Home > Sokal Affair

In 1996 Professor Sokal, a physicist at New York University, submitted a deliberately pseudoscientific paper for publication in a post-modernist academic journal of cultural studies. The paper, "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity", published in the Spring/Summer 1996 issue of Social Text, was submitted to see if an academic journal would (in Sokal's words) "publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions."

On the precise day of publication in Social Text, Sokal announced in another journal that the article had, in fact, been a hoax. This caused an academic scandal, both at Duke University (where Social Text is published) and for Sokal himself, as charges of unethical behaviour were levelled.

The article contains a number of statements that Sokal stated were "a pastiche of left-wing cant, fawning references, grandiose quotations, and outright nonsense." At one stage he asserts that "physical reality is at bottom nothing more than a social and linguistic construct," and at another he proposes that the New Age concept of the morphogenetic fieldA morphogenetic field according to biologist Rupert Sheldrake, is a biological (and potentially social) equivalent to an electromagnetic field that operates to shape the exact form of a living thing, as part of its epigenetics, and may also shape its beha actually constitutes a "cutting edge theory of quantum gravityQuantum gravity is the field of theoretical physics attempting to unify the theory of quantum mechanics, which describes three of the fundamental forces of nature, with general relativity, the theory of the fourth fundamental force: gravity. The ultimate." As further evidence of deliberate fabrications, Sokal also cited his proposition that "the axiom of equality in mathematical set theory is analogous to the homonymous concept in feministFeminism is a social theory and political movement primarily informed and motivated by the experience of women. While generally providing a critique of social relations, many proponents of feminism also focus on analyzing gender inequality and the promoti politics," in other words, that a mathematical equality such as "2 + 3 = 5" is analogous to "equality" in the statement "men and women are equal."

By his use of parody in statements like "mathematics has 'nineteenth-century liberal origins'" and "the gravitational constantThis article covers the physics of gravitation. See also gravity (disambiguation). Gravitation is the tendency of masses to move toward each other. The first mathematical formulation of the theory of gravitation was made by Sir Isaac Newton and proved ast of NewtonKneller's portrait of 1689. Sir Isaac Newton ( December 25, 1642 March 20, 1727 by the Julian calendar then in use; or January 4, 1643 March 31, 1727 by the Gregorian calendar) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and alchemis is mired in 'ineluctable historicity'", Sokal claimed to be demonstrating that some academics will gladly trade intellectual rigour for "what sounds good". He observed that the editors of Social Text "felt comfortable publishing an article on quantum physics without bothering to consult anyone knowledgeable in the subject."

In their defense, the editors of Social Text stated that they believed that the article "was the earnest attempt of a professional scientist to seek some kind of affirmation from postmodern philosophy for developments in his field" and that "its status as parody does not alter substantially our interest in the piece itself as a symptomatic document." They also described their earlier dealings with Sokal when the article was first sent in: they said the article wasn't very good and that Sokal refused to make several changes they suggested, and they only accepted it because it was of relevance to a special issue they happened to be preparing.

Many of Sokal's defenders, however, said that this was the whole point - that the journal accepted an article they knew wasn't very good simply because it flattered their preconceptions. In particular the editors clearly make this point in their own rebuttal, when they basically state that their work is so important that scientists look to it for affirmation.

Social Text also examined the controversy in the context of academic editorial policies. Most academic journals submit prospective articles to an anonymous peer-review. This review is meant to ensure quality, but some critics have argued that it has stifled creativity, inhibited diversity, and led to mediocrity. Social Text was founded in part to provide an alternative to this system, by dispensing with peer-review. They hoped that this would promote more original, less conventional research, and trusted authors of prospective articles to guarantee the academic integrity of their work. Social Text's editors held that, in this context, Sokal's work constituted a deliberate fraud and betrayal of that trust.

This defense too seems to miss the point. It seems that the article would have never been seen as a hoax unless Sokal himself told them. That is, the editors had no idea what was real and what wasn't. The possibility exists that all of the articles are non-factual (as opposed to fraudulent), and the editors themselves appear to be both unequipped to know, and uninterested in knowing.

Defenders of Social Text also argue that Sokal had great credentials as physicist, and that his physics could be expected to be accurate unless he was deliberately lying. They further note that scientific peer review does not necessarily detect fraud either, in light of the later Schön scandal.

The concluding sentences of their rebuttal, "Should non-experts have anything to say about scientific methodology and epistemology? After centuries of scientific racism, scientific sexism, and scientific domination of nature one might have thought this was a pertinent question to ask," illustrate some of the concerns which inform the postmodernist attitude.

In his own counter-rebuttal, which was rejected by the editors of Social Text, Professor Sokal stated, "Robbins and Ross guess wrong when they say I feel 'threatened' by science-studies scholars. My goal isn't to defend science from the barbarian hordes of lit crit (we'll survive just fine, thank you), but to defend the Left from a trendy segment of itself. ...There are hundreds of important political and economic issues surrounding science and technology. Sociology of science, at its best, has done much to clarify these issues. But sloppy sociology, like sloppy science, is useless or even counterproductive."

In an interview [1] with National Public Radio's All Things Considered Alan Sokal said that he was prompted to conduct his hoax (which he called an experiment) after reading .

In 1999, Alan Sokal co-authored Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science (known outside the US as Intellectual Impostures) with Jean Bricmont. The book contains a long list of extracts of writings from well-known intellectuals containing what Sokal and Bricmont allege are blatant abuses of scientific terminology. Finally, Sokal and Bricmont give a (hostile) summary of postmodernism and finish by criticizing the sociology of scientific knowledge, especially in the form of its strong program.

Although the whole affair created a serious stir at the time, it has since faded and has not led to any major shakeups in postmodernism. Postmodernists claim that although they are open to constructive criticism, Sokal lacks a basic understanding of their field, and so in their view many of his objections are incoherent and useless. His book has been criticized as revealing, they claim, Sokal's fundamental misunderstandings of their ideas. See Fashionable Nonsense for a detailed presentation of their objections.