Social Text liked my article because they liked its conclusion: that "the content and methodology of postmodern science provide powerful intellectual support for the progressive political project" [sec. 6]. They apparently felt no need to analyze the quality of the evidence, the cogency of the arguments, or even the relevance of the arguments to the purported conclusion.Sokal, Alan. "Revelation: A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies". Sokal Hoax: The Sham That Shook the Academy. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska, 2000. 49-54. Print." - Meaning and context.">
QuotesCosmos
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The results of my little experiment [Sokal affair] demonstrate, at the very least, that some fashionable sectors of the American academic Left have been getting intellectually lazy. The editors of Social Text liked my article because they liked its conclusion: that "the content and methodology of postmodern science provide powerful intellectual support for the progressive political project" [sec. 6]. They apparently felt no need to analyze the quality of the evidence, the cogency of the arguments, or even the relevance of the arguments to the purported conclusion.Sokal, Alan. "Revelation: A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies". Sokal Hoax: The Sham That Shook the Academy. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska, 2000. 49-54. Print.

— Alan Sokal

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "The results of my little experiment [Sokal affair] demonstrate, at the very least, that some fashionable sectors of the American academic Left have been getting intellectually lazy. The editors of Social Text liked my article because they liked its conclusion: that "the content and methodology of postmodern science provide powerful intellectual support for the progressive political project" [sec. 6]. They apparently felt no need to analyze the quality of the evidence, the cogency of the arguments, or even the relevance of the arguments to the purported conclusion.Sokal, Alan. "Revelation: A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies". Sokal Hoax: The Sham That Shook the Academy. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska, 2000. 49-54. Print." in the context of "" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app

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Alan Sokal

About Alan Sokal

Alan David Sokal (born January 24, 1955) is a professor of mathematics at University College London and professor of physics at New York University. He works in statistical mechanics and combinatorics. He is a critic of postmodernism, and caused the Sokal affair in 1996 when his deliberately nonsensical paper was published by Duke University's Social Text. He also works to counter faulty scientific reasoning, as seen with his involvement in criticising the critical positivity ratio concept in positive psychology.