Scientists have always tended to tell us idealized tales about the origin of scientific theories. We may be told that some brilliant thinker had a great "Eureka!" insight, and then formulated a theory; that the theory then started to catch on and become popular because it so closely matched the truth and passed observational tests; and that generations later the theory still reigns because of its great success in predicting reality and describing reality.
But in the later half of the twentienth century quite a few sociologists started to critically analyze the grand triumphal narratives of scientist achievement told by scientists. They concluded that some or many of these narratives can be explained largely by social factors rather than the discovery of objective truth. One of the most important texts by such thinkers was the 1966 book The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise on the Sociology of Knowledge by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann.
In the 1990's physicist Alan D. Sokal started to engage in literary combat against such work in the sociology of science. His first step was a very dubious act. He produced what he later called a hoax paper, entitled Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity. He submitted it to a sociology journal that published it. After the publication, Sokal tried to create the impression that the paper was obvious nonsense, and insinuated that its publication showed that sociology journals would publish any nonsense. This affair was later called the Sokal Hoax. The paper can be read here. Sokal claimed that "In sum, I intentionally wrote the article so that any competent physicist or mathematician (or undergraduate physics or math major) would realize that it is a spoof."
This claim about the paper was not correct. The paper was not an obvious parody. Including many quotes from other writers (none of them made up), the paper contains many paragraphs that are quite defensible from a particular philosophical perspective. An analysis of the paper states that five paragraphs of it provide a "superficial, but essentially correct, overview of physicists' attempt to construct a theory of quantum gravity." The same analysis says that one section of the paper "contains some ideas -- on the link between scientists and the military, on ideological bias in science, on the pedagogy of science -- with which we partly agree."
So there were two forms of chicanery going on here. First was the act of submitting to a sociology journal a paper that was supposedly designed as a hoax and a spoof. The second bit of chicanery involved the many untrue claims that the paper was pure nonsense or an obvious parody, and that it showed that sociology journals might publish things that they very obviously should have been rejected. Quantum gravity (a purely speculative family of theories) is one of the most obscure, impenetrable and speculative areas of physics. So we should not expect any reviewer of a sociology journal to critically analyze statements made about quantum gravity. Submitting a paper about the sociology of quantum gravity to a journal with editors and reviewers that could not possibly understand anything about quantum gravity was a very shady type of trick.
Also, since the submitted paper ("Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity") was authored by a university physics professor, and dealt with an extremely specialized topic in theoretical physics, it made no sense to claim or insinuate that some reviewer or editor at a sociology journal should have discovered flaws in the paper. When experts in some highly specialized topic write on that topic, the normal procedure is to assume that such authorities are speaking rather intelligibly and credibly on their field of expertise.
Sokal's claim that the paper was an obvious parody was exaggerated and distorted by numerous writers, who claimed that the paper was obvious nonsense, something it was not. The paper was something largely sensible, but merely sprinkled with nonsense here and there.
Sokal's next move against the sociology of science was to co-write a book entitled Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science. A myth has arisen about this book: that it delivered some great blow against thinkers in the sociology of science. The book did not actually present any strong case against such thinkers.
The book is mainly devoted to pursuing a very strange method: the method of quoting the most poorly written and unintelligible passages in books written by thinkers in the sociology of science, particularly passages making a poor use of mathematical or scientific jargon. The thinkers quoted from are not very well known figures in the United States. They include Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, Bruno Latourn, Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, and Paul Virillo. The passages include:
(1) some passages that are just a kind of conceptual mishmash because they mix up jargon or buzzwords or abstruse ideas in a way that does not end up making sense;
(2) some passages that are inadvisable because they involve some misunderstanding of some fine point of mathematics or science;
(3) some passages that involve faulty generalization.
In general, if you were to hear someone speaking the passages Sokal quotes, you wouldn't say "that's wrong" or "that's not true"; you would merely say something like, "I don't get what you mean."
The technique Sokal used was a very strange one indeed. It was a very superficial form of "drive-by scholarship." To intelligently rebut some thinker, you must study his work, understand what his main arguments are, and then rebut such arguments. Sokal failed to do that. He seemed to think you can discredit some thinker if you show that he wrote some passage that is unintelligible or failed to use terms from science or mathematics in a convincing and intelligible way. That is not true. A professor can write a book that is largely convincing, but which occasionally lapses into cringe-worthy pointy-headed professor-speak that leaves you saying: "Huh?" That happens very abundantly in Sokal's own world of physics and mathematics.
The title "Fashionable Nonsense" seems like a misleading one, as the book did not even identify any fashionable claims that were nonsensical. A more accurate title of the book would have been "Some Poorly Written Paragraphs I Have Found in the Writings of Intellectuals." In the preface of the book, the authors (Sokal and Jean Bricmont) actually confess that their book does very little to rebut the authors they discuss. We read this:
"We show that famous intellectuals...have repeatedly abused scientific concepts and terminology; either using scientific ideas totally out of context...or throwing around scientific jargon in front of their non-scientist readers without any regard for its relevance. We make no claim that this invalidates the rest of their work, on which we suspend judgment."
Despite this confession that their book really doesn't do much of anything to rebut the authors who are being quoted, a myth somehow arose that the book Fashionable Nonsense had somehow dismantled the idea that the spread of scientific theories is sometimes largely caused by social factors. The people advancing such a myth would commonly commit the sin of defamatory definition. They would define a postmodernist as someone believing that there is no objective truth, and that all scientific theories are just social constructs. That is not a correct claim about the typical postmodernist thinker.
There were some thinkers in the sociology of science who argued for what they called a "strong program" in the sociology of science. They defined this as the approach that a sociological account or sociological explanation can be made of the origin, spread and perpetuation of scientific theories, regardless of whether they are true or false. It is a great misrepresentation of such an idea to describe it as the claim that there are no objective scientific truths.
It is a reasonable claim that sociological explanations can be given for why some scientific theories become popular. It is a gross misrepresentation of such an idea to portray it as the claim that all scientific theories are just social constructs, and that there is no objective truth. The people who advance such misrepresentations are using "straw man" tactics. Neither Sokal's hoax quantum gravity paper stunt nor his Fashionable Nonsense book did anything to discredit the reasonable idea that when trying to explain the popularity of any disputed scientific theory, we should always be asking: what kind of social factors and vested interest factors and bandwagon factors and psychological benefit factors may have played a role in the rise of such a theory?
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