Any scientists?

I've got BSs (I love that) in Computer Science, Physics, and Math, which is a nerd trifecta. I also had minors in Electrical Engineering and Economics.

In high school, I published a couple papers in Organic Chemistry/Bio-Remediation. I also worked for a summer at Fermilab and got to work with people who were doing stuff with the big ring.

I'm currently considering going back for a doctorate in either Genomics or Nanotechnology. I'm about as nerd as they come.

So, like, does anyone here know about the Sokal Hoax?

*nervous about even asking*

That's like a mating call coming from you, isn't it?

Ha!

I am a 4th year restoration ecology student, I'm almost done i have one foot out the door

You have achieved true nerddom indeed. Few people can get three BSes, let alone the Three. Nerds will sacrifice virgin pocket protectors in your name.

I do engineering science as part of my degree.

Just so I don't feel quite so nerdy, I want it to be known that I triple-majored. I also spent more time drunkenly perfecting my Tekken, Goldeneye, and Final Fantasy VII skills than I did going to classes. And I was often able to have sex....with a girl.

OMG!!! I soooo remember this! It was perfect. We studied it in my physics and philosophy classes by some weird synchronicity.

Yeah, this was the guy who wrote a totally bogus article and it got published. hahahahahah heheheheh

edited to add...yeah, his intention was bogus in itself though I have to say. He was trying to attack the social relativism of academia with an empirical ontology. It's really interesting more for the lack of oversight in review boards. But I think his attempt failed to show any relevence to debunking the phenomena of social constructionism. Using physics to demonstrate objectiveness in language and customs isn't a fair test. But I applaud his attempt to debunk the use of parathetical science to boost the ego of New Ageisms.

I deal with these freekin' hippies all day saying "quantum" this, "quantum" that...albeit I am studying Chinese Medicine...but FOR KREIST"S SAKE...I just go off on them that they have no f***king clue what they are talking about and are simply using some kind of Deepak Chopra voodoo instead.

[Edited on Dec 02, 2003 by prnkstrss]

Pretty telling (and a bit scary) that it's been almost 24 hours and nobody's answered yet.

um...read my post above yours

I think the idea for the experiment was brilliant - I think Sokal's conclusions are all wrong. He said that it demonstrated the "decline in the standards of intellectual rigor in certain precincts of the American academic humanities." Ah, here we are, back again at the masturbatory impulse to consider one's own doctrine more rigorous than others. What the experiment really shows, to me anyway, was how lax academic journals are in the first place in taking things at face value.

Take the example of Bell Labs physicist Jan Shoen. This guy, at one point in the not so distant past, was considered one of the leading physicists at the time, and a possible contender for a future nobel prize. In just the year 2002, he published more than 90 scientific papers in the journals Science and Nature, considered by many to be the most presitigious scientific journals. Consider this - a biologist running a small to medium sized lab is extremely happy to publish 1 article in science or nature in a year. And he published 90.

And yet no one thought it was odd at all that all of this "ground breaking" new work was only being done by him, and in such a short period of time. Until eventually, people in the field tried to replicate his results, and were unable to. It was discovered that he had falsified much of his data, and he was forced to retract almost all of his publications, and was disgraced.

The lesson learned, I think, from both Schoen and Sokal is that academic journals often put publishing something flashy and interesting as a higher priority than making sure what they publish is accurate or even makes sense. I wouldn't say that it's confined to any particular discipline.

ChE

Sorry; that was a pretty sad oversight.

Now then:
I'm going to go totally out on a limb (here in SG, but nestled in the roots among many scientists, I think) and say that I believe the Sokal hoax calls the entire rationalist doctrine of the social sciences and humanities since Rousseau into question. All of it, noble savages; liberté, fraternité, egalité; The Communist Manifesto; Psychoanalysis; Kultur und Rasse; The Institute of Social Research; Psychoanalysis; Growing up in New Guinea, postmodernism; recovered memory syndrome; even my beloved libertarianism . . . all of it, billions of words, millions of essays, thousands of books . . . all of it is nothing more than a house of cards; plausible, appealing nonsense. 'Built on self-evident first principles' Don't make me ! Start with observation to learn how things really are, then build a theory from that.

haha! *snort*

~~~~~

I'm a fledgling "scientist" planning on majoring in Environmental Engineering (with a focus on renewable energy). Personally I prefer learning things like math or chemistry as opposed to biology (which I feel is just one big information glut! ) I'm horrible at memorizing facts but give me a formula any day and I'll manipulate that shit like nobody's business!

[Edited on Dec 03, 2003 by xiolablue]

hey im new to sg but im into hard sciences studying to be physicist. my main intrests/studies are in the quantum level as well as nano. i go on the gran scale of astrology and cosmology. also like to mess around with organic chemistry.