Once More With Feeling

[bryant]

Oh, look. Randall Monroe decided to be a geek asshole today.

Alan Sokal's literary criticism hoax is funny and all that stuff. However, it's hardly a problem unique to literary criticism, as demonstrated by the Bodganov brothers. Apparently the physics community is vulnerable to that sort of thing as well. Who'd have guessed?

The discussion thread is pretty good.

Comments

[eyelessgame.livejournal.com]

Well, I'd say a difference is in the response of the communities. Sokal provoked defensiveness and blame from the litcrit community. The Bogdanovs have, to my reading of the event (I hadn't heard of them, and it certainly seems like newspaper-fairness-disease to equate the two) provoked some review and discussion of the peer-review system.

[bryant]

Yeah. I actually don't have a lot of interest in talking to someone who goes right for the disease metaphor when I disagree with them. Sorry.