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posted by martyb on Saturday January 12 2019, @05:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the won't-be-fooled-again,-or-will-they? dept.

Portland State University has initiated disciplinary proceedings against their philosophy professor Peter Boghossian for conspiring with colleagues to submit more than two dozen satirical papers to feminist theory and race-studies journals in an effort to prove those disciplines are academically fraudulent. The hoax papers, some of which were accepted by journals and which were revealed back in October, made Boghossian and his cohorts the international toast of "free thinkers" concerned that college campuses have become paralyzed by political orthodoxy.

After their ruse was revealed, the three authors described their project in an October article in the webzine Areo, which Pluckrose edits. Their goal, they wrote, was to "to study, understand, and expose the reality of grievance studies, which is corrupting academic research." They contend that scholarship that tends to social grievances now dominates some fields, where students and others are bullied into adhering to scholars' worldviews, while lax publishing standards allow the publication of clearly ludicrous articles if the topic is politically fashionable.

Sources:
The Chronicle of Higher Education : Proceedings Start Against 'Sokal Squared' Hoax Professor (archive)
Willamette Week : Professor Who Authored Hoax Papers Says Portland State University Has Launched Disciplinary Proceedings Against Him (archive)


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 13 2019, @08:55PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 13 2019, @08:55PM (#786005)

    Quite aside form the political aspect the fact that non-experts have managed to get articles published in these journals suggests that there is very little of worth in these disciplines

    These are new fields. They are still figuring out what expertise in the field actually means. It is not extraordinary for a new field to have a lot of fluidity and churn as it figures itself out.

    Your requirements are a prescription for the crib-death of any new field of study.