November 5, 2002
7:23 AM Subscribe
Remember the Sokal Hoax? In the mid 1990s, NYU professor Alan Sokal got a deliberately ridiculous paper in the po-mo journal Social Text, which would have embarrassed the editors if the concept of shame weren't merely a social construct.
Now it seems that turnabout is fair play. In this week's Chronicle of Higher Education, there's a fascinating article about two brothers -- they apparently got their physics PhDs by spouting nonsense, and even got their tripe published in peer-reviewed journals. (The article itself requires a subscription, but here is an account by one of the players in the drama.
Even though every scientific field has bad journals and these papers are in French, which consigned them to less well-known journals, it's still a major embarrassment for physics.
Time Cube has the answer
for nuclear waste problem.
Scientists are stupid asses,
and ignore the Time Cube.
posted by angry modem at 7:34 AM on November 5, 2002
for nuclear waste problem.
Scientists are stupid asses,
and ignore the Time Cube.
posted by angry modem at 7:34 AM on November 5, 2002
It seems to be a lot less like the Sokal affair than some people would like us to believe. The brothers deny that their article was a hoax; Sokal planned the entire thing from the beginning, then went on to publish a pretty decent book (Fashionable Nonsense) attacking various thinkers for their misuse of and failure to understand science. While this case seems to have exposed some serious flaws in the publications and degree-granting processes in physics, it doesn't seem to have been intentional.
posted by risenc at 7:57 AM on November 5, 2002
posted by risenc at 7:57 AM on November 5, 2002
So much for claims by academic science to a higher standard than those foolish pomo-heads. That last link is utterly priceless. Here's a sample from one of the articles, "Topological Origin of Inertia":
We draw from the above that whatever the orientation, the plane of oscillation of Foucault's pendulum is necessarily aligned with the initial singularity marking the origin of physical space S3, that of Euclidean space E4 (described by the family of instantons Ibeta of whatever radius beta), and, finally, that of Lorentzian space-time M4.
Baez' analysis is a hoot:
Zounds! He took that pendulum and rode it right off into hyperspace! I appreciate the fact that to someone not expert in physics, this stuff may seem no weirder than any other paper in a physics journal. He is indeed using actual physics jargon - but I assure you, it makes no sense. How in the world could the plane of oscillation of a pendulum be "aligned with the initial singularity", i.e. the big bang? The big bang did not occur anywhere in particular; it happened everywhere.
Wonder how conservative pundits who used the Sokal affair to beat up generally on pomo academia will spin this one. The explanation from the edit board of Classical and Quantum Gravity is, if I recall correctly, eerily similar to that given by Social Text:
It is not possible for the Editorial Board to consider every article submitted and so, in common with many journals, we consult among a worldwide pool of over 1000 referees asking two independent experts to review each paper. Regrettably, despite the best efforts, the refereeing process cannot be 100% effective.
Rest assured, however, that since publication, "several steps have been taken to further improve the peer review process..." Ooh - several steps, you say? Whatever. We know the academic publish-or-perish thing is often a sham, and that many, if not most, reviewers don't bother reading articles before they OK them. Stop pretending otherwise, CQG.
Btw, kudos to the mathematical physicist author of "The Bogdanov Affair." Well-researched, well-written analysis that beat the upcoming print mag articles to the punch - bravo.
which would have embarrassed the editors if the concept of shame weren't merely a social construct.
Thanks so much for this post, ptermit, but thanks especially for the above...it's the funniest bit of dry wit on the front page in ages.
posted by mediareport at 7:58 AM on November 5, 2002
We draw from the above that whatever the orientation, the plane of oscillation of Foucault's pendulum is necessarily aligned with the initial singularity marking the origin of physical space S3, that of Euclidean space E4 (described by the family of instantons Ibeta of whatever radius beta), and, finally, that of Lorentzian space-time M4.
Baez' analysis is a hoot:
Zounds! He took that pendulum and rode it right off into hyperspace! I appreciate the fact that to someone not expert in physics, this stuff may seem no weirder than any other paper in a physics journal. He is indeed using actual physics jargon - but I assure you, it makes no sense. How in the world could the plane of oscillation of a pendulum be "aligned with the initial singularity", i.e. the big bang? The big bang did not occur anywhere in particular; it happened everywhere.
Wonder how conservative pundits who used the Sokal affair to beat up generally on pomo academia will spin this one. The explanation from the edit board of Classical and Quantum Gravity is, if I recall correctly, eerily similar to that given by Social Text:
It is not possible for the Editorial Board to consider every article submitted and so, in common with many journals, we consult among a worldwide pool of over 1000 referees asking two independent experts to review each paper. Regrettably, despite the best efforts, the refereeing process cannot be 100% effective.
Rest assured, however, that since publication, "several steps have been taken to further improve the peer review process..." Ooh - several steps, you say? Whatever. We know the academic publish-or-perish thing is often a sham, and that many, if not most, reviewers don't bother reading articles before they OK them. Stop pretending otherwise, CQG.
Btw, kudos to the mathematical physicist author of "The Bogdanov Affair." Well-researched, well-written analysis that beat the upcoming print mag articles to the punch - bravo.
which would have embarrassed the editors if the concept of shame weren't merely a social construct.
Thanks so much for this post, ptermit, but thanks especially for the above...it's the funniest bit of dry wit on the front page in ages.
posted by mediareport at 7:58 AM on November 5, 2002
It seems to be a lot less like the Sokal affair than some people would like us to believe...
the damage this will do to people claiming that science can be clearly separated from bollocks is enormous, whether or not it was intentional (and you don't show that it wasn't intentional, only that the intention was not to make the spoof public; it seems quite possible that the brothers knowingly submitted completely fake theses, but didn't intend to be discovered).
this is hugely embarassing (and also hilarious). the only thing that could make it worse is if someone in the physics/maths community starts defending it as valid research (unless it is of course - if anyone still believes such distinctions are possible ;o) - i guess the pomo crowd are deserately seeking someone to do just that.
it's heartening to see that baez is involved - always struck me as sensible (and sensitive to just how this is going to be interpreted - maybe humour is the best approach).
[on preview - i second that praise for the social construct joke]
posted by andrew cooke at 8:17 AM on November 5, 2002
the damage this will do to people claiming that science can be clearly separated from bollocks is enormous, whether or not it was intentional (and you don't show that it wasn't intentional, only that the intention was not to make the spoof public; it seems quite possible that the brothers knowingly submitted completely fake theses, but didn't intend to be discovered).
this is hugely embarassing (and also hilarious). the only thing that could make it worse is if someone in the physics/maths community starts defending it as valid research (unless it is of course - if anyone still believes such distinctions are possible ;o) - i guess the pomo crowd are deserately seeking someone to do just that.
it's heartening to see that baez is involved - always struck me as sensible (and sensitive to just how this is going to be interpreted - maybe humour is the best approach).
[on preview - i second that praise for the social construct joke]
posted by andrew cooke at 8:17 AM on November 5, 2002
Parts of the theoretical physics community tolerate, if not encourage, the publication of crazy ideas - although they have their own standards for "crazy". Strong peer review standards enforce a kind of status quo that is not always desirable. Physics is not Economics, after all.
posted by Isamu Noguchi at 8:27 AM on November 5, 2002
posted by Isamu Noguchi at 8:27 AM on November 5, 2002
it doesn't seem to have been intentional.
The data is admittedly sketchy, particularly about the plagiarism suit against the brothers 11 years ago and their subsequent "frantic" attempts to get PhDs, but this seems clearly an "intentional" attempt to deceive. Again, here's Baez' take:
Indeed, nothing in any of the Bogdanov's papers suggests that they really understand N = 2 supergravity, Donaldson theory, or KMS states. I'm reasonably familiar with all these topics, and as far I can tell, all they write about them is a mishmash of superficially plausible sentences containing the right buzzwords in approximately the right order. There is no logic or cohesion to what they write.
Baez is being exceedingly generous, I think, when he raises the possibility that this is just "very poor work." Sure looks like an academic scam from here.
posted by mediareport at 8:33 AM on November 5, 2002
The data is admittedly sketchy, particularly about the plagiarism suit against the brothers 11 years ago and their subsequent "frantic" attempts to get PhDs, but this seems clearly an "intentional" attempt to deceive. Again, here's Baez' take:
Indeed, nothing in any of the Bogdanov's papers suggests that they really understand N = 2 supergravity, Donaldson theory, or KMS states. I'm reasonably familiar with all these topics, and as far I can tell, all they write about them is a mishmash of superficially plausible sentences containing the right buzzwords in approximately the right order. There is no logic or cohesion to what they write.
Baez is being exceedingly generous, I think, when he raises the possibility that this is just "very poor work." Sure looks like an academic scam from here.
posted by mediareport at 8:33 AM on November 5, 2002
mediareport: Thanks. :) I agree -- it does look like Baez is being way too kind, but I suspect he's afraid of libel, so he can't outright say it's a fraud.
andrew cooke: I think you're right; even though it's not deliberately engineered to embarrass physics, it'll do a lot of damage. This hasn't been a good year for physics, with the Schon affair, the element 118 affair, and a lower-profile case of plagiarism in Europhysics Letters. This is just the icing on the cake.
Isamu Noguchi: There's crazy and then there's nonsense. This seems to fall into the latter category. In the former, you've got people like David Deutsch with the Many-Worlds hypothesis and John Barrow with the changing-fundamental-constants idea, but these ideas are logically and mathematically consistent. Almost all physicists agree that these ideas are good contributions even if they happen to be (and probably are) wrong. This stuff, on the other hand, seems to be semi-random phrases strung together with no logical framework, or even any evidence of understanding. That's what even a minimal peer review should screen out.
posted by ptermit at 8:53 AM on November 5, 2002
andrew cooke: I think you're right; even though it's not deliberately engineered to embarrass physics, it'll do a lot of damage. This hasn't been a good year for physics, with the Schon affair, the element 118 affair, and a lower-profile case of plagiarism in Europhysics Letters. This is just the icing on the cake.
Isamu Noguchi: There's crazy and then there's nonsense. This seems to fall into the latter category. In the former, you've got people like David Deutsch with the Many-Worlds hypothesis and John Barrow with the changing-fundamental-constants idea, but these ideas are logically and mathematically consistent. Almost all physicists agree that these ideas are good contributions even if they happen to be (and probably are) wrong. This stuff, on the other hand, seems to be semi-random phrases strung together with no logical framework, or even any evidence of understanding. That's what even a minimal peer review should screen out.
posted by ptermit at 8:53 AM on November 5, 2002
Parts of the theoretical physics community tolerate, if not encourage, the publication of crazy ideas - although they have their own standards for "crazy".
So, you're saying that physics is a discipline that tolerates or even encourages crazy ideas written in impenetrable language by the French?
Man, I was never the biggest fan of pomo jargon, but this one is going to run and run. The ironies are just too irresistable.
posted by rory at 8:58 AM on November 5, 2002
So, you're saying that physics is a discipline that tolerates or even encourages crazy ideas written in impenetrable language by the French?
Man, I was never the biggest fan of pomo jargon, but this one is going to run and run. The ironies are just too irresistable.
posted by rory at 8:58 AM on November 5, 2002
Well, the brothers may have intended to deceive, but I don't think they did it to embarass the physics community (a la Sokal vis-a-vis Social Text). Simply the fact that they still defend their research sets their situation apart from the Sokal affair. At this point it may be a moot point - the damage, either way, is done, and huge. But I think it's still difficult to see it as a direct, tit-for-tat shot back at physics (not to mention that the guys behind it aren't trying to defend postmodern social theory).
posted by risenc at 9:05 AM on November 5, 2002
posted by risenc at 9:05 AM on November 5, 2002
Physics is not Economics, after all.
Ha! Tell that to all the statistical physicists who are making a run on the econ journals. Somebody posted an article a little while back by Gérard Weisbuch (I can't find the original link, sorry), who has done some interesting stuff in econ, particularly with Alan Kirman. The distinction is quite blurry, indeed.
As for the similarities between this case and the Sokal hoax: it's not a clear-cut comparison. Without further information, we can't really say that this episode is a great "embarrassment to science" or scientists. It is possible that the degrees were granted in an effort to get rid of the pesky brothers. It's not unheard of that a school will grant a degree, with the understanding that the students will not then go on to academic jobs, or some such implicit agreement. The articles may well have slipped through the referral cracks simply due to limited attention from referees. When I was in school, a professor asked me to do a referee report for him. I barely understood the paper I was to review (note: I spent the next month learning the appropriate material, I discussed my difficulties with the professor, and was able to write a competent review after some time). An important note here: the readers of CQG wrote in against the publication of the article, and the journal retracted the publication: "A number of our readers have contacted us regarding the above paper and in response we have decided to issue the following statement." Sokal announced his hoax far too early to tell if readers of Social Text would have called for his head or elected him president, though I have my suspicions. I wish he would have waited to see if the article was referenced or otherwise lauded by the pomos; that could have been fun.
Sokal showed something important beyond the failure of the referees of a particular journal. In followup articles and the book, he (and Bricmont) showed systematic obfuscation in the literature he was criticizing (see also Gross and Levitt's Higher Superstition). There is no such claim made here (yet?). But I'm sure this has been discussed to death elsewhere, so I'll leave it at that.
posted by dilettanti at 9:27 AM on November 5, 2002
Ha! Tell that to all the statistical physicists who are making a run on the econ journals. Somebody posted an article a little while back by Gérard Weisbuch (I can't find the original link, sorry), who has done some interesting stuff in econ, particularly with Alan Kirman. The distinction is quite blurry, indeed.
As for the similarities between this case and the Sokal hoax: it's not a clear-cut comparison. Without further information, we can't really say that this episode is a great "embarrassment to science" or scientists. It is possible that the degrees were granted in an effort to get rid of the pesky brothers. It's not unheard of that a school will grant a degree, with the understanding that the students will not then go on to academic jobs, or some such implicit agreement. The articles may well have slipped through the referral cracks simply due to limited attention from referees. When I was in school, a professor asked me to do a referee report for him. I barely understood the paper I was to review (note: I spent the next month learning the appropriate material, I discussed my difficulties with the professor, and was able to write a competent review after some time). An important note here: the readers of CQG wrote in against the publication of the article, and the journal retracted the publication: "A number of our readers have contacted us regarding the above paper and in response we have decided to issue the following statement." Sokal announced his hoax far too early to tell if readers of Social Text would have called for his head or elected him president, though I have my suspicions. I wish he would have waited to see if the article was referenced or otherwise lauded by the pomos; that could have been fun.
Sokal showed something important beyond the failure of the referees of a particular journal. In followup articles and the book, he (and Bricmont) showed systematic obfuscation in the literature he was criticizing (see also Gross and Levitt's Higher Superstition). There is no such claim made here (yet?). But I'm sure this has been discussed to death elsewhere, so I'll leave it at that.
posted by dilettanti at 9:27 AM on November 5, 2002
I think it's still difficult to see it as a direct, tit-for-tat shot back at physics (not to mention that the guys behind it aren't trying to defend postmodern social theory).
You miss the point, risenc. Sokal's prank suggested that pomo language is sometimes so obscure that even the editors of a pomo journal can't always tell if an article is good or bad. The current case may not have been a prank (as opposed to a hoax), but it, too, suggests that physics is sometimes so obscure that... etc.
See also: irony, postmodernist theorists' obsession with; playfulness, as evidenced in postmodern art and literature; schadenfreude, scientific community's indulgence in at expense of social theorists (1996).
posted by rory at 9:34 AM on November 5, 2002
You miss the point, risenc. Sokal's prank suggested that pomo language is sometimes so obscure that even the editors of a pomo journal can't always tell if an article is good or bad. The current case may not have been a prank (as opposed to a hoax), but it, too, suggests that physics is sometimes so obscure that... etc.
See also: irony, postmodernist theorists' obsession with; playfulness, as evidenced in postmodern art and literature; schadenfreude, scientific community's indulgence in at expense of social theorists (1996).
posted by rory at 9:34 AM on November 5, 2002
we can't really say that this episode is a great "embarrassment to science" or scientists. It is possible that the degrees were granted in an effort to get rid of the pesky brothers.
Ah. So it might just have been an embarrassment to academia as a whole. Science, yer off the hook!
posted by rory at 9:50 AM on November 5, 2002
Ah. So it might just have been an embarrassment to academia as a whole. Science, yer off the hook!
posted by rory at 9:50 AM on November 5, 2002
Oh, and ptermit: the Schon and Ninov cases are shining examples of how well the scientific community functions. Bad scientists fabricated data, and were exposed when other studies were unable to replicate their findings. This differs starkly from the literature that Sokal et al. criticized: junk like Lacan's psychological "topology" has been praised as genius rather than exposed as rubbish by leading authors in the field. It also differs from the present case. No referee is expected to replicate the experiments in a physics paper, so the data of an experiment must be taken to be reported truthfully for the purposes of publication. Referees, however, are expected to screen precisely the sort of chicanery that the Bogdanov brothers exhibited, and they failed to do so.
posted by dilettanti at 10:03 AM on November 5, 2002
posted by dilettanti at 10:03 AM on November 5, 2002
It's not like scientists themselves think all that highly of the peer review process -- no one likes writing papers, no one likes refereeing them, and no one likes revising them. I have no idea how many actually read them -- from what I gather from my friends, they'd much rather learn theories and results in lecture form than in print, and very few papers are so important that they need to be read by more than a handful of other scientists.
That is, I don't imagine it's terribly surprising or even remarkable to anyone in the field that crap like this could slip through the review process. What was distinctive about Sokal's paper wasn't that it got published, but that it was celebrated afterwards. That didn't exactly happen here.
posted by mattpfeff at 10:13 AM on November 5, 2002
That is, I don't imagine it's terribly surprising or even remarkable to anyone in the field that crap like this could slip through the review process. What was distinctive about Sokal's paper wasn't that it got published, but that it was celebrated afterwards. That didn't exactly happen here.
posted by mattpfeff at 10:13 AM on November 5, 2002
dilettanti: Yes, the element 118 affair and to a lesser extent the Schon affair show that the scientific method wins out in the end. (I think Schon wasn't caught by replicability but by a duplicated graph in two different papers.)
Nevertheless, they're both very embarrassing for the community -- they're major failures. In both cases, the failure was at the level of the research groups, not at the peer-review level, so it doesn't imply much about the peer-review system itself. However, the Kallosh plagiarism and this show that peer review is sometimes a sham, too. Anyone who reads journals knows this on some level -- once in a while you'll see a perpetual motion machine in a peer-reviewed journal -- but it's a shock to me that such egregious nonsense can get through even a preliminary screening.
posted by ptermit at 10:29 AM on November 5, 2002
Nevertheless, they're both very embarrassing for the community -- they're major failures. In both cases, the failure was at the level of the research groups, not at the peer-review level, so it doesn't imply much about the peer-review system itself. However, the Kallosh plagiarism and this show that peer review is sometimes a sham, too. Anyone who reads journals knows this on some level -- once in a while you'll see a perpetual motion machine in a peer-reviewed journal -- but it's a shock to me that such egregious nonsense can get through even a preliminary screening.
posted by ptermit at 10:29 AM on November 5, 2002
You make fair points, dilettanti; Sokal's hoax got at the heart of something larger than the mere crappiness of much academic peer review - namely, the extremes to which some lazy and/or addleheaded pomo theorists have gone.
But, see, in my academic days, I didn't meet many of the addleheaded pomo theorists. Instead, I met pomo theorists who pointed me to books critiquing the Yale School's use of Derrida, for instance. Since some of the sharpest and most open professors I met in grad school were heavily influenced by various pomo thinkers, I like to think that someone would soon have called out Sokal's article in Social Text if he'd waited it out. Has he ever explained why he didn't? Or was placing the article enough of a victory to tout?
Btw, there's a fascinating piece, The Sokal Hoax: At Whom Are We Laughing?, linked from Sokal's great resource page. Mara Beller pointedly challenges both camps by pairing Sokal's statement, "Even non-scientist readers might well wonder what in heaven's name quantum field theory has to do with psychoanalysis" with a discussion of just that kind of linkage made by some of the the great minds of quantum physics: "Pauli, in all seriousness, proceeded from quantum concepts to the idea of the unconscious, to Jungian archetypes, and even to extra sensory perception." She's also noted in a highly-praised book that the much-venerated Niels Bohr used obfuscatory techniques similar to the ones Sokal parodies - techniques she claims were too-often overlooked due to the "Bohrian myth" that surrounded him.
I'm not claiming to have the physics knowledge to sort this particular aspect out, of course. Just nosing around ptermit's most excellent post and finding lots of extremely interesting stuff.
posted by mediareport at 10:33 AM on November 5, 2002
But, see, in my academic days, I didn't meet many of the addleheaded pomo theorists. Instead, I met pomo theorists who pointed me to books critiquing the Yale School's use of Derrida, for instance. Since some of the sharpest and most open professors I met in grad school were heavily influenced by various pomo thinkers, I like to think that someone would soon have called out Sokal's article in Social Text if he'd waited it out. Has he ever explained why he didn't? Or was placing the article enough of a victory to tout?
Btw, there's a fascinating piece, The Sokal Hoax: At Whom Are We Laughing?, linked from Sokal's great resource page. Mara Beller pointedly challenges both camps by pairing Sokal's statement, "Even non-scientist readers might well wonder what in heaven's name quantum field theory has to do with psychoanalysis" with a discussion of just that kind of linkage made by some of the the great minds of quantum physics: "Pauli, in all seriousness, proceeded from quantum concepts to the idea of the unconscious, to Jungian archetypes, and even to extra sensory perception." She's also noted in a highly-praised book that the much-venerated Niels Bohr used obfuscatory techniques similar to the ones Sokal parodies - techniques she claims were too-often overlooked due to the "Bohrian myth" that surrounded him.
I'm not claiming to have the physics knowledge to sort this particular aspect out, of course. Just nosing around ptermit's most excellent post and finding lots of extremely interesting stuff.
posted by mediareport at 10:33 AM on November 5, 2002
Rory: Sokal's point wasn't simply that Social Text and other journals have poor peer review systems; he was using the prank to open up a larger debate on postmodern social theory's misuse of science - a point with no parallel in this instance.
And there's definitely a difference between obscurity in postmodern social theory and physics - as scientists on this thread would probably agree, even physicists sometimes don't sufficiently understand what's going on in other subdisciplines. Whereas Sokal's Social text is, once even a layperson sits down and sifts through the prose, pretty obviously a crock. (Plus postmodern theory is often obscure for its own sake, while physics is just very technical).
Of course it's a glaring error that these papers slipped through, but the difference between the two fields mitigates some of the impact of comparison between the Sokal and Bogdanoc "affairs."
posted by risenc at 10:39 AM on November 5, 2002
And there's definitely a difference between obscurity in postmodern social theory and physics - as scientists on this thread would probably agree, even physicists sometimes don't sufficiently understand what's going on in other subdisciplines. Whereas Sokal's Social text is, once even a layperson sits down and sifts through the prose, pretty obviously a crock. (Plus postmodern theory is often obscure for its own sake, while physics is just very technical).
Of course it's a glaring error that these papers slipped through, but the difference between the two fields mitigates some of the impact of comparison between the Sokal and Bogdanoc "affairs."
posted by risenc at 10:39 AM on November 5, 2002
I actually had Sokal as a professor for a class on Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. He was amazing, probably the best professor I've had besides my thesis advisors. He's genuinely extremely enthusiastic about science and teaching. He would jump up on desks and flail about wildly to demonstrate motion and was just everything one could want in a scientist/teacher, unlike the other wet blankets that were the physics department, who just sort of stood around, babbled incoherently, and belittled the students.
Also, mediareport, Sokal didn't wait it out because someone (I forget who) found out about the hoax and was planning on revealing it, so he let it out preemptively.
on preview: risenc, very well put. I concur.
posted by The Michael The at 10:46 AM on November 5, 2002
Also, mediareport, Sokal didn't wait it out because someone (I forget who) found out about the hoax and was planning on revealing it, so he let it out preemptively.
on preview: risenc, very well put. I concur.
posted by The Michael The at 10:46 AM on November 5, 2002
Plus postmodern theory is often obscure for its own sake, while physics is just very technical
I'm curious to read your take on the two Mara Beller links I posted, risenc; she clearly disagrees. And thanks, The Michael The, for the clarification.
posted by mediareport at 10:50 AM on November 5, 2002
I'm curious to read your take on the two Mara Beller links I posted, risenc; she clearly disagrees. And thanks, The Michael The, for the clarification.
posted by mediareport at 10:50 AM on November 5, 2002
It's not irrelevant that these brothers appear not to have intended this as a send-up of physics - in a field like semiotics, would the concept of unmasking an article as a hoax (apart from the author confessing it was meant as a spoof) even be meaningful? The most hilarious thing about the Social Text affair was one of the journal's editors suggesting that Sokal had first intended his article seriously and changed his mind later.
posted by transona5 at 11:07 AM on November 5, 2002
posted by transona5 at 11:07 AM on November 5, 2002
The strangest thing about this incident is that no concensus has yet emerged as to whether or not the papers are rubbish. Baez is certainly of this opinion, but others disagree with him. Here is the sci.physics.research thread in which discussion of the "hoax" was apparently initiated. Though most people with an opinion seem to agree that there are problems with the Bogdanovs' "impressionistic" papers, some suggest that these papers might nevertheless have some scientific value. Here is a dialog between physicist Arkadiusz Jadczyk and various people involved in the affair--including the brothers themselves--in which the brothers vigorously defend their work. This is all very strange, but I don't think it's quite the black eye for physics that it might seem to be at first.
posted by mr_roboto at 11:24 AM on November 5, 2002
posted by mr_roboto at 11:24 AM on November 5, 2002
I don't imagine it's terribly surprising or even remarkable to anyone in the field that crap like this could slip through the review process.
4 papers and 2 theses?! just "slip through"? in astronomy (which is a kind of physics these days and where my experience lies) refereeing papers may not be popular, but at an absolute minimum the paper is read and a few cursory questions/changes suggested, while a thesis defence is a pretty in-depth discussion. it's difficult to do that if the paper is nonsense.
but i've just been reading mr_roboto's link, which is very good (and disturbing) and it appears that they found no-one capable of checking the theses so maybe you're right! the whole thing stinks of incompetence - how can you have science that cannot be understood by the community?
posted by andrew cooke at 12:13 PM on November 5, 2002
4 papers and 2 theses?! just "slip through"? in astronomy (which is a kind of physics these days and where my experience lies) refereeing papers may not be popular, but at an absolute minimum the paper is read and a few cursory questions/changes suggested, while a thesis defence is a pretty in-depth discussion. it's difficult to do that if the paper is nonsense.
but i've just been reading mr_roboto's link, which is very good (and disturbing) and it appears that they found no-one capable of checking the theses so maybe you're right! the whole thing stinks of incompetence - how can you have science that cannot be understood by the community?
posted by andrew cooke at 12:13 PM on November 5, 2002
Mediareport: Well, she isn't exactly critical of physics writing as a whole, only of Bohr, et al. and the community's unwillingness to challenge him. That said, I don't think Sokal would disagree - he clearly would take issue with Bohr's haphazard mixture of science and philosophy. Moreover, Bohr's philosophical ramblings are not central to contemporary physics - whereas the critique of science, which Sokal attacks in Fashionable Nonsense, is very much an important aspect of "postmodern" theory.
posted by risenc at 12:19 PM on November 5, 2002
posted by risenc at 12:19 PM on November 5, 2002
it appears that they found no-one capable of checking the theses so maybe you're right! the whole thing stinks of incompetence - how can you have science that cannot be understood by the community?
Then it's shoddy science by the Brothers Grimm here. A basic tenet of scientific theories is that they must be testable, and therefore falsifiable. Not to say that something must be known a priori by others before one discovers it, that's impossible, but that the burden is on the brothersn (or whichever authoring physicist) to create papers and theses which are clear enough for other scientific professionals to understand and test in reproduction. They apparently did not meet this requirement, so nuts to them.
posted by The Michael The at 12:29 PM on November 5, 2002
Then it's shoddy science by the Brothers Grimm here. A basic tenet of scientific theories is that they must be testable, and therefore falsifiable. Not to say that something must be known a priori by others before one discovers it, that's impossible, but that the burden is on the brothersn (or whichever authoring physicist) to create papers and theses which are clear enough for other scientific professionals to understand and test in reproduction. They apparently did not meet this requirement, so nuts to them.
posted by The Michael The at 12:29 PM on November 5, 2002
(Returning andrew cooke's earlier second) mr_roboto, that 2nd link is marvelous. I love episodes that reveal more and more facets as you examine them. A fractal academic scandal - what a great way to avoid thinking about the looming, very depressing election results I expect to see here.
posted by mediareport at 12:36 PM on November 5, 2002
posted by mediareport at 12:36 PM on November 5, 2002
I'm not claiming to have the physics knowledge to sort this particular aspect out, of course.
mediareport, thanks for clarifying this; I'd been wondering. So does anybody here have the physics knowledge? I don't mean having taken a few college courses (I did that myself), but having enough specialized knowledge to read the texts and actually know whether they make sense. Surely it's common knowledge that science is now so balkanized that in many fields only a few specialists know what's going on or can judge the latest work in the field; this isn't a scandal, it's the inevitable result of progress. So unless someone really knows (hands?), it seems disingenuous to just quote Baez's merriment ("Zounds! He took that pendulum and rode it right off into hyperspace!") as if it proved anything. Baez is honest enough to follow that with "I appreciate the fact that to someone not expert in physics, this stuff may seem no weirder than any other paper in a physics journal"; I'm skeptical enough not to take his word for its worthlessness.
posted by languagehat at 1:48 PM on November 5, 2002
mediareport, thanks for clarifying this; I'd been wondering. So does anybody here have the physics knowledge? I don't mean having taken a few college courses (I did that myself), but having enough specialized knowledge to read the texts and actually know whether they make sense. Surely it's common knowledge that science is now so balkanized that in many fields only a few specialists know what's going on or can judge the latest work in the field; this isn't a scandal, it's the inevitable result of progress. So unless someone really knows (hands?), it seems disingenuous to just quote Baez's merriment ("Zounds! He took that pendulum and rode it right off into hyperspace!") as if it proved anything. Baez is honest enough to follow that with "I appreciate the fact that to someone not expert in physics, this stuff may seem no weirder than any other paper in a physics journal"; I'm skeptical enough not to take his word for its worthlessness.
posted by languagehat at 1:48 PM on November 5, 2002
This Chronicle link seems to work for me (via A&L Daily). It puts a different spin on things and has a lot more info.
The Sokal hoax didn't try to discredit all of literary criticism, just postmodernism, although Sokal argued that postmodernism had completely taken over literary criticism. I wonder if this will wind up discrediting certain types of theoretical physics, rather than all of physics. It's telling that they were offered a PhD in Mathematics. Theoretical physics ceases to be physics, becoming either mathematics or gibberish, when it decouples itself from making experimental predictions.
This is a charge that has been levelled at string theory by John Horgan, who calls it ironic science. He even put his money where his mouth is. Mr_roboto's brilliant link (loved the bit about the nubile groupies!) seems to suggest that the Bodganoff brothers (love that name!) were operating in the theoretical free speculation zone created by string theory.
posted by fuzz at 2:03 PM on November 5, 2002
The Sokal hoax didn't try to discredit all of literary criticism, just postmodernism, although Sokal argued that postmodernism had completely taken over literary criticism. I wonder if this will wind up discrediting certain types of theoretical physics, rather than all of physics. It's telling that they were offered a PhD in Mathematics. Theoretical physics ceases to be physics, becoming either mathematics or gibberish, when it decouples itself from making experimental predictions.
This is a charge that has been levelled at string theory by John Horgan, who calls it ironic science. He even put his money where his mouth is. Mr_roboto's brilliant link (loved the bit about the nubile groupies!) seems to suggest that the Bodganoff brothers (love that name!) were operating in the theoretical free speculation zone created by string theory.
posted by fuzz at 2:03 PM on November 5, 2002
So does anybody here have the physics knowledge?
languagehat, I think the problem is that nobody anywhere seems to have the necessary physics knowledge. To quote the brothers (from that second link I provide above):
So no one in the string group at harvard can tell if these papers are real or fraudulent. This morning told that they were frauds everyone was laughing at how obvious it is. This afternoon, told they are real professors and that this is not a fraud, everyone here says, well, maybe it is real stuff.
In fact this affair reveals something extremely preoccupying. It simply means that when a paper may be different from most of the standard literature (which precisely is the case with our publications) it might fall into the category of "hoax papers".
It's a bizarre, frustrating situation. And there's no way it's going to get sorted out on metafilter: Igor's thesis alone is 600 pages long.
fuzz: Grichka's thesis is in mathematics; Igor's is in theoretical physics.
posted by mr_roboto at 2:07 PM on November 5, 2002
languagehat, I think the problem is that nobody anywhere seems to have the necessary physics knowledge. To quote the brothers (from that second link I provide above):
So no one in the string group at harvard can tell if these papers are real or fraudulent. This morning told that they were frauds everyone was laughing at how obvious it is. This afternoon, told they are real professors and that this is not a fraud, everyone here says, well, maybe it is real stuff.
In fact this affair reveals something extremely preoccupying. It simply means that when a paper may be different from most of the standard literature (which precisely is the case with our publications) it might fall into the category of "hoax papers".
It's a bizarre, frustrating situation. And there's no way it's going to get sorted out on metafilter: Igor's thesis alone is 600 pages long.
fuzz: Grichka's thesis is in mathematics; Igor's is in theoretical physics.
posted by mr_roboto at 2:07 PM on November 5, 2002
it seems disingenuous to just quote Baez's merriment
Tiny sidenote here, but "disingenuous," languagehat? How about fascinated - and perhaps a bit too carried away by Baez' argument and relatively thoughtful tone - instead? But disingenuous generally implies some kind of serious (or playful, if you accept the "extended meaning" in the usage note) deceit.
What is it with that word, anyway?
posted by mediareport at 2:19 PM on November 5, 2002
Tiny sidenote here, but "disingenuous," languagehat? How about fascinated - and perhaps a bit too carried away by Baez' argument and relatively thoughtful tone - instead? But disingenuous generally implies some kind of serious (or playful, if you accept the "extended meaning" in the usage note) deceit.
What is it with that word, anyway?
posted by mediareport at 2:19 PM on November 5, 2002
(languagehat):
Surely it's common knowledge that science is now so balkanized that in many fields only a few specialists know what's going on or can judge the latest work in the field; this isn't a scandal, it's the inevitable result of progress.
I don't know, languagehat. Your argument seems a little, well, teleological to me. Should 'balkanization' be seen as something positive when it impedes communication like this? Or is it less a mark of progress than the result of the bureaucratizing of knowledge into elite-led sub-disciplines, each speaking a mutually-unintelligible specialized language?
posted by Sonny Jim at 3:16 PM on November 5, 2002
Surely it's common knowledge that science is now so balkanized that in many fields only a few specialists know what's going on or can judge the latest work in the field; this isn't a scandal, it's the inevitable result of progress.
I don't know, languagehat. Your argument seems a little, well, teleological to me. Should 'balkanization' be seen as something positive when it impedes communication like this? Or is it less a mark of progress than the result of the bureaucratizing of knowledge into elite-led sub-disciplines, each speaking a mutually-unintelligible specialized language?
posted by Sonny Jim at 3:16 PM on November 5, 2002
mr_roboto: I entirely agree, especially with your penultimate paragraph. Metafilter: there's no way it's going to get sorted out!
mediareport: Sorry, I didn't mean to paint you in that light. It was just my irritation at this whole pile-on, based (as far as I could see) on nothing but this guy Baez's derision -- when for all I know Baez is just a jealous rival. I'm perfectly happy to substitute your emendation.
Sonny Jim: Point taken, but I didn't say it was good, just that it was inevitable. We can argue all night about whether progress is good or bad, but in science this is what it involves. Me, I'm willing to put up with the elite-led subdisciplines if it gets me antibiotics and gorgeous pictures of outer space, but I certainly respect differences of opinion on the matter.
posted by languagehat at 6:08 PM on November 5, 2002
mediareport: Sorry, I didn't mean to paint you in that light. It was just my irritation at this whole pile-on, based (as far as I could see) on nothing but this guy Baez's derision -- when for all I know Baez is just a jealous rival. I'm perfectly happy to substitute your emendation.
Sonny Jim: Point taken, but I didn't say it was good, just that it was inevitable. We can argue all night about whether progress is good or bad, but in science this is what it involves. Me, I'm willing to put up with the elite-led subdisciplines if it gets me antibiotics and gorgeous pictures of outer space, but I certainly respect differences of opinion on the matter.
posted by languagehat at 6:08 PM on November 5, 2002
Nothing to add but kudos for a smart, fascinating thread. Thanks.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:37 PM on November 5, 2002
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:37 PM on November 5, 2002
he was using the prank to open up a larger debate on postmodern social theory's misuse of science - a point with no parallel in this instance.
That's what Sokal meant, but all his specific hoax actually demonstrated was an ability to slip a fast one past the editors - which is all that this case actually demonstrates. All the rest is argument (one made at book length, in Sokal's case). Whether or not Sokal had to fess up earlier than he wanted, he did fess up too early for his hoax to 'prove' that all postmodernists are gullible purveyors of nonsense.
I'm not defending the worst excesses of postmodern prose and tangled thought; a lot of the big French writers can be particularly irksome to read (though some of that might be a problem with translation). But a whole field of inquiry ought not be dismissed on the basis of its worst examples.
The same is true in the current case, of course.
posted by rory at 11:54 PM on November 5, 2002
That's what Sokal meant, but all his specific hoax actually demonstrated was an ability to slip a fast one past the editors - which is all that this case actually demonstrates. All the rest is argument (one made at book length, in Sokal's case). Whether or not Sokal had to fess up earlier than he wanted, he did fess up too early for his hoax to 'prove' that all postmodernists are gullible purveyors of nonsense.
I'm not defending the worst excesses of postmodern prose and tangled thought; a lot of the big French writers can be particularly irksome to read (though some of that might be a problem with translation). But a whole field of inquiry ought not be dismissed on the basis of its worst examples.
The same is true in the current case, of course.
posted by rory at 11:54 PM on November 5, 2002
The actual reviewers need to explain why they accepted the manuscripts. Maybe they did see something worthwhile in them. Probably not, though. They more likely just had a crapload of other work sitting on their desks and didn't want to spend hours (probably several, and without pay) going over crappily written papers for little-read journals. It was probably primarily a result of laziness, like we see in everywhere, not some problem specific to physics or science generally. Very lame, nevertheless.
I was shocked to read that the pair's doctoral committee relied on the mere fact that the papers were published to assess the "finer points" of their work. Lame!
Or is it less a mark of progress than the result of the bureaucratizing of knowledge into elite-led sub-disciplines, each speaking a mutually-unintelligible specialized language?
It's not necessarily a bad thing when one field's language is foreign to another's. That's more or less unavoidable. What's bad is when the language is designed (a la Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity) to be that way.
posted by shoos at 12:11 AM on November 6, 2002
I was shocked to read that the pair's doctoral committee relied on the mere fact that the papers were published to assess the "finer points" of their work. Lame!
Or is it less a mark of progress than the result of the bureaucratizing of knowledge into elite-led sub-disciplines, each speaking a mutually-unintelligible specialized language?
It's not necessarily a bad thing when one field's language is foreign to another's. That's more or less unavoidable. What's bad is when the language is designed (a la Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity) to be that way.
posted by shoos at 12:11 AM on November 6, 2002
It's not necessarily a bad thing when one field's language is foreign to another's. That's more or less unavoidable. What's bad is when the language is designed... to be that way.
Hear hear. There's no equivalence here, folks: physics writing is incomprehensible by necessity (the facts of the universe are incredibly complicated, and describing them involves arcane mathematics), and if this particular paper is junk that got through, that's an inevitable result of what is so eloquently described in shoos's first paragraph. Postmodernist/deconstructionist writing is incomprehensible by design, and Sokal's paper got through because it fit the desired template exactly. The only difference, really, between it and innumerable other similar published papers is that Sokal knew he was writing bullshit. (And yes, I have read Derrida, and even heard him lecture; he's a charming and intelligent guy in person, but he's had a disastrous effect on academic writing.)
posted by languagehat at 8:10 AM on November 6, 2002
Hear hear. There's no equivalence here, folks: physics writing is incomprehensible by necessity (the facts of the universe are incredibly complicated, and describing them involves arcane mathematics), and if this particular paper is junk that got through, that's an inevitable result of what is so eloquently described in shoos's first paragraph. Postmodernist/deconstructionist writing is incomprehensible by design, and Sokal's paper got through because it fit the desired template exactly. The only difference, really, between it and innumerable other similar published papers is that Sokal knew he was writing bullshit. (And yes, I have read Derrida, and even heard him lecture; he's a charming and intelligent guy in person, but he's had a disastrous effect on academic writing.)
posted by languagehat at 8:10 AM on November 6, 2002
Hahahahahaha! I was wondering how long it would be before the sweaty palmed paranoiac crowd shouted CONSPIRACY!
Warning: These "physicists" get there information by channeling aliens through a Ouija board.
From: http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/signs.htm
New! November 8, 2002 - The Google problem again: Those of you who have read our recent article COINTELPRO and the Speed of Light, will be aware of who John Baez is. As we described him in the earlier piece about the Bogdanov Affaire, he is one of the most active physicists on the internet. In the Speed of Light article, I pointed out that John Baez's commentary on the Bogdanov Affaire was "googled" and at the top of the search for the terms "bogdanov affair" or "bogdanovs" etc. This was on November 5.
Well, we pointed this out to several people, along with the fact that cassiopaea seems to be gradually disappearing from google, and a number of them took certain actions to "test" the idea. The Bogdanov pages were moved to other sites and submitted to google. Again, they have not appeared.
Now, this isn't because google takes its time, I don't think, because we notice that John Baez has again updated his pages about the Bogdanovs and again he has been "googled" with the update of November 7.
Those of you who haven't yet had a look at it, check out Ark's updated discussion with the Bogdanovs wherein he begins a different approach, and you will see one of the possible reasons the Bogdanovs have been targeted by what is NOW OBVIOUSLY COINTELPRO.
As I quoted from the book The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence by former high level CIA official, Victor Marchetti:
"This cult is patronized and protected by the highest level government officials in the world. It's membership is composed of those in the power centers of government, industry, commerce, finance, and labor. It manipulates individuals in areas of important public influence - including the academic world and the mass media. The Secret Cult is a global fraternity of a political aristocracy whose purpose is to further the political policies of persons or agencies unknown. It acts covertly and illegally."
And we are seeing it happen before our very eyes! We also expect that, once Cassiopaea has been effectively "removed" from web presence, that we will be removed also. We will then have no voice, and they will have the ability to do what they like. And we also begin to see why John Baez is so active on the internet, and why the internet is being used to support his "views" and to suppress ours.
I have no suggestions to the reader as to what to do about this. We already know that the juggernaut of the Bush Reich is in motion, stalking the globe. The day is coming soon, I can assure you, when the Cassiopaea website will disappear entirely. And perhaps its owners will disappear as well.
posted by metameme at 12:34 PM on November 8, 2002
Warning: These "physicists" get there information by channeling aliens through a Ouija board.
From: http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/signs.htm
New! November 8, 2002 - The Google problem again: Those of you who have read our recent article COINTELPRO and the Speed of Light, will be aware of who John Baez is. As we described him in the earlier piece about the Bogdanov Affaire, he is one of the most active physicists on the internet. In the Speed of Light article, I pointed out that John Baez's commentary on the Bogdanov Affaire was "googled" and at the top of the search for the terms "bogdanov affair" or "bogdanovs" etc. This was on November 5.
Well, we pointed this out to several people, along with the fact that cassiopaea seems to be gradually disappearing from google, and a number of them took certain actions to "test" the idea. The Bogdanov pages were moved to other sites and submitted to google. Again, they have not appeared.
Now, this isn't because google takes its time, I don't think, because we notice that John Baez has again updated his pages about the Bogdanovs and again he has been "googled" with the update of November 7.
Those of you who haven't yet had a look at it, check out Ark's updated discussion with the Bogdanovs wherein he begins a different approach, and you will see one of the possible reasons the Bogdanovs have been targeted by what is NOW OBVIOUSLY COINTELPRO.
As I quoted from the book The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence by former high level CIA official, Victor Marchetti:
"This cult is patronized and protected by the highest level government officials in the world. It's membership is composed of those in the power centers of government, industry, commerce, finance, and labor. It manipulates individuals in areas of important public influence - including the academic world and the mass media. The Secret Cult is a global fraternity of a political aristocracy whose purpose is to further the political policies of persons or agencies unknown. It acts covertly and illegally."
And we are seeing it happen before our very eyes! We also expect that, once Cassiopaea has been effectively "removed" from web presence, that we will be removed also. We will then have no voice, and they will have the ability to do what they like. And we also begin to see why John Baez is so active on the internet, and why the internet is being used to support his "views" and to suppress ours.
I have no suggestions to the reader as to what to do about this. We already know that the juggernaut of the Bush Reich is in motion, stalking the globe. The day is coming soon, I can assure you, when the Cassiopaea website will disappear entirely. And perhaps its owners will disappear as well.
posted by metameme at 12:34 PM on November 8, 2002
The New York Times also ran an article on this this past weekend. (registration required, &c., &c.)
posted by mattpfeff at 6:26 PM on November 11, 2002
posted by mattpfeff at 6:26 PM on November 11, 2002
And the sweaty palmed bag of nuts just keep pumpin' it out. These people need to get a job.
posted by metameme at 9:14 AM on November 13, 2002
posted by metameme at 9:14 AM on November 13, 2002
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There is one way, though, for physicists to measure the importance of the Bogdanovs' work. If researchers find merit in the twins' ideas, those thoughts will echo in the references of scientific papers for years to come.
Currently, a leading database of scholarly work in high-energy physics shows that the Bogdanov brothers have earned only one citation, in an unpublished manuscript written by a nonacademic. Had it not been for the rumor of a hoax, says Mr. Verbaarschot, "probably no one would have ever known about their articles."
posted by Postroad at 7:33 AM on November 5, 2002