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Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture

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It was a delightful episode. For nearly two generations, the philosophical French Pox had suffused through North American universities. "Postmodernism" created artificial new disciplines, set a still unmatched standard for obfuscation, and lambasted science whenever its practitioners found the opportunity. Being busy with other things, researchers had little time to respond with more than a sad shaking of the head. Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, physicist Alan Sokal [who?] produced an article on quantum gravity, drafted in the best elusive "pomo" style and publised it in a leading postmodernist journal, Social Text.

It was a hoax. Beautifully conceived and wonderfully executed, Sokal's article demonstrated to all what a different kind of hoax had been perpetrated on North American education. In this lively recapitulation of the episode, Sokal uses the article - with updating comments - to explain his motives and to expand on them with additional essays. The original is reprinted with Sokal's commentary on what spoofs, solopsisms, outright flattery of Socal Text's editors and purposeful scientific errors even a first-year physics student would question. Obviously, none of that mattered, since the syntax was so clearly in a form those editors cherished, the "peer reviewers" overlooked or were ignorant of, the gaffes. Besides a scientist writing for a journal long known to criticise science. He was one of their own!

Revelation of the parody in another pomo journal brought much glee to the scientific community, among others, but the project failed in one significant regard. The pomo movement did not wither away - indeed many of its adherents still occupy university chairs. "Truth" is still being equated with "belief" and objective facts are readily dismissed for unverifiable alternatives and "feelings" accepted more than data. The following essays demonstrate that illogical thinking, rejection of the scientific method did not diminish and pseudoscience is actually on the rise. In one truly frightening essay, Sokal describes the psuedoscience that is permeating the North American nursing profession. Deemed - among other terms - "Therapeutic Touch", its practioners claim certain healing skills by not "touching" at all! Although the practice was exposed by an 11-year-old girl at a science fair, classes in the technique are given in at least 80 college and university schools across North America, with an equal number of hospitals sponsoring its use.

As he notes, Sokal's original - and ongoing - aim is to protect students from falling prey to the mass of false or misleading claims about science, about the finding and use of evidence, about the evils of "credential-mongering" and to encourage critical thinking generally. He provides numerous examples, even ranging so far afield as an examination of the rise of postmodernism in India. There, the attacks on science seen in the West have expanded and intensified in Vedic Hinduism, a movement wrapped in anti-colonialist nationalism and ethno-centrism. Social commentators Meera Nanda and Vandana Shiva - oft-cited by Western relativist academics, are shown as Asian heirs to the French tradition. Both call for "alternative sciences", which remain poorly formulated.

This discussion of a religiously-based rejection of objective science is a proper lead to his final chapter, "Religion, Politics and Survival". If there is one area where "evidence" is discounted and even avoided, it is in the promulgation of religion. For Sokal, the issue goes well beyond simple personal considerations because making decisions without assessing valid information distorts how we make choices. Evidence, he argues, must come first, whether in social situations, politics or even buying an auto. "Faith", he says, "is not a rejection of reason, but the lazy acceptance of bad reasons". Using Sam Harris' "End of Faith" and Rabbi Michael Lerner's "Spirit Matters", the author closely examines the books and the questions they raise. Among these is the attitude of his countrymen at election time. "Moral values" was the highest rated reason given for making a choice in the 2004 presidential election - with the term being a code-word for opposition to abortion and gay marriage. Given that most people have no real idea what is involved in such situations, Sokal argues that decisions based on deluded sources are flawed. Ethical ideas can be assessed in secular terms and that's an idea he wishes extended.

Although this book may seem dated to the uninitiated - we don't encounter the term "postmodern" as much as we used to, the basic philosophy remains widespread. By eschewing realistic foundations for our patterns of living, we may be heading into a pre-Enlightenment version of modern society. Should anybody wish this sort of regression, they are free to try it outside a society where the powers available are kept out of harm's way. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Ever since his 1996 spoof of postmodernism appeared in "Social Text," a pretentious journal I no longer find in stores, Alan Sokal has been at pains to show that science gives us a sound basis for belief. He is well-qualified to do it. Sokal is Professor of Physics at New York University and of Mathematics at University College London. He is literate, erudite and well-informed. Certainly his views are likely to provoke splenetic responses from those who have found fame and fortune in the relatively arid realm of post-modernism and the various endeavors to extend it far beyond what it warrants. It is easy to leap from the bona fide points philosophers like Derrida and Foucault have made to silly inferences such as that there is no objective reality, as if everything we perceive is filtered through ideological lenses. The point is that we can measure things, we do get airplanes off the ground and send space probes to distant planets, and so we can believe not only in Newtonian but also Einsteinian Physics. Evolution, moreover, is now solidly supported not only by an amazing array of fossils but by the irrefutable evidence supplied by embryology and DNA.

Alas, trendy (and often shallow) social commentary overlooks or denies this, sometimes with mischievous consequences. But as Einstein said, "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible."

Part of the problem Sokal identifies and combats is that the extension of postmodern skepticism into the scientific realm has become the project of right-wing interests that have reason to be opposed to science, as in trying to deny the fact that we face serious consequences from global climate change, or seeking to promote what is known as "alternative" medicine. Sokal also takes up history and religion as areas where postmodernism has been invoked to challenge reality as an intellectual construct. His conclusions will not be warmly received by those who profit from alternative medicine any more than T.H. Huxley's efforts to debunk spiritualism were received by those who sought to exploit people's vulnerability in the face of loss. But at least since Francis Bacon, we have had the tools to begin to make the universe comprehensible. That should neither surprise nor alarm anyone. From the first time a baby sees or touches, he begins to apprehend the world around him.

This is a very fine book. Sokal is meticulous and thoroughly logical. His points are closely argued and exceedingly well documented. Further, it is a handsome volume at a reasonable price. It makes a major contribution to the ongoing debate about the usefulness and reliability of modern science. It deserves a wide readership.

I had never read anything by Alan Sokal prior to Beyond The Hoax, having only heard the name through an essay by another physicist, Steven Weinberg. But I am glad I read this book. Sokal is a brilliant man and a very good writer. Sokal's mission in Beyond The Hoax is simple: combat bad ideas from whatever source they arrive. He takes on a number of targets in this book: postmodernists, religious fundamentalists, pseudoscience advocates, fellow scientists such as Sam Harris , progressive leftists like Michael Lerner, among others. In my opinion, he succeeds (for the most part) with razor-sharp logic. This is a book that any science enthusiast will want to read.

Alan Sokal explaines in detail what goes wrong in discussions between scientist and pseudoscientist, between rational thinkers and wishful thinkers. After reading this book you will be able to keep your discussions clear of "New Age mist" and false arguments!

And also plan to devote several hours to chapter one - 92 pages containing the Hoax with its footnotes plus the annotations. It truly need to be read in one session. I recommend reading the Hoax with its footnotes, then re-reading the Hoax with the annotations, perhaps with a look back at some of Hoax's footnotes.

The rest of the book is devoted to other of Dr. Sokal's writings on - as the subtitle states - science, philosphy, and culture. Whether you agree with all his views, he is clear on his presentation. Unlike - say - Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins (I agree with their views, mostly, if not their confrontational styles).

And to the wishy-washy post modern/cultural relativism crowd? You are losers.

Sometime in the fall of 1996 a fairly well-known physics professor walked into my office in a jubilant mood and expressed relief that "Western civilization and its scientific enterprise had been saved." When asking him what he meant he answered that a physicist had managed to get a "b------t" article published in a reputable philosophical journal, and this journal represented what was the worse in philosophical discourse. The article he said was a parody of how a scientific topic (quantum gravity in this case) can be phrased in the jargon of literary criticism and its method of "deconstruction". In his opinion the author of the article did an admirable thing in exposing the ridiculous methodology that was fashionable in literary criticism at the time, and a lot of this methodology in his view had as its goal the destruction of Western science.

This anecdote is representative of many that this reviewer had experienced for quite a few years before this office visit. The cultural and "science wars" were being waged at the time, and academic physicists were confronted with a strange challenge to the status of scientific truth. This challenge deployed jargon that was very mysterious and esoteric, certainly very different than what had been known by the philosophically-inclined physicist interested in the philosophy of science. But along with the professor of the office visit, not one of these physicists had even studied any of the works of the French literary theorists. Instead they read newspaper or magazine reports that discussed the works of "deconstruction" with all the attending distortions and hyperbolae that are characteristic of the popular press. They were all in agreement though that these literary theories and "deconstruction" must be attacked in that they represented a threat to the scientific enterprise.

But do these theories represent a genuine threat, and was it necessary for the author of this book to publish this parody in order to embarrass and discredit the propagators and adherents of "deconstruction", therefore exposing the "silliness" of their positions? If one looks at the history of physics research since the 1960's to the present day, it would seem absurd to claim that "French theory" was having any effect on it at all. The construction of high energy accelerators, the discovery of the quantum Hall effect, and the study of the quark-gluon plasma all took place regardless of the writings of the French theorists. One can list hundreds of other superb research projects in physics brought to completion at the same time that the "science wars" were being fought, and physics research continues on with a vengeance, thankfully unconcerned with the objections of philosophers who are (over) zealous in "exposing" the "epistemological weaknesses" of science.

With the publishing of this book, it is apparent that the author wants to continue the dialog that he instigated when he first published his article in the journal "Social Text" twelve years ago. He and a few other highly respected physicists have felt it necessary to answer the philosophical critics of science and put forward theories of their own that give physics, if not science in general, a firm "philosophical foundation." If one is interested in the philosophy of science, the contents of this book justify the time needed for its study, and the author's background in physics gives him a unique status among philosophers of science. And in that regard he spends too much time making apologies for not being a "professional" philosopher and for writing commentary outside his field. There is no need for the author to apologize for indulging himself in philosophical rhetoric, just as there is no need for the "deconstructionists" to apologize for their polemics against science, even though their knowledge of science is extremely meager.

But one could argue that the author should apologize for the disrespect he had for the editors of the journal Social Text. Deception, sarcasm, parodies, and ridicule have no place in rational discourse, even though they may sometimes have an amusing quality to them. Progress does not take place with the use of deception, parodies, or ridicule. Humans took the first steps on the moon because of a long line of rational thinking and experimentation, not because of deception, parodies, or ridicule. The same goes for any other scientific discovery. Further, scientific discoveries have taken place without any "firm philosophical foundation" for science, and will continue to do so. Finding such a "foundation" may be interesting, and the author has some interesting thoughts on this topic in this book, but science as an activity and as a profession has and will survive without one. Indeed, scientific research and technological application have mushroomed in the last few decades, all of this happening right at the time when its "cultural enemies" ala the French theorists and gender critics were aggressively pursuing their technoreactionism.

The best way to deal with the sociological and epistemological critics of science is to ignore them and instead spend time on doing the things scientists are best at: the development and validation of new theories, many of which will result in new advances in medicine and health. The writing of long treatises that deploy sophisticated philosophical rhetoric only results in gigantic conceptual spaces that one can easily get lost in or that are predictively inert and useless. Science needs no philosophical justification. Its proof is in its pudding, and it has produced many fine flavors in its history.