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the complete review - philosophy / science

Beyond the Hoax

by
Alan Sokal

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

A- : solid arguments, all very well presented

See our review for fuller assessment.

  From the Reviews:

• "So I hope that despite its format -- you need two hands, or a flat surface, to read this book -- this book sells by the lorryload. It's scrupulous, engaging and, at times, surprisingly generous to the people he has fooled." - Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian
  
  
• "The golden nugget within this longish book -- worth the price of admission by itself -- is the annotated parody. (...) Beyond the Hoax is an essential text for anyone interested in the history and philosophy of science, or for that matter science itself." - Michael Shermer, The New York Sun
  
  
• "Most of these essays first appeared in the late 1990s, but all have been updated, expanded or published for the first time, making them a valuable contribution to the ongoing debate over subjectivism in all its manifestations. (...) Perhaps the biggest problem with this collection is that it fails to reflect the fact that Sokal's concerns are now widely shared -- and that progress is being made in addressing them, the emergence of evidence-based social policy being an obvious example. His critique would also gain more credibility from encompassing his own community: the failure of scientific institutions to address the abuse of statistical methods or promote systematic reviews is no less of a threat to progress than the ramblings of postmodernists or fundamentalists." - Robert Matthews, Times Higher Education

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       In Beyond the Hoax Alan Sokal again returns to the notorious parody that started it all, Transgressing the boundaries: Toward a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity, first published in Social Text (Spring/Summer, 1996). In Fashionable Nonsense (UK title: Intellectual Impostures) he, along with Jean Bricmont, had already dissected the piece (and the unfortunately very convincing nonsense it contained) and the sad state of affairs that made its publication possible, while the collection about The Sokal Hoax gave a very useful overview of the ensuing controversy and discussions. What need then for another volume ?
       For one, Transgressing the boundaries is not merely once again printed in all its shudder-inducing glory, but comes fully annotated, Sokal explaining and commenting on the text and where he came up with his examples (and why they are nonsense). Here, then, is the now definitive version of that piece.
       The rest of the book is a collection of essays, grouped into three parts, devoted to: 'The Social Text Affair', 'Science and Philosophy', and 'Science and Culture'. Several of the other pieces have been available elsewhere, but they (often updated), along with the previously unpublished essays, make for a relatively coherent collection.
       What Sokal offers is a defense of good old-fashioned science and arguments against much relativism (specifically cognitive relativism). There are scientific truths for him, and tolerating alternative explanations that aren't provable is something he thinks serves no purpose -- indeed is harmful. He's also particularly annoyed by the sort of 'sloppy thinking' that is widely tolerated -- and which his parody is full of.
       One of the things that concerns Sokal is:

that relativism and radical social constructivism have become hegemonic in vast areas of the humanities, anthropology and sociology of science (among other fields). In many intellectual circles nowadays, it is simply taken for granted that all facts are "socially constructed", scientific theories are mere "myths" or "narrations", scientific debates are resolved by "rhetoric" and "enlisting allies", and truth is a synonym for intersubjective agreement.

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Links:

• Oxford University Press publicity page
• The Science Wars Redux by Michael Bérubé in Democracy

• American Scientist
• The New Republic (at The Australian)
• The Guardian
• The New York Sun
• Physics World
• Times Higher Education

• Fashionable Nonsense, with Jean Bricmont (UK title: Intellectual Impostures)

• The Sokal Hoax, edited by the editors of Lingua Franca. Includes the notorious article, and many responses to it. An essential companion piece
• Ian Hacking ponders The Social Construction of What ?
• Sam Harris' The End of Faith
• James Robert Brown's opinionated guide to the wars, Who Rules in Science ?
• Francis Wheen's How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World (US title: Idiot Proof)
• Frederick Crews' critical parody, Postmodern Pooh
• Michael Ruse examines the Mystery of Mysteries, asking Is Evolution a Social Construction ?
• Theodore Roszak posits The Gendered Atom

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About the Authors:

       Alan Sokal was born in 1955 and is a professor of physics at NYU.

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© 2008-2011 the complete review

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