The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct

[_6EQUJ5]

when an apologist says this what they really mean is since peer review failed in academia at some point, then mopologetics should erect a peer review system that works just as badly to justify whatever they want because anything can be right.

An apologist would say that, I agree.

Why? I had bank fraud happen to me once. It was a small amount of money I lost compared to my overall finances, and I got it all back pretty quickly, including the over-draft protection fees that were technically my fault. I wondered why this happened. And then I realized that had it not happened, then much longer down the road with a lot more money in the bank, I may feel less secure about banks -- maybe my money isn't safe there or I will still loose a lot of money if I ever have fraud against me? I may have panicked and taken out large sums and hid under my mattress well down the banking road. So having that bad experience early on as a banking client was God's way of ensuring I was on the right path with money kept in a bank.

That is an inspiring story. Thank you for sharing it.

[_6EQUJ5]

I am not sure but I think Gadianton completely misconstrued your intent. It sounds like he thinks you are defending LDS apologist with an attack on the value of peer review. I suspect your intention was many miles away from that.

I agree. The biggest thing I took from the article is that radical views lead us to see nonsense -- or what Harris would call "word salad" -- as profound.

I think there is a lesson in there for TBMs somewhere.

[_6EQUJ5]

It's almost like postmodern feminism -- something that can best be taken to task by aggressive dickish behavior -- is a social construct of the skeptic crowd.

What do you think of Sokal's infamous paper? When a respected science journal publishes a paper on Intelligent Design we rightly say they messed up and failed as editors.

I don't think it's a stretch to think journals in the humanities etc. should be held to a similar standard when they publish fake papers that use buzzwords to mask the lack of coherence.

[_Lemmie]

Why? I had bank fraud happen to me once. It was a small amount of money I lost compared to my overall finances, and I got it all back pretty quickly, including the over-draft protection fees that were technically my fault. I wondered why this happened. And then I realized that had it not happened, then much longer down the road with a lot more money in the bank, I may feel less secure about banks -- maybe my money isn't safe there or I will still loose a lot of money if I ever have fraud against me? I may have panicked and taken out large sums and hid under my mattress well down the banking road. So having that bad experience early on as a banking client was God's way of ensuring I was on the right path with money kept in a bank.

Clearly you learned Holland's "Wrong Roads" lesson well. Hopefully you were only 400-500 yards (oh wait, that's the embellished part) Hopefully you were only 10 minutes away from losing all your money when the fraud was discovered, because it is essential to the moral of the story that your bank *quickly* made the God-mandated course correction!

[_Gadianton]

6eq, it's a good point that science journals have been suckered, which shows that Sokal's hoax doesn't really prove the point about lacking all standards he thought he was proving, in sharp contrast to science. I'm all for a journal getting played, but cautious about the implications.

One thing is that there is room for perspective in culture studies, they printed in part because he was a physicist showing interest in this other side of the world and looking for broader perspective, so okay, what do we make of this outsiders attempt to apply theory to his field? A hard science journal has no place for that.

As culture theorists, they may have better expected to get played given you can only dismiss and take jabs so much before your target notices, especially a target characterized as egotistical and militant.

I think using math to prove his point was silly. I think he wrote an important book to consider. I think skeptic.org trying to get mileage from the same play decades later is silly.

I think a good neutral way to look at postmodernism is how it's latched to religion, as it was invented by a godless bunch, what do they think of salt press / new mi using it to promote the Book of Mormon and the poster child of lame white male power structures, the lds church?

For critics, on the one hand the new mi may frustrate them skirting empirical questions but on the other, they are a respectable bunch. If you insist on the debate being squarely on Zarahemla, then you're playing in Sokal's sandbox for sure, and what you get are old school mopolgists to battle with. DCP and hamblin are big Sokal fans, by the way.

[_Gadianton]

Lying for the lord is infectious lemmie, so much so that even I had to do it to get that story to fit. It was more like 10 minutes out as they did not immediately assure me I would get my money back, and it was not policy to get the overdraft fees reversed. I had to fight for it. I no longer ever will have overdraft and I cancelled my PayPal. I'm glad for the lesson on a smaller sum, as I'm really cautious now and so no, I don't actually trust banks more, I lied, just like holland -- he does not trust God more either.

[_honorentheos]

Considering that the paper was rejected by a particular publication who then referred it to a pay-to-publish site, perhaps the moral of the story was best captured in the Skeptic article as,

the profit motive is dangerous because ethics are expensive

I agree with that. I'm also biased to favor this -

The most potent among the human susceptibilities to corruption by fashionable nonsense is the temptation to uncritically endorse morally fashionable nonsense.

[_6EQUJ5]

6eq, it's a good point that science journals have been suckered, which shows that Sokal's hoax doesn't really prove the point about lacking all standards he thought he was proving, in sharp contrast to science. I'm all for a journal getting played, but cautious about the implications.

I agree with this. Cultural studies scholarship can't be evaluated in the same way the hard sciences are. So yes, I think you are right about being cautious of implications -- or taking those implications so far as to draw conclusions about the field as a whole.

One thing is that there is room for perspective in culture studies, they printed in part because he was a physicist showing interest in this other side of the world and looking for broader perspective, so okay, what do we make of this outsiders attempt to apply theory to his field? A hard science journal has no place for that.

As culture theorists, they may have better expected to get played given you can only dismiss and take jabs so much before your target notices, especially a target characterized as egotistical and militant.

I think using math to prove his point was silly. I think he wrote an important book to consider. I think skeptic.org trying to get mileage from the same play decades later is silly.

Right. The only thing the skeptic article really shows is that there was an editorial/review issue in this specific case.

I think a good neutral way to look at postmodernism is how it's latched to religion, as it was invented by a godless bunch, what do they think of salt press / new mi using it to promote the Book of Mormon and the poster child of lame white male power structures, the lds church?

For critics, on the one hand the new mi may frustrate them skirting empirical questions but on the other, they are a respectable bunch. If you insist on the debate being squarely on Zarahemla, then you're playing in Sokal's sandbox for sure, and what you get are old school mopolgists to battle with. DCP and hamblin are big Sokal fans, by the way.

This would explain Hamblin and Gee's reaction to Mormon Studies.

[_6EQUJ5]

Interesting article on the hoax:

http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/h ... ars/118526

Like [the Sokal] controversy, “The Conceptual Penis” has drawn a range of responses, from acclaim to disdain. At the Daily Nous, a website that covers news of philosophy, Justin Weinberg describes the article as an “attempted” hoax and says that it was rejected by another, more-reputable journal. At Bleeding Heart Libertarians, James Taylor calls Cogent Social Sciences a “pay-to-publish vanity journal” whose low standards make it difficult to sustain the hoax as proving anything about gender studies as a field or academic publishing as an industry.

[_honorentheos]

Interesting article on the hoax:

http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/h ... ars/118526

Like [the Sokal] controversy, “The Conceptual Penis” has drawn a range of responses, from acclaim to disdain. At the Daily Nous, a website that covers news of philosophy, Justin Weinberg describes the article as an “attempted” hoax and says that it was rejected by another, more-reputable journal. At Bleeding Heart Libertarians, James Taylor calls Cogent Social Sciences a “pay-to-publish vanity journal” whose low standards make it difficult to sustain the hoax as proving anything about gender studies as a field or academic publishing as an industry.

The article in Skeptic makes the case that the reputable publication is the one that referred them to the pay-to-publish site. Apparently there was some connection between the two as well which called into question the ethics of the first publication. Thus the comment about ethics and the profit motive.