# "Sokal Squared" project exposes fraud in academia **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 6, 2019, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sokal-squared-project-exposes-fraud-in-academia/830645 "2019-03-06T19:36:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Cleophus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e57/32.png) [@Cleophus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cleophus)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sokal-squared-project-exposes-fraud-in-academia/830645/81 "2019-03-08T00:03:25Z")
But they have said those things. Every time someone makes up a stereotypical social science paper title, in this thread or elsewhere, they are implicitly claiming that the terms are meaningless and that they can tell just by looking at it, despite not having any experience in that field and not knowing what the technical meaning is of the jargon they find so obviously devoid of meaning. It’s not just titles I could bring up. I could also post faked fluorescence microscopy or Western blot images that made it through publication, see if anyone can tell the difference, ask if that proves biological science is so devoid of meaning that no paper is worth publication, but somehow that sort of thing leads to people “simply” arguing how to best detect malice and not the wholesale and self-satisfied attacks we see on the field such as in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sokal-squared-project-exposes-fraud-in-academia/830645/82 "2019-03-08T00:43:57Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > I went to college. > > Hell YES we should challenge academics!!! > > According to[THIS](https://studentloanhero.com/student-loan-debt-statistics/)people in the USA have over $1.56 TRILLION in student debt! > > We have students who were duped by academics into getting crappy degrees they now have to pay on for LIFE. > > And yes, when one enters a major university today they are REQUIRED to sit thru orientation lectures about how to do this or that. Why? Because incoming freshmen might have some homophobia, racism, or some other ism that I guess, needs to be weeded out like some horrible disease. Of course, every group out there demands acceptance about their grievances. > > Notice how every college now has a “Diversity Center”. Who pays for it? > > Check out “[Tunnel of Oppression](https://oma.ku.edu/tunnel-oppression)” as an example. Who pays for programs like that? Yep. The students. Who gets paid to put this stuff on? The “Grievance studies” majors who put out crazy papers. > > So yes, Academics can very well be a major waste of money. Why is that wrong to point out? I don’t know when or where you went to college, what you majored in, or whether you graduated, but your ideas of what college is like today suggest your current concept of university life is taken from people like Stossel and not recent and objective experience. Let’s start with your last statement, that academics can very well be a waste of money. That’s true if, like John Stossel, you lackeintellectual curiosity and admit to daydreaming through class. It can also be a waste of money if you attend college with the sole objective of increasing your earnings but major in an area that’s not likely to pay well, such as myth and folklore, which is probably why almost nobody DOES major in those areas. So even if there WERE some sort of liberal conspiracy to get those kids into esoteric majors, it’s clearly not working. And the profs in much more popular, better-funded areas like business (#1 major) or medical sciences (#2) wouldn’t stand for it. Anyone who’s ever taught on a college campus knows that college students are not a bunch of gullible sheep ripe for the manipulating. I agree with you that college tuition is far too high, that’s not due to diversity centers or fancy gyms. It’s due to states cutting funding. So if you TRULY feel bad about student debt, you should be eager to assume more of that burden, not less. And if you THEN want to gripe about students learning to get along with people from vastly different backgrounds than their own, you go right ahead. Nobody is arguing academia should never be challenged, but it’s foolish to challenge it on false premises. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sokal-squared-project-exposes-fraud-in-academia/830645/83 "2019-03-08T01:11:35Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Just follow the money. > > Your dead on right. Its one big echo chamber and such chambers only want more money and more influence. Heck remember back in the old days when college DIDN’T have “gender studies” and their like. Now they have whole departments and professors making 6 figure salaries and demanding equal respect and funding as the biology department. Cite, please, on the salaries and the demand for equal funding. This is GD, not IMHO or the Pit. Also,“You’re”. If you’re going to beat up on intellectuals, please, for the luvva Pete, stop misspelling “you’re”. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sokal-squared-project-exposes-fraud-in-academia/830645/84 "2019-03-08T01:20:38Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The point is that hard science papers can be hard to read simply because the math is beyond the reach of the layman, and there’s really nothing to be done about that. > > On the other hand, it seems like many social science papers are hard to read because the authors go out of their way to write them that way, or because they contain so much invented, pointless jargon that seems to have the purpose of baffling with bullshit rather than clarifying difficult concepts. Please cite that the jargon is for the purpose of obfuscation or is pointless. Every field has jargon – why is scientific jargon better than legal jargon which better than business jargon which is better than social science jargon? Jargon is a way of being very precise without having to explain everything over and over to an audience who should know better. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sokal-squared-project-exposes-fraud-in-academia/830645/85 "2019-03-08T01:30:13Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > If increasing the number of choices on a supermarket shelf decreases sales, write “Increasing the Number of Choices on a Supermarket Shelf Decreases Sales”. Don’t write “A Poststructural Black Feminist Approach to the Problem of Gender Normative Language on Supermarket Shelves”. Unless you are studying the effect of Gender Normative Language on supermarket sales. Which probably wouldn’t be necessary because the marketing types have it figured out already. Remember, the audience for papers is the reviewers and others in the field, who are going to understand the title better than Joe Schmo. If the researcher writes for the general public, the title will be simplified to match the audience. Why is this hard for you to understand? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sokal-squared-project-exposes-fraud-in-academia/830645/86 "2019-03-08T01:36:10Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Cite, please, on the salaries and the demand for equal funding. This is GD, not IMHO or the Pit. > > Also,“You’re”. If you’re going to beat up on intellectuals, please, for the luvva Pete, stop misspelling “you’re”. If gender studies departments pull in research funding, they’d get tons of respect. He seems to be unaware that professors’ salaries are market based. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sokal-squared-project-exposes-fraud-in-academia/830645/87 "2019-03-08T03:22:39Z")
> [@Busy\_Scissors](#): > > It’s hard to figure out their motivations - three intrepid academics set out to demonstrate that \*Gender, place, and culture \*, and similar journals, are garbage - to be followed by a study on water being wet, night following day, and toast always falls butter-side down. Even if you see it as some sort of internecine squabble within the humanities, like we’re going to shine a light on these charlatans, hard to believe that any serious-minded philosopher or historian, say, would give a fuck about doing that. > > They’ve done it with humour, though, reading those abstracts - so that counts for a lot. God only knows what a mathematician is doing getting involved in this nonsense, though, suggest he needs some mentoring to understand his position as an aristocrat of the academy. > > The stunt is illuminating with respect to the relative stature of their own fields (and them). If you tried to pull something smiliar to highlight a problem with scientific publishing - the worryingly high number of high profile life sciences papers that are irreproducible, for example, you’d be insta-fired, career over, and maybe worse on top of that. It’s not hard to figure out their motivations, they have explained why they carried out that hoax, it was to expose junk science and gave out examples: > [@](#): > > [“We, like many, have been seeing stories and examples of ridiculous papers coming out of the far-left activist wing of academia, fields like gender studies, women’s studies, and so on, based upon what’s sometimes called ‘critical race and gender theory’ or ‘radical constructivism,'” Lindsay said. > > He first pointed to an infamous taxpayer-funded paper published last year that studied the “relationship between gender and glaciers.” One goal of the study was to “improve human-ice relations.” > > … > > Among the examples Lindsay cited included a paper published in a top-ranked gender studies journal last fall that claimed menstrual periods are a social construct. > > … > > Donna M. Hughes wrote about a need for a “feminist critique of the scientific method,” because science is “sexist, racist, heterosexist, and classist.” > > “Biological determinism has long been shown to be sexism, racism, and heterosexism at work under the guise of science,” she wrote. “The objectivity of science has long been suspect or rejected.” > > … > > “The Essence of the Hard On: Hegemonic Masculinity and the Cultural Construction of ‘Erectile Dysfunction’” was cited by Lindsay and Boghossian in their hoax. > > The paper, written by Annie Potts in 2000, argues that curing erectile dysfunction reinforces hegemonic masculinity. > > … > > Other examples include donated blood is a social construction, how the Pilates exercises “Single Leg Stretch” and “Leg Circles” teach white privilege, and that male lactation is possible through social construction. > > … > > Lindsay said the most alarming paper he has encountered was published last year. > > The paper, written Breanne Fahs and Michael Karger, favorably compares feminists to viruses like HIV and Ebola, who should infect other fields of scientific study with liberal ideologies. > > “The truly scary papers are the ones from radical constructivist schools that seek to replace science with feminist science,” Lindsay said. “It’s very concerning.”]([Read the Gender Studies Papers That Inspired the ‘Penis Causes Climate Change’ Hoax](https://freebeacon.com/culture/read-the-gender-studies-papers-that-inspired-the-penis-causes-climate-change-hoax/)) An ideological takeover of science is cause for concern, do you know about [Lysenkoism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism)? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sokal-squared-project-exposes-fraud-in-academia/830645/88 "2019-03-08T04:07:42Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > It’s not hard to figure out their motivations, they have explained why they carried out that hoax, it was to expose junk science and gave out examples: > > An ideological takeover of science is cause for concern, do you know about [Lysenkoism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism)? Well, thanks for showing **ITR champion** my earlier point, that broad brush is what guys like Stossel wants everyone to look at; as I pointed already, it is OK in my book to ridicule journals that should not be taken seriously until others replicate the studies. But falling for the big brush Stossel made is underwhelming. (he did show very important journals at the beginning of his piece expecting others to treat them like the sorry ones the hoaxers swindled) ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sokal-squared-project-exposes-fraud-in-academia/830645/89 "2019-03-08T05:03:23Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > It’s not hard to figure out their motivations, they have explained why they carried out that hoax, it was to expose junk science and gave out examples: > > An ideological takeover of science is cause for concern, do you know about [Lysenkoism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism)? Are any of those links NOT from The Washington Beacon? I got tired of clicking on the links only to find they were all from the same highly biased source. ---
**Author:** ![Littleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ccd318/32.png) [@Littleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Littleman)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sokal-squared-project-exposes-fraud-in-academia/830645/90 "2019-03-08T05:22:56Z")
Let’s remember , part of the reason for publication is to invite both challenges and other researchers to duplicate results. Special relativity was widely received as ludicrous after publication. Only through publication did it have the opportunity to be challenged or finally accepted. It’s not really the responsibility of the journal to reproduce results and verify how correct a paper is. Just basically whether it is even worth an opportunity to be criticized. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sokal-squared-project-exposes-fraud-in-academia/830645/91 "2019-03-08T05:24:56Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Depends on the field and the submission. If it’s an unambiguously falsifiable assertion about a high-profile open result in mathematics, for example, such as [Sir Michael Atiyah’s recent claim to have proved the Riemann hypothesis](https://blogs.ams.org/blogonmathblogs/2018/10/01/on-michael-atiyah-and-the-riemann-hypothesis/), there are going to be multiple internationally renowned experts in the field crawling over every comma with a magnifying glass… In the field of thaumaturgy, the issue of fraud seldom arises. Either one has, or has not, summoned a dark demonic entity. Duplicating experimental results is not practical. Attention to detail is crucial, as even something so simple as drawing a pentagram can be devilishly complicated. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sokal-squared-project-exposes-fraud-in-academia/830645/92 "2019-03-08T05:41:14Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > Are any of those links NOT from The Washington Beacon? I got tired of clicking on the links only to find they were all from the same highly biased source. The article quotes the authors of the hoax, and they cite the studies they bring up as examples. You can hear themselves explain their motivations: _“we did this to expose a political corruption that is taking hold of the university”_ _“The fields we are concerned about put social grievances ahead of objective truth”_ _“What appears beyond dispute is that making absurd and horrible ideas sufficiently politically fashionable can get them validated”_ _“This is deeply concerning because the work of grievance scholars goes on to be taught in classes, to design educational curricula, to be taken up by activists, to be used to influence how media is produced and to misinform journalists and politicians about the true nature of our cultural realities”_\* “My collaborators and I are left-wing academics who can now say with confidence these people don’t speak for us” “Grievance studies does not continue the work of the civil rights movement, it corrupts it”\* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVk9a5Jcd1k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVk9a5Jcd1k) Rejecting objective truth, calling it science and then influencing education and politics it’s absolutely a cause for concern. Or go into more detail in this two hour podacast: [Joe Rogan Experience #1191 - Peter Boghossian & James Lindsay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZZNvT1vaJg) ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sokal-squared-project-exposes-fraud-in-academia/830645/93 "2019-03-08T12:07:32Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > Are any of those links NOT from The Washington Beacon? I got tired of clicking on the links only to find they were all from the same highly biased source. So find your own sources. But there’s nothing wrong with this one for this conversation. Unless you’re claiming they misquoted the people in question. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sokal-squared-project-exposes-fraud-in-academia/830645/94 "2019-03-08T14:17:37Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > I came across this from a [segment by reporter John Stossel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As8h2ZCfIPs). Some academics in a Portland Washington college wanted to see just how crazy an article could be and see if prestigious journals, the journals academics are required to publish in, would pblish them. > > It was called [Sokal Squared](https://www.chronicle.com/article/Sokal-Squared-Is-Huge/244714) and it worked. The sent out 20 papers. Of those 4 got published, 7 accepted, and 3 more in the process when the authors decided to stop the project. > > The headlines read :‘Sokal Squared’: Is Huge Publishing Hoax ‘Hilarious and Delightful’ or an Ugly Example of Dishonesty and Bad Faith?" > > [HERE](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/new-sokal-hoax/572212/) is the story covered by The Atlantis. > > [HERE](https://hotair.com/archives/2018/10/05/response-sokal-squared-hoax-mixed/)is another on the response. It points out that if an established source of papers cannot figure out real research from a hoax, what is it worth? > > One thing brought up is it seems these journals will publish just about anything as long as it fits into their mindset no matter how crazy the paper is. > > What do you all think? In my limited experience with academia, my conclusion is that there is too much pressure on instructors to get published, and academic journals - like all publications - have space to fill and deadlines to beat. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sokal-squared-project-exposes-fraud-in-academia/830645/95 "2019-03-08T18:02:15Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > Are any of those links NOT from The Washington Beacon? I got tired of clicking on the links only to find they were all from the same highly biased source. > [@Ale](#): > > Rejecting objective truth, calling it science and then influencing education and politics it’s absolutely a cause for concern. > > Or go into more detail in this two hour podacast: [Joe Rogan Experience #1191 - Peter Boghossian & James Lindsay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZZNvT1vaJg) Among the “Intellectual Dark Web” guys Joe Rogan [is one of the better ones out there](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4MLgeZ1oEM). It does not mean that sometimes he could fall for concerns that amount to a small hill of beans. I was going to comment that the hoaxers should had taken on someone bigger, or someone their own size… then I realized that… yes, they did take it with someone their own size. 🙂 But In the case of sources and the gross spin they are using, **nelliebly** ’s point is a valid one, I wanted to see if the issue that _The Washington Beacon_ made about the glaciers paper was a valid one, and was glad to see that my bullshit detector still works properly: For starters the Beacon, or the one telling the Beacon, forgets that the glacial research grant was not only for that social studies paper, but part of other scientific research and efforts. [https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD\_ID=1253779](https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1253779) The tactic then from right wing sources is to mislead many by making them think that that the focus on how women and their societies are affected by the ice loss used all that grant money, that is not the case. > [@](#): > > The project has broad impacts because hundreds of millions of people worldwide live near glaciers, depend on glacier runoff for their water, reside in zones subjected to ongoing glacier hazards, inhabit coastal areas that could be flooded by melting ice sheets, and vacation in glaciated landscapes that hold particular cultural value such as national parks. The US Intelligence Community recognizes that the effects of glacier retreat potentially threaten US national security, and thus generating new knowledge about glaciers and glaciology contributes to policy and social well-being. > > Research results will be disseminated in conference papers, guest lectures, and the posting of data and bibliographical materials on an online database and digital library. The project also proposes five educational activities that will produce broader impacts for students, the university, and the general public: (1) creation of a Science and Society Group, the foundational step to establishing a Center for the Study of Science and Society at the University of Oregon; (2) development of an “Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program” science and society curriculum to teach undergraduates alongside prison inmates in the unique penitentiary environment; (3) construction of a new Honors College course on the history of the earth sciences; (4) employment and training of undergraduate students in specific research projects; and (5) mentoring of a postdoctoral fellow. OK, so just the paper and the smaller amount of money for it, should be criticized, but is that criticism even a valid one? [https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/qa-author-feminist-glaciology-study-reflects-sudden-appearance-culture-wars](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/qa-author-feminist-glaciology-study-reflects-sudden-appearance-culture-wars) > [@](#): > > Q: Were you aware about the brouhaha over your paper? How do you feel about it? > > A: Professional research is published in journals for specialists in a given field. When removed from that context and described to nonspecialists, the research can be misunderstood and potentially misrepresented. What is surprising about the brouhaha is the high level of misinterpretations, mischaracterization, and misinformation that circulate about research and researchers—though this has, unfortunately, been happening to scientists for centuries, especially climate researchers in recent decades. > > The good news is that people are talking about glaciers! But there’s much more to the story than just the glaciers. People and societies impose their values on glaciers when they discuss, debate, and study them—which is what we mean when we say that ice is not just ice. Glaciers become the platform to express people’s own views about politics, economics, cultural values, and social relations (such as gender relations). The attention during the last week proves our point clearly: that glaciers are, in fact, highly politicized sites of contestation. **Glaciers don’t have a gender. But the rhetoric about ice tells us a great deal about what people think of science and gender.** > > Q: Were you aware that “feminist glaciology” might draw strong reactions? Was that the hope? > > A: We chose the title “feminist glaciology” to provoke discussion about who is producing knowledge about glaciers and what the implications of that existing knowledge are, including whose voices are left out and what types of scientific questions are asked (and which ones might thus be ignored). We also wanted to present a variety of different sociocultural forms of glacier knowledge that go beyond science, to generate discussion. Our goal was to ask questions about the role of gender in science and knowledge—to start a conversation, not conclude the discussion. What it is clear is that the focus was on how unfair science and society can be when a woman’s point of view is ignored when planning for issues like disruptions in locations where populations can be affected by the loss of cap ice. It is also looking at the issues of how, even valid research, is not being taken seriously many times when woman researchers try to publish. Finally the paper was published where it was more appropriate: In the Journal _Progress in **Human** Geography_ with an impact factor of 5.010. So, the implication that more serious research regarding the measurable loss of cap ice due to human released warming gases, is not the issue here. In reality it was just a part of the grant and it was dealing with social issues that do deserve a look also. Having then established what the focus really was then it is the time to take it with the sources. > [@](#): > > Our paper suggests that these broader societal classifications have historically influenced the reception of science [conducted by women]—with men’s science more valued. We then ask whether these kinds of societal values about gender still influence science and scientists’ credibility. Do we still privilege the heroic, risk-taking, conquest-oriented scientific projects (like data gathering in remote parts of Antarctica) over more “mundane” projects that don’t involve adventure and risk into wild nature? Note that we are talking about how broader sociocultural values influence the reception and perception of science, not about individual scientists and whether their science is valuable or solid, which is not the point. And the point of Stossel, the Beacon, and opinion pieces from the right wing are in reality made to disparage science on the whole, and not only the ones that do deserve criticism. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sokal-squared-project-exposes-fraud-in-academia/830645/96 "2019-03-08T20:12:45Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > If I admit that there is some bullshit on the left, will you admit that it’s pretty small potatoes and has nowhere near the global impact as bullshit climate change denial or bullshit trickle-down economics on the right? You can argue that the particular journals targeted by the hoax are unimportant and I’d agree. I’m sure that the total number of people who read a typical issue of any of them is small. Indeed, the dog-humping paper may get read more than anything else that _Gender, Place, and Culture_ will ever publish. But taken as a whole, the ‘grievance studies’ fields are having impacts in important areas beyond their sliver of academia. To take one example, it’s a common claim among social scientists that men commit rape not because of sexual desire, but rather because of desire for power and control over women. [Which is false](https://quillette.com/2018/03/21/why-do-men-rape/); the scientific evidence clearly shows that sexual desire is what drives rape. It’s an important issue that police, doctors, the criminal justice system, and others need to know the truth about, so the gender studies/anthropology/sociology academics and journals that push the wrong answer may be undermining efforts to fight rape. (I read several conservative sources daily and can’t recall ever hearing anyone advocating “trickle-down economics”. I am aware that climate change denial is commonplace on blogs, YouTube, Reddit and other such places, but I’m not aware of any fraud in academic literature on that.) ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sokal-squared-project-exposes-fraud-in-academia/830645/97 "2019-03-08T20:26:07Z")
First of all, thank you for the academics on this board writing in and explaining what the process is for getting things published and peer reviewed. To be honest, I have never liked the “publish or perish” system. If I sent my son to your college I would want you to spend your time teaching him say physics or biology or how to write better than his Dad. Not spending time writing papers in order to keep your job. Some questions: What if an author, with all the academic credentials, submitted a paper for review to some journal on say feminism, who’s conclusions were NOT going along with the standard views of those in the field? Say they proved women were NOT being discriminated? Or there wasnt any “rape culture”? Such papers could very well send shockwaves thru the fields. People jobs depend on those findings. Legislation depends on those findings. Would they dare publish them or would said author have to find an opposing journal that expressively promotes that different point of view? ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sokal-squared-project-exposes-fraud-in-academia/830645/98 "2019-03-08T20:36:55Z")
In the[Stossel segment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As8h2ZCfIPs) at timepoint 4:20 the hoaxers talk about getting ridiculed and spit on by their fellow staff. The very people who claim to be “open-minded”. Why do you think they did that? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sokal-squared-project-exposes-fraud-in-academia/830645/99 "2019-03-08T20:44:49Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > In the[Stossel segment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As8h2ZCfIPs) at timepoint 4:20 the hoaxers talk about getting ridiculed and spit on by their fellow staff. The very people who claim to be “open-minded”. > > Why do you think they did that? _if_ that actually happened, I might surmise that their fellow staff members are rightfully pissed that any papers _they_ try to publish are going to be highly suspect by association. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sokal-squared-project-exposes-fraud-in-academia/830645/100 "2019-03-08T20:54:08Z")
> [@Cleophus](#): > > Follow _what_ money? > > Authors don’t get paid per article. Journal publishers don’t pay authors for their submissions. Universities do not fund research out of tuition. Funding bodies are neither operated by universities nor operated by journal publishers. In fact, if you pick a paper and look at its acknowledgements you’ll find the author(s) funding source listed. For example, I arbitrarily picked this social sciences paper, [To thine own self be true? Clarifying the effects of identity discrepancies on psychological distress and emotions](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/298807283_To_thine_own_self_be_true_Clarifying_the_effects_of_identity_discrepancies_on_psychological_distress_and_emotions) out of a few I found with freely available full-text versions. The acknowledgements say: > > Note that the NSF is neither the author’s host institution (Kent State University Department of Sociology), nor the article publisher (Elsevier). I am aware of some of this. I have a relative who’s an assistant professor and his job is solely funded thru grants and he gets paid VERY WELL thru those grants. BUT, you dont get such grants if you dont get stuff published. He also gets paid to do research and lectures and advise different groups on his field of expertise. So yes, getting published DOES lead to money. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sokal-squared-project-exposes-fraud-in-academia/830645.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sokal-squared-project-exposes-fraud-in-academia/830645.md?page=6)