to defend Derrida by simply guessing what he meant (which again shows that Derrida hadn't made himself very clear). Given all this evidence, S&B could safely assume that the remark didn't make sense. Even if they're wrong, this doesn't show that they're dishonest, it just shows that they don't understand Derrida.

When I wrote "Sokal was aware of the full context", I meant that he knew that Derridas remark was an oral response to a question by Jean Hyppolite. Hyppolite's question is quoted in Fashionable Nonsense, therefore, the context is not left out. If, by "full context", you mean "as much of Derrida's phliosophy as is necessary to understand this remark", then Sokal wasn't aware of it. But since he already came to the conclusion that Derrida hadn't much to say about science, and therefore he [Sokal] hadn't much to say about Derrida, it makes perfect sense that he stopped studying Derrida. This case is much different from all the other cases, where S&B gave a much larger context and analyzed the scientific meaning (or lack thereof). Therefore, the Derrida quote is a very bad starting point for trying to refute the book's thesis. --Zumbo 21:02, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, Zumbo, but I don't think we've agreed to the terms of this discussion.

The issue here is not whether Sokal and Bricmont are trying to "refute" Derrida, whether anyone is attempting to refute their arguments, whether Plotnitsky's interpretation of Derrida incorrectly assumes Derrida's advanced understanding of relativity physics, whether you believe it permissible to lack understanding of one's object of criticism, or whether the editors of Social Text failed to catch misuse of Derrida's work. Sokal and Bricmont still use Derrida as an example. Perhaps this is not an example of Derrida's work in any larger sense, but they do claim it is part of a larger series of examples of what happens in treatment of science and mathematics outside of departments dedicated to those subjects. The point is whether this example, which they cite again in reply to Derrida, is such an example in the first place and to scrutinise the criteria they applied in making this determination. The argument here is not about the soundness of propositions advanced in the book, it is a question of their intellectual integrity in the way they have used source materials. Let's say that this is in part a verifiability problem: Stolzenberg decides to track down some examples cited and doesn't believe that readings in reasonable context allow the claims made by Sokal and Bricmont. This leads him to raise questions of integrity.

As far as verifiability and context go, it is dishonest to say that the reference is Derrida's. Hyppolite made the reference, and Derrida replied in those terms to indicate that the example of the relation between time and space in relativity physics does not support the notion of structure necessary to structuralism but the notion of play that he had elaborated in his lecture. Insofar as one needs to indicate an understanding of that essay and the use of terms like "play" and "structure" to establish context, I would agree with Stolzenberg that Sokal's efforts are wholly insufficient. Plotnitsky's clearly says that he does not impute to Derrida the understanding of relativity physics required for his analysis. The point necessary to refute Sokal and Bricmont's use of this quote is simply to demonstrate that one can find interpretations consistent with an understanding of relativity physics once one assumes such consistency, whereas Sokal and Bricmont assume inconsistency and accordingly find it. Plotnitsky's reading doesn't necessarily settle the matter of how to interpret Derrida by providing a single reading, but providing at least one would be sufficient to rule out Sokal and Bricmont's attempt and allows one to specify a source of error in that attempt. (Stolzenberg further points out that Sokal and Bricmont are derogatory toward Plotnitsky's reading without actually arguing why it is wrong.)

Sokal and Bricmont do not simply say that they find the quote amusing. They also say that it is nonsensical ("gibberish") and that it is apparent to them that Derrida does not know what he is talking about. Those are specific claims that require support. This returns to the Plato quote about laughter substituting for argument where argument is necessary; I am not aware of any field of scholarship where it is credited as defensible scholarship to make claims about examples without demonstrating competence in their sources or clearly confessing one's lack of competence. Is such not the essence of Sokal and Bricmont's work on science studies? (And I do write that with deliberate irony; it is this ironic sense I take as consistent with Derrida's designating them unserious and censorious and their inability or unwillingness to understand him as a thorough critic.) My point is that others have shown that, with greater patience and attention to context, the quote appears sensible and Derrida minimally competent (in that there is no obvious contradiction between Derrida's reply and relativity physics). This speaks again to a reliance on assumption that looks an awful lot like bad faith and bad scholarship. Previously Sokal read the quote on NPR to get laughs and establish his point without any argument. What's honest about that? Do serious critics of advanced scientific hypotheses go on the radio, read a difficult passage, and wait for laughter? How defensible is that as a critical protocol in any advanced field of scholarship?

The editors of Social Text have nothing to do with this. Andrew Ross and Bruce Robbins explained themselves by saying that they claimed no competence in some of the humanities work cited and that they did object in any case to Sokal's text on numerous point. (I am not attempting to use that as justification; I am simplying clarifying that they made lesser claims of authority in some of these materials than Sokal and Bricmont have since.) Their understanding of Derrida is accordingly immaterial or at least nothing like the point you want to award to Sokal.

You can try to object that their use of Derrida is not essential to their larger arguments. My point again is that Sokal and Bricmont do not apply that criteria in deciding whether they ought to comment on Derrida or anyone else. Accordingly I do not see how you can rule out further consideration of this example without introducing a double standard. You can reasonably say that much else of this is arguable; what you haven't established is that it is irrelevant. Absent that, I think the section ought to go back in. Buffyg 17:17, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I still fail to see the connection of this discussion to S&B's honesty and integrity. They were quoting a sentence that has been around in the science wars for some time. In the entire discussion, Stolzenberg seems to be the first to indicate how to interpret Derrida without assuming that he was trying to say something about relativity that he didn't unterstand. Prior to this, all the evidence S&B had simply pointed in the other direction. This isn't a criminal charge against Derrida, and "innocent until proven guilty" doesn't apply here. From a scientific point of view, you just go with the hypothesis that has the highest probability, and that's what S&B did. They might have misunderstood Derrida, but I see no evidence that they have *deliberately* misunderstood him, and only in this case you could make claims about their honesty and integrity. You might claim that they didn't try hard enough to understand Derrida, but again, it was just a piece of anectotal evicence they offered, and not a crucial proof for their claims, so why should they have spent more time with this issue? (Zumbo)

All the evidence? The only evidence Sokal offered that the quote was gibberish was that he couldn’t make sense of it and it made him laugh. Also, although it is true that “innocent until proven guilty” doesn’t apply here, neither does “guilty until proven innocent.” Finally, from a scientific or any other point of view, we often don't go with any hypothesis. If we see no compelling reason to choose one, we may prefer to wait and perhaps seek more information. (This, of course, runs counter to Yogi Berra’s famous dictum, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”) Gabriel Stolzenberg 01:08, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

If you want to reinsert the section, I'm not strictly against it, but then it has to be rewritten. For instance, S&B didn't "drop" the chapter on Derrida, they simply never wrote it, so the question whether this poins to their honesty or not is moot. And they didn't use this quote "to argue for the general integrity of both the hoax and the co-authored book". It's Stolzenberg who argues that the integrity of the book depends on S&B's interpretation of Derrida, and that's certainly a POV which needs to be indicated as such. For Stolzenberg, the Derrida quote seems to be the Achilles' heel of the book, and to me, this rather looks like he found no way to attack any of the central theses in the book and therefore decided to dwell upon a minor point. --Zumbo 22:08, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Zumbo seems to think that I tried to write a critique of Fashionable Nonsense. I didn’t. I wrote a critique of Thomas Nagel’s review of Fashionable Nonsense (The New Republic, October 12 1998). It is true that I didn’t attack the central theses of the book. But I did attack the arguments and evidence on which these theses are based. As for the Derrida quote, less than two pages are devoted to what Nagel did and didn’t say about what Sokal and Bricmont did and didn’t say about it. By contrast, more than five pages concern statements about history and philosophy of science from a chapter that passed Nagel's inspection but which, on my readings, range from the banal to the bizarre. Etc. Gabriel Stolzenberg 01:08, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't reckon you've spent much time reading Stolzenberg, or you wouldn't insist that, "only in this case you could make claims about their honesty and integrity". Please have a look at the links here. Stolzenberg provides arguments of the cases of Deleuze and Guattari, Latour, Irigaray, and Lacan. I further reckon you are hitting the snooze button and encouraging others to do the same when you say that Derrida isn't innocent until proven guilty. Logic and the demands of evidence are not so completely different between science and mathematics and all other disciplines. This is what Roger Hart concedes to Stolzenberg (see quote above): a positive assertion must be justified rather than made to appear possible, probable, or likely unless one aims at these levels of certainty and admits as much. What you're arguing when you say, "From a scientific point of view, you just go with the hypothesis that has the highest probability, and that's what S&B did," (let's leave aside whether what we're doing here should be considered strictly "from a scientific point of view") ought not contradict Ockham's Razor: the simplest explanation is preferable. Why? To make the fewest assumptions possible, which is not what Sokal and Bricmont have done in the face of what is beyond verification. Why assume what you can establish and verify, including context? As others have pointed out, the length of a quotation is not what allows one to argue that one has preserved context, particular where an argument is long-standing and developed across a number of sources that must be taken into account. Making more substantial representations without such protocols is not simply misunderstanding: it is bad scholarship and misrepresentation. When it became clear that Michael Bellesiles misrepresented evidence and occasionally could not demonstrate where he sourced elements of his research in Arming America, the need to consider his assertions was sharply reduced, and Bellesiles eventually resigned his tenured position. I don't say this to imply that Sokal and Bricmont are at that level, but I do say it to indicate that a demonstrable pattern of abusing sources is distinct from refutation of an argument and can even obviate the apparent need for such a level of argument. (Again: I don't yet mean to imply that we're at a point where that seems justified, but I do mean to established that a different critical avenue from what you've acknowledged is available on these terms.) When misrepresentation of examples (and doesn't much of what we're talking about come down to the status of examples?) is repeated in the face of contradictory evidence, it raises matters of honesty and integrity. The more I read Stolzenberg, the more inclined I am to believe that there may be a pattern of dishonesty. Buffyg 00:22, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

More nonsense removed

I also removed this section:

Sokal and Bricmont as well as their supporters reply that the view that the successes and the failures of a scientific theory should also be attributed to social causes is exactly the anti-scientific, irrational viewpoint that their book was attacking. One might reasonably expect that most scientists would agree with Sokal and Bricmont were the matter put to them in this manner. One may, however, reasonably ask whether a history of science would be possible on the terms to which one would then be reduced.

This is nonsense. In the book, S&B explicitly support the (trivial) idea that science is influenced by social factors. They only reject the idea that science is purely social and that nature has nothing to do with the outcome of scientific debates. --Zumbo 19:00, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Michel Callon

I think the distinctions made in Michel Callons review "Whose Imposture? Physiscists at war with the third person" should be included in the article her. Besides a harsh general critizism of Sokal and Briemont's arguments, it also shows that they fail to distinguish between postmodernist theory using scientific concepts as metaphor etc and for instance Latour's social studies of science. Zumbo's statement above here shows that he too, after reading the book may be confused when it comes to this matter. Social studies of science in general and Latour in particular does NOT claim that "nature has nothing to do with the outcome of scientific debates", as S&B seems to believe. I would recommend that some competent reader should try to mention some of Callon's key points in the article here. (It could also be mentioned here that he implicitly argues that S&B actually seems to understand less of the theory of relativity than Latour.) But the most important is their lack of distinction between studies of science and postmodern philosphy in general. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.241.168.140 (talk • contribs) 11:25, 31 October 2005

what does this sentance mean?

"Properly speaking the work attacks post-structuralism and the application of critical theory to science, with the work of Jacques Lacan and others basing their work on Lacan being a particular focus."

i get the first part... but did Lacan base his work on his work? or did sokal etc particularly focus on lacan's work? i don't know. i'd change it but i haven't read the book —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.246.182.108 (talk • contribs) 11:44, 12 May 2006

I think this sentence is innacurate. Of those mentioned in Fashionable nonsense, only Lacan himself, Kristeva Irigary and Badiou could be said to be "basing their work on Lacan". Lacan and the strong program, lacan and postmodernism, postmodernism and critical theory, critical theory and the strong programme and postmodernism and the strong programme are all pairs of things that have very little to do with each other, except for having taken place in roughly the same timeframe. Jimmyq2305 18:08, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Criticism section - yuk

The "Criticism" section of this article is very poorly written and basically useless. Much of it shows the deleterious effect of repeated insertion and deletion of opinionated sentences in random order. Almost none of the actual critics are named. They should be identified and quoted, with Sokal and Bricmont's reply also quoted. NO allegations should appear as our own opinions; we have to report the opinions of the involved parties, not argue the case ourselves. Unprovable claims like "Most scholars of science studies" should be avoided (unless a reference to where the survey establishing this as a fact is added). McKay 13:20, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't "inaccuracy of charges" be added to the criticism section? The way it is now, it seems like no one has even attempted to refute the charges of misuse of scientific terminology that S + B make. The way fink's response is presented (and the way it probably is, im unfamiliar with Lacan to the Letter), it seems that he is saying that their criticisms are irrelevant. In several cases, there have been specific responses to the charges of misuse that S+B allege (Stolzenberg responded to charges made against Latour, Lacan and Derrida, and Latour responded to charges made against himself, as did Badiou) and this should, IMHO be added to criticisms. Jimmyq2305 18:05, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

This sentence is a whole litter of weasles: "Insofar as Sokal and Bricmont were even taken seriously within the fields they were criticizing, they have received sharp criticism for their own misunderstanding of the concepts they are attacking." Way to diguise the bias, boyo. Figureground 02:51, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Fink really is as stupid as everyone makes him out. He legitimately thinks that you can take the square root of -1 in "Lacan to the Letter", chapter 5.

In fairness, for the most part Lacan is normal psychoanalysis (about 90% of the time) except he tosses out laundry lists of superficial analogies like a freshman and refers to Hegel a lot. The exception (besides the ludicrous square root of -1 and the phallus) is when he talks about geometry and says things like "anger is precisely a torus" which is both analogical and nonsensical. S&B are the only people to call him on it. Most of the rest of Lacan is completely garden variety psychoanalysis and in point of fact isn't very different from Kohut or Winnicot - none of which is scientific. Lacan is a psychoanalyst. As far as they go, he isn't bad. The problem is super-orthodox people like Fink who refuse to admit Lacan's grasp of math was often poor and that some of his theories need work. Schneiderman's books on him are much better. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.68.29.208 (talk) 21:40, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

You wouldn't have a relevant quote from Schneiderman to give us, would you? -- Radagast3 (talk) 23:10, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Political arguments

What text is it a summary of? How is this a criticism of the book? I'm honestly at a loss on both of these - it does not strike me as a sensible criticism of an attack on postmodernism that the attack is political. With no source of the criticism, and no sense to the criticism, I have trouble grasping why it shuold be included - it seems to be original research. 128.227.82.250 19:38, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Bricmont and Sokal refuted? Mmmm... I'm not so certain

I would like to react to prof. Stolzenberg, and more specifically to parts of his texts “Reading and Relativism - An introduction to the science wars” and “A Physicist Experiments with Scholarly Discourse”. References to these texts are made in this discussion.

I'm uneasy about posting this long reaction here, but I'm doing it because readers of this discussion page may get the impression that prof. Stolzenberg has refuted a number of claims by Bricmont and Sokal. While I think his critique of “Fashionable Nonsense” sometimes is correct, I also think it is far less convincing than it seems to be. In one case, he gives a statement by Bricmont and Sokal the opposite meaning of what it says, and then concludes Bricmont and Sokal don't understand Irigaray. In the case of Latour, he actually (and perhaps contrary to his intention) helped me to better understand why Bricmont and Sokal are justified in their critique of Latour.

To laugh is a philosophical activity (sometimes)

Prof. Stolzenberg quotes Socrates: “What’s this, Polus? You’re laughing? Is this yet another kind of refutation which has you laughing at ideas rather than proving them wrong?”

Prof. Stolzenberg is angry that Bricmont and Sokal find some things funny. I don’t understand why. Laughing can be a significant philosophical act.

Let’s take as an example Maxwell’s Demon from Statistical Mechanics (prof. Stolzenberg refers to it somewhere in this discussion) and Lacan's use of topology to describe psycho-analytical phenomena (as mentioned in "Fashionable Nonsense"). Assume you’re a physicist. Convince yourself that Demons are risible nonsense. Laugh very hard – and then look at the Maxwell’s Demon again. Was your view on its physical content changed by your fun? No, it wasn’t. Whether you believe in Demons or not, the physical value of the argument stands. Make Maxwell’s argument a bit funnier by changing “Demon” to “Clever Martian with Green Ears” or “My Uncle’s Karma” – the physical message stands.

Now take Lacan. This time you’re a psycho-analyst. Convince yourself that mathematical topology is nonsense, utter silliness, “not even wrong” like Wolfgang Pauli used to say. Laugh very hard – and then look at Lacan again. Did your fun change your view on the psycho-analytical value of his words? Yes, it did. Suddenly you start to wonder why Lacan claims that ridiculous things describe psycho-analytical phenomena. Change “Klein’s Bottle” in Lacan’s writings into “My Uncle’s Karma” – does the psycho-analysis stand?

There are many variants of this experiment. One can also assume that Demons are real but Maxwell got his Demonology so wrong it’s ridiculous, and that topology is correct but Lacan is so ignorant about it that he’s funny. How did that change the physical (Maxwell) and psycho-analytical value (Lacan) of their writings? Etc., etc. A good laugh can be good philosophy.

Lacan

I accept that one doesn’t need differential topology to describe the mathematics Lacan is using. Bricmont and Sokal are probably misleading here. Prof. Stolzenberg argues quite convincingly that Lacan was referring to simpler approaches of mathematical topology. Lacan may have understood them well enough to apply them in his approach to psycho-analysis.

But even if this were correct, it stays unclear why these mathematical structures serve to Lacan as more than metaphorical evocations of something, rather as accurate descriptions of a mind – and that’s what Bricmont and Sokal are questioning.

Latour

Prof. Stolzenberg suggests that one can interpret Latour statements about actors in such a way that they do not contradict the physics of Special Relativity. But to me it seems that the source of his interpretation is the same as the source of Bricmont and Sokal’s alleged mis-interpretation: the lack of clarity by Latour.

Moreover, prof. Stolzenberg’s interpretation rests on a starting point that’s controversial. Latour mentions third parties (reference frames or actors, I don’t know). Prof. Stolzenberg points out that Latour, contrary to what Bricmont and Sokal seem to think, is not necessarily talking about distinct third parties. Prof. Stolzenberg writes “As a mathematician, when I talk about ‘three things,’ for example, the three roots of a cubic equation, I don’t necessarily mean three distinct things. It depends on the context.”

This is an enlightening comparison. The cubic equation “x cubed is equal to zero” has three roots that are identically zero. But why talk about three roots when they are identical? Because in general, a cubic equation can have three distinct roots (and never more than three). Therefore the expression “x cubed is zero has three roots” refers to the context of more general cubic equations. It just happens to be so that in this special case, these roots are identical (or, like mathematicians say, they have “multiplicity three”).

But now let’s consider quadratic equations. They never have three or more distinct roots. Therefore, a mathematician never says that a quadratic equation has three roots. To do so would not be wrong strictu sensu – the mathematician could always claim that two of these roots are identical. But this is out of the context of quadratic equations. Consider somebody who writes about these equations and gives a “third root” an important place in his text. I think this a strong argument that he misunderstood the mathematics involved, or at least that he is not writing about mathematics as we know it.

Now what is the context in Special Relativity? In the physics of Special Relativity one never needs a distinct third party (reference frame or actor). To me, Latour’s third party is akin to the famous third solution of a quadratic equation. Introducing it is not wrong strictu sensu – Latour can always claim that two of these three parties are identical or attached to the same reference frame. But the introduction of a third party is out of the physical context, and therefore misleading.

But perhaps Latour wasn’t writing about physics. Perhaps Latour’s third party is a sociological or didactical device. It may therefore be useful within a sociological or didactical context. But even then, one has to be very cautious introducing it. If one is not writing for a public of physicists, one should make clear that this third party goes against the physical context. Does Latour offer this clarity? Even prof. Stolzenberg has doubts. He writes: “Finally, in criticizing Sokal’s misreadings of Latour’s essay, I do not mean to suggest that it does not merit criticism. On the contrary, the very passages that Sokal quotes make me wonder whether Latour mistook things that Einstein has his cartoon observers do in order to explain the theory of relativity for what real physicists do when they use that theory.”

I think that Bricmont and Sokal are justified in their critique of Latour’s use of actors, if only because of the physical context.

How to quote

Prof. Stolzenberg writes

“Michael Harris’s wickedly perceptive observation about a related conceit of Sokal and Bricmont applies to Weinberg’s without significant change.

‘In some cases, we have quoted rather long passages, at the risk of boring the reader, in order to show that we have not misrepresented the meaning of the text by pulling sentences out of context. (Sokal and Bricmont 1998: 17.)’

This may satisfy those who imagine that the context of page 50 is pages 48-52, say, but if the context is an ongoing literary debate or an entire culture's orientation to mathematics and science, then the length of the quotations is irrelevant. To paraphrase remarks made by David Bloor, Sokal and Bricmont are ‘as it were, coming into the middle of a conversation that has been going on for some time.’”

But prof. Stolzenberg himself is guilty of some misdemeanours in this respect. He is for example misrepresenting Impostures Intellectuelles’ part about “locations” in the chapter about Latour.

“Consider next Sokal’s claim that Latour ‘somehow got the idea that relativity concerns the problems raised by the relative location (rather than the relative motion) of different observers.’ It is impossible to read Latour’s essay about relativity without noticing that it is dominated by a consideration of two reference frames in relative motion—the two discussed above. But perhaps Sokal forgot this when he came upon the following passage from Latour’s essay, which is the evidence he offers for his accusation.”

With this last sentence, prof. Stolzenberg is misleading the reader. In my (French) version of “Impostures Intellectuelles”, many more examples are offered of Latour talking about locations where velocities would be more appropriate physically. The evidence is not based on one passage. But let’s go on with that “following passage from Latour’s essay”:

“Provided the two relativities [special and general] are accepted, more frames of reference with less privilege can be assessed, reduced, accumulated and combined, observers can be delegated to a few more places in the infinitely large (the cosmos) and the infinitely small (electrons), and the readings they send back will be understandable. His [Einstein’s] book could well be titled: “New Instructions for Bringing Back Long- Distance Scientific Travellers.”

Einstein’s book is about Special Relativity. A ‘Long Distance’ is not necessary for Special Relativity to enter the scene – but a high relative velocity is. Therefore, it is odd that somebody who understands Special Relativity suggests this as a title for Einstein’s book. Prof. Stolzenberg is indignant because Sokal and Bricmont do not leave open the possibility that for Latour these Travellers have a high relative velocity. However, from a logical point of view Latour writes “… Long-Distance Scientific Travellers (whether they are rapidly moving relative to each other or not)” I agree with Sokal and Bricmont: this suggests Latour didn’t understand the physical content of Special Relativity.

On goats and humans

Prof. Stolzenberg quotes Sokal:

“Anyone who believes that the laws of physics are merely social conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the windows of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor.)” (Sokal 1996)

Prof. Stolzenberg then goes on:

“What is funny is the idea that knowledge of the relevant laws of physics has anything to do with why people and goats normally do not jump out of windows.”

This is a remarkable misunderstanding of Sokal. He doesn’t say that precise knowledge of physical laws is relevant for the outcome of his experiment nor for the willingness of people to jump out of windows.

Prof. Stolzenberg writes as well that there are social constructions one cannot do something about. But it is unclear to me what this says about Sokal’s experiment. To take another experiment, that is superficially similar to Sokal’s but that more clearly involves social constructions. Try driving 100 mph on the wrong side of the road in Brussels for an hour. Even Sokal wouldn’t do it, I assume, because it is as deadly as jumping from the 21th floor. But to me Sokal’s real question is: why will you die when you do these experiments? Social aspects may explain why one does not jump out of 21th floor windows or drive on the wrong side of the road. But what is the actual reason you die from heavy collisions, be it with a pavement or with another motorized vehicle? Does prof. Stolzenberg claim this reason is a social construction?

By the way, the inclusion of “goats” in prof. Stolzenberg’s quote is intriguing. Is a goat’s reality socially constructed as well? How does it work? In principle it’s possible to raise a goat in isolation from other goats and in such a way that it never sees any living being drop dead from a fall. Would it be easier to convince it to jump from the 21th floor? It’s an interesting experiment.

Irigaray

Prof. Stolzenberg quotes Sokal and Bricmont on Irigaray’s idea that E = Mc2 is “sexed”. They write:

“Whatever one may think about the ‘other speeds that are vitally necessary to us,’ the fact remains that the relationship E = Mc2 between energy (E) and mass (M) is experimentally verified to a high degree of precision, and it would obviously not be valid if the speed of light (c) were replaced by another speed.” (Sokal and Bricmont in “Fashionable Nonsense”)

Prof. Stolzenberg reacts as follows:

“This shows especially poor judgment. If Sokal and Bricmont think that something that is privileged can easily be replaced, there is little reason to suppose that they have any idea of what Irigaray is talking about.”

Sokal and Bricmont are saying that E = Mc2 is an accurate description of reality. Replace “c” by any other velocity and the description isn’t accurate anymore. Sokal and Bricmont clearly DON’T think it can be replaced easily. Prof. Stolzenberg gives here an interpretation that’s the opposite of what they write.

Sokal and Bricmont quote Irigaray in their book:

“In mathematical sciences (…) They concern themselves very little with the question of the partially open, with sets that are not clearly delineated [ensembles flous], with any analysis of the problem of borders [bords]… “ (Irigaray)

They point out that this is not a correct description of mathematics. However, prof. Stolzenberg barely sees a reference to mathematical topology in this quote. I find this puzzling. Borders, open, partially open etc. are all studied in topology, at least in the topology I learned. Irigaray writes by her own admission about mathematics. Therefore, Bricmont and Sokal are correct to point out that Irigaray is wrong, and that mathematics does study partially open sets and the problem of borders. It does so, for example, in algebraic topology and differential geometry. It couldn’t have been too difficult for Irigaray to find that out. Perhaps she wasn’t thinking about these branches of mathematics, but they are part of the mathematical sciences she’s is talking about. So what is wrong with Bricmont and Sokal’s critique? Besides, in “Impostures Intellectuelles”, Bricmont and Sokal offer more examples to show that Irigaray misrepresents the mathematics and physics she’s writing about.

Prof. Stolzenberg suggests that Irigaray wanted to say that topology is of questionable use to analyse some non-mathematical questions about borders. I suspect – but I do not know for sure – that many physicists find this statement sensible. I also think this is a weak defence of Irigaray. First of all: to see the above quote in this light doesn’t make the incorrect description of mathematics go away. But secondly, by referring to Kundera, prof. Stolzenberg suggests that Irigaray is not only talking about mathematical borders. Perhaps she isn’t even talking about mathematical borders in the first place, except to mention that they are of little use. But why then does she dress up her statement with awkward references to mathematics? Mathematics does study borders, but does that change that it may be of little use?

Deleuze and Guattari

In my version of "Impostures Intellectuelles" Bricmont and Sokal do not claim Deleuze and Guattari are writing about chaos theory. Perhaps Sokal once claimed they were, and perhaps that was a mistake, but the mistake is not in "Impostures Intellectuelles". Then why is this mistake by Sokal mentioned in this discussion?

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Aliaspg (talk • contribs) 17:30, 8 November 2006

I agree with your fourth and fifth points. I disagree with your eighth point. I am neutral on the others. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 09:30, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Undue weight

Phil Sandifier This is an article about the book, not a discussion about what they say. There is no sense in which you can say that outlining the contents of the arguments is undue weight. Please do not attempt to censor WP. MarkAnthonyBoyle 17:28, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not attempting to censor WP. But the Lacan section of the book amounts to a very small percentage of the book, and to write a section focusing purely on it misrepresents its overall weight in the book. If you want to write a section-by-section summary of the book, go for it, but this article cannot be hijacked into a "criticisms of Lacan" article. Phil Sandifer 19:06, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Any one section of the book is bound to be small. The material seems quite typical of the overall intention of the book. Perhaps it could go back as another example, around the Luce Irigaray e=mc2 stuff William M. Connolley 19:11, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I did originally propose something very much like this, but Mark reverted - I think that is the more reasonable choice - I'm not averse to some explanation of their critique of Lacan, especially as the criticism of their book that the article cites is mostly Lacanian at this point, but Mark's version is a POV problem in that it erroneously implies the attack on Lacan to be one of the book's major points. Phil Sandifer 19:18, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I think you've cut too much - there is now no real hint as to what Lacan has said that is so wrong. Some direct quote should be in there William M. Connolley 19:23, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

From Lacan or from S&B? I have the "gibberish" quote. I could add the square root of negative one as phallus quote - it's a good one. It'll have to wait an hour or two for me to get home to where I have the book, though. Phil Sandifer 19:25, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Lengthy summary

I'm a bit concerned, reading these lengthy summaries. Not so much because of NPOV concerns, as that I feel like we're using a tremendous number of words to say the same things over and over again. Reading, say the Kristeva section and the Irigaray section one after another, one does not get the sense that Sokal and Bricmont's criticisms of one are particularly different from their criticisms of the other. Little is done to elucidate the differences in thought between Kristeva and Irigaray (which is sensible, as the article is about neither, and Sokal and Bricmont make no attempt to summarize their thought), and so I am had pressed to answer the question of how one section is meaningfully distinct from the other.

Which mostly seems like poor writing. Any thoughts on how we could improve this? Because as it stands, I feel like one section outlining their general criticisms of postmodernism with spceific examples from various people would be preferable to this still-incomplete and highly repetitive approach. Phil Sandifer 21:45, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Why don't we wait until I've finished the chapter by chapter summary. Putting a lengthy chapter of say 50 pages into a "25 words or less" format is going to take some time. I do have other things to do (in the real world) WP is a work in progress. WP is not perfect. Have you read the book Phil? Do you have something constructive to add? Perhaps you would like to rip out everything I written and just leave a footnote, say "FN is a book, but it's not very good, I didn't like it."

Are you perhaps one of those people in the arts who have a vested interest in avoiding criticism of the PoMo canon? Or are you one of Lacan's "disciples"? Just what is your problem with this book?MarkAnthonyBoyle 23:17, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I have read the book, actually - I just looked something up in it for my dissertation a moment ago. And while I am less than fond of the book (I'll cop to most of the current criticism section being my writing - though, notably, I've removed far more criticism as being unsourced), It's undoubtedly of cultural and even academic significance.

My problem with the article, as it stands, is that I sincerely think it a worse article than it was before the summary sections were added. There are several reasons for that - first of all, I think the summary sections are generally unpolished and hard to follow - they do not summarize any content usefully to someone who is unfamiliar with both the mathematics and the context of the philosophical works. Whatever flaws I may find in Sokal and Bricmont's work, this is not one of them - their book is wonderfully lucid in exactly the manner that this article is not. Second, I repeat my criticism above - the summary sections are horrendously repetitive, and amount to a sound bite quoting of Sokal and Bricmont that could be just as easily generated by a thesaurus. Lacan is gibberish, Kristeva is superficial, Irigaray is bizarre. What distinguishes these three claims is less than clear, and nothing is added that is not already present in the earlier note that all three thinkers are singled out for special criticism. Finally, the sections are positively barbaric from the perspective of NPOV - the Irigaray section in particular routinely treats Sokal and Bricmont's attacks as fact, with such conceits as putting "arguments" in scare quotes when describing Irigaray.

None of this is surprising, because Sokal and Bricmont are relatively clear that their book is not a series of essays critiquing the thought of various thinkers. Indeed, they explicitly disclaim such a task in their introduction: "we are not competent to judge the non-scientific aspects of these authors' work" (7). With the possible exception of Latour, then, that mitigates against the approach taken in this article. The book is very narrow - a catalogue of scientific errors that, in their view, mar the basic intellectual foundations of postmodernism as, well, fashionable nonsense. But I see little evidence that the book is intended as a series of individual critiques of the thinkers, so much as a series of case studies in a larger critique of postmodernism. In which case the "case study" approach this article atkes is bound to mislead - we would be better suited by sections outlining the various objections Sokal and Bricmont raise - inappropriate use of analogies, poorly understood scientific concepts, pseudoscience like Lacan's algebra - and bolster them with the sorts of examples they use. This, I think, would be far more faithful to the argument of the book.

As it stands, this expansion of summary smacks of an attempt to push the (well-sourced) criticism section as far down the page as possible, and to reduce its prominance in the article. This is unfortunate as well - the September 10th version (found here: [5] was, frankly, well-balanced - five paragraphs of explanation of their views, four of critique. Though, notably, I prefer the current, shorter critique section to the one on the September 10th version (which was poorly organized, in hindsight).

To this end, I strongly advocate the removal of the summaries, or, alternatively, the dispersal of the examples given in the summaries throughout the earlier sections to illustrate specific points. Phil Sandifer 00:48, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Criticism of soundbite accepted. I may well be guilty of creating a too dense summary. Would be happy if someone decided to add something to flesh this out. As to critique, can you show me where in WP policy it states that critiques of the subject should have equal prominence to the content of the main article? I don't understand what you mean by "attempt to push the criticism section down as far as possible", perhaps you would like the criticism section at the top, with only a brief outline of the content, well critiqued as well? I have not made any attempt to edit the criticism section at all. It seems to me that this section is already larger than most criticism sections in other articles. Should we apply the same weighting (5/4)to Freud, Lacan, critical theory(no criticism section at all), Kristeva(no criticism section), Irigaray. You have not long ago acused me of trying push POV for adding criticism to some of those articles. Have a look at the edit summaries of the work I did on Lacan. I added content, re-wrote sections to make the content clearer without losing any of the original meaning, and sorted out the chronology. I did this in good faith, in consultation with other editors, and with their blessing, despite, as you constantly acuse, being "unfailingly critical of him". It is quite clear to me that your constant reverts, deletions and harping on about undue weight are not motivated by good faith, but rather an attempt to push a POV. I think your real beef, given what you have written on this page and elsewhere, is that you don't like any criticism of Lacan being made explicit, which this current write, albeit a "brutal" summary of their "lucid" writing does because it is in chapter form. I would remind you that an article in an encyclopedia is not a discussion of whether you or I agree with an author's work, nor should the talk pages be. This starting to feel like harassment. You are, of course, welcome to make constructive edits. If you want to clarify sections, flesh out details, and the like, I would welcome that. Otherwise, please get off my case. MarkAnthonyBoyle 02:41, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

The bit where we have to give appropriate and equal prominance to all major viewpoints would be WP:NPOV - the fundamental content policy of the site. And this is hardly harassment - Lacan and this are both on my watchlist. I notice things that go on there. I've no idea what other articles you edit, but these two are ones I edit. And, frankly, I think your edits to this article hurt the article. Phil Sandifer 02:46, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

What now?

Within the humanities, the response to Fashionable Nonsense has generally been dismissive. On the whole, few major critics have engaged with the book in a prolonged fashion. What responses do exist have largely focused on the book's engagement with Lacan.

your tag:The context is important here. Do not go down this road. I am, for the time being, willing to tolerate the poor rewriting of this article, but don't try to make it POV like this.

Why did you put this back in? It seems plainly a case of unverifiable POV to me. Cite it to a source or take it out. MarkAnthonyBoyle 14:32, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Bullshit. You're trying to scour any criticism from this article that you can. It's bad enough that you're bloating it with further redundant and poorly written summary, but you cannot weaken the criticism section by removing the important fact that the book is a laughingstock in the field it's trying to criticize. And, being that the point is that the book was totally ignored, it's somewhat difficult to find a source for that.

If you want to go down that road, fine. But if you're going to cross that line into actively trying to make the article as POV as possible, I'm going to start scouring the summary as the POV inflation it is. Phil Sandifer 14:37, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

MarkAnthonyBoyle:

• The rococo tabernacle of intellectual chic, Theory enjoyed vogue in universities worldwide, but now finds itself closely interrogated. So great has postmodernism's own crisis become that at the start of semester in a compulsory Theory-based writing unit at one Sydney university, students had their tutor commiserate for the pain they would have to endure, and hand around chocolates ... In some ways comparable to John Howard's like-minded scientists who have for the past decade reassured us that all is well and that the earth does indeed remain flat.

  [[6]]

I can cite an opinion contrary to yours, can you cite yours? Or is it just your own opinion? NPOV requires you to cite or remove that line. MarkAnthonyBoyle 05:58, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

You could have:

there followed a relative avalanche of articles ridiculing Social Text in the The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, many local mainstream papers throughout the country, plus The Village Voice, The Nation, ITT, and so on.

cited to here [[7]] But then there's Chomsky (he is in the humanities I believe)

On theory, I don't object to the fact that postmodernism has no theories (i.e., nothing that could sustain a non-trivial argument). No one else does either, when we turn to human affairs or the kinds of things they are discussing. What I object to is that they proudly claim otherwise. Their productions are put forth as "grand theory," too deep for ordinary mortals to understand -- at least for me: I don't understand it, and am skeptical about whether there is any "theory" to understand. That's a great technique for enhancing one's own privilege while marginalizing the slobs. Does it serve any other function? If so, what? Am I missing some of the great achievements? If so, what?

[[8]] Then there's Sokal himself

Sokal also reports that "people have told me that this is the talk of every dinner, cocktail party, etc. I've received an incredible amount of e-mail saying the same thing. A significant amount of it is from people in the humanities and social sciences -- many of them on the left -- who have been fed up with this nonsense for years, and are thrilled that an outsider (who therefore had nothing to lose) has dared to reveal the emperor's nakedness. The Emperor's New Clothes metaphor is recurrent, and indeed I do identify with the little boy who blurts out, naively, that the king is naked."

[[9]] Barbara Ehrenreich (she's in the humanities):

No, of course not. In fact, the real fight with false science, for example sexist science, has not been fought by women throwing post modernist mush. They've been fought with reason. Scientists say that women's brains are smaller and it means we're dumb. We can answer that. But the effective response has not been to throw Lacan at them or Foucault. Now why is this happening. There are sociological explanations. They're not original to me, but the sociological kind of explanation that I've heard among academics who are critical of this trend is that there is a crisis of professionalization in the last 15 or 20 years in the teaching of English and literature in particular.

[[10]]

MarkAnthonyBoyle 09:05, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I could - but I don't tend to think that, for instance, Ehrenreich in an interview that does not even mention Sokal or the book, makes an adequate response. Phil Sandifer 13:04, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

How about this one then:

Credit for squelching this peculiar trend goes largely to one man, NYU physicist -- and it should be mentioned, leftist -- Alan Sokal. Three years ago, he submitted a parody of postmodernist thought to the postmodernist journal Social Text, which article purported to mock, in true postmodernist fashion, the silly old "dogma" that "there exists an external world," asserting instead that "physical `reality'" is just "a social and linguistic construct." The Social Text editors, thrilled to have a physicist defecting to their side, published the piece. In short order, the hoax was revealed and, to what should have been the terminal mortification of pomos everywhere, found its way into the New York Times. Then, just a few months ago, Sokal and the Belgian physicist Jean Bricmont delivered the coup de grace with their new book Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science, in which they skewer the towering prophets of French postmodernism -- including Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva and Jean Baudrillard -- for their bizarre and pompous gibberish.

[[11]]

Your line "Within the humanities, the response to Fashionable Nonsense has generally been dismissive.", as it stands, gives the impression that "the humanities" is as one in it's adherence to postmodernism and it's dismissal of this book. It was the case, (still is), that some in the humanities were, perhaps many were. It was not, (and is not), the case that the humanities 'generally' were (or are) dismissive. You could say, for example, "the response from the postmodernists was generally dismissive", or the "response from some in the humanities was generally dismissive", but, currently the line is does not adhere to NPOV. (WP:CITE) MarkAnthonyBoyle 22:49, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Then there is Barbara Epstein:

People have been bitterly divided. Some are delighted, some are enraged. One friend of mine told me that Sokal's article came up in a meeting of a left reading group that he belongs to. The discussion became polarized between impassioned supporters and equally impassioned opponents of Sokal; it nearly turned into a shouting match.... people who have expressed support for Sokal, such as Ruth Rosen (a feminist historian), Katha Pollitt (a feminist journalist), Jim Weinstein (editor of In These Times), Michael Albert (editor of Z Magazine), myself

[[12]]

Doesn't sound dismissive to me. Sounds more like a strong, passionate and lively debate. MarkAnthonyBoyle 01:05, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Ehrenreich is not 'in the humanities' - she is a journalistic non-fiction writer with an advanced degree in biology. Chomsky is not 'in the humanities'. He is a linguist. Sokal is obviously not in the humanities. Barbara Epstein, Katha Pollit, Jim Weinstein, Michael Albert - none of them are 'in the humanities'. Ruth Rosen is. Boghossian and Nagel are. The only part of the humanities that I am aware of that takes fashionable nonsense seriously at all is analytic philosophy.12.167.241.106 (talk) 01:20, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Huh. Thanks for that - I had been conflating Barbara Epstein with Barbara Herrnstein Smith and taking that critique more seriously than I should have. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:07, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Talk page cleanup

Regarding my latest edit to this talk page: I have gone through the page history and attributed unsigned and "orphaned" comments (i.e., parts of multiple-paragraph comments that have been "isolated" by intervening remarks inserted by others), changed the indenting of some comments (and in one case, the "insertion point" of a comment) when it seemed necessary to clarify the flow of the discussion, and inserted a section header at one point to replace a less-appealing horizontal rule. The only real change in content, however, was reverting a "grammar fix" that someone made to one of my own comments (I reverted it back to my original wording). So, even though it looks like a lot of changes, they are, for the most part, only cosmetic. I might be back later to actually archive a large portion of this page, since it's grown to over 100K. - dcljr (talk) 00:55, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

That's a good idea. There is a lot of "old" talk here. While it is useful, it's not particularly current. MarkAnthonyBoyle 02:40, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Pending archival

Unless anyone objects (or does it first), I plan to archive the first 13 sections of this talk page (through #Michel Callon, dated 31 October 2005) next weekend. - dcljr (talk) 06:23, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Summaries

The summaries seem to have bogged down again, leaving us with the same problem we've always had with them - they're poorly written, repetitive, and selective. Sokal and Bricmont level basically the same accusations against everybody (Unless I'm missing some subtle difference between Lacan being "gibberish" while Irigaray is "bizarre" and Kristeva is "superficial"), and the summary still does not add anything to the article that is not added by the list of theorists and the basic summary of Sokal and Bricmont's objectives. Furthermore, as the summaries generally exclude accounts of what the theorists in question are doing, they are hopelessly unclear - I know Kristeva's work well (and have in fact taken a class with her), and even I'm left puzzled by the account of what she's doing in this article. Phil Sandifer 16:34, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I do wish these complaints were being answered with something other than more poorly written summaries. The Baudrillard one is the worst yet. Phil Sandifer 13:50, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the summaries. In their current form, they were simply not useful, and did not provide a foundation that could be edited into something useful. Phil Sandifer 14:56, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

What did you want me to answer Phil? The fact that you didn't like the summaries? or the fact that you had a seminar with Kristeva?

From WP:GFCA

An article about a controversial person or group should accurately describe their views, no matter how misguided or repugnant. Remember to ask the question, "How can this controversy best be described?" It is not our job to edit Wikipedia so that it reflects our own idiosyncratic views and then defend those edits against all comers; it is our job to be fair to all sides of a controversy. Please be clear that the Wikipedia neutrality policy certainly does not state, or imply, that we must "give equal validity" to minority views in a controversy.

From WP:NPOV

The elimination of article content cannot be justified under this policy by simply labeling it "POV"

From WP:EP

Whatever you do, endeavour to preserve information. Instead of deleting, try to: rephrase correct the inaccuracy while keeping the content; move text within an article or to another article (existing or new); add more of what you think is important to make an article more balanced; request a citation by adding the {{Fact}} tag

Considering that I have done nothing other than quote and paraphrase the book, the style of writing is consistent with the book, and short of quoting the whole book, will be by nature abrupt and terse. Given that the book is important (as evidenced by your constant intervention in this article), I think the article should endeavour to outline why it is important. The way I have chosen to do that is by outlining or summarising the chapters in the book. Please don't delete all this content. It is not helpful. You are of course welcome to reword it, if you think it is difficult to read. If you continue to disruptively edit this article I think we will need to take this matter to third party comment.MarkAnthonyBoyle 22:34, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes. You have quoted and paraphrased the book. At great length. But excessive summary is not the job of Wikipedia - we routinely trim excessive synopses from fiction articles. The same should apply here - this is excessive summary. Furthermore, it's summary that has major POV problems - as you admit, your tone is consistent with the tone of the book. That's not NPOV. The encyclopedia's tone should not match that of its subject, but take a detached form. i.e., "Sokal and Bricmont claim X" instead of simply asserting X. I do not see a way to improve these summaries from their current form, and so have removed them. Phil Sandifer 23:02, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

The humanities en bloc

It is difficult to find any figures on the extent of postmodernist thought in academia. So far the best I can find is a survey of Visual Arts teachers asking what they thought were important theories to teach their students.

The surveys were mailed to attendees of the 1994 Visual Communication conference, members of the International Visual Literacy Association (IVLA), and members of the graphics division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). A total of 350 surveys were mailed and 37 usable responses were received--15 were returned as undeliverable and 10 people responded that they were not "theoretical" and didn't know how to answer the questions....Communication theory and literary studies including postmodern theories followed with six mentions.

It's not much to go on, but from this it would appear that, in the visual arts at least, in 1994, only 6 out 350 teachers thought that Postmodernism was an important thing to teach their students. That's about 1.7%. It's the only survey of numbers I can find so far, but it seems to indicate that, at least in the Visual Arts, PoMos are a very small minority. [13] MarkAnthonyBoyle 04:04, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

First of all, to assume that the remaining 313 all oppose postmodernism is not a valid inference. Second of all, the relation between undergraduate teaching and valid research interests is complex, and the statement "I do not believe that postmodernism is important to teach" is not only not equivalent, but not even related to the statemetn "I do not believe that postmodernism is important." Third of all, the visual arts are a productive, not critical field. Fourth of all, given that the survey predates the book by 4 years, why in the name of God is this relevant? Fifth of all, it is far harder to come up with a useful definition of "postmodernist thought" than it is to observe that, without exception, the top humanities departments in the US, at least, are dominated by theoretical modes of thought that depend heavily on the authors criticized by Fashionable Nonsense.

You might want to be careful there. Your agenda is showing. Phil Sandifer 04:18, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Um, what are you talking about? The survey did not assume anything of the sort you describe. It merely indicates that, in the visual arts at least, 3 years before the publication of the book (about the time of the Sokal Affair) only 1.7% of people who were asked thought that postmodernism was so important they could be bothered responding to the survey saying it was important. As I said it isn't much to go on. But can you give any studies that support your contention that "without exception, the top humanities departments in the US, at least, are dominated by theoretical modes of thought that depend heavily on the authors criticized by Fashionable Nonsense." Some numbers would be good here. I have given cited references above. You have so far provided nothing other than your own opinion. MarkAnthonyBoyle 04:33, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Here's another link: [14], I don't know much about this guy, but he seems to think that only English/Lit and History depts have any significant PoMo influence. The "humanities" that you claim are en bloc dismissive of Sokal and Bricmont include

Anthropology: there are postmodernist strains in cultural and social anthropology, none at all in physical anthropology. This, of course, has resulted in the bifurcation of Anthropology Departments at some universities. Classics: postmodernism has had little or no impact. Economics: postmodernism has had no impact. Law: postmodernism has had little impact, outside certain areas like Critical Race Theory whose impact on most other branches of law has been minimal. Postmodernism has had no impact on the mainstream of jurisprudence. Linguistics: postmodernism has had no impact. Philosophy: postmodernism has had no impact in the mainstream, some influence at the margins. Political Science: postmodernism has had some impact on political theory as practiced in Poli Sci departments, almost no impact at all on the rest of the discipline (international and comparative politics, public law, American politics, formal and rational choice theory). Psychology: postmodernism has had little or no impact. Sociology: postmodernism has had some impact in social theory, and little or no impact in the quantitative and empirical branches of the discipline, which dominate the field.

Even in the English/Lit and History depts opinion is divided. Just what do you mean when you say "humanities"? Who's agenda is showing, do you think? MarkAnthonyBoyle 06:39, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to make some comments about the assertion "without exception, the top humanities departments in the US, at least, are dominated by theoretical modes of thought that depend heavily on the authors criticized by Fashionable Nonsense." It's not even close to my realm of expertise (and I'm very sympathetic to Sokal), but I'd say this statement coincides with what I hear my friends (PhD candidates) in the humanities say. I realize that's not reliable, verifiable sources, but I did want to add my anecdotal evidence to this discussion. One of my better friends (who is pursuing his PhD in English), is quite willing to make fun of these theoretical modes of thought, but at the same time what makes them so fun to him is the very fact that they do dominate the top humanities departments. (I'm at the University of Virginia, which I believe has one of the top humanities departments.) I'll take it a step further: the very reason why Sokal and Bricmont felt it necessary to write this book is because the top humanities departments (and I wouldn't necessarily restrict it to the US) "are dominated by theoretical modes of thought that depend heavily on the authors criticized by Fashionable Nonsense." Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 12:40, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Fair comment Ben, but what I was objecting to is the characterization that "the response from the humanities was generally dismissive". Your friend is in an English department, English Lit is just a small section of "the humanities". While it might be true to say "some sections of the humanities" or "some in the humanities" or "those in English departments" or "those in Media Studies" were generally dismissive, I don't think that the claim "the humanities in general was dismissive" is supportable. I think the claims above that characterize the reaction as being "divided" are more accurate. At least that is my experience from my perch here in Australia, where it is true to say that while postmodernism had a stranglehold on some areas, it was by no means unanimous. "[There] is a significant...amount [of] people in the humanities and social sciences...who have been fed up with this nonsense for years, and are thrilled that an outsider (who therefore had nothing to lose) has dared to reveal the emperor's nakedness."[15] MarkAnthonyBoyle 13:25, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I think this is accurate too: "Many professors and other intellectuals, of all political shades, also accept this equation. Left intellectuals who object to postmodernism tend to complain in private but remain largely silent in public, largely because they have not learned to speak the postmodernist vocabulary"[16]MarkAnthonyBoyle 13:35, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, even when they have learned to speak the postmodernist vocabulary, at least one person (my friend, who I'll definitely not name) remains silent "in public" due to the fact that he's still under the system instead of above it (i.e., tenured). But yes, you're right that my assertion was mainly geared towards the English departments. As a techie, I don't really have a good grasp of the breadth of "the humanities", although I do also have some experience now in anthropology (due to a side project I'm working on). In that department, I think they don't think much about postmodernism (not as in they look down on it, but as in it doesn't really enter into their professional lives). Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 13:51, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Anthropology is also usually put under social sciences. Phil Sandifer 13:59, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Forgive my ignorance, but are "social sciences" considered part of the humanities? I.e., are you saying anthropology is part of the humanities (as I was assuming) or is not? Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 14:06, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

They're sometimes classified there, especially if one wants a binary distinction of science and not-science. But more often they're considered distinct from humanities and sciences, since they tend to be more empirically based and more invested in falsifiability than the humanities, but to still take human action instead of natural phenomenon as their field of study, unlike the sciences. I would not make any claim that postmodernism holds particular sway in the social sciences (which include anthropology, political science, sociology, psychology, and, in many definitions, history) - for one thing, postmodernism is poorly suited to empirical research. Phil Sandifer 14:57, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

How to approach this subject

Here's the issue with this book - it's, without question, an important book. But it's a book with a very uneasy place in the humanities. By its own admission, it isn't engaging the arguments of the thinkers it criticizes. And it badly misunderstands what it is the thinkers are trying to do. On the other hand, its basic claim that the use of science is not recognizable as science is absolutely correct - nobody defends, for example, the Lacan equation cited in the article as valid mathematics. But that misses the point, as Lacan isn't using it as such either.

As a result, the book is something of an echo chamber in practice - those who do not understand or who reject the basic methodological approaches of postmodernism find in it a confirmation of their views. Those who accept the basic methodological approaches of postmodernism find in it a book that curiously misses the point.

Furthermore, the book is, in its structure, a catalogue of instances where scientific concepts are used contrary to their scientific meaning. (I hesitate to call these instances errors, as they are, I think, almost all deliberate) This catalogue is connected by brilliantly written invective (My favorite remains, of Irigaray, "Cosmic rhythms, relation to the universe - what on earth is she talking about?" Though any use of the word gibberish is also good). But the catalogue doesn't really say much - in terms of how the book is structured, virtually everything the book claims is said in the first 17 pages. The rest is a hilarious list of examples. But those aren't the argument of the book, and exactly what it is they point to is more or less entirely dependant on how one takes the first 17 pages of the book - if one accepts Sokal and Bricmont's approach as a meaningful engagement with what "postmodernism" is doing then the book is a damning catalogue. If one (as most postmodernists, and, by extension, most prominant humanities scholars do) doesn't, the rest of the book is really water off a duck.

Which poses a problem when writing about the book - because in a meaningful sense, the lion's share of what the book does is in the first 17 pages. The rest is examples. For the purposes of encyclopedic coverage of the book, though, the first 17 pages are where the action is.

To my mind, sensible coverage of this book would do the following.

1. Establish the argument laid out in the first 17 pages.
2. Establish the sort of examples used - I would, here, think that Lacan is probably the best one to use. First of all, the invective against him is particularly colorful. Second of all, it's the example later used in the criticism section, and so provides a certain continuity in terms of the article's structure.
3. Establish the social impact of the book (I think here the Epstein and Dawkins are great sources - particularly the Dawkins, as it shows very well the response the book got among non-humanities people)
4. Establish the humanities response to the book (currently done in the criticism section)

Right now the vast majority of the article is spent doing #2, which does not seem to me a productive organization. And, much as I look, I am hard pressed to find a good way of revising the summary section, simply because the problem is really that it doesn't belong in the article - an article on a book like this should not simply cover every example given. To do so misses the forest for the trees. Phil Sandifer 14:40, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

These sound reasonable to me. Of course, I've never read the book. :) I do know my friend frequently talks about Lacan—in a favorable way. We've had a few debates about how poorly I think Lacan understands science. I will say this, although my friend is quite indoctrinated into the humanities, he is incredibly gifted in his understanding of the sciences as well. Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 14:50, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that captures the basic issue with Sokal and Bricmont. If you assume that what Lacan is doing is supposed to be science as such, Lacan is clearly a lunatic. Sokal and Bricmont show why this is the case very persuasively. Lacan's advocates, however, don't make that assumption. As a result, the debate in terms of S&B is more about the premise ("Lacan is doing science in some sense") than about the conclusion ("If this is science, this is nonsense.") Phil Sandifer 14:58, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I think this is the most constructive thing you have said about this article so far Phil. But first let's clear up a few things. See the article on the Humanities. "Most postmodernists, and, by extension, most prominant humanities scholars" is a somewhat biased definition. That may be how it looks from one side of The Two Cultures. And no doubt it is how it appears to postmodernists. But I think my point stands. From what I have read (and heard and seen, but that is anecdotal, and beside the point here, it's not about me, or you Phil), there are many in the humanities who don't hold that position. It may be the case that, as Ben seems to indicate, that PoMos hold a high degree of power in some departments on some campuses, (which is cause for alarm if we must keep quiet or risk our jobs) but for those who don't, the demystifying and liberating power of this book is in no small part due to the comprehensive demolition job it does on a range of "luminaries". I think it important that this information be available. It's a public interest issue, particularly for the debate around these issues. It is of particular importance for time-poor students and staff in universities, and for those, like Ben, who haven't read the book. And given the size of articles like Pokémon, Nintendo 64 and Intelligent design, I don't see why we can't have a bit of detail here. I mean, what is the problem? If it is "water off a ducks back", then just let those geese who think it worth investing the time in writing it up (like me) get on with it. See also very large articles such as Discovery Institute, Neighbours, Criticism of Wikipedia, Guns N' Roses, The Simpsons. Don't forget all the minor subpages that go with some of these. WP:PAPER MarkAnthonyBoyle 18:04, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Here's a possible compromise that both of you two might agree to: what if there's a second article created that focuses on the examples that Phil is referring to? This article would focus on the book roughly along the layout that Phil describes, mention a few examples (as Phil suggested), but in that discussion the {{main}} template refers to the secondary article for those interested in more. Thus, we focus on the primary debate about the book (I'm assuming you don't disagree with Phil's description of that premise) about whether Lacan is doing science or not, but we don't short-change our readers, either. Thoughts? (I'm really trying to work here more as a mediator than as an editor as I'm obviously quite ignorant on the book itself.) Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 18:17, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I really think both of you are not only operating in good faith, but are also trying hard to be neutral. As you mention, Mark, that can be difficult for people on one side or the other of The Two Cultures, but remember both of you suffer from that problem—it's just different sides. Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 18:20, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your efforts Ben. I appreciate your good faith in this matter. That compromise would work for me. But I can't resist one last comment. Firstly, what makes you think I am from the opposite side of the The Two Cultures? Not that it makes a skeric of difference to this debate, I have spent my entire working life in the humanities (which is why I think this book is so important). And secondly, I don't see why Harold Bishop, a character in the soap opera Neighbours, should have a longer page than a contentious and important book like Fashionable Nonsense. I mean, the entry for Neighbours, and soap opera for that matter, function like the hubs of whole internet sites in their own right. And good luck to them, but I don't see why my humble efforts have to be the subject of constant deletion and suppression? For goodness sakes Mzoli's meats has an entry as big as this one was before I started writng it. Doesn't this seem a bit odd? MarkAnthonyBoyle 01:41, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Just a faulty assumption based off of the fact that I'm from the opposite side. Your POV seemed more like mine, so I assumed your "side" was the same as mine. IMO, long articles are a bad design, and say more about poor decisions being made wrt Harold Bishop than here. I much prefer sub-articles that are more digestible. I do not prefer deleting information (although there are times when it is the obviously appropriate thing to do). Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 16:13, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Indeed - I have no problem with this article being longer, but not all content is the right content to add. I don't think the summaries add much to the article - I think they make it harder to read and harder to understand. That's not useful length. Phil Sandifer 17:17, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

How do you feel about my proposed compromise? (see above) Mark seems OK with it, do you? Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 17:19, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

If we can figure out a way to split it off that isn't a POV fork, I think it's great. Perhaps something like Summaries of Fashionable Nonsense and the thinkers it criticizes, much of a mouthful as that is. Phil Sandifer 14:49, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Archived

Having noticed no objections to my proposal to archive from almost 4 months ago, I have indeed archived the first 13 sections of discussion (plus lead section) to Talk:Fashionable Nonsense/Archive 1. - dcljr (talk) 00:35, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Arkady Plotnitsky

There are a few problems with this part of the Criticism section.

1) What other critics dispute that 'they are merely critiquing the misuse of scientific and mathematical concepts, which, as scientists, they do understand'? If there are any, at least one other should be mentioned, otherwise I suggest replacing the phrase "is disputed by critics such as Arkady Plotnitsky" with "is disputed by Arkady Plotnitsky".

2) As they are critiquing the misuse of scientific and mathematical concepts (which is subject matter they are familiar with), the phrase "they lack familiarity with the subject matter and context of the works that they criticize" should be replaced by "they lack familiarity with the context of the works that they criticise".

3) The 'second' and 'fourth' of Plotnitsky's 'four central problems', that they ignore the historical context of mathematics and science, and that they don't understand the history or philosophy of mathematics and science, are completely irrelevant, as their criticism is directed at the *misuse* of scientific and mathematical *concepts*. They are not making claims about the philosophy of mathematics, or the history of science.

That's the tip of the iceberg. It would also be helpful if citations were provided for the mathematical errors that Sokal and Bricmont supposedly made, so that these can be investigated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.179.151.39 (talk) 23:09, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't have the book handy anymore, so the details of the errors (which, to be clear, are more accurately misunderstandings - Plotnitsky's claim is that they actually misunderstand the nature of complex numbers - not that they make an adding error or some sort of mathematical error).

1) Plotnitsky does not exist in a vacuum. People agree with him. This is significant in an academic context, because the people who agree with him are not mere supporters but active participants in the same discourse. Thus people who cite Plotnitsky sympathetically are, by their nature, of equal stature and significance to him. Hence the plural - the singular would falsely imply that he was the lone significant figure to hold his view. That's just a misrepresentation of how criticism in the humanities works.

2) The works that they criticize are not scientific works - they are works from a different field, and their major subject matter is not science. The current sentence is correct.

3) That's lovely, but those remain Plotnitsky's points, and it is not for us to change them. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:49, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

In what way do they misunderstand the nature of complex numbers? A reference would allow the claim to be verified by other experts in the field. It's actually quite a serious allegation, and one that deserves special attention.

1) If active participants agree with the 'latter point' that is referenced in the first sentence, then it should be a simple matter to name at least one of them, and cite a reference. Barring some evidence to the contrary the current pluralized sentence falsely implies that he is *not* the lone significant figure to hold his view. Many critics, including me, would dispute that criticism in the humanities operates differently than in other realms of human endeavour.

2) The works that they criticize uses scientific terminology incorrectly. If those same works were to have incorrectly used the term Sarcolemma instead of, say, Imaginary number, would a cell biologist be stepping outside of his field of expertise to correct them? I think not.

3) The issue is that Plotnitsky's points are non-sequiturs, for the reasons stated above, and as such they are no more encyclopedic than a criticism that the Elephant page does not contain enough information on television repair.Tevoosare (talk) 01:57, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

As I said, I don't have the book handy, and so I can't provide a specific line reference. That said, I'm skeptical that it's as large a problem as you think it is - we're clearly referenced to the book. The claim is verifiable.

1) You are wrong. There's not much more to it. Arkady Plotnitsky is an oft-referenced major figure in the field. Given that, it is not a sensible requirement to go find a secondary source citing Plotnitsky. We can safely assume that tenured professors publishing books through major university presses have somebody in academia who agrees with them. To demand referencing for that kind of claim adds a stupid and useless layer of referencing with no useful gain.

2) Your point makes no sense. The criticism is that Sokal and Bricmont do not understand the arguments being made in the works they criticize. The fact that they understand the mathematics that is being used allegorically in the works does not mean that they understand the works, and it is not inaccurate to say that they do not understand the subject matter of the works they are critiquing. And, again, this is the critique that is made. Your disagreement with the critique is irrelevant.

3) Your argument still amounts to "I don't like Plotnitsky's argument." This is immaterial. Plotnitsky is a reliable and significant source on the subject. He explicitly criticizes Sokal and Bricmont's work. That you dislike his criticism is wholly irrelevant. Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:47, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

1) I am not asking for a secondary source citing Plotnitsky, I am asking for another primary source to validate the assertion that there are many others who dispute that Sokal and Bricmont are *not* critiquing the misuse of scientific and mathematical concepts which they understand. Such a request is not "wrong". If the view is as widespread as you claim, it should be, as I said, an extremely simple matter.

2) You are right, that is the critique that was made.

3) My disagreement isn't that I don't like Plotnitsky's criticism, it that the article contains statements which are nonsensical, the way the article is currently written. If someone familiar with his criticism can expand that section so that there exists some explanation as to how "the historical context of the use of mathematics" relates in some way to the author's deconstruction of allegories that misuse terminology and concepts with specific meanings in another field, then I will be satisfied, and the article will make a lot more sense.

The fact remains that the first two paragraphs under the criticism section are decently written, and the third is a mess. It contains many other problems. However, from the dismissive tone of your responses so far, ("You are wrong. There's not much more to it" -- given as a response to a request for a reference) I suspect that any further effort on my part would be wasted. Tevoosare (talk) 04:24, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I am, admittedly, familiar with the Plotnitsky, but the paragraph makes sense to me. As I've said, I do not still have the book, so I can't easily rewrite it. If you want to procure a copy and revise the paragraph, be my guest. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:50, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Plotnitsky's book can be found in google books. See p.146 where Plotnitsky claims that Sokal and Bricmont are wrong. I would say it is not a criticism from the viewpoint of mathematics or science. Bkl0 (talk) 17:32, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Plotnitsky's criticism is important, because he has been widely reported as having found mathematical and scientific errors in Sokal and Bricmont. And indeed, Plotnitsky makes some very precise mathematical claims, although not all of these agree with what mathematicians say on the topic. I've attempted to clarify the issue, introducing several new quotes and references. -- Radagast3 (talk) 08:54, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I understand the underlying meaning of the last paragraph's point two and four like this: Ignoring or not understanding the philosophy or historical contexts of mathematics and science, in itself explains the mistake made in criticizing Lacan's and others' use of scientific and mathematical concepts. Perhaps Plotnitsky's book does not present this causal relation as self-evident, but this paragraph seems to leave it at that. Should the paragraph include a line of thought on how Lacan's and other's use of scientific and mathematical concepts is indeed tied to a certain understanding of the philosophy and history of the use of mathematics and science? Untitled 2008 (talk) 15:30, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Edit War

Gronky has twice deleted the sentence "Cultural theorists and literary critics Andrew Milner and Jeff Browitt acknowledge the right of Sokal and Bricmont to 'defend their disciplines against what they saw as a misappropriation of key terms and concepts' by writers such as Lacan and Irigaray" in the Criticism section. I've restored this sentence (clarifying to hopefully address his/her concerns), because:

• it shows that Milner and Browitt are not just uncritical defenders of Lacan et al,
• it differentiates them from Fink and Plotnitsky, who support Lacan's appropriation of mathematical terms and concepts for his own purposes,
• it shows they are comparitively even-handed,
• it shows they concede some of Sokal and Bricmont's points,
• it lends greater weight to their two remaining criticisms.

I'm taking this to the talk page because conversations in edit summaries are a little limited. -- Radagast3 (talk) 10:30, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

seems a solid addition, with proper citation and verifiable, so it should stay. --Buridan (talk) 14:39, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

"Edit War"?! Deleting a bad sentence is just normal. Doing it a second time with explanation doesn't mean a "war" has erupted. Let's keep rational, what? I still think it's a crappy sentence, but you're clearly very in favour of it, and it's not that important to me, so let's keep it. Gronky (talk) 06:54, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Incoherencies in the criticism section

Reading that section again, it's worse than I first thought. It's actually incoherent. Another example:

he [Fink] also accuses Sokal and Bricmont of having "no idea whatsoever what Lacan is up to" Sokal and Bricmont tacitly admit as much, saying that they "readily admit that we do not always understand the rest of these authors' work"

Either this section has been edited by mulitiple people and it now needs a top-down reread to make it consistent again, or the author doesn't know what the word "tacitly" means and made errors while trying to represent the relation between two statements. This lack of logic - whatever the cause - is probably the root cause of the false final paragraph over which the "edit war" broke out:

Unlike Fink and Plotnitsky, cultural theorists and literary critics Andrew Milner and Jeff Browitt acknowledge the right of Sokal and Bricmont to "defend their disciplines..."

This is an accusation that Fink and Plotnitsky question/reject the right of Sokal and Bricmont to defend their principles. But no evidence to support this accusation is given. As well as the need to fix these two errors, I think it's a red flag that the article in general might contain other such errors and poor writing. Gronky (talk) 19:07, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

The section has indeed been written by multiple people.

But you misread that last sentence. It's not that Sokal and Bricmont are defending their principles, but that they are defending the scientific and mathematical vocabulary from what they see as misuse by other people, while Fink et al. claim the right (on behalf of Lacan et al) to use scientific and mathematical words as they wish.

In a sense, it's a debate about "ownership" of the vocabulary. -- Radagast3 (talk) 23:14, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

As to "tacit," it wasn't my word, but the American Heritage Dictionary gives the meaning "Implied by or inferred from actions or statements," which does make it an appropriate word for linking "readily admit that we do not always understand the rest of these authors' work" to "no idea whatsoever what Lacan is up to." However, a weaker phrase like "seem to admit" rather than "tacitly admit" would probably be appropriate in terms of WP:NPOV. -- Radagast3 (talk) 23:45, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for my previous tone.

I think "tacit" is wrong for two reasons. First, their statement clearly is an admission. There is a gap between their admission and the accusation, but neither "infers" nor "implies" describes that gap. Also, "admit" isn't a great word here since it wants to mean admitting to the general ignorance (and it's the word they use), but, it's been placed in a context where there's an accusation, so the more likely interpretation for the reader becomes "replying affirmatively to an accusation" (which in this case wouldn't be true since the "admission" precedes the accusation). Maybe it would be clearer if the statements were in chronological order? and replace "Sokal and Bricmont tacitly admit", giving something like:

"While in the book, Sokal and Bricmont acknowledge that they do not always understand the rest of these authors' work, Fink goes further and accuses them of having no idea whatsoever what Lacan is up to, while himself noting that even those of us who devote a lot of time and energy to deciphering Lacan's work — become infuriated with him for it at one point or another. The pertinence of this criticism is debatable since Sokal and Bricmont see their work as critiquing the misuse of scientific and mathematical concepts, which, as scientists, they do understand."

Regarding the sentence I misread, I think refactoring it would save others from making the same mistake. Something like:

While Fink and Plotnitsky question Sokal and Bricmont's right to say what definitions of scientific terms are correct, cultural theorists and literary critics Andrew Milner and Jeff Browitt acknowledge that right, seeing it as "defend[ing] their disciplines against what they saw as a misappropriation of key terms and concepts" by writers such as Lacan and Irigaray.

Are they clearer?

That's much, much clearer. Thank you. -- Radagast3 (talk) 04:27, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

On both counts. I'd never been entirely happy with "tacitly admit," but couldn't see how to reword the connection between the two phrases, which you have done very well. I've made both these changes to the article. -- Radagast3 (talk) 04:37, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what made it so complex, but the rewrite of that paragraph took me an hour! I started to regret complaining :-) Gronky (talk) 12:28, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

The article is much better as a result, though! -- Radagast3 (talk) 21:55, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Criticism Section

I think the Criticism section is very poorly done. It is too long for an article of this size. It should be about a paragraph or two (like the support section). Furthermore, I don't think that it is very objective; the tone is as if the author who wrote it was trying to convince us that the book is bad. --92.44.51.180 (talk) 14:34, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

The book is notable partly because of the criticism; I think the article has about the right amount (if anything, the "support" section should be slightly longer). A lot of discussion went into getting the right balance. -- Radagast3 (talk) 00:03, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Polarized misrepresentation & false dichotomy in “cognitive relativism, the belief that there are no objective truths but only local beliefs”.

The article acts as if there is only “objective truth” and “local beliefs”, when in fact they are both ridiculously unscientific layman interpretations of the scientific method, and therefore _both_ wrong. The latter is ridiculed as a dogma, while the former is presented like a dogma… derailing the whole discussion into the woods of fashionable nonsense itself.

The actual scientific method is based on making predictions based on reliable observation of patterns. These observations, and hence the patterns, are based on all the factors of the entity making the observations. Therefore these factors are subject to

• the Pauli exclusion principle,
• Einsteinian relativity,
• sensory bias in all its forms,
• the inherently biasing nature of the brain as a neural net, and
• that we humans get the vast majority of our assumptions of the world from other people (which we call “sources”, and then act as if putting more steps between a statement and the arguments that back it up would add to the validity, essentially employing an “argument from authority” fallacy. Example: Wikipedia itself, and why it is not allowed in scientific institutes / universities.)

This results in a complete impossibility for two entities to perceive the exact same input, and even if all current input differences were removed, different past influences would thwart the chance at getting the same output.
This has made the expectations of “objectivity” a strictly unscientific concept for more than a century now, not better than silly “belief”. The best one can achieve, is the detection of shared patterns, which have been found to have a very high reliability for pretty much everyone and every situation ever. But even the best of those have corner cases where they are wrong. (Like the problem of the standard model inside black holes or at the big bang, and the problem of relativity in some quantum physics areas.) This led to the modern conclusion, that the point of science is not the childish pseudo-scientific concepts like “OMGTOTALABSOLUTEOBJECTIVETRUTHFACTS” that are still popular with even the amateurs, but reliable usefulness.

Note how this is the opposite of both aforementioned concepts. It rejects the concept of beliefs, in favor of actual observation, AND rejects the concept of objectivity, in favor of the relative nature of reality.

But I did not expect American society to not poison such a discussion by derailing it with straw man discrediting and shifting the discussion so that all sides lie outside the actually valid range, beliefs and egomanic absolutisms (cf. “America“ forcing their degenerated “culture” down the throats of the world). It is a common pattern, found in RedPill vs SJW, Trump vs Hillary, racism vs reverse racism, murder industry vs tree huggers alias “heroes” vs enemies, etc, etc, etc.

– 87.79.177.204 (talk) 18:12, 31 July 2016 (UTC) (… prepares to be banned for going against both “sides” of the insanity that is this culture …)

Reality check

On articles about celestial objects, for instance, do we spend most of the time explaining that they might be just little holes in 'the dome'? Why do it here then? Nikolaneberemed (talk) 12:32, 11 March 2018 (UTC)