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武老师前些天说了“忽悠的术语”,
http://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=space&uid=1557&do=blog&id=553708
令我想起一个更忽悠的故事——是一个物理学家忽悠一群社会学家。
1994年,纽约大学物理学家Alan Sokal向Social Text杂志——在文化学领域引领潮流的杂志——投了一篇宏文,题目是Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity,编辑部很高兴,欢迎物理学家能加入他们的文化研究,于是发表在1996年的“科学战”的专辑上(Social Text #46/47, pp. 217-252 (spring/summer 1996),原文见http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/transgress_v2_noafterword.pdf)。
这篇文章的题目很有趣:“超越边界——走向量子引力的转换解释学”,可能任何物理学家看了都会发笑——作者在引言里概括了20世纪的观念转变,如“女性主义和后现代结构主义的批评已经打消了主流西方科学实践中的实在性内容,揭示了隐藏在“客观性“背后的主流意识形态”,人们越发认识到,物理学的“实在性”不过是一种社会的实在性,根本上说只是社会和语言的建构;科学知识远非客观的,只不过反映了它所依存的文化的意识形态和权力关系……这些东西可以追溯到Arnowitz对量子力学的文化结构的分析,Ross对后量子科学中对立话语的分析,Irigaray和Hayles对隐藏在流体力学中的性别密码的诠释,Harding对自然科学中的性意识形态的综合批判……
然后,作者开始了他别有用心的科学文化研究:
Here my aim is to carry these deep analyses one step farther, by taking account of recent developments in quantum gravity: the emerging branch of physics in which Heisenberg's quantum mechanics and Einstein's general relativity are at once synthesized and superseded. In quantum gravity, as we shall see, the space-time manifold ceases to exist as an objective physical reality; geometry becomes relational and contextual; and the foundational conceptual categories of prior science -- among them, existence itself -- become problematized and relativized. This conceptual revolution, I will argue, has profound implications for the content of a future postmodern and liberatory science.
1 量子力学:不确定性、互补性、不连续性和相互连通性
2 经典广义相对论的解释学
3 量子引力:弦、交织或形态发生场
4 微分拓扑与同调论
5 流形理论:整体(洞)与边界
6 超越边界:走向解放的科学
看了这些标题,物理学家大概哭笑不得,而社会学家一定觉得新鲜,因为有那么多“忽悠的术语”,是社会学研究的好题目。这样,一篇“满纸荒唐言”的文章,就在一个大杂志上闪亮登场了。
不到一个月,作者就在Lingua Franc杂志(一家专门揭露学界逸闻趣事的杂志,刊名源自拉丁语,意思是common language)自我暴露了文章的真相:一个物理学家玩儿的文化学实验(http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/lingua_franca_v4/lingua_franca_v4.html,A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies)——他感到某些人文科学缺失了严格的标准,于是想试试他们会不会发表一篇胡编滥造(liberally salted with nonsense)却颇能迎合编辑口味(flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions)的文章。
那篇“忽悠”的根本问题不在于荒谬的名词和谬误——学过数学物理的人都能看出来;而在于暧昧的主题和“论证”——这也许正是大编辑们(其中Andrew Ross是大众文化研究的重要人物)喜欢它的原因。Sokal也说,编辑喜欢他的结论;而他其实也是为了迎合编辑们的思想而杜撰那些奇谈怪论的。
Why did I do it? While my method was satirical, my motivation is utterly serious. What concerns me is the proliferation, not just of nonsense and sloppy thinking per se, but of a particular kind of nonsense and sloppy thinking: one that denies the existence of objective realities, or (when challenged) admits their existence but downplays their practical relevance. At its best, a journal like Social Text raises important questions that no scientist should ignore -- questions, for example, about how corporate and government funding influence scientific work. Unfortunately, epistemic relativism does little to further the discussion of these matters.
这个令文化学人尴尬的忽悠故事,就是有名的“索卡尔恶作剧”(Sokal Hoax),曾引起很多争论(见http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/#debate_linguafranca),我就不说了。
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