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Samir Okasha
£7.99
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Beyond the Hoax
Science, Philosophy and Culture
Alan Sokal
488 pages
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246x171mm
978-0-19-923920-7
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Hardback
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13 March 2008
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- The 'Sokal Hoax' became front-page news around the world and triggered fierce and wide-ranging controversy - 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
- '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.'
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.Readership: Beyond the Hoax will interest readers across a broad range of disciplines, from the sciences to philosophy, politics, and cultural studies. It is an intelligent and lucid analysis that will appeal to both academic as well as general readers.
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Alan Sokal, Professor of Physics at New York University and Professor of Mathematics at University College, London
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"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
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Part I: The Social Text Affair
1: Transgressing the boundaries: Towards a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity [annotated version]
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
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