Posted on 11/28/2018 8:07:14 AM PST by reaganaut1
By now, most followers of the higher education press have heard of the “grievance studies” or Sokal Squared hoax.
In this incident, a team of three researchers successfully published several hoax papers on intentionally absurd subjects in ostensibly serious scholarly journals. Their purpose was to demonstrate the susceptibility of these venues to low-quality, ideologically charged “research” that advances left-wing identity politics.
The hoax articles lampooned the academic fashionability of its chosen subject areas. Samples of the published papers included an article on “rape culture” among dogs in urban dog parks, a piece espousing a theoretical framework for the acceptance of obese bodybuilders, a nonsensical string of computer-generated “therapeutic” political poetry, and even a passage of Mein Kampf repackaged as critical gender theory.
No doubt the hoaxers used the academy’s political inclinations advantageously, and indeed their critics have accused them of an unfair “put down” that targeted scholars of gender and racial discrimination—two worthy areas of academic study that champion historically disadvantaged persons and communities.
Allow me to suggest that both their supporters and critics have largely missed the mark by focusing on the political objectives of the perpetrators.
While identity politics have dominated the fallout discussions, the real lesson of the hoax is what it revealed about the crisis of rigor afflicting academic publishing. The fabricated articles only advanced to publication because decades of lax standards have made academically fashionable nonsense—including other forms of fraudulent work—the norm for celebrated scholarship in several of the humanities and social sciences.
The hoax succeeded precisely because its products were indistinguishable on their face from the type of “serious” scholarship that regularly appears in academic journals.
While the titles of the hoax articles were humorous and cringeworthy, pause to consider how they compare with other forms of “legitimate” research.
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
It's real win is that it proved too many in academia are only interested in pushing a certain belief, rather than trying to prove its "validity" (which is impossible)...
“seemed” should probably be “pretended”...
Climate science, for example, contains more junk than Fred Sanford’s attic.
...story could explode into something serious because many of the climate change supporters cite college papers--whoops!
Excellent point - "Climate Change" is as PC and stupid as it gets... which might explain why these so-called scientists can make hundreds of 'future forecast' - that are wront - that never come true - without ever having to worry about being called on their hysteria...
In my public High schools, they ended giving midterms and final exams so students wouldn’t stress. Now these students go to college with no idea how to prepare for exams.These constant educational experiments are ridiculous. first no homework now no exams is insanity
It exposes the fraud that these “fill-in-the-blank-oppression-studies” departments are. Its hard to call them “disciplines” because their is nothing “disciplined” about how they function, think, do research or teach! In fact they are that exact antithesis of a academic discipline! The sole unspoken reason for their existence was past academic administrative cowardice over the numbers of minorities & women in the faculty lounges as well as in the student body. It was an “instant solution” to a perceived but in reality nonexistent problem. Now academia is paying in loss of prestige and reputation for this foolish decision.
They've got their corruption sewed up AND their livelihoods depend on the scams continuing...
Could be Trump's second term before they're outed..
Low and insane standards in academia is nothing new. I’ve heard of courses on tree climbing and writing a thesis on various meanings of the word $hit. You spend your hard earn money on your kid’s education and this is the crap you get.
BINGO!
If anyone is interested in hearing a long-form discussion by the folks that pulled this caper off, they were on the Joe Rogan podcast recently...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZZNvT1vaJg
bttt
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