The Social Text, Indeed

[Joe Varo]

On Thu, 23 May 1996 LARSSON at VAX1.Mankato.MSUS.EDU wrote:

> 
> I thought this item might be of interest, considering recent discussions
> here on science and its (mis)uses.
> 
> The most recent issue (46/47) of the academic journal SOCIAL TEXT is devoted
> to the issue of "science wars," in terms of critiques of (among other things)
> the presumed neutrality and objectivity of science.
> 
> The last essay in the issue, by Alan D. Sokal, is titled "Transgressing the
> Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity."
>
> [snip excerpt from Sokal essay]
> 
> Well, foax, it turns out this is an elaborate ruse by Dr. Sokal, who wrote it
> as a parody and was apparently surprised to find it accepted by SOCIAL TEXT.
> 

There is quite a debate on this "affair" going on over on alt.postmodern 
and it has been rather interesting.

Though I can appreciate the postmodernist/deconstructive point-of-view, I 
think that many people are trying to stretch it in a rather procrustean 
way to fit things it for which it is not appropriate.

I can see decon. being applied to literary texts but I get a bit 
uncomfortable when people try to deconstruct science.  Anybody else?

> 
> Chew on that as you will.  Two reservations, though:
> 
> 1) it seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to (15 pages of text, 12 more
> of footnotes, and 220 [!] citations);

I would imagine that this was part of the "joke" -- of most postmod/decon 
works which I've read, it seems that 25% or more of the text is 
footnotes, and many of those footnotes are a page long.

I would think that the quantity of footnotes is part of what lead the 
editors of SOCIAL TEXT to think the essay legitimate.

Personally, I think it was a great joke and pointed out just how 
convoluted and unintelligible some of this decon. can be....so convoluted 
that not even the practicioners can tell legitimate from a hoax.

> 
> 2) the fraud was reported briefly in this week's NEWSWEEK, which is just the
> kind of publication that would pounce on this kind of thing.  I haven't checked
> the CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it 
> mentioned there as well.
> 

Joe Varo
vjvaro at erie.net