Beyond the Hoax

Infobox Book
name = Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy, and Culture
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption =
author = Alan Sokal
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country =
language = English
series =
subject =
genre =
publisher = Oxford University Press
pub_date = 2008
english_pub_date =
media_type =
pages = 448
isbn = ISBN 0199239207
oclc =
preceded_by = Fashionable Nonsense
followed_by =

"Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy, and Culture" is a book by Alan Sokal detailing the history of the Sokal affair in which he submitted an article full of "nonsense" [cite web
url = http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/lingua_franca_v4/lingua_franca_v4.html
title = A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies
accessmonthday = March 5
accessyear = 2008
author = Alan D. Sokal
last = Sokal
first = Alan
authorlink = Alan Sokal
work = Lingua Franca
year = 1996
month = May] to "Social Text", a critical theory journal, and was able to get it published.

"Fashionable Nonsense"

"Beyond the Hoax" is Sokal's second book on this topic, the first being the 1997 "Fashionable Nonsense", in which Sokal and coauthor Jean Bricmont examine two related topics:

* the allegedly incompetent and pretentious usage of scientific concepts by a small group of influential philosophers and intellectuals;
* the problems of cognitive relativism, the idea that "modern science is nothing more than a 'myth', a 'narration' or a 'social construction' among many others"cite book
last = Sokal
first = Alan
authorlink = Alan Sokal
coauthors = Jean Bricmont
title = Fashionable Nonsense
publisher = Picador
date = 1998
location = New York
pages =
isbn = 0312195451] as seen in the Strong Programme in the sociology of science.

Reception

"The Times" wrote that “Sokal's essays - and his hoax - achieve their purpose of reminding us all that, in the words of the Victorian mathematician-philosopher William Kingdon Clifford, ‘It is wrong, always, everywhere and for any one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.’” [ The Book of the Week: Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture,13 March 2008, Robert Matthews on a parody with a purpose, [http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=401027&c=2] ]

Michael Shermer praised the book as “an essential text” and summarized the argument, writing that “There is progress in science, and some views really are superior to others, regardless of the color, gender, or country of origin of the scientist holding that view. Despite the fact that scientific data are "theory laden," science is truly different than art, music, religion, and other forms of human expression because it has a self-correcting mechanism built into it. If you don't catch the flaws in your theory, the slant in your bias, or the distortion in your preferences, someone else will, usually with great glee and in a public forum — for example, a competing journal! Scientists may be biased, but science itself, for all its flaws, is still the best system ever devised for understanding how the world works.” ["Fight for the Life of the Mind," by Michael Shermer, "New York Sun", May 21, 2008, [http://www.nysun.com/arts/fight-for-the-life-of-the-mind/76744/] ]

ee also

*Sokal affair
*Science wars
*pseudoscience
*Fashionable Nonsense
*Cargo cult science

References