Right, finding a single anecdote where members of a tribe that you don’t like failed is a rational way to assess the general rationality of the average member of that tribe.
Keep in mind the editors of Social Text did not believe Sokal’s article was actually sound philosophy. Not understanding it, they preferred to give it the benefit of the doubt. The only thing that Sokal was able to trick them into believing was that the article was intended to be sound philosophy.
Keep in mind the editors of Social Text did not believe Sokal’s article was actually sound philosophy. Not understanding it, they preferred to give it the benefit of the doubt.
That’s like excusing oneself from causing a car crash on the grounds of being drunk.
Keep in mind the editors of Social Text did not believe Sokal’s article was actually sound philosophy. Not understanding it, they preferred to give it the benefit of the doubt.
Sokal is a physicist, and a publication like this would have been a major embarassment inside his field. So he had no choice not to disclose the hoax before anyone else (who maybe didn’t get the joke) would have commented.
Keep in mind the editors of Social Text did not believe Sokal’s article was actually sound philosophy. Not understanding it, they preferred to give it the benefit of the doubt. The only thing that Sokal was able to trick them into believing was that the article was intended to be sound philosophy.
That’s like excusing oneself from causing a car crash on the grounds of being drunk.
In what way? Who was injured?
They are both pleading incompetence as an excuse for failure.
We only know that’s what they said afterwards.
By the same argument, we only know it was intended to be a hoax because Sokal said so afterward....
Sokal is a physicist, and a publication like this would have been a major embarassment inside his field. So he had no choice not to disclose the hoax before anyone else (who maybe didn’t get the joke) would have commented.