Review article
Sokal’s Trick. The New Method of Scientific Deception and its Relevance for the Sociology of Science and Culture
Darko POLŠEK
Abstract
In the spring double issue of the journal Social Text (1996),
professor Alan Sokal, a physicist from New York University,
published an article entitled Crossing the Borders: Towards A
Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravitation.
Immediately after its publication in the journal Lingua
Franca, the author Alan Sokal announced that his article
Crossing the Borders...is a scientific fraud. The aim of
Sokal’s deception was to show the scientific incompetency of
the journal’s editorial board, i.e. of a large group of
scientists in the fields of cultural and social sciences, or even
of the sciences themselves. In this article the author discusses
the consequences which were initiated by Sokal’s scandal
and handed down to cultural and social sciences, the moral
dimensions of such conduct, the political background, the
interests of ”two cultures”. The article’s second objective is to
try to incorporate Sokal’s deception into a more general
systematization of scientific deceptions and a more
comprehensive study of sociological procedures in science. Since it is a matter of a new, unusual and so far illegitimate
procedure of criticizing scientists and certain sciences, the
author of the article deems that from now on Sokal’s
procedure should be treated as a new ”method” of criticism
and new mode of sociological study of the more immediate
scientific community’s functioning.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
20714
URI
Publication date:
1.1.1998.
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