The Sokal Hoax

The Social Text was an academic journal that became a part of what became known as “The Sokal Hoax” in the 1980’s. Social Text catered to the academic elite, featuring articles about controversial issues, written by intellectuals. It had limited readers but thanks to editor Andrew Ross, “who cultivated an image as a kind of hip, radical, intellectual celebrity,” it had a prominent reputation. This reputation was shattered by Alan Sokal. A professor of physics at New York University, Sokal fit the intellectual type that could author an article in Social Text. He presented an article full of footnotes and complicated language, arguing that, “the traditional concept of gravity was just a capitalist fiction that would be made irrelevant by the socialist/feminist/relativist theory of 'quantum gravity.” This concept is confusing to the average person but according to Sokal, any professional, or any undergraduate math or science major for that matter would have easily recognized that his article was jibberish. However it ran in Social Text, and the same the spring issue was printed, Sokal wrote a letter in the academic trade publication Linguna Franca, “revealing that his article was intended as a parody.” Social Text, and its elite readers, looked ridiculous and the story gained publicity across the nation. There was controversy in the American university system at this time as Humanities departments grew more liberal and the sciences became more conservative. Sokal was in a study of these “Science Wars,” when he ran his article. The Hoax drew attention to the changing departments and Sokal certainly left the situation with the last laugh.

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/sokal.html