Description
Book SynopsisIn 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 res
Trade ReviewReview from previous edition If you're concerned about the role of science in making sense of our world, you need to read it. * BBC Focus, Robert Matthews *
Most scientists will be highly appreciative of and deeply fascinated by what Sokal has to say in this remarkable book. * Chemistry World *
Table of ContentsPART I: THE SOCIAL TEXT AFFAIR; PART II: SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY; PART III: SCIENCE AND CULTURE
