Overview

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.

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9780199239207

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Reviews

This is as important a book as anything by Dawkins, Hitchens, Wheen...scrupulous, engaging,...entetaining. Nicholas Lezard, Saturday Guardian As a guide to and critique of some of what has gone wrong in academia and in wider culture, Sokal's book is superb. James Ladyman, The Philosophers' Magazine I have seen few better expositions of how thoughtful theoretical scientists actually build up their picture of reality. Philip Anderson, Physics World Most scientists will be highly appreciative of and deeply fascinated by what Sokal has to say in this remarkable book. Chemistry World

This is as important a book as anything by Dawkins, Hitchens, Wheen...scrupulous, engaging,...entetaining. Nicholas Lezard, Saturday Guardian As a guide to and critique of some of what has gone wrong in academia and in wider culture, Sokal's book is superb. James Ladyman, The Philosophers' Magazine I have seen few better expositions of how thoughtful theoretical scientists actually build up their picture of reality. Philip Anderson, Physics World Most scientists will be highly appreciative of and deeply fascinated by what Sokal has to say in this remarkable book. Chemistry World

Author Information

Alan Sokal is Professor of Physics at New York University and Professor of Mathematics at University College London. He is co-author with Roberto Fernandez and Juerg Froehlich of Random Walks, Critical Phenomena, and Triviality in Quantum Field Theory, and co-author with Jean Bricmont of Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science.

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