This is something that none of the antiscience supporters seem to get.

Sometimes I wish the public were better educated, not just about the achievements of science, but about critical thought in general . . .

Then, the public would be less open to manipulation by charlatans such as Jenny McCarthy or Michael Behe . . .

Then, a more rational populace might not vote into power such idealogues as Jindal . . .

And good education would not be placed in such profound jeopardy.

Erm . . .

There are still papers published in “real” science journals, that should not pass peer review. So science is not immune from this.

On the other hand, the nice thing about real science is that other scientists will attempt to replicate research. if they run into problems, that attracts more skeptical attention to the original research – a slightly different response from what happened with Sokal. While there would be some traditionalists, who would defend the peer reviewers who were duped, there would be plenty of scientists critical of their ability to be duped. If the data do not make sense, in the way that Sokal’s vocabulary did not make sense, why would any competent peer review panel consent to publication?

Real science is not perfect, but real science is self-correcting. Mistakes can be made, but the result is progress.

I would advocate for the same approach to anti-science groups, such as Creationists, but they already parody themselves so well. The anti-vaccinationists seem to have immunized themselves to parody of their scientific methods by playing sacrificial roulette with their children. To gamble with the life of one’s own child like that puts these kooks far beyond the reach of any rational approach. It would take a Scientologist, or Kim Jong-il, or some similar out-of-mind person, to reach them.

Ah, yes, leaving Social Text with masses of egg on face…

And leaving us “real” scientists with a warm fuzzy glow, safe in the knowledge that social “science” couldn’t tell science from garbage.

Yes. “The Sokal affair (also Sokal’s hoax) was a hoax by physicist Alan Sokal perpetrated on the editorial staff and readership of the postmodern cultural studies journal Social Text (published by Duke University Press). In 1996, Sokal, a professor of physics at New York University, submitted a paper for publication in Social Text, as an experiment to see if a journal in that field would, in Sokal’s words: “publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors’ ideological preconceptions..”

A wonderful way of pointing out that the Emperor is not only naked, but ugly (or is that butt ugly?).

Wasn’t Alan Sokal the person who got a paper published in a sociology journal by just stitching loads of complicated words into sentences that sounded like technical English but didn’t actually mean anything?

William Dembski in particular would have students believe that science is all about using complicated language that gives the impression of thoughts so deep as to be impenetrable to the layperson, which is wrong.

Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science, by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont, addresses this particular issue. One of the distinctions between science and sophistry is that the language of science is used to improve communication, not to confuse communication.

Within the humanities, the response to the book was bitterly divided. Some were delighted, some enraged; reaction was polarized between impassioned supporters and equally impassioned opponents of Sokal.[2] Critics of Sokal and Bricmont charge that they lack understanding of the writing they were criticizing. Responses from the scientific community were far more blunt and supportive.

Blunt and supportive.