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In an effort to show how politically correct nonsense and evil (but I repeat myself) can get through academic peer review and be published, some academics did just that with seven papers. More are partly through the process.
A particularly funny and horrifying case is the Gender Studies journal Affilia. Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf only needed to be translated with wording in the typical style of intersectionality theory, and it passed muster.
Another published paper, considered exemplary scholarship by the journal that published it, contains this whopper: "Dog parks are microcosms where hegemonic masculinist norms governing queering behavior and compulsory heterosexuality can be observed in a cross-species environment."
The Grievance Studies Scandal: Five Academics Respond
Now, three academics have submitted twenty spoof manuscripts to journals chosen for respectability in their various disciplines. Seven papers were accepted before the experiment stopped; more are surviving peer review. This new raid on screamingly barmy pseudo-scholarship is the Alan Sokal Opening, weaponised. Like dedicated traceurs in a Parkour-fest, the trio scrambled over the terrain of what they call Grievance Studies. And they dropped fire-crackers. One published paper proposed that dog parks are "rape-condoning spaces." Another, entitled "Our Struggle is My Struggle: Solidarity Feminism as an Intersectional Reply to Neoliberal and Choice Feminism" reworked, and substantially altered, part of Mein Kampf. The most shocking, (not published, its status is "revise and resubmit") is a "Feminist Approach to Pedagogy." It proposes "experiential reparations" as a corrective for privileged students. These include sitting on the floor, wearing chains, or being purposely spoken over. Reviewers have commented that the authors risk exploiting underprivileged students by burdening them with an expectation to teach about privilege.
Also at WSJ.
Related: Publishing Stings Find Shoddy Peer Review
Absurd Paper Accepted by Open-Access Computer Science Journal
Media World Fooled with Bogus Chocolate Diet Story
(Score: 0, Troll) by aristarchus on Thursday October 04 2018, @07:29AM (34 children)
I, for one, have had enough of ignorant and incompetent academics sticking their nose into things they do not understand to make some political point about how smart people are biased against conservatives! Of course they are! They are "smart people", and conservatives, by definition, can only stick to the ways of their forefathers because they are not capable of comprehending the same, not rationally criticizing traditional practice, and what follows from these two, proposing any changes the might be better than the traditional past. Sokal produced a passable undergraduate paper on post-modernism, but he did not understand it, since he was only mimicking patterns, which after all, is what conservatives do. So take this political bullshit, and get off of my philosophical lawn, SoylentNews eds. You embarass me, and all intelligent Soylentils.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by qzm on Thursday October 04 2018, @07:55AM (3 children)
I am pleased you understand that you are an entity seperate from all intelligent soylentils, however you are incorrect in assuming it is more than you that this embarrasses.
Casting a bright light on the filth that such areas of academia have become is worthy of all possible support.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 04 2018, @08:06AM (2 children)
It is all too common for people to be divided by superficial qualities such as class or race. The poor congregate and struggle to attain food and shelter. The vanishing middle class faces a heavy tax burden and a dying job market, often blaming the poor for their issues. The various races squabble among one another at the behest of the elites. And the rich live lavishly, largely insulated from the troubles of the rest of society. Yet, despite all of this, a situation has arisen that threatens to demolish all of these barriers.
There were three children. The first was Sally, a little white girl born into an affluent family where all of her desires were met. Second, there was Benjamin; he was an African American boy who grew up in an inner city area known for poverty and crime. The third and final child was Young, who was born into a strict, abusive middle class family on the verge of collapse. These children all had vastly different backgrounds, to the point where you would never expect them to interact in any significant way. However, that was wrong.
These children shared one huge commonality, which was important enough to unite them all together. Just what brought these children together? No, a better question would be, 'Who brought these children together?' The answer to that question was the man standing near them.
His name was Jefferham. Jefferham strongly believed in unity. In fact, no one was more firm in their support of unifying the world and all of its people than Jefferham. This great man worked tirelessly to destroy the barriers that separated the various classes, races, and genders. It was he who unified these children. It was he who brought them together. And he did so by forcibly violating them.
Unity. Those children stood united by the fact that their pleas for mercy were ignored by Jefferham! They stood united by the sheer soul-crushing terror they felt whenever Jefferham turned his lustful gaze towards them! They stood united by the fact that they could die at any second if they dared to incur the wrath of Jefferham! They stood united by the fact that their screams and cries of despair and agony only served to make Jefferham become even more violent! They stood united!
And it didn't end there. There were more children by the names of Eric, Thomas, and Jacky. Those unsuspecting children would soon stand united as well! No, it wasn't just them, but the entire world.
Yes, under Jefferham's kind and caring guidance, the world would enter into an age of unity never before seen. And it would happen one child at a time. Jefferson smiled and licked his lips in anticipation...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 04 2018, @10:58AM (1 child)
I got halfway through before I realized it was another one. He's getting better at this.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday October 04 2018, @03:41PM
Then spam mod his ass whenever he shows up. If that moderation were made for anything it's for this...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday October 04 2018, @08:17AM (2 children)
Murray is one of my very best friends. He was a brilliant math student at UCSC, now he's a Civil Service Software Engineer for the US Navy.
So I will grant you: there is at least one.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2, Redundant) by aristarchus on Thursday October 04 2018, @08:21AM (1 child)
OK, granted. One.
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Thursday October 04 2018, @09:13PM
Most engineers that I've worked with are fairly conservative. And the valedictorian of my university (another math student) who went to wall street and retired a couple years later. He is very conservative, but dresses and acts like a hippie (his wife told me he was detained at the airport for being a vagrant while picking up his very expensive luggage).
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 04 2018, @08:18AM (3 children)
Do you mean things like 3G and 4Glte, which you claimed your ignorance of [soylentnews.org] in another post? You sure are opinionated about things you claim, or demonstrate, to know nothing about. Go find a warm spot where the sun comes through the window, put your blankee over your lap, and reminisce about the days when your biases were relevant.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday October 04 2018, @08:23AM (2 children)
So, are you claiming to actually know what the Cellular companies are putting out there as com standards? Please enlighten us, unless you think that such tech/science acumen would erode your conservative credentials.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 04 2018, @03:31PM (1 child)
Yes.
As a well educated capitalist I do not work for free, and that includes educating those unwilling to make the slightest of efforts to educate themselves.
Your "I can't understand it so no one can" mentally is probably holding you back in more arenas than just cell phone technology.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday October 05 2018, @12:30AM
Well, I could explain it to you, but then I would have to kill you. My NDA contractually requires this, for advertising purposes.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 04 2018, @09:26AM (1 child)
> They are "smart people"
And they are also totalitarians (differing from nazis only in their choice of victims, as it has been documented here, again), they write books to educate your children and exert political pressure disregarding the outdated notion of objective truth.
Really a good match for the conservative right.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 04 2018, @02:50PM
Yep. It should surprise no one that Mein Kampf is acceptable to these people. They support identity politics, just the same as Literal Hitler! Just a different choice of who the favored demographic is (upper-class white women) and who the Giftpilze are (white males and other superpredators).
- Schrödinger's Rapist: another way of formulating Der Giftpilz.
- Men are like a bowl of poisoned M&Ms: Giftpilz mit Schokolade überzogene.
Just stop the goddamned identity politics! alt-right = Literal Hitler. SJWs = Inverse Hitler. No more!
The only way out of this is for the working class to unite. An injury to one is an injury to all.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 04 2018, @10:29AM (5 children)
Are you actually insane?
"Only the high priesthood can be privy to the secret knowledge of the scrolls".
It's "incompetent academics" or "conservatives", not competent, published (and widely cited) left wing academics calling time on the stupid. "Sokal just studied patterns but the true wisdom contained in the sacred scrolls remained beyond his understanding". How about, you check your privilege and admit that no legitimate academic will support the social fictions of the postmodernist cult? Douglas Murray explains the problem here [spectator.us] but you'll dismiss him because he's conservative. To paraphrase Sokal, do us all a favor and go and prove gravity is a "social construct".
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday October 04 2018, @04:34PM (4 children)
"Sokal just studied patterns but the true wisdom contained in the sacred scrolls remained beyond his understanding".
"Our Struggle is My Struggle: Solidarity Feminism as an Intersectional Reply to Neoliberal and Choice Feminism" reworked, and substantially altered, part of Mein Kampf.
No, Sokal plagiarized one of the most convincing authors of all time. He was an evil fuck but you've got to admit he was good at his job.
That some people found the article convincing is not that surprising or revealing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 04 2018, @05:28PM
What? [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday October 04 2018, @05:56PM (2 children)
You realize you've just declared most of academia less self-aware, morally stalwart, and intellectually able than me, yes? I may on occasion be wrong about something but it's damned well my own wrongness rather than someone else's coming from my mouth.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 04 2018, @06:36PM (1 child)
I wonder if they are able to at least reply to the correct post?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 05 2018, @01:23AM
If you think I didn't, you really should go back and reread the thread.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 04 2018, @11:08AM (3 children)
You are assuming the "smart people" have thought long and hard about what they believe, and that conservatives haven't. You are assuming that conservatives accept what they're told uncritically, and that the "smart people" don't.
This article says it has disproved that.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 04 2018, @12:02PM (2 children)
No, aristarchus is a member of the EL-ite, they divine "reality" through gazing at their navels and insulting anybody who dare question their revelations. As evidenced by his recent subs...
Jordan Peterson is not transphobic or alt-right, he is a practicing clinical psychologist and a widely published (and cited) academic in the field of psychometrics. Then we have the Austrian School article which he's resubmitted in some vainglorious hope that an individualist economic movement can be smeared by association with a collectivist social movement. Aristarchus may not understand why the alt-right emerged but Libertarians do: [mises.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 04 2018, @02:33PM (1 child)
Jordan Peterson is a charlatan that realized he could make a fortune by spouting word salad to the alt-right. He might actually believe some of the things he says, but that isn't why he says them.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 04 2018, @03:31PM
This is what transference looks like:
Facts disagree with the claim: [medium.com]
Repeatedly [yellowhammernews.com]
Let's review the real, factually supported objection behind the projection and smear.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Nuke on Thursday October 04 2018, @12:00PM
It is not just their forefathers and tradition that "conservatives" might want to follow, it is themselves when younger, or the dominant friends they knew in student days and adopted as role models. Thus ageing socialists (like Corbyn, the current UK opposition leader) can become conservative in the sense that they don't want their ideas changed any more and is why they sound like the 1960's wannabe rebel students they once were. In this sense, eg the hard left former communists in Russia are conservatives. There is a difference between "conservative" meaning a state of mind and "Conservative" meaning a political leaning (with a capital "C" in the UK as it is the name of a party). The former can be anywhere on the political spectrum and you might be confusing the two meanings.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Thursday October 04 2018, @12:23PM
But that's just as valid as any other interpretation.
Who again has been leaving political turds in the submission queue for the past year or so?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Thursday October 04 2018, @02:44PM (6 children)
If you can produce a passable undergraduate paper on post-modernism without understanding it, that alone is a proof that this topic does not contain any useful information.
You won't succeed in producing a passable undergraduate paper on mathematics without understanding it.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday October 04 2018, @04:23PM (4 children)
If you can produce a passable undergraduate paper on post-modernism without understanding it, that alone is a proof that this topic does not contain any useful information.
I can plagiarize an Einstein paper without understanding it. Does that mean it contains no useful information?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 04 2018, @04:54PM (2 children)
Now try submitting it to a journal as original work. We'll wait!
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday October 04 2018, @04:59PM (1 child)
Now try submitting it to a journal as original work. We'll wait!
It would probably be accepted because it does contain useful information. That's kind of my point...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 04 2018, @05:51PM
Something like 80% of humanities papers and 35% of social science papers never receive a single citation. The actual point [wikipedia.org] is that soft sciences produce results that are frequently non-reproducible and postmodernist papers are routinely entirely untestable, subjective hypothesis.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 04 2018, @05:15PM
Fair enough if you submit that journal to the catholic church of the yonder.
You can't accept plagiarized Mein Kampf in a journal that's fighting nazism.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by suburbanitemediocrity on Thursday October 04 2018, @09:22PM
How to Deconstruct Almost Anything--My Postmodern Adventure by Chip Morningstar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip_Morningstar)
https://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/decon.html [ucl.ac.be]
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday October 04 2018, @05:09PM (1 child)
As Michael Shermer puts it: Smart people are better at defending ideas they arrived at for not-smart reasons.
Three fallacious conclusions that I'm sure some people will have reached about all this:
1. The study of humanities is completely useless. Humanities done right pushes folks towards better writing, better reading, and thus more precise communication. Humanities also can, if taught properly, help finely hone people's BS detectors - for instance, history majors can make for skillful lawyers because they study how to sort out truth from fiction in historical documents, which transfers relatively easy to modern legal documents.
2. I studied one of the hard sciences, so my subject isn't full of crap. You'd think not, but there are some BS artists in fields like mathematics, physics, and computer science that are absolutely thriving, mostly because they say what somebody else wants them to say.
3. All those smarty-pants university types know absolutely nothing useful. Successful accomplishment requires both theory and practice: Those who know only theory tend to make very impractical proposals. Those who know practice but no theory tend to be extremely dogmatic because they know that in their experience A is better than B but don't know why, so they can't understand why C might be better than A. The smarty-pants university types are concerned with theory, and that does mean that they'll get impractical, but it's up to those of us outside the ivory tower to snag their better ideas and put them into practice.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 05 2018, @07:10AM
I usually defend my positions with math, but have found, at least on the web, most people are almost completely innumerate and I never get any followups.