Beyond the Hoax
Science, Philosophy and Culture
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- £12.99
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- £12.99
Publisher Description
In 1996, Alan Sokal, a Professor of Physics at New York University, wrote a paper for the cultural-studies journal Social Text, entitled 'Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity'. It was reviewed, accepted and published. Sokal immediately confessed that the whole article was a hoax - a cunningly worded paper designed to expose and parody the style of extreme postmodernist criticism of science. The story became front-page news around the world and triggered fierce and wide-ranging controversy.
Sokal is one of the most powerful voices in the continuing debate about the status of evidence-based knowledge. In Beyond the Hoax he turns his attention to a new set of targets - pseudo-science, religion, and misinformation in public life. 'Whether my targets are the postmodernists of the left, the fundamentalists of the right, or the muddle-headed of all political and apolitical stripes, the bottom line is that clear thinking, combined with a respect for evidence, are of the utmost importance to the survival of the human race in the twenty-first century.' The book also includes a hugely illuminating annotated text of the Hoax itself, and a reflection on the furore it provoked.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In 1996, NYU physicist Sokal published a paper entitled "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" in an academic journal. Shortly thereafter, and to great furor, Sokal reported that his paper was a parody of postmodernism. This collection of 10 essays, six of which have been previously published, expands upon the central ideas of that academic joke. Sokal demands a "respect for evidence" and attacks postmodernists, fundamentalists and "the muddle-headed of all political and apolitical stripes." The opening chapter presents the original hoax paper in its entirety, with the addition of annotations describing how he came to write it and explaining all the inside jokes. In subsequent chapters, Sokal explains how postmodernists "confuse truth with claims of truth, fact with assertions of fact, and knowledge with pretensions to knowledge," and demonstrates how pseudoscientists have adopted a similar perspective. In biting prose, he analyzes the concept of "therapeutic touch" being promoted in nursing and "Vedic science" being advanced by Hindu nationalists. Though he concludes with his weakest argument that religion is simply another form of pseudoscience Sokal consistently asks the reader to think clearly and follow the evidence, regardless of where it may lead, and for that alone he deserves respect.
