ISBN Beyond the Hoax ( Science Philosophy and Culture ) 488 pages English

In 1996 Alan Sokal a Professor of Physics at New York University wrote a paper for the cultural-studies journal Social Text entitled 'Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity'. It was reviewed accepted and published. Sokal immediately confessed that the whole article was a hoax - a cunningly worded paper designed to expose and parody the style of extreme postmodernist criticism of science. The story became front-page news around the world and triggered fierce and wide-ranging controversy. Sokal is one of the most powerful voices in the continuing debate about the status of evidence-based knowledge. In Beyond the Hoax he turns his attention to a new set of targets - pseudo-science religion and misinformation in public life. 'Whether my targets are the postmodernists of the left the fundamentalists of the right or the muddle-headed of all political and apolitical stripes the bottom line is that clear thinking combined with a respect for evidence are of the utmost importance to the survival of the human race in the twenty-first century.' The book also includes a hugely illuminating annotated text of the Hoax itself and a reflection on the furore it provoked.