The more recent unofficial sequel to the Sokal Hoax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair
Sokal and Boghossian's work intended (and succeeded?) to accomplish the same thing: they demonstrated the fact that these academic disciplines are full of bullshit producers and consumers.
"In particular, regarding the interaction of human beings and animals both inside of and apart from physical space, humans project their moral beliefs and assumptions onto animals and yet also consider animals ‘outside’ the moral sphere. [...] In animals, we see this inconsistency when applying human moral values to dogs by calling them ‘loyal’ or ‘disobedient’ or when referring to cats as ‘self-sufficient’ or ‘arrogant’ and yet accepting behaviors like fighting and torturing small animals as value-free and ‘natural.’"
Yes! That's a good point and a good motivation for doing this research. The first research question:
"(1) How do human discourses of rape culture get mapped onto dogs’ sexual encounters at dog parks; particularly, how do companions manage, contribute, and respond to ‘dog rape culture’?"
If you are interested in human behaviour then I can see how this is an actually interesting RQ. I think rather too much of the gloating around this paper comes from people who simply don't think any (qualitative) science w.r.t. human behaviour is legitimate.
Their using fake data preempts anyone from biting this bullet which is why it diminishes the force of the hoax a lot, imho.
That seems like an unwarranted conclusion. They found a gullible journal -- one that nobody has ever heard of except in connection to this hoax. Extending that to "the entire discipline is faulty" sounds like exactly the sort of faulty logic that we scientists are supposed to avoid.
If I wrote a journal article that consisted of one data point and drew a line from it I'd be blacklisted. Why on earth are we patting ourselves on the back for making precisely this mistake?
There is a demonstrable reluctance in these comments to confront what the Sokal hoax demonstrated.
There are generally "common wisdom" conclusions from this, that again, does not materially affect how people live their lives.
* If a country has "democratic" in its name, it's not a democracy.
* If an academic field has "science" in its name, it's not a science.
Yes there are of course exceptions... but they are literally small ones.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_republic#Global_use...
There are multiple areas of academia which role-play as rigorous scientific study, but in fact, are just people trading mumbo-jumbo which varies in how convincing it looks, and if you drill down, it's not just academia.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ray-dalio-rob-copela...
100% of supplmentary, complementary, and alternative medicine is fake.
Cf.
https://www.howdoeshomeopathywork.com/
But that doesn't stop it being a multi-billion-$CURRENCY industry. It is entirely fake, but people will pay to think they feel better.
That is why I used those names in that order.
S. C. A. M.
Gambling does not make you money. It makes gambling companies money. But it's vast.
Stock markets are, largely, gambling, driven by vague feelings, instincts, and herd impulse. I have worked there. They don't really know. It's hunches and friendships and hysteria.
But the world runs on it.
Yeah, suck it materials scientists, your discipline ain't real.
> Yes there are of course exceptions
... part then?
Noam Chomsky says something related in one of his interviews [1][2]
> It’s considered very left wing, very advanced. Some of what appears in it sort of actually makes sense, but when you reproduce it in monosyllables, it turns out to be truisms. It’s perfectly true that when you look at scientists in the West, they’re mostly men, it’s perfectly true that women have had a hard time breaking into the scientific fields, and it’s perfectly true that there are institutional factors determining how science proceeds that reflect power structures. All of this can be described literally in monosyllables, and it turns out to be truisms. On the other hand, you don’t get to be a respected intellectual by presenting truisms in monosyllables.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzrHwDOlTt8
[2] http://ozscience.com/philosophy/chomsky-calls-postmodern-cri...