Beyond the hoax: science, philosophy and culture Sokal, Alan

By:

Sokal, Alan

Publication details: Oxford University Press 2008 New YorkDescription: xxi, 465ISBN:

9780199239207

Subject(s):

DDC classification:

501 S6B3

Summary: • The 'Sokal Hoax' became front-page news around the world and triggered fierce and wide-ranging convtroversy - for an article that was published in a cultural-studies journal was swiftly revealed by its author, Alan Sokal, to be a cunningly worded parody of extreme postmodernist criticism of science. • Sokal continues to be one of the most powerful voices in the continuing debate about the status of evidence-based knowledge • This is an intelligent and lucidly-written examination of the role of evidence and the misuse of information, spanning science, philosophy, politics and religion • The book also includes a hugely illuminating annotated text of the Hoax itself, and a reflection on the furore it provoked In 1996, Alan Sokal, a Professor of Physics at New York University, wrote a paper for the cultural-studies journal Social Text, entitled 'Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity'. It was reviewed, accepted and published. Sokal immediately confessed that the whole article was a hoax - a cunningly worded paper designed to expose and parody the style of extreme postmodernist criticism of science. The story became front-page news around the world and triggered fierce and wide-ranging controversy. Sokal is one of the most powerful voices in the continuing debate about the status of evidence-based knowledge. In Beyond the Hoax he turns his attention to a new set of targets - pseudo-science, religion, and misinformation in public life. 'Whether my targets are the postmodernists of the left, the fundamentalists of the right, or the muddle-headed of all political and apolitical stripes, the bottom line is that clear thinking, combined with a respect for evidence, are of the utmost importance to the survival of the human race in the twenty-first century.' The book also includes a hugely illuminating annotated text of the Hoax itself, and a reflection on the furore it provoked. (http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199561834.do)

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Item type	Current library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Book	Ahmedabad	Non-fiction	501 S6B3 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Available		190089

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Previous	501 S2P4 Philosophy of science: a unified approach	501 S4T2 Tainted: how philosophy of science can expose bad science	501 S6 50 philosophy of science ideas: you really need to know	501 S6B3 Beyond the hoax: science, philosophy and culture	501 S6F2 Fashionable nonsense: postmodern intellectuals' abuse of science	501 S8E6 The end of discovery	501 S8S8 The structure of scientific theories	Next

Contents:

Part I: The Social Text Affair
1: The parody, annotated
2: Transgressing the boundaries: an afterword
3: Truth, reason, objectivity, and the Left
4: Science studies: Less than meets the eye
5: what the social text affair does and does not prove
Part II: Science and Philosophy
6: Cognitive relativism in the philosophy of science
7: Defense of a modest scientific realism
Part III: Science and Culture
8: Pseudoscience and postmodernism: antagonists or fellow-travelers?
9: Religion, politics and survival
10: Epilogue: epistemology and ethics
Index

• The 'Sokal Hoax' became front-page news around the world and triggered fierce and wide-ranging convtroversy - for an article that was published in a cultural-studies journal was swiftly revealed by its author, Alan Sokal, to be a cunningly worded parody of extreme postmodernist criticism of science.
• Sokal continues to be one of the most powerful voices in the continuing debate about the status of evidence-based knowledge
• This is an intelligent and lucidly-written examination of the role of evidence and the misuse of information, spanning science, philosophy, politics and religion
• The book also includes a hugely illuminating annotated text of the Hoax itself, and a reflection on the furore it provoked
In 1996, Alan Sokal, a Professor of Physics at New York University, wrote a paper for the cultural-studies journal Social Text, entitled 'Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity'. It was reviewed, accepted and published. Sokal immediately confessed that the whole article was a hoax - a cunningly worded paper designed to expose and parody the style of extreme postmodernist criticism of science. The story became front-page news around the world and triggered fierce and wide-ranging controversy.
Sokal is one of the most powerful voices in the continuing debate about the status of evidence-based knowledge. In Beyond the Hoax he turns his attention to a new set of targets - pseudo-science, religion, and misinformation in public life. 'Whether my targets are the postmodernists of the left, the fundamentalists of the right, or the muddle-headed of all political and apolitical stripes, the bottom line is that clear thinking, combined with a respect for evidence, are of the utmost importance to the survival of the human race in the twenty-first century.' The book also includes a hugely illuminating annotated text of the Hoax itself, and a reflection on the furore it provoked.

(http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199561834.do)

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