[PEN-L:28492] Sokal (verb)

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Title: Sokal (verb)

>What's a "sokal"?<

Alan Sokal is a physicist who embarrassed the post-modernist journal SOCIAL TEXT by getting them to publish total nonsense that he'd written (about reality not being real, etc.) It seems that their editorial board simply assumed that because Sokal was a physicist and his conclusions fit their world-view (and perhaps because he cited _their_ work), the article must have been valid even though they probably didn't understand most of the article. It seems a case of the "if it's hard to read, it must be profound" phenomenon that boosted Talcott Parsons to the top of the sociology charts back in the 1950s and encourages the popularity of much mathematical economics.

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

> -----Original Message-----
> From: joanna bujes [mailto:joanna.bujes@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Thursday, July 25, 2002 10:10 AM
> To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [PEN-L:28485] Re: Re: RE: Re: Re: RE: Market correction
>
>
> At 12:52 PM 07/25/2002 -0400, you wrote:
> >everyday i hear/read pundits (financial analysts, market analysts,
> >MBAs, consultants, commentators, etc) speak forth on the stock
> >market collapse caused by the tech bubble that "we" (as they say)
> >all fell prey to. but iirc it was they that created the bubble
> >and assured us that it was justified. why is it that we continue
> >to listen to them correcting themselves, all the while maintaining
> >their expert demeanour and certainty of belief?
> >
> >cannot one of you experts do a sokal on these people?
>
> What's a "sokal"?
>
> It is the job of experts to be experts...even, or particularly when,
> they're wrong. What must continue is the belief that the
> people who run
> things know what they're doing (even when they don't) and
> that we must
> continue to follow.
>
> On the other hand, things might be getting interesting. I
> should start
> watching some T.V.
>
> Joanna
>