Making fun of other people's language is the lowest form of humor. Like Euler, Sokal did not prove anything, except that physical scientists and mathematicians are arrogant and look down on everybody else. They are also religious fanatics, for whatever religion they may have. Social science has probably lots of rubbish, but so does regular science, and in either case it is not the content that
Couldn't agree more. The amount of "noise research" in science and engineering is huge. Computer Science perhaps because of its low barriers to entry is probably among the worst as illustrated by the recent MIT prank: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4449651.stm To be fair to the CSers, the amount of esoteric math masquerading as research in ECE and Physics is not insignificant either. In that sense: 'pot meet kettle' and Sokal/Bricmont are nothing more than pompous jerks. Bricmont in perhaps a slightly-less-wellknown stunt than the "Social Text" one, published a long article essentially trashing the ideas of Ilya Prigogine: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/foda/2002/00000007/00000004/05089856;jsessionid=3apr1u93uc046.victoria In that paper he essentially insists on a narrow, nihilistic interpretation of the Second Law of thermodynamics, simply because it has not been proved to be inconsistent with "self-organization and emergent phenomena". The absurdity of the double negative eludes him completely. I'd say "self-hating Frenchman" is a very accurate description. --raghu.
