Letter #17

NOTE: The author of the article below is neither an Objectivist nor affiliated with the Penn State Objectivist Club. We include this article here (with the author's permission) because of its interest and relevance with respect to P$OC's campaign against postmodernism and multiculturalism.

The following article was published in the Centre Daily Times, newspaper of State College, Pennsylvania, on May 14, 1996.

PILTDOWN MAN WANDERS HALLS

Something of great importance has happened in the world of human thought. It is not one of the grand positive achievements like Aristotle's philosophy, Einstein's relativity, or Fleming's discovery of penicillin. Rather it is the clean unmasking of an intellectual hoax comparable to the revelation that the Piltdown Man, a skull found in 1911 and believed at the time to be possibly half a million years old, was, in fact, a fake.

What follows is clear proof that the postmodernist, deconstructionist, feminist project called "Science Studies" is intellectually vacuous. The facts are these. Alan Sokal, a physicist at New York University, wrote an article on Science Studies with the pretentious (and meaningless) title: "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity."

Of his article, Sokal says: "Like the genre it is meant to satirize, this article is a melange of truths, half-truths, falsehoods, non sequiturs, and syntactically correct sentences that have no meaning whatsoever."

He submitted his hilarious article without mentioning that "any competent physicist or mathematician (or undergraduate physics or math major) would realize it was a spoof." It was not only taken seriously and accepted by Social Text, a journal respected in the postmodernist world, but was deemed sufficiently important to be included in its spring/summer 1996 issue devoted entirely to "Science Wars." The same issue includes articles from such feminist and postmodernist heavy hitters as Sandra Harding and Stanley Aronowitz.

The World Wide Web site announcement of this issue of Social Text tells us that "Science Wars" argues persuasively for greater public accountability while providing explanations for the emergence of popular alternatives to establishment science. This controversial and insightful study will be of interest to all those engaged both in and with the sciences and to those involved in the revaluation of the arts and sciences within and outside the academy."

That last sentence is, ironically, almost prophetic. Can an academic subject be taken seriously when editors of a major journal cannot tell the difference between a genuine scholarly article and an outrageous joke?

Listen to Sokal's description of his Social Text article, which he revealed in the current issue of Lingua Franca: "In the second paragraph I declare without the slightest evidence or argument that 'physical reality' ... is at bottom a social and linguistic construct.' Not our theories of physical reality, mind you, but the reality itself. Fair enough. Anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the windows of my apartment (I live on the twenty-first floor)."

Subsequently he boils down his criticism of the absurdity and vacuity of Science Studies with the beautifully succinct comment: "Intellectually, the problem with such doctrines is that they are false (when not simply meaningless). There is a real world; its properties are not merely social conventions; facts and evidence do matter. What sane person would contend otherwise? And yet, much contemporary academic theorizing consists precisely of attempts to blur these obvious truths -- the utter absurdity of it all being concealed through obscure and pretentious language." Until now, Science Studies have closely resembled the giant squid; when threatened, it emits an impenetrable cloud of ink. The inevitable attempts to explain away Sokal's accomplishment should be a sight to behold. It must be stressed that it is both important and difficult to undo the damage done by the science studies movement. The reason that empty nonsense has been successfully introduced lies with the cleverness of its perpetrators. All decent people are concerned with the various inequities in our society and are anxious for improvement. Almost all the postmodernist-feminist-deconstructionist writing exudes strident concern about equity issues. Their chip-on-the-shoulder attitude has scared away numerous critics that if they shout "The emperor has no clothes!" they will be accused of discriminating against the sartorially challenged.

Thank you, Alan Sokal! You have done an immense good for the life of the mind. And you have left us with important questions:

-- George Andrews

Evan Pugh Professor of Mathematics

Pennsylvania State University