Ed The Peter Boghossian Affair: Professor resigns from woke university: What now?

[angrysoba]

TAM 2013 attendees, presumably.

Although at least one person says he took a picture of him giving a talk and has no recollection of anything he said. LOL!

That's the story of Bogo's life. He did a talk on how to be authentic, nobody rememebers it, but what they do remember is he published some fraudulent papers, and that he claimed to be cancelled when he actually resigned. LOL!

Not a good look, Bogo!

 

[lionking]

Sokal is on the left and was trying to 'defend the Left from a trendy segment of itself' (the part that rejects liberalism, free inquiry, objective truth and other so-called enlightenment values). Unfortunately it looks like little was learned from it in the long run. I think the difference in reaction to Boghossian and colleagues compared to Sokal is a marker of how bad things have become.

Agreed

 

[smartcooky]

I had heard of him, and knew of him as a grifter who has been trying to jump on various bandwagons to get clout.

When I read in that earlier article that he was "at PSU", I though it was Penn State, a prestigious, top-ranked research university, and was a little surprised he didn't get fired from there for his dishonesty. Turns out PSU was Portland State University.... a somewhat less salubrious institution.

 

[Cain]

I don't know much about Boghossian, but students seem to enjoy his courses.

A typical comment: "I think his critical thinking class could be one of the most helpful classes I will take in my college experience. He really knows his stuff and is open to discussion during class."

 

[angrysoba]

Sokal is on the left and was trying to 'defend the Left from a trendy segment of itself' (the part that rejects liberalism, free inquiry, objective truth and other so-called enlightenment values). Unfortunately it looks like little was learned from it in the long run. I think the difference in reaction to Boghossian and colleagues compared to Sokal is a marker of how bad things have become.

In terms of the hoaxes, the first one was the Conceptual Penis hoax paper that Boghossian did with James Lindsay. But that was pretty meaningless because:

a) They initially sent it to some gender studies journal only for it to be rejected.

then...

b) They got it published in a pay-to-publish journal.

In other words it was meaningless. The fact that they trumpeted their achievement and Sam Harris read bits of it out on his podcast and forced himself to laugh at it doesn't mean they skewered academia or anything like that. There are predatory journals in just about every field.

The Sokal Squared hoax is where they had some minor success in that they managed to actually get some papers through peer review of some garbage journals. Again, though, it is not as if we never knew that garbage journals were out there. I don't really think it was on a par with the Sokal original given that the original was a send-up of the big names of postmodernism such as Derrida, Lacan and Foucault.

The Sokal Squared hoax was almost more of a send-up of peer reviewers who worked on journals related to minority issues (and thus presumably "grievances"). Peer reviews are almost always things that people do without pay, and it often involves trying to polish turds. Apparently in this case, some of the reviewers comments which were gleefully bandied about after were from peer reviewers who were trying to be supportive.

I have no doubt that the journals they wrote to were crap. I am pretty sure that most of the "academic fields" that are covered by the journals are heavy on theory and low on data, but I really doubt that the "grievance studies" are the only disciplines to publish pure crap. In fact, you only have to look at how much pure crap has been churned out in the pandemic in supposed medical fields to see how much fraud exists in just about every area.

For me, though, the irony is that Boghossian and his associates tend to be some of the biggest grievance-mongers around. You can't switch on a podcast without one of them moaning about how they can't say anything these days without being cancelled... James Lindsay, JBP, the Weinsteins, Dave Rubin all intoning exactly the same litany of oppression. The bottom line is that nobody forced Boghossian out. He just decided to leave by himself, so he wasn't cancelled.

 

[Elaedith]

In terms of the hoaxes, the first one was the Conceptual Penis hoax paper that Boghossian did with James Lindsay. But that was pretty meaningless because:

a) They initially sent it to some gender studies journal only for it to be rejected.

then...

b) They got it published in a pay-to-publish journal.

The 'conceptual penis' article was published in Cogent Social Sciences which is a peer-reviewed journal. Therefore it is a valid criticism of the peer-review process regardless of whether the journal is pay-to-publish. If the journal will publish anything, then the claim of being peer-reviewed is obviously meaningless and part of the aim to was highlight the low standards of such journals.
It was revealed as a hoax the same day it was published.

 

[angrysoba]

The 'conceptual penis' article was published in Cogent Social Sciences which is a peer-reviewed journal. Therefore it is a valid criticism of the peer-review process regardless of whether the journal is pay-to-publish. If the journal will publish anything, then the claim of being peer-reviewed is obviously meaningless and part of the aim to was highlight the low standards of such journals.
It was revealed as a hoax the same day it was published.

Yeah, sure, but the journal was pretty much a very low-tier general social sciences journal, rather than a gender studies publication. In fact, they seemed to have only made a critique of pay-to-publish journals (and did such things even need critiquing given their low reputation already?) when the journal they submitted to wasn't even a gender studies journal.

There is an interesting interview with James Lindsay on the Very Bad Wizards podcast, where poor old James is ganged up on by good cop (David Pizarro) and bad cop (Tamler Sommers) in a confrontation that some people have suggested made James Lindsay go a bit mad and may have turned him into the anti-CRT crazy Twitter personality he has become. It starts at around 30:00 if anyone is interested:

https://www.verybadwizards.com/118

Ultimately, they must also have to admit that you cannot simply publish anything that sounds right-on in any gender studies journal. If that were the case, they wouldn't have had the Conceptual Penis rejected, and wouldn't have had half of their Sokal Squared papers rejected. Of course this doesn't mean that gender studies has much to offer, but it somewhat makes the whole point of hoaxing low-grade journals meaningless when a bigger and more impressive feat for Boghossian, Lindsay and Pluckrose would be to publish what they actually believe in a reputable journal (LOL! I suppose that they did write a comment piece in a fairly reputable journal. I don't know if it was peer-reviewed though).

I think they were hoping for a slam-dunk like the actual Sokal hoax, but because it came across as labour-intensive, diffuse in its targets, tended to give off an air of punching down, and also not that successful, it looks pretty cringe.

 

[Emily's Cat]

https://www.economist.com/united-st...ghlights-pressures-within-academia-to-conform

In 2018 he and two authors tried to publish 20 fake papers, in order to expose what they saw as a willingness to publish anything that used the right jargon.​

Regardless of how noble you might think your cause is, there is no valid justification whatsoever for publishing fake papers and/or research. Doing so brings you and your university discredit, and violates your university's trust in your integrity - it puts you in the same scumbaggery class as Andrew Wakefield.

No, it puts them in the same category as Alan Sokal.

The hypothesis in the cases of both Sokal and Boghossian is that academia can't tell the difference between actual post-modern research and complete word-salad laden with jargon. You test that hypothesis by submitting word-salad to academic journals and see it if gets published.

My personal take is that academia can't tell the difference because there is none. Post-modernism IS jargon-filled world-salad nonsense.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Granted, one is more serious than the other, but at the end of the day, they both knowingly published BS.

Boghossian is now no longer to be trusted in my book.

Do you trust the other academics who publish post-modern nonsense in journals that can't tell the difference between post-modern nonsense and completely and utter nonsense that uses post-modern jargon?

 

[smartcooky]

Do you trust the other academics who publish post-modern nonsense in journals that can't tell the difference between post-modern nonsense and completely and utter nonsense that uses post-modern jargon?

I wouldn't trust an academic who attempts to publish a fake paper any more than I would trust a scientist who fakes evidence to claim scientific discovery (e.g. Charles Dawson) or a cop who fakes evidence in an attempt to get a conviction (e.g. Mark Furman). Where Boghossian crossed the line is that he fabricated empirical results, and not only that, when one journal challenged him on those fabricated results, he lied to them. There is pretty much no way to independently check empirical result without re-running the whole study, so the people assessing papers for publication almost always have to rely on the honesty and integrity of the researcher who submits the paper. Boghossian took advantage of that. I don't care what his claimed motives were, or how noble others might imagine those motives might be. It is unprofessional, dishonest and there is no excuse for it. It shows two things about him..

(1) he has a complete disregard for the ethics of his profession and that brings the whole of the profession into disrepute,

(2) that he was so utterly useless at his profession that he was unable to express himself sufficiently well to get his point across without being dishonest.

If you cannot achieve your stated aim without employing "gotchas" then you don't belong in that profession. The only good thing he has done here is resign, although he did so because he is a petulant prick - he had hoped that PSU would fire him so that he could make a martyr of himself in an act of self-promotion. In the end he had to fire himself, so even the resignation was for all the wrong reasons.

 

[angrysoba]

I think the Peter Boghossian stuff is pretty irrelevant here given that he wasn't cancelled and he has his own thread here, started by little old me.

ETA: I have asked the mods if we can move the Boghossian and Sokal Squared hoax discussion to the thread devoted to the Peter Boghossian affair and also that the thread be renamed to make it clearer to others.

 

[lionking]

DON'T TELL LIES!!

1. It was not a yes or no question (the words "yes" and "no" do not appear in the question)

2. Her question was "Do you trust the other academics who publish post-modern nonsense in journals that can't tell the difference between post-modern nonsense and completely and utter nonsense that uses post-modern jargon? "

3. I ANSWERED THAT QUESTION DIRECTLY IN THE VERY FIRST ******* LINE OF MY ANSWER - "I wouldn't trust an academic who attempts to publish a fake paper...."

And then, unlike what you do, I justified my answer!

Why do you find it necessary to lie about what has been posted when you disagree with it, and can't come up with a rebuttal? Do you not understand that everyone else here can read, and can tell that you are lying?

(that is not a yes or no question by the way)

As I said earlier, I strongly believe that Sokol did a public good by exposing shoddy journals. He certainly wasn’t cancelled. Do you believe he should have been?

 

[smartcooky]

As I said earlier, I strongly believe that Sokol did a public good by exposing shoddy journals. He certainly wasn’t cancelled. Do you believe he should have been?

Since "cancel culture" wasn't even a thing 25 years ago, then no, I don't think he should have "cancelled" back then but he certainly should have been reprimanded for his dishonesty, and warned that if he did this sort of thing again, he would be gone-burger.

However, if he tried it today, I would fire him on the spot.

Its worth noting that the journal in question did not, at that time, use academic peer review. Nor did it submit articles for outside review by academic experts. This made them a somewhat easy target for a dishonest submitter to take advantage of. Sokal would not have got that past step one with a more prestigious journal.

 

[angrysoba]

Bleugh...

I think a lot is being missed in this debate.

First off, who here thinks that post-modernist gender studies is a valuable field?

(I'm going to suggest the answer is close to nobody).

Next, who believed it was until Boghossian and Lindsay's Conceptual Penis destroyed its reputation?

Again, nobody. Literally nobody changed their mind. Why? Because those who thought it was a garbage field still thought it was a garbage field before and after. I mean I guess they just couldn't insert their Penis anywhere without having to pay first.

So, if anything, B+L only succeeded in failing at hoaxing because the gender studies and post-modernists etc... could just say that the actual gender studies journal rejected them. Sokal himself noted this: "Finally, it seems even less likely that this paper would have been accepted at a more prestigious gender-studies journal, such as Gender & Society, Feminist Theory, Signs, Feminist Studies, or Men and Masculinities. The bias towards articles presupposing a particular moral and ideological orientation—and the associated dulling of the editors’ capacities for critical thinking—may well persist at this higher tier, but its effects will be more subtle than a hoax like this could demonstrate."

Link

So, I guess that's why they tried to get papers published to some of the bigger named journals. In many cases, they actually failed, so again, some of the post-modernists will see this as a victory even though I suspect that most of the field is indeed garbage.

That said, this is not remotely like Andrew Wakefield who did real harm, so the comparisons aren't worth making.

Also, I don't think Peter Boghossian should have been fired for his tedious attention-seeking antics. And guess what, he wasn't!

The idea that he was astonished at the idea that the peer reviewers are human subjects, though, just speaks to his contempt for them. Treating human subjects ethically is exactly what IRBs were set up to do. Instead, Boghossian and Lindsay and Pluckrose have turned into the very things they claimed to be skewering.

They write and produce dense nonsense on platforms called "New Discourses" all about Marcuse and Critical Race Theory, and they spend almost all their time whining about their oppression and systemic biases. They are tedious whiny cultural commentators just like the postmodernists they claim to be critiquing.

 

[smartcooky]

Bleugh...

I think a lot is being missed in this debate.

First off, who here thinks that post-modernist gender studies is a valuable field?

(I'm going to suggest the answer is close to nobody).

Certainly not me.

I have nothing but contempt and disdain for the whole field of Postmodernist Philosophy. Its full of pumped up self-important wankers who spend their lives pontificating on things little or no importance to anyone other than the rest of the pumped up self-important wankers. Most of them wouldn't know **** from clay even if they could smell it.

 

[angrysoba]

Certainly not me.

I have nothing but contempt and disdain for the whole field of Postmodernist Philosophy. Its full of pumped up self-important wankers who spend their lives pontificating on things little or no importance to anyone other than the rest of the pumped up self-important wankers. Most of them wouldn't know **** from clay even if they could smell it.

But enough about Boghossian, Lindsay and Pluckrose…

 

[angrysoba]

Anyway, I think Sokal had a much better point. Ultimately it was “hands off my discipline!” As he is an actual physics and mathematics professor and his points were to show that, no, maths and physics are NOT sexist, you dummies.

That said, Sokal is, I believe broadly supportive of progressive causes and is more concerned that the brain barbecue that is postmodernism is more of a distraction from actual serious social problems. In his book, Fashionable Nonsense, he decries ideas that “western medicine” is imperialist and argues that such stuff leads to rejections of vaccines.

On the other hand, Boghossian and Lindsay in particular (to a lesser extent Pluckrose) have fallen in with the weirdo right-wing conspiracy theorists that seem to hate left-wingers because of its emphasis on diversity and Lindsay has gone full on Alex Jones especially regarding vaccines.

 

[angrysoba]

Maybe James Lindsay himself is trying to dare his collaborators to cancel him. His Twitter feed looks like the ramblings of a lunatic. Some people say he has gone full Alex Jones and also accused him of anti-semitism.

Here, for example...

Link

I don't know if Lindsay is being deliberately anti-semitic here, but he definitely appears to be bullying and intimidating a vaccine scientist.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I wouldn't trust an academic who attempts to publish a fake paper any more than I would trust a scientist who fakes evidence to claim scientific discovery ...

Sure, but that's not what I asked. Granted it was a little bit awkwardly worded, so let me try again.

1) The editors of the peer-reviewed publication can't tell the difference between a genuine paper and a fake paper full of gobbledygook rhetoric and jargon. Note that this isn't a matter of the data being faked, it's the nature of the complete incomprehensibility of the language.

2) Given that the editors of the publication can't tell genuine from fake, that also implies that they can't tell accurate conclusions from nonsense conclusions

3) Given that the editors of the publication have been shown to be unable to distinguish good work from crap work...

Do you trust any of the other papers published by that publication?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Bleugh...

I think a lot is being missed in this debate.

First off, who here thinks that post-modernist gender studies is a valuable field?

(I'm going to suggest the answer is close to nobody).

Next, who believed it was until Boghossian and Lindsay's Conceptual Penis destroyed its reputation?

Again, nobody. Literally nobody changed their mind. Why? Because those who thought it was a garbage field still thought it was a garbage field before and after. I mean I guess they just couldn't insert their Penis anywhere without having to pay first.

Mmm.... I don't think you're accurate in assuming that nobody thinks it's a valuable field. It's a topic taught in most major universities, it's a field with a LOT of work being done in it (mostly crappy ******** work IMO, but still), and there are a lot of papers being published on that topic. So clearly someone thinks it's valuable - valuable enough to have entire publications devoted to the topic. And those publications get referenced by people who use them as support for their ideology on the topic of gender.

I do, however, agree with your conclusion: nobody will change their minds. True believers will still be true believers, apostates will still be apostates. Personally, I think that this sort of demonstration *should* change people's minds... but I'm an apostate.