Award for the most contrived retcon of 1998
Jason Stokes
series or serial in 1998 goes to...
Yesterday's Stargate SG-1. "Lucky you remembered the shield's
deflection capability is proportional to the amount of kinetic energy
directed at it!"
--
Jason Stokes: js...@bluedog.apana.org.au
See my homepage: http://bluedog.apana.org.au/~jstok/index.html
for my PGP key.
Nick Caldwell
Stokes) wrote:
>And the award for the most contrived retcon in a science fiction
>series or serial in 1998 goes to...
>
>Yesterday's Stargate SG-1. "Lucky you remembered the shield's
>deflection capability is proportional to the amount of kinetic energy
>directed at it!"
That wasn't a retcon. That was a straight up continuity reference.
"Retcon" implies that they changed the history of the show in some
way. The change in the badguys from being energy critters (in the
movie, which they were otherwise faithful to) to wormy parasites was a
retcon.
--
Nick Caldwell-----------------------------------------
- - M/C: a journal of media and culture - -
s32...@student.uq.edu.au | http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/
------------------------------------------------------
Damien Broderick
>
> http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/
> ------------------------------------------------------
In which some stupid pomo fuck wrote:
`Reality does influence imagination, and vice versa. But imagination is more
powerful at the end of the day, since it is always imagination that changes
reality. Put simply, discovery is invention. The earth only orbits the sun
because enough people imagine (or think or believe) that it does.'
And then, sort of, took it back in few more laborious and tiresome sentences.
But it's easy to see why Sokal and other scientists are jack of this idiocy.
Damien Broderick
Nick Caldwell
<dam...@ariel.its.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>Nick Caldwell wrote:
>>
>> http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/
>> ------------------------------------------------------
>
>In which some stupid pomo fuck wrote:
Thank you for your enlightened contribution to the tone of the
newsgroup.
>`Reality does influence imagination, and vice versa. But imagination is more
>powerful at the end of the day, since it is always imagination that changes
>reality. Put simply, discovery is invention. The earth only orbits the sun
>because enough people imagine (or think or believe) that it does.'
Stripped of context, the essay does seem, well, a little wacky. But
part of what it's looking at is the way we imagine things to be true.
I think you're badly mis-reading the register of the piece if you
think it's an attack on scientific principles.
>And then, sort of, took it back in few more laborious and tiresome sentences.
> But it's easy to see why Sokal and other scientists are jack of this idiocy.
Sokal the fraud? Oh, whatever.
og...@my-dejanews.com
s32...@student.uq.edu.au (Nick Caldwell) wrote:
> On Tue, 15 Sep 1998 18:16:18 -0700, Damien Broderick
> <dam...@ariel.its.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>
> >Nick Caldwell wrote:
> >>
> >> http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/
> >> ------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >In which some stupid pomo fuck wrote:
>
> Thank you for your enlightened contribution to the tone of the
> newsgroup.
>
> >`Reality does influence imagination, and vice versa. But imagination is more
> >powerful at the end of the day, since it is always imagination that changes
> >reality. Put simply, discovery is invention. The earth only orbits the sun
> >because enough people imagine (or think or believe) that it does.'
>
> Stripped of context, the essay does seem, well, a little wacky. But
> part of what it's looking at is the way we imagine things to be true.
> I think you're badly mis-reading the register of the piece if you
> think it's an attack on scientific principles.
Come on already. The man is showing a perfect example of the accepted
practice of flaming the man when he can't attack his words. He has done
his research well, finding a piece of text which can be made to look quite
bizare with minimal editing by putting it in an unrelated context. He even
backs it up very nicely by refering to the author as a "stupid pomo"
in order to display his disdain.
> >And then, sort of, took it back in few more laborious and tiresome sentences.
> > But it's easy to see why Sokal and other scientists are jack of this idiocy.
>
> Sokal the fraud? Oh, whatever.
I not aware of the work of "Sokal", but I think it is beautiful the
way the writer harkens back to the 18th century mechanical ideals of
the universe with only a few words. With just a few words and reference
to the sacred "Other Scientists" he displays his utter disdain for
philosophy, prefering instead that which I think he considers "hard,
cold science." This is very reminisant of the attitudes of many of
the old guard of Science last century. They too valiently maintained
that everything was founded in imutable physical laws, and that
everything was measurable. Indead, regardless of the works of
men like Godel and Heienburg, many people still believe that
everything is measureable, and that if you measure everything,
you will understand the Universe.
Its just a pity that such simple attitudes don't work.
--
"...there is sometimes little to choose
between the reality of illusion and
the illusion of reality
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/rg_mkgrp.xp Create Your Own Free Member Forum
Nick Caldwell
>In article <3600484c...@news.uq.edu.au>,
> s32...@student.uq.edu.au (Nick Caldwell) wrote:
>> Stripped of context, the essay does seem, well, a little wacky. But
>> part of what it's looking at is the way we imagine things to be true.
>> I think you're badly mis-reading the register of the piece if you
>> think it's an attack on scientific principles.
>
>Come on already. The man is showing a perfect example of the accepted
>practice of flaming the man when he can't attack his words. He has done
>his research well, finding a piece of text which can be made to look quite
>bizare with minimal editing by putting it in an unrelated context. He even
>backs it up very nicely by refering to the author as a "stupid pomo"
>in order to display his disdain.
I guess I was astonished at such a poorly thought out attack coming
from a writer I had previously considered to be perceptive and
thoughtful.
>> >And then, sort of, took it back in few more laborious and tiresome sentences.
>> > But it's easy to see why Sokal and other scientists are jack of this idiocy.
>>
>> Sokal the fraud? Oh, whatever.
>
>I not aware of the work of "Sokal", but I think it is beautiful the
Alan Sokal, an American Physics professor who wrote a fraudulent
article on the place of postmodernism in quantum physics for a
Cultural Studies journal.
Damien Broderick
> >`The earth only orbits the sun
> >because enough people imagine (or think or believe) that it does.'
> I think you're badly mis-reading the register of the piece if you
> think it's an attack on scientific principles.
There is no rational, responsible context in which such an insane (though
fashionably relativist) assertion can be made. The only register which would
redeem such a claim is, ironically, the one used so devastating by Alan Sokal
- whom you bizarrely deride as
> Sokal the fraud? Oh, whatever.
This is feeble or disingenuous. Sokal's excellent parody or
auto-deconstruction, which his poststructural editors swallowed whole, poor
self-blinded guppies that they are, was not a `fraud' but a rhetorical
gesture of great effectiveness. His subsequent explicit arguments make
mincemeat of clever idiots who can convince themselves of the probity of
claiming that the *facts* of planetary motion (rather than our knowledge
or `knowledge' of them) are subject to human epistemological choice.
My original outburst was certainly unparliamentary in tone, but I am in
despair (speaking as someone, after all, with a PhD in poststructural
discourse) at the desperately easy way this kind of evasive language has
become the canonical figuration of the non-empirical disciplines.
Damien Broderick
Nick Caldwell
<dam...@ariel.its.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>Nick Caldwell wrote:
>
>> >`The earth only orbits the sun
>> >because enough people imagine (or think or believe) that it does.'
>
>> I think you're badly mis-reading the register of the piece if you
>> think it's an attack on scientific principles.
>
>There is no rational, responsible context in which such an insane (though
>fashionably relativist) assertion can be made. The only register which would
As if to prove it, you've stripped the context even further.
Excuse me if I harp on a little; the primary point that I think Adam
is addressing is that our memories of things break down rational
relationships between reality and the unreal. Now I would have
thought this to be fairly obvious: we forget things, we misremember.
My memories of early childhood are confused and innacurate, as I think
are those of most people.
>redeem such a claim is, ironically, the one used so devastating by Alan Sokal
>- whom you bizarrely deride as
>
>> Sokal the fraud? Oh, whatever.
>
>This is feeble or disingenuous. Sokal's excellent parody or
Just because it might have been funny does not stop it from being
fradulent; he misrepresented his intentions to an academic journal.
I'll quote from Stanley Fish's response to the deception:
_____
Alan Sokal put forward his own undertakings as reliable, and he took
care, as he boasts, to surround his deception with all the marks of
authenticity, including dozens of "real" footnotes and an introductory
section that enlists a roster of the century's greatest scientists in
support of a line of argument he says he never believed in. He
carefully packaged his deception so as not to be detected except by
someone who began with a deep and corrosive attitude of suspicion that
may now be in full flower in the offices of learned journals because
of what he has done.
In a 1989 report published in The Proceedings of the National Academy
of Science, fraud is said to go "beyond error to erode the foundation
of trust on which science is built." That is Professor Sokal's legacy,
one likely to be longer lasting than the brief fame he now enjoys for
having successfully pretended to be himself.
-----
>auto-deconstruction, which his poststructural editors swallowed whole, poor
>self-blinded guppies that they are, was not a `fraud' but a rhetorical
The Social Text editors claimed to have misgivings over Sokal's text.
Believe them or not, but they're not the ones who committed the fraud.
>gesture of great effectiveness. His subsequent explicit arguments make
>mincemeat of clever idiots who can convince themselves of the probity of
>claiming that the *facts* of planetary motion (rather than our knowledge
>or `knowledge' of them) are subject to human epistemological choice.
Once again, with feeling, Adam was not addressing the realm of facts,
but of memory.
>My original outburst was certainly unparliamentary in tone, but I am in
>despair (speaking as someone, after all, with a PhD in poststructural
>discourse) at the desperately easy way this kind of evasive language has
>become the canonical figuration of the non-empirical disciplines.
I certainaly agree that there's a lot of bad postmodernism out there.
Sturgeon's Law applies to every human endeavour.
og...@my-dejanews.com
Damien Broderick <dam...@ariel.its.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> <snip>
> My original outburst was certainly unparliamentary in tone, but I am in
> despair (speaking as someone, after all, with a PhD in poststructural
> discourse) at the desperately easy way this kind of evasive language has
> become the canonical figuration of the non-empirical disciplines.
>
>
Let me ask a question. Why are you attacking this writer? This
whole thread seems bizare. It also seems to be utterly
off the topic.
Damien Broderick
> Let me ask a question. Why are you attacking this writer? This
> whole thread seems bizare. It also seems to be utterly
> off the topic.
On the contrary - the issue is entirely central to any sf discussion list. I
was caustic about Adam's piece because it is a melange of dangerous
confusions and elisions. The specific relevance of the topic to me, although
I didn't think it was worth mentioning, is that Rory Barnes and I have just
sold a novel to HarperCollins Australia specifically dealing with the UFO
abductee mythos, called THE BOOK OF REVELATION. I would be interested to
read Adam's reception of the novel.
Nick continues to claim that I have unfairly re-framed or decontextualised
Adam's argument. Ironically, if Adam's general relativist argument had
merit, that would not be a feasible counter-argument. But let's look at
another brief passage from the article:
< The emergence of postmodern thought is essentially what has allowed an
alien abduction phenomenon to begin an existence. Conceptual boundaries which
have traditionally precluded such a phenomenon are now being attacked and
acknowledged as cultural and therefore subject to change. Postmodern society
recognises and appreciates the plasticity and constant change of reality and
knowledge, and stresses the priority of concrete experience over fixed
abstract principles (Tarnas 395). At its deepest level, alien abduction
exposes the arbitrary nature of the reality/non-reality duality, since
abduction experiences seem to involve something from n-reality/immateriality
(alien beings that walk through walls) entering reality/materiality (its
aftereffects are observed in the physical world). >
It might be more plausible to say that the continued rise of unethical
practices among publishers and other media outlets has allowed the abduction
hysteria to spread, as it has with `recovered memories' and `Satanic abuse'
confabulations. But Adam's key slip is that characteristic move: `plasticity
and constant change of reality and knowledge'. Nuts. It isn't *reality*
that changes, only our theoretical construction of it. It is a cardinal and
dangerous error to conflate the two, whatever the witless third-rate
offspring of Foucault and Derrida proclaim to the contrary.
`Alien abduction' `exposes the arbitrary nature of the reality/non-reality
duality' in exactly the degree to which falling off your doorstep after a
drunken binge does - it shows that the brain's processing of incoming
information and its recalled traces is fallible. Newsbreak: a few people
guessed that this might be the case even before Baudrillard set up his
snake-oil stand. In fact, it's the basis of scientific practice - the
resason for public accountability of knowledge claims, repeatable
experiments, the whole schmear.
I apologise to Adam for the personal tenor of my earlier remarks. I don't
know him, and have no personal axe to grind; he was a target of opportunity
for my outrage at such frequently propounded absurdities.
Damien Broderick
Chris Lawson
>>I not aware of the work of "Sokal", but I think it is beautiful the
>Alan Sokal, an American Physics professor who wrote a fraudulent
>article on the place of postmodernism in quantum physics for a
>Cultural Studies journal.
Oh, "fraudulent" was it? Sokal wanted to point out the idiocies
of much of current social theory (especially the anti-rationalism
that has permeated sociology) by writing an essay that was
basically a load of tripe. He then submitted it to Social/Text,
one of the premier social theory journals around. It was accepted
and published, at which point Sokal revealed himself and provided
a critical analysis of all the idiotic things he had put in his
article -- quite an embarrassment for a journal that claims to be
at the cutting edge of modern intellectual life.
The only thing remotely "fraudulent" was that Sokal didn't tell
the editors about all the stupid bits of his essay before they
published it -- but that was the whole point. He ran a perfect
experiment. He developed his hypothesis (that the sociology
journals were anti-rationalist) and devised an experiment (submit
an anti-rationalist paper) and scored a result (the paper was
published without modification).
Although this was not entirely honest, neither are undercover
police. I suppose you'd defend drug dealers on the same grounds -
"the evil policeman didn't tell me he was a policeman when I
tried to sell him drugs." Nor were the researchers who performed
most of the famous social psychology studies, such as Milgram's
(or was it Milliken's) famous study on the power of authority
figures. If he had revealed to the subjects the true nature of
the study, he would never have got a result. In your books, he is
also a fraud.
So, in the light of that analogy, let's ask the question this
way. Who was MORE deceptive? Was it Sokal who pretended to write
a serious essay and did so in order to expose a sham, or was it
the editors of Social/Text who claim to be intellectuals and yet
patently don't care a damn about the intellectual quality of the
material they published?
And, BTW, "fraudulent" doesn't just mean deceitful, it also means
that the perpetrator made a financial gain from the transaction
and is a criminal offence. This is clearly not the case with
Sokal. Please use your language more carefully.
>--
>Nick Caldwell-----------------------------------------
> - - M/C: a journal of media and culture - -
>s32...@student.uq.edu.au | http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/
So, you are associated with a "journal of media and culture".
Does this have anything to do with your opinion?
regards,
Chris Lawson
Chris Lawson
[more on Sokal]
>I'll quote from Stanley Fish's response to the deception:
>_____
>Alan Sokal put forward his own undertakings as reliable, and he took
>care, as he boasts, to surround his deception with all the marks of
>authenticity, including dozens of "real" footnotes and an introductory
>section that enlists a roster of the century's greatest scientists in
>support of a line of argument he says he never believed in. He
>carefully packaged his deception so as not to be detected except by
>someone who began with a deep and corrosive attitude of suspicion that
>may now be in full flower in the offices of learned journals because
>of what he has done.
Stanley Fish was one of the editors of Social/Text, iirc. This
was one of many defensive statements put forward by the editors
to justify their inclusion of a patently ludicruous paper.
Despite what Fish says, you didn't need a "deep and corrosive
attitude of suspicion" to detect Sokal's hoax. Anyone with half a
brain should have realised that the paper was not worth printing.
Certainly one would need to be suspicious to realise that Sokal
had deliberately written the piece badly, but the fact remains
the paper was a piece of bollocks from start to finish and should
never have been published in a journal that calls itself
"academic".
The fact that Sokal used "real" footnotes and referred to
statements and quotes by major scientists is no excuse for the
editors. Anyone who has any experience with Web loonies will know
that they routinely quote real sources and draw on the work of
famous scientists. The fact that Social/Text thought the
*presence* of quotes and references was adequate demonstrates
their appalling lack of intellectual pedigree. If that was their
standard, then just about any Web site would be acceptable to the
journal.
>In a 1989 report published in The Proceedings of the National Academy
>of Science, fraud is said to go "beyond error to erode the foundation
>of trust on which science is built." That is Professor Sokal's legacy,
>one likely to be longer lasting than the brief fame he now enjoys for
>having successfully pretended to be himself.
Really? It seems to me that Sokal was complaining about the lack
of integrity of social theory journals and wanted to reveal that
lack of integrity on the grounds that it was "eroding the
foundation of trust on which science is built." The fact that he
successfully demosntrated this failure (in one example) shows
that the real problem lies with the journal and not with Sokal.
Do you think any physics journals were the remotest bit concerned
with Sokal's hoax? Not at all -- because they have real standards
and proper refereeing. Most physicists, chemists, biologists,
astronomers, etc., etc., would clearly point the finger at the
Social/Text-like journals for eroding the foundation of trust in
science.
Quite typically, the editors of Social/Text blamed their exposer.
They were the ones who applied inadequate academic standards.
When this was proved to them, they blamed *Sokal* for damaging
the credibility of academic discourse.
>The Social Text editors claimed to have misgivings over Sokal's text.
>Believe them or not, but they're not the ones who committed the fraud.
None of those misgivings were published at any time until after
Sokal revealed himself. Compare this to the recent paper in the
academic Web journal _Prevention and Treatment_ called "Listening
to Prozac but hearing placebo..." which you can find at
http://journals.apa.org/prevention/volume1/pre0010002a.html. For
a number of reasons I think this paper is a load of bollocks. So
did many of the journal's referees. But several of the referees
also said that it was an important paper. So the journal decided
to run it, but added an editorial commentary discussing their
concerns, and also ran four expert commentaries on the paper, 3
of which were highly critical of the paper.
This is how real academics deal with misgivings.
>I certainaly agree that there's a lot of bad postmodernism out there.
>Sturgeon's Law applies to every human endeavour.
And here I agree. I don't believe that post-modernism is bad in
and of itself. Neither did Sokal, by the way, and if you read his
commentaries, you will find numerous references to his
recognition of post-modernism as an important 20th century
philosophy with many valuable contributions to current thinking.
I also agree with you about Sturgeon's Law. But Sokal wasn't
trying to show that *most* postmodern thinking was bad. You could
prove the same thing about most human activities. Sokal was
reacting to the fact that Sturgeon's Law applied to prestigious
sociology journals and was applied by professors in recognised
universities. IOW, Sokal was objecting to the fact that the
Sturgeon crap was being given the imprimatur of respected
institutions.
regards,
Chris Lawson
Nick Caldwell
wrote:
>s32...@student.uq.edu.au (Nick Caldwell) wrote:
>Although this was not entirely honest, neither are undercover
>police. I suppose you'd defend drug dealers on the same grounds -
>"the evil policeman didn't tell me he was a policeman when I
>tried to sell him drugs." Nor were the researchers who performed
>most of the famous social psychology studies, such as Milgram's
>(or was it Milliken's) famous study on the power of authority
>figures. If he had revealed to the subjects the true nature of
>the study, he would never have got a result. In your books, he is
>also a fraud.
IIRC there were a number of ethical concerns over that study.
>So, in the light of that analogy, let's ask the question this
>way. Who was MORE deceptive? Was it Sokal who pretended to write
>a serious essay and did so in order to expose a sham, or was it
>the editors of Social/Text who claim to be intellectuals and yet
>patently don't care a damn about the intellectual quality of the
>material they published?
I don't think the situation was as cut-and-dried as you suggest.
>And, BTW, "fraudulent" doesn't just mean deceitful, it also means
>that the perpetrator made a financial gain from the transaction
>and is a criminal offence. This is clearly not the case with
>Sokal. Please use your language more carefully.
All right then, a qualifier. Intellectual fraud. Scientific fraud.
Gosh, he comes across so much better that way.
>>--
>>Nick Caldwell-----------------------------------------
>> - - M/C: a journal of media and culture - -
>>s32...@student.uq.edu.au | http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/
>
>So, you are associated with a "journal of media and culture".
>Does this have anything to do with your opinion?
I don't think you have been following the thread. We published an
essay which inspired Damien Broderick to go on a small verbal rampage
through this newsgroup, which he began by calling the writer a "stupid
pomo fuck". Now, as the writer of the essay is a good friend of mine,
and lacks reliable newsgroup access, I felt (perhaps wrongly) obliged
to respond.
And thank you so much for the kind implication that I'm incapable of
thinking for myself.
--
Nick Caldwell-----------------------------------------
- - M/C: a journal of media and culture - -
s32...@student.uq.edu.au | http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/
------------------------------------------------------
Damien Broderick
> >And, BTW, "fraudulent" doesn't just mean deceitful, it also means
> >that the perpetrator made a financial gain from the transaction
> >and is a criminal offence. This is clearly not the case with
> >Sokal.
> All right then, a qualifier. Intellectual fraud. Scientific fraud.
> Gosh, he comes across so much better that way.[...]
> We published an
> essay which inspired Damien Broderick to go on a small verbal rampage
> through this newsgroup
Okay, here's a longer verbal rampage. I agree with Chris's assessment of the
Sokal affair, of course (although Stanley Fish, iirc, was not a member of the
editorial committee that fell into Sokal's trap). Dr Sokal, by the way,
appeared in an interview with Robyn Williams on ABC Radio National's Science
Show yesterday, and was rather impressive. In what follows, I cite my
discussion of Sokal's paper, from my recent book THEORY AND ITS DISCONTENTS.
I do realise that this deviates painfully from discussions of the
superiority of B5 over Lost in Space, and apologise in advance.
===
`Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of
Quantum Gravity' was the spoof cruelly perpetrated by Professor Alan D. Sokal
upon a notable post-structuralist journal, Social Text. Sokal immediately
blew the whistle on his own parody, a monstrous collage of good sense,
gibberish and fashionable sound-bites. The paper's second paragraph
presented the mock claim (supported by many authentic quotes from postmodern
theorists) that science is now known to be just a matter of local opinion,
that the `physical "reality"' it studies is `at bottom a social and
linguistic construct' (Sokal 1996a).
His method was killingly effective. `Like the genre it is meant to
satirize... my article is a mélange of truths, half truths, quarter truths,
falsehoods, non sequiturs, and syntactically correct sentences that have no
meaning whatsoever' (Sokal, 1996b). The real scandal was his post-structural
editors' failure to subject this comical potpourri to suitable peer review.
Experts in quantum gravity (a very difficult field barely in its infancy)
would have laughed aloud. But so would most competent scientists confronted
with Sokal's self-confessed `appeals to authority in lieu of logic;
speculative theories passed off as established science; strained and even
absurd analogies;... confusion between the technical and everyday senses of
English words' (ibid).
Little wonder, as Sokal notes despairingly, that most of his fellow citizens
have no way of telling science from superstition, well-grounded knowledge
from wishful New Age claptrap. Two years earlier, in their strident Higher
Superstition, Gross and Levitt had picked at some of the doleful ways in
which snooty up-market ignorance still illustrates C. P. Snow's `Two
Cultures' - the ruinous split between the sciences and the humanities. Their
assault was taken by its victims as nothing more troubling than a reactionary
blast against the forces of radical change. Sokal's success proves that this
is too limited an interpretation, too comfortable by half. Sokal's blackly
comic composite stirred sense and nonsense into a sticky paste, which his
target audience happily swallowed, proving themselves as carelessly ignorant,
in their way, as the 42 percent of those polled in the USA who didn't know
where Japan is, and the 38 percent who did not know what `the holocaust'
referred to (Sagan, 1996, p. 353).
Or is this too severe? Co-editors Bruce Robbins and Andrew Ross justified
their blunder thus: they had simply
concluded that this article was the earnest attempt of a professional
scientist to seek some kind of affirmation from postmodern philosophy for
developments in his field. His adventures in PostmodernLand were not really
our cup of tea.... Sokal's article would have been regarded as somewhat
outdated if it had come from a humanist or social scientist.... In other
words, we read it more as an act of good faith of the sort that might be
worth encouraging than as a set of arguments with which we agreed. (Robbins
and Ross, 1996)
Stanley Fish, pre-eminent theorist of the `interpretive community' as the key
to relativistic meaning, came to their defence, swiftly denouncing `the
improbability of the scenario [Sokal] conjures up: Scholars with impeccable
credentials making statements no sane person could credit. The truth is that
none of his targets would ever make such statements.' Fish added,
What sociologists of science say is that of course the world is real
and independent of our observations but that accounts of the world are
produced by observers and are therefore relative to their capacities,
education, training, etc. It is not the world or its properties but the
vocabularies in whose terms we know them that are socially constructed
fashioned by human beings which is why our understanding of those
properties is continually changing. (Fish, 1996)
In significant measure, however, this defence evades the discursive issue.
`Granted,' Sokal admitted, `not even the Social Text editors would deny the
existence of an external world, or claim that "physical `reality'... is at
bottom a social and linguistic construct." The fact remains that they
published an article saying exactly this in its first two paragraphs' (Sokal,
1996c). The reason they did so is that - pace Professor Fish - the discourse
of post-structural analysis lends itself utterly to that way of reading the
world.
I am writing here from an adjacent angle to the debate, a perspective
deriving as much from close attention to the discourses of science
(especially as these are translated by working scientists for the
non-scientific reader) as to those of the humanities. Arguments against
thorough-going cultural relativism, such as those advanced by Roy Bhaskar in
A Realist Theory of Science (1978) and subsequent studies, seem to me as
salient to the status of Theory as any refutation of Saussurean linguistics.
Yes, scientific theory and practice are often erroneously regarded by
working scientists as entirely `objective', although counter-intuitive in
their content; see, for example, embryologist Lewis Wolpert in his
revealingly entitled The Unnatural Nature of Science (1992), and physicist
Alan Cromer, in Uncommon Sense (1993). Yet it is precisely by confronting
scientific theory's socially-constructed aspect that we best estimate the
standing of `theory' in Theory.
Is language really arbitrary, or does it map (however inadequately) real
partitions and processes in nature? If language is arbitrary, is mathematics
also? Are historical sequences haphazard as well as contingent, or might
human affairs resemble the weather - fairly predictable at close range,
chaotically random in the middle range, but orbiting within the envelope of a
determinate attractor (Coveney and Highfield, 1995)? Must all `grand
narratives' be discarded - Darwin, Marx, Freud, the dead white males - or
might a parallax view from science suggest another way of perceiving world
and habitus? Those are some of the unfashionable questions posed here. The
answers I canvas might surprise devotees of Theory familiar chiefly with the
world according to Derrida, Foucault, de Man. They certainly surprised me.
=============
Anyone still awake might care to look at my book for some suggestions about
how the best insights of poststruck and pomo can be retained while shuffling
off the kinds of stupidities that Sokal and Bicmont expose in their book
INTELLECTUAL IMPOSTURES.
Damien Broderick
Chris Lawson
>IIRC there were a number of ethical concerns over that study.
Over Milgram's study? Not many that I can think of. Most
objections seem to be with the findings, in that people find them
very discomforting. But this is beside the point, there are
numerous studies in which full disclosure would destroy the study
design -- in fact every blinded study ever performed.
>>So, in the light of that analogy, let's ask the question this
>>way. Who was MORE deceptive? Was it Sokal who pretended to write
>>a serious essay and did so in order to expose a sham, or was it
>>the editors of Social/Text who claim to be intellectuals and yet
>>patently don't care a damn about the intellectual quality of the
>>material they published?
>I don't think the situation was as cut-and-dried as you suggest.
Perhaps not, but you haven't given me a reason to change my
opinion. As far as I am concerned, any journal that could publish
Sokal's article as a serious contribution to intellectual life is
not worthy of the title "academic". If it had been a one-campus
student journal, no-one would have cared all that much. I'm sorry
if that seems cut-and-dried, but that is the way it looks to me.
>>And, BTW, "fraudulent" doesn't just mean deceitful, it also means
>>that the perpetrator made a financial gain from the transaction
>>and is a criminal offence. This is clearly not the case with
>>Sokal. Please use your language more carefully.
>All right then, a qualifier. Intellectual fraud. Scientific fraud.
>Gosh, he comes across so much better that way.
No, he was not a fraud. That was my point. Putting the qualifier
there is just as much an abuse of language and an unfair slight
of character as your *un*qualified use of the word.
>>>--
>>>Nick Caldwell-----------------------------------------
>>> - - M/C: a journal of media and culture - -
>>>s32...@student.uq.edu.au | http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/
>>
>>So, you are associated with a "journal of media and culture".
>>Does this have anything to do with your opinion?
>I don't think you have been following the thread. We published an
>essay which inspired Damien Broderick to go on a small verbal rampage
>through this newsgroup, which he began by calling the writer a "stupid
>pomo fuck". Now, as the writer of the essay is a good friend of mine,
>and lacks reliable newsgroup access, I felt (perhaps wrongly) obliged
>to respond.
Yes I missed the start of the thread. For some reason, Damien's
post only arrived in my box today, long after the followups. And
I can see why you wanted to defend your friend. But I steadfastly
avoided commenting on the Broderick-Caldwell dispute on the
simple grounds that I couldn't reconstruct what precisely had
been said.
But I did choose to respond to one specific comment of yours, ie.
that Sokal's article was "fraudulent" and that he was the villain
of the piece. The fact that Damien called your friend some rude
words was irrelevant to my defence of Alan Sokal.
>And thank you so much for the kind implication that I'm incapable of
>thinking for myself.
That's not my implication. My implication is that your point of
view is partly dependent on your association with the sort of
journal that Sokal hoaxed. That is, I was wondering if you felt a
little defensive about the topic, which was leading you to make
unnecessarily negative comments about Sokal. I was not implying a
lack of independent thought.
regards,
Chris Lawson
Adam Dodd
>There is no rational, responsible context in which such an insane (though
>fashionably relativist) assertion can be made. The only register which would
>redeem such a claim is, ironically, the one used so devastating by Alan Sokal
I have trouble understanding why you think that my claim, which equates
discovery with invention, could never be more than a fashionable parody.
[snip]
>This is feeble or disingenuous. Sokal's excellent parody or
>auto-deconstruction, which his poststructural editors swallowed whole, poor
>self-blinded guppies that they are, was not a `fraud' but a rhetorical
>gesture of great effectiveness.
What's ironic about the Sokal affair is that it mirrors common approaches
to paranormal, or 'way out' phenomena. That is,
the idea that one mis-step invalidates the whole. Because some old guys
showe us how to make a crop circle, for example, the implication has been
that *no* crop cirlces could be genuine. Because some UFOs cases have been
found to be frauds or misidentification, then *all* UFOs are either frauds
or misidentification. Similarly, the way the Sokal affair is used to
attack poststructuralist approaches is to claim that because *some* people
were fooled by *one* case, then *all* the people are being fooled by *all*
such writings. This allows sweeping generalisations at the expense of
close analysis.
>His subsequent explicit arguments make
>mincemeat of clever idiots who can convince themselves of the probity of
>claiming that the *facts* of planetary motion (rather than our knowledge
>or `knowledge' of them) are subject to human epistemological choice.
I'm obviously one of the 'clever idiots' to whom you refer, since I do not
equate knowledge with truth. Making such an equation has been a
traditional, fundamental tool of science in its generation of social
power, and relies more on the desire for that power than a philosophically
plausible base. My view is that *all* knowledge is subject to
epistemological choice, and since all facts rely on knowledge to exist as
facts, all facts are the result of epistemological choices - and social,
cultural factors, also. The premise of science has been that it is able to
discover 'truths' by being immune from social factors. The last few
decades of research have strongly demonstrated that such premises are
illusory.
>My original outburst was certainly unparliamentary in tone, but I am in
>despair (speaking as someone, after all, with a PhD in poststructural
>discourse) at the desperately easy way this kind of evasive language has
>become the canonical figuration of the non-empirical disciplines.
I'm sorry to hear that the trend my article reflects causes you despair.
Unfortunately, although some may see it as easy and evasive, it is still
incredibly useful, particularly when applied, I think, to vague phenomena
such as memory and alien abduction.
---
Adam Dodd.
Adam Dodd
>Nick continues to claim that I have unfairly re-framed or decontextualised
>Adam's argument. Ironically, if Adam's general relativist argument had
>merit, that would not be a feasible counter-argument. But let's look at
>another brief passage from the article:
>< The emergence of postmodern thought is essentially what has allowed an
>alien abduction phenomenon to begin an existence. Conceptual boundaries which
> have traditionally precluded such a phenomenon are now being attacked and
>acknowledged as cultural and therefore subject to change. Postmodern society
> recognises and appreciates the plasticity and constant change of reality and
> knowledge, and stresses the priority of concrete experience over fixed
>abstract principles (Tarnas 395). At its deepest level, alien abduction
>exposes the arbitrary nature of the reality/non-reality duality, since
>abduction experiences seem to involve something from n-reality/immateriality
>(alien beings that walk through walls) entering reality/materiality (its
>aftereffects are observed in the physical world). >
>It might be more plausible to say that the continued rise of unethical
>practices among publishers and other media outlets has allowed the abduction
>hysteria to spread, as it has with `recovered memories' and `Satanic abuse'
>confabulations. But Adam's key slip is that characteristic move: `plasticity
>and constant change of reality and knowledge'. Nuts. It isn't *reality*
>that changes, only our theoretical construction of it. It is a cardinal and
>dangerous error to conflate the two, whatever the witless third-rate
>offspring of Foucault and Derrida proclaim to the contrary.
Firstly, I don't think it's useful to speak about the abduction
controversy in terms of 'hysteria'. It's very inaccurate. Secondly, I
agree that it is dangerous to conflate reality and knowledge, but not that
to do so represents error. My point was that our theoretical constructions
or reality *do* change reality, since they do just what their title
suggests - they *construct* reality. We cannot know reality outside of
such constructions, therefore, reality does change, since 'reality' is a
construction. It is not obvious that reality exists, for example. We have
to learn that, through language, which shapes what 'is'. So, what exists
and what does not depends on us, not on what's 'out there'. Thirdly,
slander like 'witless third-rate offspring....' does not contribute to
productive debate and only expresses further the unuseful resentment you
seem to have for particular approaches.
>`Alien abduction' `exposes the arbitrary nature of the reality/non-reality
>duality' in exactly the degree to which falling off your doorstep after a
>drunken binge does - it shows that the brain's processing of incoming
>information and its recalled traces is fallible. Newsbreak: a few people
>guessed that this might be the case even before Baudrillard set up his
>snake-oil stand. In fact, it's the basis of scientific practice - the
>resason for public accountability of knowledge claims, repeatable
>experiments, the whole schmear.
>I apologise to Adam for the personal tenor of my earlier remarks. I don't
>know him, and have no personal axe to grind; he was a target of opportunity
>for my outrage at such frequently propounded absurdities.
Apart from our theoretical differences, you seem unaquainted with the
abduction data. Before you equate abduction experiences with a drunken
fall, you need to realise that it has not been demonstrated that abduction
memories are produced by brain disorders. There is no evidence that the
abduction phenomenon is psychological in origin. Psychological
explanations for abduction simply do not take into account all the
features of an abduction experience, and only seek to internalise a
phenomenon which many have decided a priori can have no objective reality.
---
Adam.
p-m agapow
>Apart from our theoretical differences, you seem unaquainted with the
>abduction data. Before you equate abduction experiences with a drunken
>fall, you need to realise that it has not been demonstrated that abduction
>memories are produced by brain disorders. There is no evidence that the
>abduction phenomenon is psychological in origin. Psychological
>explanations for abduction simply do not take into account all the
>features of an abduction experience, and only seek to internalise a
>phenomenon which many have decided a priori can have no objective reality.
That's not true. Not every abduction experience can be explained by
psychological means (not enough is known about every case, and not every
victim is avaliable for investigation) any more than every rising of the
sun for the past 10 billion years can be explained by orbital mechanics.
But a number of cases have clear psychological roots. Jim Schnabel's
excellent "Dark White" describes a women who was "abducted" and
"experimented upon" while sitting in the front seat of a car in front of
several onlookers. Combined with the extremely poor and biased methodology
used by so-called abduction experts, the self-reinforcing nature of
abduction victim support (victims are rewarded and congratulated for
recalling abductions, especially when they shore up other victim's
stories), and studies that show the fragility of human senses and memories,
the psychological hypothesis is far stronger than any reality-changing
aliens. Unchallengable? No - but then you can't prove I don't have an
invisible pink elephant besides my desk with me now. You can bet on the
answer, though.
> What's ironic about the Sokal affair is that it mirrors common approaches
> to paranormal, or 'way out' phenomena. That is,
> the idea that one mis-step invalidates the whole. Because some old guys
> showe us how to make a crop circle, for example, the implication has been
> that *no* crop cirlces could be genuine. Because some UFOs cases have been
> found to be frauds or misidentification, then *all* UFOs are either frauds
> or misidentification. Similarly, the way the Sokal affair is used to
Not quite. The key idea in the Sokal affair (and in crop circle debunking)
is that "experts" who propound exotic hypotheses are unable to distinguish
demonstrably fake items from supposed genuine ones. Crop circles are
faked, numerous times by many different parties, and experts find signs of
residual radioactivity, ley lines, wind vortices, UFO activity etc.
associated with these fake items. Sokal produces a bunkum article and
experts think it's worthy of publication in a leading journal. At the very
least this casts doubt on the existence of the "genuine" article.
Admittedly this case is stronger in the instance of crop circles, as there
have been many, many fakes and little unambiguous proof of exotic origins.
Sokal's paper is just one datapoint. But it isn't prejudice, or rampant
skepticism to doubt exotic hypotheses for crop circles, UFO abductions or
even postmodern theory. It's just Occam's razor. It's just blind testing.
It's just science.
p-m
--
Paul-Michael Agapow (p.ag...@ic.ac.uk), Dept. Biology, Imperial College
"I think it's tragic that Princess Diana had to be killed by one to bring
international attention to the problem of landmines."
Bruce Crawford
aga...@latcs1.cs.latrobe.edu.au (p-m agapow) wrote:
> No - but then you can't prove I don't have an
> invisible pink elephant besides my desk with me now. You can bet on the
> answer, though.
>
Actually I think it may be possible. Given that something cannot be pink
and invisible at the same time, an invisible pink elephant is impossible.
Consequently, there is no invisible pink elephant besides your desk.
Sorry, couldn't resist. :)
> > What's ironic about the Sokal affair is that it mirrors common approaches
> > to paranormal, or 'way out' phenomena. That is,
> > the idea that one mis-step invalidates the whole. Because some old guys
> > showe us how to make a crop circle, for example, the implication has been
> > that *no* crop cirlces could be genuine. Because some UFOs cases have been
> > found to be frauds or misidentification, then *all* UFOs are either frauds
> > or misidentification. Similarly, the way the Sokal affair is used to
>
It is a reasonably common practice in science to continue to use theories
that are known to be flawed in a limited context. That is, one flaw
doesn't not prevent the theory from being of use. Newtonian mechanics is
an example of this. However, it is lazy wish fulfillment to invoke
extraordinary phenomena to explain an unexplained event. The paranormal
explanation of phenomena are being rejected because there are often
simpler, non-extraordinary explanations. I have no problem with the
existence of aliens. I consider it to be quite likely. I do not consider
that present evidence, however, supports that these events can be ascribed
to aliens.
Now will someone please give me a citation to this Sokal paper so I can read it?
By the way p-m, now that you've ascended to Imperial College will you be
continuing your postviews? I've enjoyed many of them over the years (and
disagreed with many of them also). Congrats on the new position also.
Bruce Crawford.
og...@my-dejanews.com
Damien Broderick <dam...@ariel.its.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> og...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
>
> > Let me ask a question. Why are you attacking this writer? This
> > whole thread seems bizare. It also seems to be utterly
> > off the topic.
>
> On the contrary - the issue is entirely central to any sf discussion list. I
> was caustic about Adam's piece because it is a melange of dangerous
> confusions and elisions. The specific relevance of the topic to me, although
> I didn't think it was worth mentioning, is that Rory Barnes and I have just
> sold a novel to HarperCollins Australia specifically dealing with the UFO
> abductee mythos, called THE BOOK OF REVELATION. I would be interested to
> read Adam's reception of the novel.
Ah! Okay, an awful lot falls into place now. My appologies for butting
in, this argument obviously has nothing to do with me. Please pardon
my ignorance.
--
"...there is sometimes little to choose between
the reality of illusion and the illusion of reality."
Patrick White, The Aunt's Story , 1948
Adam Dodd
>>Apart from our theoretical differences, you seem unaquainted with the
>>abduction data. Before you equate abduction experiences with a drunken
>>fall, you need to realise that it has not been demonstrated that abduction
>>memories are produced by brain disorders. There is no evidence that the
>>abduction phenomenon is psychological in origin. Psychological
>>explanations for abduction simply do not take into account all the
>>features of an abduction experience, and only seek to internalise a
>>phenomenon which many have decided a priori can have no objective reality.
>That's not true. Not every abduction experience can be explained by
>psychological means (not enough is known about every case, and not every
>victim is avaliable for investigation) any more than every rising of the
>sun for the past 10 billion years can be explained by orbital mechanics.
>But a number of cases have clear psychological roots. Jim Schnabel's
>excellent "Dark White" describes a women who was "abducted" and
>"experimented upon" while sitting in the front seat of a car in front of
>several onlookers. Combined with the extremely poor and biased methodology
>used by so-called abduction experts, the self-reinforcing nature of
>abduction victim support (victims are rewarded and congratulated for
>recalling abductions, especially when they shore up other victim's
>stories), and studies that show the fragility of human senses and memories,
>the psychological hypothesis is far stronger than any reality-changing
>aliens. Unchallengable? No - but then you can't prove I don't have an
>invisible pink elephant besides my desk with me now. You can bet on the
>answer, though.
Re: the pink elephant. What makes this claim unuseful is that, unlike the
thousands of abduction cases now on record (30% of which are recalled
fully without the aid of hypnosis), it's not a claim being made by a large
number of people against their will. You also seem to overlook the
physical evidence that supports the phenomenon's objective reality:
anomalous scars, people physically missing from their beds, and so on. The
idea that the abduction experience is something created by therapists on
the hypnosis couch is completely contrary to the evidence. Abductees show
no signs of psychopatathology other than believing they've been abducted.
even if this belief were serious delusion, we would expect to see this
fantasy-proneness manifest in other ways in the person's life, and not
rigidly restricted to abduction.
>> What's ironic about the Sokal affair is that it mirrors common approaches
>> to paranormal, or 'way out' phenomena. That is,
>> the idea that one mis-step invalidates the whole. Because some old guys
>> showe us how to make a crop circle, for example, the implication has been
>> that *no* crop cirlces could be genuine. Because some UFOs cases have been
>> found to be frauds or misidentification, then *all* UFOs are either frauds
>> or misidentification. Similarly, the way the Sokal affair is used to
>Not quite. The key idea in the Sokal affair (and in crop circle debunking)
>is that "experts" who propound exotic hypotheses are unable to distinguish
>demonstrably fake items from supposed genuine ones. Crop circles are
>faked, numerous times by many different parties, and experts find signs of
>residual radioactivity, ley lines, wind vortices, UFO activity etc.
>associated with these fake items.
Sure, but some 'experts' can tell the difference, too. What about them?
Not all researchers speak with a single voice.
>Sokal produces a bunkum article and
>experts think it's worthy of publication in a leading journal. At the very
>least this casts doubt on the existence of the "genuine" article.
>Admittedly this case is stronger in the instance of crop circles, as there
>have been many, many fakes and little unambiguous proof of exotic origins.
>Sokal's paper is just one datapoint. But it isn't prejudice, or rampant
>skepticism to doubt exotic hypotheses for crop circles, UFO abductions or
>even postmodern theory. It's just Occam's razor. It's just blind testing.
>It's just science.
We have reasons to doubt Occam's razor, and 'science', as well, at least
inasmuch as they claim to enable true descriptions of the nature of the
physical world. Describing anomalies in terms of the known, for example,
prevents discovery of the previously unknown.
---
Adam
Damien Broderick
> Apart from our theoretical differences, you seem unaquainted with the
> abduction data.
Oh, I doubt that you'd leave me behind in a race. It's sickening to admit
it, but I have a metre of books just over here on the shelf about such
claims, starting with a book I bought in the late 1950s. (It's just a crazy
old-fashioned interest of mine, you know how it is.) But I'm not obsessive
about it - most of the books I've read about UFOs and abductions came from
libraries and went back quick smart. It's an enthralling sociological
pathology. As I mentioned earlier, Rory Barnes and I have a novel coming out
next year on the topic; a novella drawn from that book appears in the
forthcoming antho edited by Jack Dann and Janeen Webb, DREAMING DOWN-UNDER.
You'll be glad to know that I have found a wonderful new non-paradigmatic
explanation for the source of the greys, their purpose, and its connection
with human consciousness.
Damien Broderick
Jason Stokes
<dam...@ariel.its.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>You'll be glad to know that I have found a wonderful new non-paradigmatic
>explanation for the source of the greys, their purpose, and its connection
>with human consciousness.
Indeed. It's this: when someone has an psychologically appealing new
idea, it tends to spread.
--
Jason Stokes: js...@bluedog.apana.org.au
Politics: the art of making voting for the other bastard seem even
worse.
p-m agapow
>aga...@latcs1.cs.latrobe.edu.au (p-m agapow) wrote:
>> No - but then you can't prove I don't have an
>> invisible pink elephant besides my desk with me now. You can bet on the
>> answer, though.
>>
>Actually I think it may be possible. Given that something cannot be pink
>and invisible at the same time, an invisible pink elephant is impossible.
>Consequently, there is no invisible pink elephant besides your desk.
>Sorry, couldn't resist. :)
Touche Bruce ... :^) I set myself up for that one. And everything you said
about the paranormal was eminently sensible.
>Now will someone please give me a citation to this Sokal paper so I can
>read it?
Social Text, Spring/Summer 1996. But any search engine will give you lotz
o' hits on the subject.
>By the way p-m, now that you've ascended to Imperial College will you be
>continuing your postviews? I've enjoyed many of them over the years (and
>disagreed with many of them also). Congrats on the new position also.
It's my intention to keep posting - can't abandon aus.sf to the
lumpen-fans. Eventually the website will have to move, but we'll deal with
that when it happens. And thanks for the congrats - I have just the _best_
job in the world.
p-m
--
Paul-Michael Agapow (p.ag...@ic.ac.uk), Dept. Biology, Imperial College
"We were too young, lived too fast, and had too much technology ..."
snail
>cra...@nospamdeakin.edu.au (Bruce Crawford) writes:
>>By the way p-m, now that you've ascended to Imperial College will you be
>>continuing your postviews? I've enjoyed many of them over the years (and
>>disagreed with many of them also). Congrats on the new position also.
>It's my intention to keep posting - can't abandon aus.sf to the
:-)
>lumpen-fans. Eventually the website will have to move, but we'll deal with
>that when it happens. And thanks for the congrats - I have just the _best_
Missed the .sig change. My congrats as well.
--
snail | sn...@careless.net.au | http://www.careless.net.au/~snail/
I'm a man of my word. In the end, that's all there is. - Avon
Adam Dodd
>Adam Dodd wrote:
>> Apart from our theoretical differences, you seem unaquainted with the
>> abduction data.
>Oh, I doubt that you'd leave me behind in a race. It's sickening to admit
>it, but I have a metre of books just over here on the shelf about such
>claims, starting with a book I bought in the late 1950s. (It's just a crazy
>old-fashioned interest of mine, you know how it is.) But I'm not obsessive
>about it - most of the books I've read about UFOs and abductions came from
>libraries and went back quick smart. It's an enthralling sociological
>pathology.
Damien, if you were familiar with the abduction data (and boasting a metre
of books on the topic doesn't show that you are), you wouldn't be able to
write it off the way you do: as hysterical psychology. Not only is there
no evidence for it, the available evidence concerning abduction plainly
precludes this explanation. Maybe you shouldn't have taken those books
back to the library so quickly - or maybe the library's the wrong place to
look for reliable abduction data.
>As I mentioned earlier, Rory Barnes and I have a novel coming out
>next year on the topic; a novella drawn from that book appears in the
>forthcoming antho edited by Jack Dann and Janeen Webb, DREAMING DOWN-UNDER.
>You'll be glad to know that I have found a wonderful new non-paradigmatic
>explanation for the source of the greys, their purpose, and its connection
>with human consciousness.
Well, I'm not glad about that, really. It sounds like an
insensitive cash-in to me. And based on your previous posts, I doubt it'll
be particularly informed or insightful.
Cheers,
---
Adam Dodd.
Bruce Crawford
(Adam Dodd) wrote:
> Damien Broderick <dam...@ariel.its.unimelb.edu.au> writes:
>
> >Adam Dodd wrote:
>
> >> Apart from our theoretical differences, you seem unaquainted with the
> >> abduction data.
>
> >Oh, I doubt that you'd leave me behind in a race. It's sickening to admit
> >it, but I have a metre of books just over here on the shelf about such
> >claims, starting with a book I bought in the late 1950s. (It's just a crazy
> >old-fashioned interest of mine, you know how it is.) But I'm not obsessive
> >about it - most of the books I've read about UFOs and abductions came from
> >libraries and went back quick smart. It's an enthralling sociological
> >pathology.
>
> Damien, if you were familiar with the abduction data (and boasting a metre
> of books on the topic doesn't show that you are), you wouldn't be able to
> write it off the way you do: as hysterical psychology. Not only is there
> no evidence for it, the available evidence concerning abduction plainly
> precludes this explanation. Maybe you shouldn't have taken those books
> back to the library so quickly - or maybe the library's the wrong place to
> look for reliable abduction data.
>
Well Adam, you have the floor. Tell us (i) how the available evidence
precludes the possibility of hysterical psychology and (ii) cite sources
for this evidence that are considered reliable. Also, if a library is not
a reliable source for abduction data what is? If you're going to make such
a statement then you should provide evidence. Strident assertion is no
proof.
> >As I mentioned earlier, Rory Barnes and I have a novel coming out
> >next year on the topic; a novella drawn from that book appears in the
> >forthcoming antho edited by Jack Dann and Janeen Webb, DREAMING DOWN-UNDER.
> >You'll be glad to know that I have found a wonderful new non-paradigmatic
> >explanation for the source of the greys, their purpose, and its connection
> >with human consciousness.
>
> Well, I'm not glad about that, really. It sounds like an
> insensitive cash-in to me. And based on your previous posts, I doubt it'll
> be particularly informed or insightful.
>
Well, there's nothing like an ad-hominem attack to beef up an argument. If
it was then it wouldn't be the first. From what I seen (from the X-Files
onwards) there is a great deal of "cashing-in" on the whole alien
abduction phenomenon much of it far more lurid than a SF novel. At least
Damien is not claiming to believe in UFO abductions. I think it is far
crueller for someone to pretend to agree with an phenomena/idea/concept in
an effort to profit from it.
Regards,
Bruce.
Jason Stokes
>Damien, if you were familiar with the abduction data (and boasting a metre
>of books on the topic doesn't show that you are), you wouldn't be able to
>write it off the way you do: as hysterical psychology.
It isn't hysterical psychology. It's normal psychology. People have
been seeing things that don't exist for thousands of years. The UFO
craze is the postcursor to the Mary mother of God craze, and the devil,
witch and omen craze...
You're resuscitating Mack's argument, which is "these people aren't
crazy or deliberately lying, therefore they are telling the truth."
But that doesn't follow...
--
Jason Stokes: js...@bluedog.apana.org.au
Damien Broderick
> >It's an enthralling sociological
> >pathology.
>
> Damien, if you were familiar with the abduction data [...]
> you wouldn't be able to
> write it off the way you do: as hysterical psychology.
A revealing move, this conflation of the sociological and the `hysterical',
or the unquestioning reduction of the one to the other. While the abduction
mythos has its site in the experience and claims of individuals, it is also
clearly and more importantly a collective production modulated by changing
tropes and developing narratives in overlapping discursive communities.
(Well, granted, so was `hysteria' as a psycho-nosological category, but the
individual was more plainly the site of symptoms and eliciting conflicts.)
Damien Broderick
David Wareing
> Damien, if you were familiar with the abduction data (and boasting a metre
> of books on the topic doesn't show that you are), you wouldn't be able to
> write it off the way you do: as hysterical psychology. Not only is there
> no evidence for it, the available evidence concerning abduction plainly
> precludes this explanation. Maybe you shouldn't have taken those books
> back to the library so quickly - or maybe the library's the wrong place to
> look for reliable abduction data.
[snip]
> Well, I'm not glad about that, really. It sounds like an
> insensitive cash-in to me. And based on your previous posts, I doubt it'll
> be particularly informed or insightful.
Adam, I see you're up to your old tricks. Left the sterile grounds
of aus.tv.x-files for the greener and hopefully more gullible
pastures of aus.sf have you?
If you really want to debate the existence of Greys, fairies,
Spears of Destiny, government coverups, a single honest brain cell
in Erich von Daniken's head, crop circles, pyramid power, the
alien-inspired mathematical splenditude of Stonehenge, the professional
nature of Mack's psychology sessions, or any other paranormal topic,
why don't you do the honest thing and take it where it belongs:
sci.skeptic?
At least in sci.skeptic you'll find people who actually want to
debate this stuff with you and who will expose you to the concepts of
proof and evidence. Hmm, on second thoughts, perhaps that's why
you are here, and not in sci.skeptic.
For the uninitiated, here's a brief summary of how a debate with
Adam *always* ends up, if you bother to take it that far:
1. Adam makes assertion. e.g. aliens are abducting humans.
2. Reader disagrees with assertion or questions it.
3. Adam tells doubter to read up on the literature.
4. Doubter either tells Adam he's read the literature, or does proceed
to read the literature. Reader then tells Adam that the literature
doesn't support Adam's claims either because of the poor nature of
the literature in the first place, or simply because the literature
doesn't actually support Adam's claims in any way (i.e. the literature
is irrelevant to Adam's claims.)
5. Adam tells the doubter that the doubter hasn't read the literature
"properly". Adam then attempts to fortify his claims by bringing
in other claims, usually just as wildly constructed, and just as poorly
evidenced. These further claims are classed as evidence by
Adam. If the doubter has some knowledge of these other areas,
Adam usually backs off quickly and forgets that he ever brought
those areas up. (Hint for the determined: ask Adam about
parasychology if you want him to shut up momentarily, especially
studies of ESP.)
6. Doubter disagrees with these further claims too, and asks Adam to
provide better evidence for his claims.
7. Adam disputes the meaning of the word "evidence", the nature of
reality, and accuses the doubter of ad-hom attacks. Adam attempts
to convince anyone who will listen that he is being attacked.
Galileo and Einstein are mentioned in passing. (Implication: Galileo
was persectuted. Galileo was a misunderstood genius proved correct
by history. Adam is allegedly persectuted. Therefore, Adam is
a misundestood genius who will be judged to be correct by history,
but not by the ignorant buffoons of his own time.)
8. Doubter attempts to put the debate back on a scientific footing,
continually defining terms for Adam. Adam pretends not to understand
these terms or disagrees with their usage. The argument boils down
to language. In the process, science is derided by Adam and held to
be a pointless, unfair artifact of "Western Civilisation". In
comparison, the allegedly holistic practices of the Orient are deemed
to be a much better method of investigation than reductionist, close-
minded "Western science". Mind you, scientific methods and scientists
themselves are often used when necessary to fortify Adam's claims,
in the same way that Adam will often use appeals to authority (e.g.
popularity polls.)
9. The debate now cycles endlessly between (3) and (8).
Nick Caldwell
Wareing) wrote:
>In article <6v6vfq$sva$1...@bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au>, s32...@student.uq.edu.au
>(Adam Dodd) wrote:
>
>> Damien, if you were familiar with the abduction data (and boasting a metre
>> of books on the topic doesn't show that you are), you wouldn't be able to
>> write it off the way you do: as hysterical psychology. Not only is there
>> no evidence for it, the available evidence concerning abduction plainly
>> precludes this explanation. Maybe you shouldn't have taken those books
>> back to the library so quickly - or maybe the library's the wrong place to
>> look for reliable abduction data.
>
>[snip]
>
>> Well, I'm not glad about that, really. It sounds like an
>> insensitive cash-in to me. And based on your previous posts, I doubt it'll
>> be particularly informed or insightful.
>
>Adam, I see you're up to your old tricks. Left the sterile grounds
>of aus.tv.x-files for the greener and hopefully more gullible
>pastures of aus.sf have you?
(snip damming list)
Adam, you have been a very naughty boy.
He's not like this in real life you know, he's much more determined
and obstinate.
(-:
--
Nick Caldwell-----------------------------------------
- - M/C: a journal of media and culture - -
s32...@student.uq.edu.au | http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/
------------------------------------------------------
snail
>(Adam Dodd) wrote:
>> Well, I'm not glad about that, really. It sounds like an
>> insensitive cash-in to me. And based on your previous posts, I doubt it'll
>> be particularly informed or insightful.
>Well, there's nothing like an ad-hominem attack to beef up an argument. If
Tell it to Broderick. Having not read the x-files groups (but have now
read Wareing's post on Adam) my first introduction to Adam Dodd was
when Broderick referred to him as 'some pomo fuck'. Whilst Broderick
has put up some interesting arguments and has since apologised for this
remark it was not particularly encouraging to fair debate.