Social Text, Sokal--A Modest Question

[Adam J. Thornton]

I can't respond to the first question: I don't read _Social Text_.

> Secondly, just as sad as the editors saying they accepted a bad piece as 
> a peace-offering to the scientific community is Sokal having to reveal 
> his parody by saying, Look, I did a parody.  As my mom used to always 
> say, "It isn't a joke if you had to say, 'I was only joking.'"

I also think that the "well, we were trying to molllify the physicists" is
a terrible, terrible argument.  Even if one (almost wrote "you" again
there!) *is* trying to heal a disciplinary rift does not mean that a sucky
paper should get published merely because it comes from the "other side."
Crappy work is crappy work and has no business being published no matter
*who* wrote it.  And Sokal's point is well taken, I think, that if the work
is so impenetrable as to make ascertaining its crappiness impossible to the
review board, it should be the board's responsibilty to find someone who
can penetrate it before blithely slapping it on paper.  What kind of
editorial policy is "we don't know what the hell this means, so we hope our
readers like it" ?

Adam
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