Grievance studies affair
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The grievance studies affair, also referred to as the "Sokal Squared" scandal, was the project of a team of three authors—
Peter Boghossian Peter Gregory Boghossian (; born July 25, 1966) is an American philosopher and pedagogist. Born in Boston, he was a non-tenure track assistant professor of philosophy at Portland State University for ten years, and his areas of academic focus i ...
, James A. Lindsay, and
Helen Pluckrose Helen Pluckrose is a British author and cultural writer known for critiques of Critical Social Justice and promotion of liberal ethics, most notably in the grievance studies affair. Education Pluckrose completed a degree in English literature ...
—to highlight what they saw as poor scholarship and eroding criteria in several academic fields. Taking place over 2017 and 2018, their project entailed submitting bogus papers to
academic journals An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and ...
in cultural, queer,
race Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to: * Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species * Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...
,
gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures ...
,
fat In nutrition, biology, and chemistry, fat usually means any ester of fatty acids, or a mixture of such compounds, most commonly those that occur in living beings or in food. The term often refers specifically to triglycerides (triple est ...
, and sexuality studies to determine whether they would pass through
peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer revie ...
and be accepted for publication. Several of these papers were subsequently published, which the authors cited in support of their contention. Prior to the affair, concerns about the intellectual validity of much research influenced by postmodern philosophy and critical theory were highlighted by various academics who composed nonsensical hoax articles parodying the language and content of much research in the modern humanities and succeeded in having these articles accepted for publication in academic journals. One of the most noted previous examples of this was
Alan Sokal Alan David Sokal (; born January 24, 1955) is an American professor of mathematics at University College London and professor emeritus of physics at New York University. He works in statistical mechanics and combinatorics. He is a critic of postmo ...
's 1996 hoax in ''
Social Text ''Social Text'' is an academic journal published by Duke University Press. Since its inception by an independent editorial collective in 1979, ''Social Text'' has addressed a wide range of social and cultural phenomena, covering questions of gende ...
'', a cultural studies journal, which inspired Boghossian, Lindsay, and Pluckrose. The trio set out with the intent to expose problems in what they called "grievance studies", referring to academic areas where they claim "a culture has developed in which only certain conclusions are allowed… and put social
grievance A grievance () is a wrong or hardship suffered, real or supposed, which forms legitimate grounds of complaint In legal terminology, a complaint is any formal legal document that sets out the facts and legal reasons (see: cause of actio ...
s ahead of objective truth". As such, the trio, identifying themselves as
leftists Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
and liberals, described their project as an attempt to raise awareness of what they believed was the damage that postmodernism and
identity politics Identity politics is a political approach wherein people of a particular race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, social class, or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based upon these i ...
-based scholarship was having on leftist political projects, but mainly Science and Academia. Boghossian, Lindsay, and Pluckrose wrote 20 articles that promoted deliberately absurd ideas or morally questionable acts and submitted them to various peer-reviewed journals. Although they had planned for the project to run until January 2019, the trio admitted to the hoax in October 2018 after journalists from ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'' revealed that "Helen Wilson", the pseudonym used for their article published in ''
Gender, Place & Culture ''Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography'' is a peer-reviewed journal published 12 times a year by Taylor & Francis. It is the leading international journal in feminist geography and it aims to provide "a forum for debate in human ...
'', did not exist. By the time of the revelation, 4 of their 20 papers had been published; 3 had been accepted but not yet published; 6 had been rejected; and 7 were still under review. Included among the articles that were published were arguments that dogs engage in
rape culture Rape culture is a setting, studied by several sociological theories, in which rape is pervasive and normalized due to societal attitudes about gender and sexuality. Behaviors commonly associated with rape culture include victim blaming, slut-s ...
and that men could reduce their
transphobia Transphobia is a collection of ideas and phenomena that encompass a range of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender people or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence or anger to ...
by anally penetrating themselves with
sex toy A sex toy is an object or device that is primarily used to facilitate human sexual pleasure, such as a dildo, artificial vagina or vibrator. Many popular sex toys are designed to resemble human genitals, and may be vibrating or non-vibratin ...
s, as well as
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
's '' Mein Kampf'' rewritten in feminist language. The first of these had won special recognition from the journal that published it. The hoax received a polarized reception within academia. Some academics praised it for exposing flaws that they saw as widespread among sectors of the
humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...
and
social sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of so ...
influenced by postmodernism, critical theory, and identity politics. Others criticised what they perceived as the unethical nature of submitting deliberately bogus research. Some critics also asserted that the work did not represent a scientific investigation, given that the project did not include a control group, further arguing that invalid arguments and poor standards of peer-review were not restricted to "grievance studies" subjects but found across much of academia.


"Grievance studies" and "applied postmodernism"

Through their series of hoax articles, James A. Lindsay,
Peter Boghossian Peter Gregory Boghossian (; born July 25, 1966) is an American philosopher and pedagogist. Born in Boston, he was a non-tenure track assistant professor of philosophy at Portland State University for ten years, and his areas of academic focus i ...
, and
Helen Pluckrose Helen Pluckrose is a British author and cultural writer known for critiques of Critical Social Justice and promotion of liberal ethics, most notably in the grievance studies affair. Education Pluckrose completed a degree in English literature ...
intended to expose issues in what they term as "grievance studies", a subcategory of academic areas where the three believe "a culture has developed in which only certain conclusions are allowed ... and put social grievances ahead of objective truth". The trio referred to several academic fields—
postcolonial theory Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. More specifically, it is ...
,
gender studies Gender studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing gender identity and gendered representation. Gender studies originated in the field of women's studies, concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. The field ...
, queer theory, critical race theory,
intersectional feminism Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how aspects of a person's social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege. Intersectionality identifies multiple factors of adv ...
, and fat studies—as "grievance studies" because, according to Pluckrose, such areas begin "from the assumption of a
grievance A grievance () is a wrong or hardship suffered, real or supposed, which forms legitimate grounds of complaint In legal terminology, a complaint is any formal legal document that sets out the facts and legal reasons (see: cause of actio ...
" and then bend "the available theories to confirm it". Pluckrose argued that all of these fields derive their underlying theoretical perspectives from the postmodern philosophy that developed in the late 1960s. Focusing on the work of French postmodern philosopher Michel Foucault, she highlighted how he argued that knowledge and power were interwoven and emphasised the role of discourse in society. Pluckrose suggested that fields such as postcolonial theory and queer theory could be called "applied postmodernism" in that they sprung up largely in the late 1980s as a means of pushing the gains of the
civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...
,
gay rights movement Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBT people in society. Some focus on equal rights, such as the ongoing movement for same-sex marriage, while others focus on liberation, as in the ...
, and
liberal feminism Liberal feminism, also called mainstream feminism, is a main branch of feminism defined by its focus on achieving gender equality through political and legal reform within the framework of liberal democracy. It is often considered culturally ...
from the arena of legislative change and into the territory of changing discourse. She argued that these fields adapted postmodernism to suit their activist agendas. From postmodernism, they adopted the idea that knowledge is a social construct, but at the same time they held to the
modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
view that "no progress could be made unless some things were objectively true". Thus, the "applied postmodernists", Pluckrose argued, insisted that "systems of power and privilege that oppressed women, people of colour and the LGBT" are objectively real and could be revealed by analysing discourses. At the same time, she argued, they retained postmodernism's scepticism toward science and objective knowledge, its view of "society as a system of power and privilege" and "commitment to the belief that all imbalances are socially constructed", rather than arising from biological reality. Pluckrose described herself and her collaborators as being "left-wing liberal sceptics". She stated that a core reason for why they wanted to carry out the project was to convince other "leftist academics" that there was a problem with "corrupted scholarship" in academic fields that were "based on identity politics and postmodernism." She argued that in rejecting
modernism Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
, much postmodernist-derived scholarship was also rejecting science, reason, and
liberal democracy Liberal democracy is the combination of a liberal political ideology that operates under an indirect democratic form of government. It is characterized by elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into ...
, and thus undermining many important progressive gains. Pluckrose also expressed concern that, in both foregrounding the importance of group identity and facilitating the growth of
post-truth Post-truth is a term that refers to the 21st century widespread documentation of and concern about disputes over public truth claims. The term's academic development refers to the theories and research that explain the historically specific cause ...
by claiming that there is no objective truth, this postmodernist theory was contributing to "the reactionary surge to the right" seen in many countries during the 2010s. In 2020, Pluckrose and Lindsay further investigated the effects of critical theory in their book '' Cynical Theories: How Universities Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody''.


Sequence of events

By the time of the reveal, 7 of their 20 papers had been accepted for publication, 7 were still under review, and 6 had been rejected. Included among the articles that were published were arguments that dogs engage in
rape culture Rape culture is a setting, studied by several sociological theories, in which rape is pervasive and normalized due to societal attitudes about gender and sexuality. Behaviors commonly associated with rape culture include victim blaming, slut-s ...
and that men could reduce their
transphobia Transphobia is a collection of ideas and phenomena that encompass a range of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender people or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence or anger to ...
by anally penetrating themselves with
sex toys A sex toy is an object or device that is primarily used to facilitate human sexual pleasure, such as a dildo, artificial vagina or vibrator. Many popular sex toys are designed to resemble human genitals, and may be vibrating or non-vibratin ...
, as well as
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
's '' Mein Kampf'' rewritten in feminist language. One of the published papers in particular had won special recognition from the journal that published it.


Attempts

Prior to the affair, expressing concerns about the intellectual validity of much research influenced by postmodern philosophy and critical theory, various academics highlighted this by publishing hoax articles in various journals. It was the 1996 hoax by
Alan Sokal Alan David Sokal (; born January 24, 1955) is an American professor of mathematics at University College London and professor emeritus of physics at New York University. He works in statistical mechanics and combinatorics. He is a critic of postmo ...
in ''
Social Text ''Social Text'' is an academic journal published by Duke University Press. Since its inception by an independent editorial collective in 1979, ''Social Text'' has addressed a wide range of social and cultural phenomena, covering questions of gende ...
'', in particular, that influenced James A. Lindsay and Peter Boghossian to publish a hoax article of their own. On May 19, 2017, peer-reviewed journal ''Cogent Social Sciences'' published "The conceptual penis as a social construct", which argued that penises are not "male"; rather, they should be analyzed as social constructs instead. The same day, Lindsay and Boghossian revealed it to be a hoax aimed at discrediting
gender studies Gender studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing gender identity and gendered representation. Gender studies originated in the field of women's studies, concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. The field ...
, although ''Cogent Social Sciences'' is not exclusively a gender-studies journal. While the journal did conduct a postmortem, both authors concluded the "impact f the hoaxwas very limited, and much criticism of it was legitimate". The authors claim to have started their second attempt on August 16, 2017, with Helen Pluckrose joining them in September. The new
methodology In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for br ...
called for the submission of multiple papers, each of which would be submitted to "higher-ranked journals"; if it were rejected, feedback from the peer-review process was used to revise the paper before it was submitted to a lower-ranked journal. This process was repeated until the paper was accepted, or until the three authors gave up on that paper. The authorship of each paper was either fictional—such as "Helen Wilson" of "Portland Ungendering Research Initiative"—or real people willing to lend their name, such as Richard Baldwin, professor emeritus of history at
Gulf Coast State College Gulf Coast State College is a public college in Panama City, Florida. It is part of the Florida College System and offers the Associate of Arts degree, Associate of Science degree, certificates, and as of 2011, bachelor's degrees. History The ...
. Over the course of the project, 20 papers were submitted and 48 "new submissions" of those papers were made. The first acceptance, "Human Reactions to Rape Culture and Queer Performativity at the Dog Park", was achieved five months after the project began. During the initial peer review for its second, and ultimately successful, attempt at publication in ''
Gender, Place & Culture ''Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography'' is a peer-reviewed journal published 12 times a year by Taylor & Francis. It is the leading international journal in feminist geography and it aims to provide "a forum for debate in human ...
'', what the hoaxers called the "Dog Park" paper was praised by the first reviewer as "incredibly innovative, rich in analysis, and extremely well-written and organized". Similar respectful feedback was provided for other accepted papers.


Discovery of hoax

The project was intended to run until January 31, 2019, but came to a premature end. On June 7, 2018, the Twitter account "New Real Peer Review" discovered one of their papers. This brought it to the attention of reporters at ''
The College Fix ''The College Fix'' is an American conservative news website focused on higher education. It was created in 2011 by journalist John J. Miller and is published by the non-profit Student Free Press Association (SFPA). The site features "right-minde ...
'', ''
Reason Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, ...
'', and other news outlets who began trying to contact the fictional author and journal it was published in. The journal ''
Gender, Place & Culture ''Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography'' is a peer-reviewed journal published 12 times a year by Taylor & Francis. It is the leading international journal in feminist geography and it aims to provide "a forum for debate in human ...
'' published a note on August 6, 2018, stating that it suspected "Helen Wilson" had breached their contract to "not abricateor isappropriateanyone's identity, including heirown", adding that "the author has not responded to our request to provide appropriate documentation confirming their identity". According to the trio, another journal and a reporter at ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'' were also asking for proof of identity at this point, and that it was the right time to go public; they admitted the hoax to the journalist in early August. When ''The Wall Street Journal'' report went public on October 2, the trio released an essay describing their project, as well as a
Google Drive Google Drive is a file storage and synchronization service developed by Google. Launched on April 24, 2012, Google Drive allows users to store files in the cloud (on Google's servers), synchronize files across devices, and share files. In add ...
archive of most of their papers and email correspondence which included reviewer comments. Simultaneously, filmmaker
Mike Nayna Mike Nayna is an Australian writer, director, and filmmaker. Career In 2012 Nayna filmed an abusive attack on a Melbourne bus, producing a viral video that made headlines around the world. The incident and ensuing media event was explored in-d ...
released a video on YouTube revealing the story behind the project. , Nayna and producer Mark Conway were working on a documentary film about the project.


Reactions

The project drew both praise and criticism. The science writer Tom Chivers suggested that the result was a "predictable furore", whereby those already sceptical of gender studies hailed it as evidence for "how the whole field is riddled with nonsense", while those sympathetic to gender studies thought it was "dishonestly undermining good scholarship." The political scientist Yascha Mounk dubbed it "Sokal squared" in reference to the Sokal affair hoax accomplished by
Alan Sokal Alan David Sokal (; born January 24, 1955) is an American professor of mathematics at University College London and professor emeritus of physics at New York University. He works in statistical mechanics and combinatorics. He is a critic of postmo ...
, and said that the "result is hilarious and delightful. It also showcases a serious problem with big parts of academia." The psychologist
Steven Pinker Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. ...
said the project posed the question "is there any idea so outlandish that it won't be published in a Critical/PoMo/Identity/'Theory' journal?" In contrast, Joel P. Christensen and Matthew A. Sears, both
classicist Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...
s, referred to it as "the academic equivalent of the fraudulent hit pieces on Planned Parenthood" produced in 2015, more interested in publicity than valid argumentation. In ''
The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'', Mounk said that "Like just about everything else in this depressing national moment, Sokal Squared is already being used as ammunition in the great American
culture war A culture war is a cultural conflict between social groups and the struggle for dominance of their values, beliefs, and practices. It commonly refers to topics on which there is general societal disagreement and polarization in societal valu ...
." He characterized two sets of responses to the affair as "intellectually dishonest": right-wing responses that used the affair to discredit wider academia and left-wing responses that treated it as a politically motivated attack on academia. He said the former overlooked that "There are many fields of academia that have absolutely no patience for nonsense", including the fact that all the papers submitted to sociology journals had been rejected, while the latter attacked the motives behind the hoax instead of refuting it.


Responses by the editors of the publishing journals

Ann Garry, a co-editor of ''
Hypatia Hypatia, Koine pronunciation (born 350–370; died 415 AD) was a neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, then part of the Eastern Roman Empire. She was a prominent thinker in Alexandria where ...
'', which had accepted one of the hoax papers ("When the Joke's on You", which purported to be a feminist critique of hoaxes) but had not published it yet, said she was "deeply disappointed" by the hoax. Garry told ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' that "Referees put in a great deal of time and effort to write meaningful reviews, and the idea that individuals would submit fraudulent academic material violates many ethical and academic norms." Nicholas Mazza, editor of the ''Journal of Poetry Therapy'', said: "Although a valuable point was learned regarding the authenticity of articles/authors… the authors of the 'study' clearly engaged in flawed and unethical research."


Praise

Yascha Mounk of
Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...
said that while the authors received no favors for preparing the hoax, they demonstrated mastery in postmodern
jargon Jargon is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The context is usually a partic ...
and not only ridiculed the journals in question, but, more importantly, outed double standards of gender studies which happily welcome hoaxes against "morally suspect" fields like economics, but are unable to accept a criticism of their own methods. He also noted the "sheer amount of tribal solidarity it has elicited among leftists and academics" and the fact that many of the reactions were purely ''ad hominem'', while few have actually noted that there is an actual problem highlighted by the hoax: "some of the leading journals in areas like gender studies have failed to distinguish between real scholarship and intellectually vacuous as well as morally troubling bullshit". Mounk also countered criticism that the trio received about the lack of controls as a "confused attempt to import statistics into a question where it doesn't apply". Justin E. H. Smith defended hoaxing as an intellectual or scholarly practice, providing a series of examples of hoaxes ranging from the Italian Renaissance to the 2000s. In ''
The Chronicle of Higher Education ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'' is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty and student affairs professionals (staff members and administrators). A subscription is required to re ...
'', Heather E. Heying pointed out that the hoax helped to expose many
pathologies Pathology is the study of the causes and effects of disease or injury. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in ...
of the modern social sciences, such as "repudiation of science and logic" and "extolling activism over inquiry". Upon Boghossian's employer
Portland State University Portland State University (PSU) is a public research university in Portland, Oregon. It was founded in 1946 as a post-secondary educational institution for World War II veterans. It evolved into a four-year college over the following two decad ...
initiating a research misconduct inquiry on the grounds of conducting human subject-based research without approval, and further considering a charge of fabricating data, a number of prominent academics submitted letters of support to him and defended the motive of the hoax, including
Steven Pinker Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. ...
and various Portland State students. Richard Dawkins compared Boghossian to a novelist, pointing out that George Orwell's novel ''
Animal Farm ''Animal Farm'' is a beast fable, in the form of satirical allegorical novella, by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. It tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to c ...
'' could be criticized for its many "falsehoods" regarding the capabilities of animals to speak English. He asked: The psychologist
Jonathan Haidt Jonathan David Haidt (; born October 19, 1963) is an American social psychologist and author. He is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University Stern School of Business. His main areas of study are the psychology of ...
stated that the inquiry would be "a profound moral error—an injustice—that will be obvious to all who hear about your decision, and that will have bad effects upon the public perception of PSU and of universities in general", and concluded that Boghossian and his co-authors are whistleblowers, who undertook a "career-risking project to stand up for academic integrity by exposing what is, arguably, an academic subculture that tolerates intellectual fraud." Philosopher Daniel Dennett stated that Boghossian's targets "could learn a few things about academic integrity" from his "fine example", undertaken "in good
faith Faith, derived from Latin ''fides'' and Old French ''feid'', is confidence or trust in a person, thing, or In the context of religion, one can define faith as " belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion". Religious people ofte ...
". Alan Sokal and
Jordan Peterson Jordan Bernt Peterson (born 12 June 1962) is a Canadian media personality, clinical psychologist, author, and professor emeritus at the University of Toronto. He began to receive widespread attention as a public intellectual in the late 2010s ...
also supported Boghossian. The ''World Socialist Web Site'' Eric London said the hoax was "a well-timed blow" against the "identity politics industry" and postmodernism.


Criticism

Writing for '' Slate'', Daniel Engber criticized the project, saying that "one could have run this sting on almost any empirical discipline and returned the same result". Similarly, Sarah Richardson,
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
professor of women's studies, criticized the hoaxers for not including a control group in their experiment, telling '' BuzzFeed News'': "By their own standards, we can't scientifically conclude anything from it." '' n+1'' magazine published a critical article that cited a survey by the science writer Jim Schnabel of similar hoax attempts, summarizing Schnabel's conclusion as "the educated public makes a decision based not on the scientific merits of the hoax but on the relative orthodoxy of the hoaxer and hoaxee. In effect, the result of the trick is decided in advance by the power relations of the field." The article goes on to assert that the relative orthodoxy in this case was "not an orthodoxy of scientific legitimacy but rather the emerging consensus of tech bros, Davos billionaires, and alt-right misogynists". In ''
UnHerd ''UnHerd'' is a British news and opinion website founded in July 2017. Content ''UnHerd'' was founded in 2017 by conservative British political activist Tim Montgomerie, who also acted as editor. Following Montgomerie's departure in September ...
'', Chivers noted that while the so-called "grievance studies" fields "probably" contain more "bullshit… than most scientific fields", the project distracted attention from problems of shoddy scholarship across the entirety of academia. He highlighted that several weeks prior to the project's public revelation, professor of food behaviour
Brian Wansink Brian Wansink is a former American professor and researcher who worked in consumer behavior and marketing research. He is the former executive director of the USDA's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP) (2007–2009) and held the Joh ...
had resigned from his position at
Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
following exposure of instances of scientific misconduct on his part. Carl T. Bergstrom, writing in ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'', says: "the hoaxers appear woefully naïve about how the system actually works". Peer review is not designed to remove fraud or even absurd ideas, he claimed, and replication will lead to self-correction. In the same article, David Schieber said he was one of the two anonymous reviewers for "Rubbing One Out", and argued that the hoaxers selectively quoted from his review. "They were turning my attempt to help the authors of a rejected paper into an indictment of my field and the journal I reviewed for, even though we rejected the paper." Ten professors at Portland State University signed an open letter saying the hoax was not comparable to the Sokal affair, the latter taking place during "a time of debate and exploration in the field of philosophy and science", and that the trio were only exploiting "credulous journalists interested mainly in spectacle" to conduct academic fraud. They compared the trio's style to "Trumpist politics" and wrote that " sperate reasoning, basic spite and a perverse interest in public humiliation seem to have overridden any actual scholarly goals." The authors asked to remain anonymous, alleging Boghossian had targeted academics at other institutions and that they would likely receive "threats of death and assault from online trolls". In an article in the journal ''Science, Technology, and Human Values'', Mikko Lagerspetz analyzed the project's experimental design and its possible results, based on the peer reviews and editorial decisions available through the project's website. He sums up as follows: He concludes that the experiment was flawed both experimentally and ethically, and failed to provide the evidence it sought. It is unclear, on what grounds the project group decided what journals to target. One third (7) of the 21 final editorial decisions the authors received were positive, two thirds of the decisions were negative. In the absence of a control group, it is impossible to tell whether this ratio could have been lower or higher within some other disciplines.


List of hoax papers


Accepted


Published

Following the discovery of the hoax, all four papers were retracted: * * * *


Not yet published

* * *


Considered


Revise and resubmit

* * * *


Under review

*


Rejected

* * * * * * * * *


See also

*
List of scholarly publishing stings This is a list of scholarly publishing "sting operations" such as the Sokal affair. These are nonsense papers that were accepted by an academic journal or academic conference; the list does not include cases of scientific misconduct. The intent of ...
*
Postmodernism Generator The Postmodernism Generator is a computer program that automatically produces "close imitations" of postmodernist writing. It was written in 1996 by Andrew C. Bulhak of Monash University using the Dada Engine, a system for generating random tex ...
*
Science wars The science wars were a series of scholarly and public discussions in the 1990s over the social place of science in making authoritative claims about the world. HighBeam Encyclopedia defines the science wars as the discussions about the "way the sc ...


References


Footnotes


Bibliography

* * *


Further reading

* *


External links


Grievance studies
on
Peter Boghossian Peter Gregory Boghossian (; born July 25, 1966) is an American philosopher and pedagogist. Born in Boston, he was a non-tenure track assistant professor of philosophy at Portland State University for ten years, and his areas of academic focus i ...
's webpage
Collection of the papers, reviews and press material
on
Google Drive Google Drive is a file storage and synchronization service developed by Google. Launched on April 24, 2012, Google Drive allows users to store files in the cloud (on Google's servers), synchronize files across devices, and share files. In add ...
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