When physicist Alan Sokal revealed that his 1996 article, "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity," ...
read full description
reviews
Oct 04, 2008
David
rated it: 
In this work, Sokal provides a very detailed annotation to his 1996 spoof "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity". This article was chock-full of scientific absurdities and approving quotes of utter nonsense from leading science studies scholars. Yet it was accepted and appeared in a special issue of a leading postmodern journal. Sokal's annotations, which appear here for the first time in print, reveal in jaw-dropping detail the dept
More...
7 comments
like
(6 people liked it)
Jul 02, 2011
Ugh
rated it: 
The blurb doesn't give much away, so I'll fill you in on the content as I go along:
Chapter 1 (60-odd pages plus bibliography) is a reproduction of Sokal's 1996 publication in social science journal 'Social Text', which he later revealed to be deliberately composed of ambiguity, misused terms, and quotes of what Sokal considered to poor science or else total nonsense. The reproduction is also accompanied by commentary from Sokal in the form of annotations. That means your attention is d More...
Chapter 1 (60-odd pages plus bibliography) is a reproduction of Sokal's 1996 publication in social science journal 'Social Text', which he later revealed to be deliberately composed of ambiguity, misused terms, and quotes of what Sokal considered to poor science or else total nonsense. The reproduction is also accompanied by commentary from Sokal in the form of annotations. That means your attention is d More...
Jun 17, 2010
David
rated it: 
This book is about postmodern relativism, pseudoscience, "alternative" medicine (like homeopathy), and religion. As one of my housemates pointed out to me, it's everything I hate, in one book!
Which made me think. Indeed, everything that truly irritates me intellectually is linked, by a blatant, even belligerent, disregard for reality, rationalism, and empiricism. And that's what irritates Sokal, too. And people who say science is a limited white male way of thinking, which More...
Which made me think. Indeed, everything that truly irritates me intellectually is linked, by a blatant, even belligerent, disregard for reality, rationalism, and empiricism. And that's what irritates Sokal, too. And people who say science is a limited white male way of thinking, which More...
Dec 08, 2009
Fiona
rated it:
The only aspect of the Sokal Hoax I was aware of before I read this book was that the hoax article Sokal wrote about physics was submitted to a publication that did not subject articles to peer review. This seemed to me to make the hoax not quite as damning for the social sciences as opponents of poststructuralism and postmodernism claimed, since it was really more embarassing for the editors of the journal than the entire academic field of the cultural analysis of science.
I found So More...
I found So More...
Dec 02, 2008
John
rated it: 
Alan Sokal is best known in the academic world for his overly-clever hoax. In 1996 he published an essay in Social Text, a postmodern journal, full of ridiculous "postmodernist" statements about quantum physics. His goal was to make fun of literary and cultural critics who had been taking on the scientific establishment by questioning its methods of seeking truth. The postmodernist perspective (actually, to be fair, one perspective), in a crude nutshell, is that truth and knowledge are
More...
2 comments
like
(2 people liked it)
Sep 04, 2010
John
rated it:
Excellent critique of the overreaching of deconstructionist social theory -- which I am sympathetic to, in general.
Aug 18, 2008
Oh I want this...
Damn post-modernists.. Between them and the positivists, and the 'let's make everything science" crowd, they pretty much ruined the Academy.
Damn post-modernists.. Between them and the positivists, and the 'let's make everything science" crowd, they pretty much ruined the Academy.
Jan 29, 2012
Jan 18, 2012
Jan 11, 2012
Dec 31, 2011
Dec 28, 2011
Dec 28, 2011
Dec 12, 2011
Nov 20, 2011
Nov 14, 2011
Nov 10, 2011
Nov 02, 2011
Oct 29, 2011
Oct 24, 2011
Oct 19, 2011
Oct 17, 2011
Oct 07, 2011
Sep 19, 2011
Sep 07, 2011
Sep 03, 2011
Aug 23, 2011
