> [Ed. For those of us who have been residing under a cabbage-leaf, > could we have some definition and background on the Sokal Affair/ > "hoax"? I know the tune, but the words are unfamiliar. -MG] The Spring/Summer 1996 issue of _Social Text_ was a special double issue devoted to the "Science Wars." One of the articles was by a physicist, Alan D. Sokal. After the issue was published, Sokal revealed that the article had been a hoax. He had been disturbed by some things he had been reading in studies of science written by people who came from various fields such as post-modernist literary theory, sociology, philosophy, etc. It seemed to Sokal that a lot of people ignorant of science were publishing utter nonsense, and that it was being widely accepted as serious and valid scholarship. He decided to write an article of utter drivel, in which he put enough different kinds of nonsense so that there would be little excuse for any intelligent person, even a non-scientist, failing to spot at least some of the blatant errors, and submit it to a journal. The ploy worked; the article, "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity," was published in the Spring/Summer issue of _Social Text_ (vol. 14, nos. 1-2), pp. 217-252. He then revealed the hoax. The best single place to look for the debate that ensued is _Lingua Franca_; the May/June and July/August issues have devoted considerable space to it, with long statements by Sokal, the editors of _Social Text_, and various partisans of both sides. To my mind, the debate has made Sokal's case even more strongly than the mere fact that the editors of _Social Text_ fell for his hoax. Publication of the article might have been only an act of momentary carelessness on the part of the editors of _Social Text_. Much of the criticism of Sokal's action indicates, however, that it was not just an act of momentary carelessness. See for example the statement of Bruce Robbins and Andrew Ross, editors of _Social Text_, that Sokal's hoax may have the baneful effect that "Less well known authors who submit unsolicited articles to journals like ours may now come under needless suspicion, and the openness of intellectual inquiry that _Social Text_ has played its role in fostering will be curtailed." (_Lingua Franca_, July/August 1996, p. 55.) Apparently, the editors of _Social Text_ feel that an article that is so filled with nonsense that a suspicion may arise, when they see it, that it might be a hoax written to discredit the journal that publishes it, should nonetheless be published if the author is sincere. They do not seem to see it as part of their function to judge the intellectual validity of articles submitted to them, when deciding which to publish. Edwin Moise History Department Clemson Universityeemoise@clemson.edu