Talk:Fashionable Nonsense

message: A third opinion has been requested.  I am not going to offer a straightforward third opinion, but will suggest that a Request for Comments be used on whether the two sentence should be in the lead.  Robert McClenon (talk) 02:48, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for responding, Robert McClenon. Unfortunately, your response is not helpful. As I have said, the article is in most respects poor and the lead doubtless needs improving, just as the rest of the article does. However, focusing in a single-minded way on the two sentences in the lead that are in dispute does nothing to resolve matters and is in fact counter-productive, since it distracts attention away from larger issues. Those interested in the article need to consider the article as a whole and what could be done to improve it. A lengthy, complicated request for comment about two sentences in the lead is not the appropriate response here. Please reconsider your response. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 04:20, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

text: Also, in case this needs spelling out, I would be perfectly content to see those two sentences removed if someone could propose an alternative that properly summarizes the criticism the book received. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 05:38, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  The criticism section is several times larger than the support section. However, the criticism is confined to turgid postmodernist obscurantism, and should be removed in its entirely. No credentialed scientist or mathematician seems to have issue with the book. False news and alternative facts may be currently in political ascendancy, but that is not a reason to allow academic gaslighting by postmodernists to overrun articles like this one. --Epipelagic (talk) 13:30, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: My own opinion then is that if one editor thinks that a sentence should be in the lede and another thinks that it should not, the way to minimize conflict is to leave it out of the lede but include it in the article body.  Robert McClenon (talk) 00:36, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Epipelagic, per WP:NPOV, the lead has to reflect both positive and negative views of the book, to the extent that these have been published in "reliable sources". It does not matter for Wikipedia's purposes whether the criticism directed against the book is "turgid postmodernist obscurantism" or not. See, eg, the advice at WP:NOTTRUTH. I am sure that there has been positive commentary on Fashionable Nonsense that is not currently mentioned in the article, and it would benefit the article to add appropriate content based on it. Robert McClenon, your suggestion that any sentence in the lead that is in dispute between two editors should be removed to eliminate conflict may be sincerely motivated by a desire to minimize inter-editor conflict, but I fail to see how it has anything to do with improving Wikipedia. Taking your suggestion to its logical conclusion, one might as well eliminate Wikipedia entirely, as then there would be nothing for anyone to argue over anymore. Please reconsider your position and make a relevant suggestion for improving the article. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 01:18, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  There's no point offering you opinions if you are going to so thoughtlessly bat them back. This article is, as the lead says, about "misuses of scientific and mathematical concepts in postmodern writing". Some postmodernists masquerade as credible voices in science, when in practice they are just furthering psuedoscience by muddying issues with obscurantist language. Wikipedia has an extensive history of discriminating psuedoscience from genuine science, and I don't see anything particularly different here. And don't tell me what guidelines I should read. Read them yourself. --Epipelagic (talk) 03:23, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  WP:NPOV is a basic part of Wikipedia policy. I do not think it thoughtless to mention it. It requires that Wikipedia reflect opinions about a topic that have appeared in reliable sources, regardless of the nature of those opinions, and in particular whether they reflect favorably or negatively on the topic in question. The article is not about "misuses of scientific and mathematical concepts in postmodern writing", it is about a book that discusses that among other subjects. Criticism of it has appeared in reliable sources, and the article has to reflect that. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 03:28, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  You don't want anyone else's opinion. Don't waste other people's time. --Epipelagic (talk) 03:35, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  I am not wasting anyone's time. You are choosing to edit Wikipedia, read this talk page, and respond to me. That is no one's choice but your own. I am not forcing you to do it. I am interested in hearing any opinions that are sensible, respect Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, and are oriented toward improving the article. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 03:37, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  That considered response took you just two minutes. Yuk --Epipelagic (talk) 03:40, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

text: User:FreeKnowledgeCreator - If you have already decided what answers you do and don't want, don't ask for a third opinion.  Oh.  Maybe you didn't.  Maybe the other editor did.  I won't point out the absurdity of taking your suggestion to its non-logical conclusion, which wasn't the logical conclusion of my suggestion.  Robert McClenon (talk) 02:04, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Robert McClenon, I have not decided which answers I do and do not want. I have only decided that the particular answer you gave - which was first to hold a request for comment, and then to remove the sentences from the lead just to avoid conflict - was not helpful. You are free, of course, to offer useless third opinions, but other editors are just as free to tell you that they are useless. I am very willing to listen to anyone who does have a relevant suggestion for improving the article. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 02:08, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Third Opinion

message: Hi all and Prinsgezinde!
I propose the new version here.
P.S. Although, to be honest, some of the critical claims look as if their authors simply haven't read the book. For example, about the fact that it should be understood metaphorically. Because Sokal and Bricmont prove that metaphorical interpretation is inadequate in many of the cases in question: you use a metaphor to illustrate a complex phenomenon, not to throw dust in the reader's eyes.
===Criticism===
Science historian Mara Beller maintained that it was not entirely fair to blame contemporary postmodern philosophers for drawing nonsensical conclusions from quantum physics, since many such conclusions were drawn by some of the leading quantum physicists themselves, such as Bohr or Heisenberg when they ventured into philosophy.Beller, Mara. September 1998. "The Sokal Hoax: At Whom Are We Laughing?" Physics Today.
Bruce Fink asserts that some concepts which the authors consider arbitrary or meaningless do have roots in the history of linguistics, and that Lacan is explicitly using mathematical concepts in a metaphoric way, not claiming that his concepts are mathematically founded. He takes Sokal and Bricmont to task for elevating a disagreement with Lacan's choice of writing styles to an attack on his thought, which, in Fink's assessment, they fail to understand."
 John Sturrock accuses authors of "linguistic reductionism", claiming that they misunderstood the genres and language uses of their intended quarries. Arkady Plotnitsky, one of the authors mentioned in the original hoax)Sokal and Bricmont, Appendix A. says that "some of their claims concerning mathematical objects in question and specifically complex numbers are incorrect",
 specifically attacking their statement that complex numbers and irrational numbers "have nothing to do with one another". He defends Lacan's view with a quote from Gottfried Leibniz.").</ref> He nevertheless agrees with Sokal and Bricmont that the "square root of −1" which Lacan discusses is not, in spite of its identical name, "identical, directly linked, or even metaphorized via the mathematical square root of −1".
cultural theorists and literary critics Andrew Milner and Jeff Browitt point out that Irigaray might still be correct in asserting that  is a "masculinist" equation, since "the social genealogy of a proposition has no logical bearing on its truth value." In other words, gender factors may influence which of many possible scientific truths are discovered. They also suggest that, in criticising Irigaray, Sokal and Bricmont sometimes go beyond their area of expertise in the sciences and simply express a differing position on gender politics.
In his response, Jacques Derrida writes that the Sokal hoax is rather "sad", not only because Alan Sokal's name is now linked primarily to a hoax rather than science, but also because the chance to reflect seriously on this issue has been ruined for a broad public forum that deserves better. He reminds his readers that science and philosophy have long debated their likenesses and differences in the discipline of epistemology, but certainly not with such an emphasis on the nationality of the philosophers or scientists. He calls it ridiculous and weird that there are intensities of treatment by the scientists, in particular, that he was "much less badly treated", when in fact he was the main target of the US press. Derrida then proceeds to question the validity of their attacks against a few words he made in an off-the-cuff response during a conference that took place thirty years prior to their publication. He suggests there are plenty of scientists who have pointed out the difficulty of attacking his response. He also writes that there is no "relativism" or a critique of Reason and the Enlightenment in his works. He then writes of his hope that in the future this work is pursued more seriously and with dignity at the level of the issues involved. Colaheed777 (talk) 09:15, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism section contraction 

message: Science historian Mara Beller maintained that it was not entirely fair to blame contemporary postmodern philosophers for drawing nonsensical conclusions from quantum physics, since many such conclusions were drawn by some of the leading quantum physicists themselves, such as Bohr or Heisenberg when they ventured into philosophy.Beller, Mara. September 1998. "The Sokal Hoax: At Whom Are We Laughing?" Physics Today.
Bruce Fink asserts that some concepts which the authors consider arbitrary or meaningless do have roots in the history of linguistics, and that Lacan is explicitly using mathematical concepts in a metaphoric way, not claiming that his concepts are mathematically founded. He takes Sokal and Bricmont to task for elevating a disagreement with Lacan's choice of writing styles to an attack on his thought, which, in Fink's assessment, they fail to understand."
 John Sturrock accuses authors of "linguistic reductionism", claiming that they misunderstood the genres and language uses of their intended quarries. Arkady Plotnitsky, one of the authors mentioned in the original hoax)Sokal and Bricmont, Appendix A. says that "some of their claims concerning mathematical objects in question and specifically complex numbers are incorrect",
 specifically attacking their statement that complex numbers and irrational numbers "have nothing to do with one another". He defends Lacan's view with a quote from Gottfried Leibniz.").</ref> He nevertheless agrees with Sokal and Bricmont that the "square root of −1" which Lacan discusses is not, in spite of its identical name, "identical, directly linked, or even metaphorized via the mathematical square root of −1".
cultural theorists and literary critics Andrew Milner and Jeff Browitt point out that Irigaray might still be correct in asserting that  is a "masculinist" equation, since "the social genealogy of a proposition has no logical bearing on its truth value." In other words, gender factors may influence which of many possible scientific truths are discovered. They also suggest that, in criticising Irigaray, Sokal and Bricmont sometimes go beyond their area of expertise in the sciences and simply express a differing position on gender politics.
In his response, Jacques Derrida writes that the Sokal hoax is rather "sad", not only because Alan Sokal's name is now linked primarily to a hoax rather than science, but also because the chance to reflect seriously on this issue has been ruined for a broad public forum that deserves better. He reminds his readers that science and philosophy have long debated their likenesses and differences in the discipline of epistemology, but certainly not with such an emphasis on the nationality of the philosophers or scientists. He calls it ridiculous and weird that there are intensities of treatment by the scientists, in particular, that he was "much less badly treated", when in fact he was the main target of the US press. Derrida then proceeds to question the validity of their attacks against a few words he made in an off-the-cuff response during a conference that took place thirty years prior to their publication. He suggests there are plenty of scientists who have pointed out the difficulty of attacking his response. He also writes that there is no "relativism" or a critique of Reason and the Enlightenment in his works. He then writes of his hope that in the future this work is pursued more seriously and with dignity at the level of the issues involved. Colaheed777 (talk) 09:15, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Criticism