Chinese Character Etymology (a rebuttal) [Archive I]

seebs

May 24, 2002, 12:39 PM

Someone in a creation/evolution debate recently posted the following URL as "support for creationism".

<a href="http://www.searchforthetruth.org/v_12.htm" target="_blank">http://www.searchforthetruth.org/v_12.htm</a>

I would like to take advantage of having learned Chinese to debunk this painful stupidity.

There are several primary problems with this page's "arguments".

1. They are assuming that each character component contributes meaning. It doesn't. Sometimes, they contribute sound. Sometimes, they're there for other reasons entirely.

2. They're breaking things down further than you can go; for instance, there's a sigil that looks like a cross sticking out of the ground, and there's another that looks like that with a / attached to the left side. They treat the latter as if it were the former plus a / - it's not. It's its own symbol.

3. They are simply factually wrong about some of their translations. In one case, I believe I can point to exactly the set of words in a dictionary that they misunderstood.

Specific errors:

1. Asserting that "emperor of heaven" meaning "god" implies anything about monotheism. This is just stupid; the author clearly knows essentially nothing about Chinese mythology. The etymology is correct, I believe - the interpretation is just silly.

2. Their etymology for "to create" makes the error I described earlier about over-combining radicals. It's just meaningless.

3. Their description of boat is wrong in two ways:

3a. The symbol they say means '8' does not mean '8'. ba1 is written "/\" (roughly). It does not have a horizontal line on top; it's two separate strokes. The symbol in question, were it taken on its own, would probably mean "table" or something similar.

3b. The symbol they describe as meaning "people" is, in fact, the same one they said means "breath" earlier. In fact, it means "mouth" or something similar. Why "people"? Because it's the measure word for people; just as, in English, you'd say "fifteen head of Cattle", in Chinese, you say "wu kou ren" to mean "five mouths people". This is an example used in at least one dictionary - so I bet that's where they got the painfully stupid idea that it meant "people".

4. The etymology for confuse is stretched to the point where there's visible gaps between molecules.

Dr.GH

May 24, 2002, 12:50 PM

Interesting material. Thanks.

Hav you considerd following up on the book references by the webpage?

seebs

May 24, 2002, 12:58 PM

[quote]Originally posted by Dr.GH:
Interesting material. Thanks.

Hav you considerd following up on the book references by the webpage?<hr></blockquote>

No... I actually didn't even notice that thing down at the bottom of the page until you mentioned it.

Still... If these are the "compelling" examples, I'd hate to see the rest of the batch. It's pretty depressing. No one who can't tell ji3 from ba1 should be trying to discuss the "meaning" of Chinese. (Not sure about the romanization; trying to indicate tone without relying on accent characters I can't type.)

kookiejar

May 24, 2002, 01:06 PM

Here's the thing. I had this conversation with a fundy about how the Chinese symbol for boat was the combined symbols for "Eight", "People" and "Vessel", and of course he thought that was a reference to Noah. I scoffed and did my own research.

Turns out there is a Chinese myth about 8 heroes (4 male, 4 female) who have to set out on a boat to do battle with the demons of the East sea to earn immortality. Xian missionaries saw this symbol for boat and immediately equated it with their beliefs and spread this lie throughout the world.

So, although sometimes the individual characters do equate to actual words, it doesn't mean what they think it means, because they haven't done their homework.

beachbum

May 24, 2002, 01:15 PM

seebs

How where and when did you learn Chinese? I have had a desire for hundreds of years and have not had the right stimuli to get me going. Was it a hared language to learn or is it possibly your native language, which would make this entire line of questioning superfluious

Thanks for the info.

Stan the mono-lingual beachbum.

seebs

May 24, 2002, 01:19 PM

[quote]Originally posted by kookiejar:

So, although sometimes the individual characters do equate to actual words, it doesn't mean what they think it means, because they haven't done their homework.<hr></blockquote>

They may sometimes, but in that particular case, the symbol they used *DOES NOT MEAN EIGHT*. And yeah, there's lots of cool myths that they could be referring to.

seebs

May 24, 2002, 01:22 PM

[quote]Originally posted by beachbum:

How where and when did you learn Chinese? I have had a desire for hundreds of years and have not had the right stimuli to get me going. Was it a hared language to learn or is it possibly your native language, which would make this entire line of questioning superfluious

Thanks for the info.

Stan the mono-lingual beachbum.<hr></blockquote>

My parents decided it would be good for me to learn a foreign language; my mom had been studying Chinese for a while. We went to China for a year, where my mom coache students for the GRE and TOEFL. (Test Of English as a Foreign Language, I think.) Before we went, I did a 3-month intensive study course at a local university; my college accepted this, I think, as 3 course-equivalents. While I was in China, I did two semesters of Chinese - and also, of course, had to get around and talk to people.

It's a wonderful language to learn; it completely changes the way you think about logic, because the rules for logical connectives are very different. I think English has a better selection of logical connectives... but Chinese is beautiful, and I'm glad I learned it. I'm way out of practice, but not so far out of practice that I can't, nine times out of ten, tell you exactly which order to draw the lines in a character in, or use a Chinese dictionary.

I remember looking at this page once, and thinking "what shoddy etymology". About twenty minutes later, I suddenly said "Hang on! No way was that an eight." Ransacked the house looking for my old dictionary, found it (pretty quickly, it turns out), and... Sure enough! That's not an eight.

lpetrich

May 24, 2002, 01:27 PM

With such specious arguments like that, I wonder when Xian apologists will start to claim that the Bible had demonstrated evolution long before Darwin.

I remember having posed a challenge here or in BC&A: to demonstrate evolution from the Bible. But nobody was very successful; it may be difficult to think like the more ingenious sort of theologian.

kookiejar

May 24, 2002, 01:29 PM

I'm sure you are right about that eight, seebs. I'm just starting to learn Pinyin myself. I just wish these nitwits would do a little research before they start spreading these stories. They wouldn't have even had to learn the language (which is difficult) to see that theirs is not the only possible explination.

seebs

May 24, 2002, 01:30 PM

[quote]Originally posted by lpetrich:
With such specious arguments like that, I wonder when Xian apologists will start to claim that the Bible had demonstrated evolution long before Darwin.
<hr></blockquote>

Oh, I'm sure some of them already had. A while back I got a thing in email claiming to have "proven" that Islam has always known about embryos and pregnancy as we understand it today. Uh-huh.

I'm willing to go so far as a fairly literal reading of "let there be light"; beyond that, it seems dubious at best to take the creation myths too seriously.

Vorkosigan

May 24, 2002, 05:45 PM

A quick intro. Chinese characters are built up of smaller parts called "radicals." Depending on how you count, there are 216 radicals or so, and they form the basis for the organization of the dictionary.

The author's history is all wrong. The proper Chinese word for "god" is shen2 and occurs in many ancient phrases, such as cai shen -- the god of wealth, or shen mi -- mysterious. The phrase shang4di4 was invented to describe the Christian god, and is a modern construction dating from the 17th century. It describes ONLY that god. When the Chinese refer to their own gods, they use shen2. Thus, the author is wrong on both counts. It isn't ancient, and it doesn't refer to Chinese gods.

Going on, in the second character "create" the author has incorrectly defined the radical for "earth, soil, land" -- tu3 as "dust." The correct word for dust is chen2 and it is a radical in its own right. The "breathe" radical actually means "mouth" and has nothing to do with "breathing." The stroke he identifies as "alive" is nothing but a stroke with no more meaning than the cap of a "T." The author really fucked that one up.

Continuing, the author's claims about the ancient Chinese symbol for "boat" is all wrong. The ancient Chinese symbol for "boat" is a completely different character. This is a modern character that dates from Medieval, not ancient times. The character for "8" did not originally occur in "boat" at all. The two radicals "8" and "mouth" are there to represent the sound of the character, and come from the word for "lead" (the element). They were added much later. Only the left-hand radical is original. The author clearly doesn't know a damn thing about Chinese, or is lying.

Continuing on, the author has once again misidentified the character, luan4. The character he describes indeed means "confusion, trouble, discord," but it does not mean "rebellion." It occurs in words like "civil war" and "revolt." The word for "rebellion" is fan pan and does not include this character. Further, it is a simplified form of the character that is a modern invention, the real left-hand radical is much more complex. The form he gives here is easier to write, so everybody uses it. It is a couple of hundred years old, maybe even as old as Medieval times, but no more.

It's just the usual Christian lies......<sigh>

Vorkosigan

[ May 24, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]

seebs

May 24, 2002, 11:30 PM

[quote]Originally posted by Vorkosigan:

It's just the usual Christian lies......<sigh>
<hr></blockquote>

It's the usual Creationist lies... Or did you not notice who started the thread to correct the errors?

lpetrich

May 24, 2002, 11:42 PM

[quote]
LP:
(on some apologists deriving evolution from the Bible)
seebs:
Oh, I'm sure some of them already had. A while back I got a thing in email claiming to have "proven" that Islam has always known about embryos and pregnancy as we understand it today. Uh-huh.
<hr></blockquote>

Denis Giron does an <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/denis_giron/islamsci.html" target="_blank">excellent job</a> on those claims -- it's clear that the writers of the Koran had had only unaided-eye knowledge of embryology, like what Aristotle had had and utilized nearly a millennium before.

One wonders why no real revelations, such as human embryos having gill-like structures that are reused or resorbed as the embryos grow. Or jaws developing from the first gill bars.

[quote]
seebs:
I'm willing to go so far as a fairly literal reading of "let there be light"; beyond that, it seems dubious at best to take the creation myths too seriously.
<hr></blockquote>

You may want to read Genesis 1 a bit more closely. "Let there be light" God says to a dark Earth and sky.

However, the Big Bang was a sort of primordial fireball -- everything that there is in our Universe was part of a humongous explosion.

In fact, it might be linked to cosmic-egg creation myths, though such a linkage is not much less tenuous than a link to Genesis 1.

seebs

May 25, 2002, 12:18 AM

[quote]Originally posted by lpetrich:

You may want to read Genesis 1 a bit more closely. "Let there be light" God says to a dark Earth and sky.
<hr></blockquote>

I didn't say I took the *context* literally, I just said I might be able to go with a literal reading of those few words.

Vorkosigan

May 25, 2002, 05:27 AM

[quote]Originally posted by seebs:


It's the usual Creationist lies... Or did you not notice who started the thread to correct the errors?<hr></blockquote>

You're right, I shouldn't have said Christian.

Vorkosigan

Valentine Pontifex

May 25, 2002, 05:20 PM

I did not know we had linguists here. :-)

seebs

May 25, 2002, 05:24 PM

[quote]Originally posted by LordValentine:
I did not know we had linguists here. :-)<hr></blockquote>

I'm not really a linguist, although my mom did some graduate linguistics, and I picked up a few dribs and drabs. However, I *did* learn Chinese, and it offends me to see people presenting lies as support for something they believe to be true. I've believed dishonesty to be a Bad Thing for a long time - longer than I've had most of my other moral beliefs, in fact.

I figured it'd be a nice contribution to let people know that the explanation given is not merely wrong, but hilariously wrong.

Vorkosigan

May 25, 2002, 05:34 PM

I'm no linguist either, but you can hardly study Chinese characters without learning something about their origins. That is why I assumed these guys are liars rather than merely erroneous.

Vorkosgian

seebs

May 25, 2002, 05:39 PM

[quote]Originally posted by Vorkosigan:
I'm no linguist either, but you can hardly study Chinese characters without learning something about their origins. That is why I assumed these guys are liars rather than merely erroneous.<hr></blockquote>

Hmm.

Well, here's the thing. Mistaking the shape that they called an '8' for an actual Chinese numeral 8 is *not* a mistake I can imagine anyone making legitimately... Unless that person knows *NOTHING* about Chinese, and is simply trying to look things up in a dictionary, and not clear on how a Chinese dictionary works. Similarly, the attempt to treat the 'apostrophe' stroke as a meaning-radical was *totally* inconsistent with how Chinese works.

However, if someone had shown you a couple of Chinese etymologies, and you had a Chinese dictionary, I could easily see making the kinds of mistakes they did, such as mistaking the measure-word for people for the word "people" itself, or not being able to tell two diagonal lines which don't touch from a vertical line and a 180-degree-rotated 'L' shape which *do* touch.

So... Charity requires me to assume that they're merely laughably stupid, not actually malicious.

But, wow. It's not as if they couldn't have done some research, or asked any of the *BILLION* or so people who know Chinese. (Okay, so probably only a few hundred million of them would be able to answer questions about etymology.)

Valentine Pontifex

May 25, 2002, 06:26 PM

seebs,

You might consider taking what you wrote in the first message of this thread and posting it to the talk.origins newsgroup. It will make a wider range of people aware of this set of the fallacies. This is, after all, something that most people, myself included, are totally incompetent to answer intellegently without help. You might have a shot at post of the month as well.

seebs

May 25, 2002, 10:56 PM

[quote]Originally posted by LordValentine:
seebs,

You might consider taking what you wrote in the first message of this thread and posting it to the talk.origins newsgroup. It will make a wider range of people aware of this set of the fallacies. This is, after all, something that most people, myself included, are totally incompetent to answer intellegently without help. You might have a shot at post of the month as well.<hr></blockquote>

Hey, thanks! That's a really good idea, and one that would never have occurred to me. I'll go do that.

Vorkosigan

May 26, 2002, 06:03 AM

They do make this boner I didn't catch the first time:
The symbol for Shang Ti (God) is a combination of the symbol for emperor and the symbol for heaven (or above).

That one is absolutely hilarious. Shang4 di4 is TWO characters, not one. Ouch. They must not speak a word of Chinese. But the writer has a Chinese name....

Vorkosigan

RufusAtticus

May 26, 2002, 06:34 AM

[quote]Originally posted by Vorkosigan:
Ouch. They must not speak a word of Chinese. But the writer has a Chinese name....
<hr></blockquote>

Since when did your typical WASP creationist even understand written English?

~~RvFvS~~

RufusAtticus

May 26, 2002, 08:14 AM

Seebs' post is up on talk.origins.

<a href="http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&group=talk.origins&selm=3cf07639%240%2479557%243c090ad1%40news.plethora.net" target="_blank">Creationism and the etymology of Chinese characters</a>

~~RvFvS~~

[ May 26, 2002: Message edited by: RufusAtticus ]

Valentine Pontifex

May 26, 2002, 10:51 AM

Guess what I found at AiG!

<a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/388.asp" target="_blank">http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/388.asp</a>

Valentine Pontifex

May 26, 2002, 11:21 AM

Here is a web page on Chinese Numbers:

<a href="http://www.mandarintools.com/numbers.html" target="_blank">http://www.mandarintools.com/numbers.html</a>

As you might guess,

<a href="http://www.mandarintools.com/" target="_blank">http://www.mandarintools.com/</a>

is about the Chinese language.

Valentine Pontifex

May 26, 2002, 12:39 PM

I posted a list of places making this claim as a reply to Seebs' post on talk.origins. Since than it occurs to me to check and see if Hovind made the claim. And he does:

<a href="http://www.drdino.com/cse.asp?pg=articles&specific=24" target="_blank">http://www.drdino.com/cse.asp?pg=articles&specific=24</a>

Valentine Pontifex

May 26, 2002, 01:45 PM

The Institute for Creation Research as well:

<a href="http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-169.htm" target="_blank">http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-169.htm</a>
<a href="http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-158.htm" target="_blank">http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-158.htm</a>

seebs

May 26, 2002, 02:03 PM

[quote]Originally posted by LordValentine:
I posted a list of places making this claim as a reply to Seebs' post on talk.origins. Since than it occurs to me to check and see if Hovind made the claim. And he does:
<hr></blockquote>

When disks get a bit bigger, I'm gonna buy me a disk to hold a complete list of false statements Hovind has made.

(Okay, it's hyperbole; they make 100GB disks today.)

Valentine Pontifex

May 26, 2002, 05:18 PM

<a href="http://groups.google.com/groups?as_umsgid=3cf15ae6%240%24237%24cc9e4d1f@news.dial.pipex.com&lr=&hl=en" target="_blank">This post</a> that replied to Seebs' post brings up even more points against the YEC claims.

This material really could use a web treatment, possibly inclusion at T.O.

Quick note: at post time Google does not have the post, but the link above will work, hopefully in a few hours.

[ May 26, 2002: Message edited by: LordValentine ]

Kosh

May 26, 2002, 06:58 PM

[quote]
From seebs...

However, if someone had shown you a couple of Chinese etymologies
[quote]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by RufusAtticus:

Since when did your typical WASP creationist even understand written English?
<hr></blockquote>

Why do you guys keep bringing up bugs?

Jesus Tap-Dancin' Christ

May 27, 2002, 12:12 AM

Well, to give AiG a LITTLE credit, their mistake was more likely to be honest than malicious. In this case, anyhow. What the hell am I saying? I'm DEFENDING AiG? Fuck that. I think they're just too stupid to check on something before posting it. Sounds good to them, they'll post it.

Hey, that give me a GREAT idea. Anyone want to fuck with them a little and come up with a false proof (easily debunkable), send it to them, and see if they post it?

seebs

May 27, 2002, 12:35 AM

[quote]Originally posted by Jesus Christ:
Well, to give AiG a LITTLE credit, their mistake was more likely to be honest than malicious. In this case, anyhow. What the hell am I saying? I'm DEFENDING AiG? Fuck that. I think they're just too stupid to check on something before posting it. Sounds good to them, they'll post it.

Hey, that give me a GREAT idea. Anyone want to fuck with them a little and come up with a false proof (easily debunkable), send it to them, and see if they post it?<hr></blockquote>

I'm not seeing how this could possibly give us new information, unless they refused to publish it, which seems unlikely.

Jesus Tap-Dancin' Christ

May 27, 2002, 09:19 AM

New information? No. Fun to watch them post lies fabricated for the purpose of watching them post it? Priceless.

seebs

May 27, 2002, 12:47 PM

[quote]Originally posted by Jesus Christ:
New information? No. Fun to watch them post lies fabricated for the purpose of watching them post it? Priceless.<hr></blockquote>

Did you ever read Alan Sokal's paper, _Towards a Transformative Hermaneutics of Quantum Gravity_?

Vorkosigan

May 27, 2002, 04:17 PM

[quote]Originally posted by seebs:


Did you ever read Alan Sokal's paper, _Towards a Transformative Hermaneutics of Quantum Gravity_?<hr></blockquote>

Sokal was right, but for the wrong reasons. His paper actually failed to address any of the claims it was attacking. It was cute, but badly done.

Vorkosigan

seebs

May 27, 2002, 05:04 PM

[quote]Originally posted by Vorkosigan:

Sokal was right, but for the wrong reasons. His paper actually failed to address any of the claims it was attacking. It was cute, but badly done.
<hr></blockquote>

You're aware that the paper was a hoax, right? That was the point of the article; it was a hilariously badly-argued case, full of humorous mis-references, submitted solely to see if it would be published anyway.

lpetrich

May 27, 2002, 05:29 PM

[quote]Originally posted by seebs:


Did you ever read Alan Sokal's paper, _Towards a Transformative Hermaneutics of Quantum Gravity_?<hr></blockquote>

Yes, that wonderful hoax, which contained an absurd viewpoint couched in postmodernist language.

And which fooled the editors of a postmodernist journal, Social Text.

seebs

May 27, 2002, 06:04 PM

[quote]Originally posted by lpetrich:


Yes, that wonderful hoax, which contained an absurd viewpoint couched in postmodernist language.

And which fooled the editors of a postmodernist journal, Social Text.<hr></blockquote>

I once printed the actual article out. It's *hilarious*. I mean, gut-busting funny. Horrible puns, elaborate setups for implausible claims, and findings of "bias" in all sorts of things... It was a genuine work of art.

Jesus Tap-Dancin' Christ

May 27, 2002, 10:21 PM

Never heard of it. I think I'll look for it and have a laugh.

seebs

May 27, 2002, 10:34 PM

[quote]Originally posted by Jesus Christ:
Never heard of it. I think I'll look for it and have a laugh.<hr></blockquote>

<a href="http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/" target="_blank">http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/</a>

Note that the first media contact listed, and indeed, the first discussion of this in newspapers or TV, was an article my mom wrote. She officially got the scoop on this one. :)

Vorkosigan

May 27, 2002, 10:44 PM

Ah the myths about Sokal yet again:

(1) Sokal claimed to have attacked post-modern views of science. Not one of the (few) authors Sokal addressed is a pomo scholar of science. Several of us tried to tell him that at some of the talks he presented, but he blundered on. Basically, he hadn't a clue as to what he was talking about, and after a few weeks those of us supporting his ideals were devoutly hoping that he'd shut up. Fortunately Gross and Leavitt were able to turn out a fabulous volume called Higher Superstition that did what that idiot Sokal failed to do. Seebs, you should read that.

(2) Social Text is a non-peer reviewed journal. They were hoping to build bridges to science. They asked that Sokal cut out some of the more absurd claims that he had written, as well as clean up his prose, but he refused and demanded they publish it unchanged. Sokal's claim that he hornswoggled them is a mispresentation of reality. Actually, he bullied them. Their error lay in trying to be diplomatic.

Just for the record, I was doing a doctorate in the field Sokal was attacking at the time of the flap, and one of my profs was an editor for Social Text. As usual, the media got everything wrong. No offense to your mother, seebs, but most of the people who reported on this controversy had no understanding of the issues involved.

Vorkosigan

seebs

May 27, 2002, 11:47 PM

[quote]Originally posted by Vorkosigan:
Ah the myths about Sokal yet again:

(1) Sokal claimed to have attacked post-modern views of science. Not one of the (few) authors Sokal addressed is a pomo scholar of science. Several of us tried to tell him that at some of the talks he presented, but he blundered on. Basically, he hadn't a clue as to what he was talking about, and after a few weeks those of us supporting his ideals were devoutly hoping that he'd shut up. Fortunately Gross and Leavitt were able to turn out a fabulous volume called Higher Superstition that did what that idiot Sokal failed to do. Seebs, you should read that.

(2) Social Text is a non-peer reviewed journal. They were hoping to build bridges to science. They asked that Sokal cut out some of the more absurd claims that he had written, as well as clean up his prose, but he refused and demanded they publish it unchanged. Sokal's claim that he hornswoggled them is a mispresentation of reality. Actually, he bullied them. Their error lay in trying to be diplomatic.

Just for the record, I was doing a doctorate in the field Sokal was attacking at the time of the flap, and one of my profs was an editor for Social Text. As usual, the media got everything wrong. No offense to your mother, seebs, but most of the people who reported on this controversy had no understanding of the issues involved.

Vorkosigan<hr></blockquote>

I've heard claims like this, and claims that they were an attempt to cover for things after the fact, and counterclaims, and counter-counter claims... On the whole, all I can say is that enough utter nonsense gets published that I find Sokal's claims quite plausible.

Sokal's point was admirably made; you can get anything published if it's politically acceptable. Did he need to "pressure" the journal to publish his peice unaltered? Perhaps - though that wasn't the excuse used the first time around. And yet, if they were serious, why the hell would they publish such unabashed nonsense *at all*, even with "corrections"?

He has their response, as well as counter-responses, up on his web page.

<a href="http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/reply.html" target="_blank">http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/reply.html</a>

This is his counter-response, in which he asserts that he has email saved from them which flatly contradicts their reports of what "really" happened.

Frankly, given the choice between believing that he's lying, and believing that they're lying, I believe that they're lying. They lost a huge amount of face. If he's lying, all he's doing is making a dent in the reputation of the leftists of the world - whom he clearly sympathises with - larger. I don't see him benefitting a lot from lying about this. I see *immense* benefit to the editors of social text in finding "spin".

Keep in mind, these are not people known for a firm belief in any kind of meaningful "truth" separate from the currently-desired interpretation.

I think that a review of the whole story suggests that, indeed, Sokal's silly paper did exactly what it was supposed to do; exposed a willingness to let standards slide to get interesting-sounding material.

Vorkosigan

May 28, 2002, 12:10 AM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by seebs:
I've heard claims like this, and claims that they were an attempt to cover for things after the fact, and counterclaims, and counter-counter claims... On the whole, all I can say is that enough utter nonsense gets published that I find Sokal's claims quite plausible.

I'm glad you have your opinion, seebs. The actual facts are well-known to anyone who was involved, seebs, as you weren't.

And yet, if they were serious, why the hell would they publish such unabashed nonsense *at all*, even with "corrections"?

Let me say this again, in case you missed it the first two thousand times it has been said in the intervening years:

Social Text is a non-peer reviewed journal. Its purpose is to act as a forum for differing views or commentaries. It seeks to encourage communication. You bet that they were happy to get a piece from a physicist that seemed to reflect their politics. They published it even though they felt it was silly. However they are not under any obligation to be "nuetral" in the realm of politics. They publish left-wing political shit since day one. That's their editorial slant. Sokal could never have gotten a piece like that past a serious peer-reviewed journal. The only reason he got it in Social Text is because he forced them to either accept it whole, or reject it.

I don't see him benefitting a lot from lying about this. I see *immense* benefit to the editors of social text in finding "spin".

I guess your interpretation would be another example of the problem you alluded to above, that of people finding explanations congenial because they fit their political views....

For example, there have been several notable cases of fraud in scientific journals. I assume, since Sokal invalidates postmodernism, that by the same infantile token you agree that science has now been invalidated? I assume you must believe that since a clever forger once got himself a post an Oxbridge post for creating a diary in "grass script," that Chinese language studies should no longer be taken seriously?

Keep in mind, these are not people known for a firm belief in any kind of meaningful "truth" separate from the currently-desired interpretation.

Be careful, seebs. People on both sides of this divide in the field are my good friends. You have no idea who or what you are talking about. Did you ever go to hear Sokal speak? He meant well, but his vast ignorance made me cringe.

Why don't you stop keeping me in suspense, and identify by name which members of the field have questionable academic integrity? By the way, are you even aware of what field is under discussion?

I think that a review of the whole story suggests that, indeed, Sokal's silly paper did exactly what it was supposed to do; exposed a willingness to let standards slide to get interesting-sounding material.

Perhaps you can begin by explaining what standards were allowed to slide? Again, in case you missed it over the last five years, Social Text is a non-peer reviewed journal. Editorial goals and standards are much looser. Its purpose is to encourage engagement and discussion.

After that you can explain what Sokal actually demonstrated, since he cites not a single author from the field he is supposed to be attacking, and clearly knows nothing about it. I hope you will take the time to constrast Sokal's soaring ignorance with the genuine mastery of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0801857074/internetinfidelsA/" target="_blank">Higher Superstition : The Academic Left and Its Quarrels With Science</a>. That was an immensely satisfying work.

BTW, the link to Sokal only gives his response. Here is his home page:
<a href="http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/" target="_blank">http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/</a>

Here is what Sokal said about himself:

I confess to some embarrassment at being asked to contribute an introductory essay to this collection of critical studies in the history, sociology and philosophy of science. After all, I'm neither a historian nor a sociologist nor a philosopher; I'm merely a theoretical physicist with an amateur interest in the philosophy of science and perhaps some modest skill at thinking clearly. Social Text co-founder Stanley Aronowitz was, alas, absolutely right when he called me ``ill-read and half-educated.''[2]

Note by the time Sokal got around to writing this intro, he was a lot better educated about what he was talking about.

Vorkosigan

[ May 27, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]

echidna

May 28, 2002, 01:14 AM

[quote]Originally posted by Vorkosigan:
Ah the myths about Sokal yet again:
<hr></blockquote>

Greetings V (I can still remember your previous incarnation), allow me to chip in very briefly. Your previous advice to me has left me somewhat short of time to visit the boards here. :)

To me your second paragraph does precious little to debunk Sokal�s efforts. With the gift of hindsight (or even without ?), his essay was clearly a �clever� piece of idiotic fiddle-faddle. Have the publishers of the Social Text ever identified the parts which they considered to be worthy of publishing ? On reading, there appears to be none whatsoever, and yet, true to the waffle of post-modernism, it was published, without any commentary as to any doubt over its content. This would appear to be a somewhat pathetic attempt by the publishers to salvage what little credibility they ever had.

Maybe I can be agnostic to 10% of post-modernism having value, however you must admit that Sokal�s essay (although possibly unfairly elevated), is strongly indicative of the bulk of the bullshit element.

Seebs, as a fellow-appreciator of PM, you may be amused by the following :

<a href="http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern" target="_blank">http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern</a>

echidna

May 28, 2002, 01:46 AM

V, I�ve only just read your last reply. I too have friends on both sides & a friend of mine taught PM for some years. However regardless of our friendship, when I questioned her material, I found it better to simply hold silent about the lack of value I found in it. She is still my friend, but that won�t stop me strongly disagreeing with her intellectual pretences.

Surely you agree that PM contains an incredibly high proportion of pseudo-intellectual bullshit artists (as we charmingly refer to them over here) ?

Equating the square root of �1 with an erect penis ?
Criticising masculine Solid Mechanics as being unfairly dominant over feminine Fluid Mechanics ?

As you know, there is no shortage of PM material along these lines. And even much material not so obvious is simply uses vast verbosity and unintelligible vocabularies to couch quite simple and often questionable ideas, hardly clever stuff from those entrusted to be at the forefront of our wisdom.

Maybe Sokal�s expose was over-rated, however the storm of controversy which ensued surely demonstrates the strong undercurrent of intellectual dissatisfaction with what history will hopefully record as an embarrassment to late 20th century academia.

OTOH, maybe not an embarrassment, maybe more just a light comedy interlude. :)

Vorkosigan

May 28, 2002, 01:50 AM

Greetings V (I can still remember your previous incarnation), allow me to chip in very briefly. Your previous advice to me has left me somewhat short of time to visit the boards here.

What was that? Did I tell you to perform some anatomically impossible act in no uncertain terms or something? :)

To me your second paragraph does precious little to debunk Sokal’s efforts. With the gift of hindsight (or even without ?), his essay was clearly a “clever” piece of idiotic fiddle-faddle.

Oh, I totally agree. The reference to Sheldrake's immortal morphogenetic fields was a classic.

Have the publishers of the Social Text ever identified the parts which they considered to be worthy of publishing ? On reading, there appears to be none whatsoever, and yet, true to the waffle of post-modernism, it was published, without any commentary as to any doubt over its content. This would appear to be a somewhat pathetic attempt by the publishers to salvage what little credibility they ever had.

That's not the point. Sokal has cleverly shifted the argument here. In all the laughter over the egg-in-the-face for Social Text, he's managed to make everyone miss the fact that his piece didn't do what he claimed it did. By the time of the Intro piece above, he's retreated very far from his early claims.

Consider this early announcement from his paper explaining why he did:

The results of my little experiment demonstrate, at the very least, that some fashionable sectors of the American academic Left have been getting intellectually lazy.

Note the telling "at the very least." Sokal invites us to imagine that he'd actually done something Big, but he's too modest to admit it. But after a year of getting slammed by people who actually know something about postmodernism and science -- after being told, in effect, that if you are going to presume to lead the charge you damn well better know what the fuck you are talking about, Sokal retreated to:

From the mere fact of publication of my parody I think that not much can be deduced. It doesn't prove that the whole field of cultural studies, or cultural studies of science -- much less sociology of science -- is nonsense. Nor does it prove that the intellectual standards in these fields are generally lax. (This might be the case, but it would have to be established on other grounds.) It proves only that the editors of one rather marginal journal were derelict in their intellectual duty, by publishing an article on quantum physics that they admit they could not understand, without bothering to get an opinion from anyone knowledgeable in quantum physics, solely because it came from a ``conveniently credentialed ally'' (as Social Text co-editor Bruce Robbins later candidly admitted[12]), flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions, and attacked their ``enemies''.[13][/i]

Maybe I can be agnostic to 10% of post-modernism having value, however you must admit that Sokal’s essay (although possibly unfairly elevated), is strongly indicative of the bulk of the bullshit element.

I wouldn't give post-modernism even 10%. It's to modernism what protestantism is to catholicism, and just as authoritarian.

Social Text indicates nothing of the bullshit element; they aren't a peer-reviewed journal. Even Sokal admits that in the forward he wrote a year later. It's too bad he didn't submit it to Social Studies of Science.

<a href="http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern" target="_blank">http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern</a>

Yes, that link is a blast.

Vorkosigan

[ May 28, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]

[ May 28, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]

Vorkosigan

May 28, 2002, 02:09 AM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by echidna:
[QB]V, I’ve only just read your last reply. I too have friends on both sides & a friend of mine taught PM for some years. However regardless of our friendship, when I questioned her material, I found it better to simply hold silent about the lack of value I found in it. She is still my friend, but that won’t stop me strongly disagreeing with her intellectual pretences.[/b]

Yes, that was my strategy too. I admit I nearly bit through my tongue once when one of my fellow graduate students told me that she didn't believe that fewer women were dying in childbirth nowadays than 200 years ago. She said that was a justificatory construction....

Surely you agree that PM contains an incredibly high proportion of pseudo-intellectual bullshit artists (as we charmingly refer to them over here) ?

Totally. More than once I went back to my office tears over what had been said, unable to effectively respond. Those guys are so good with words! Fortunately my officemate was an intense Indian scientist with plenty of intestinal fortitude from fighting the science wars there.

equating the square root of –1 with an erect penis ? Criticising masculine Solid Mechanics as being unfairly dominant over feminine Fluid Mechanics ?

Or smashing atoms as a masculine act? Yes, I've heard them all in seminars. One reason I soured on the field completely.

Maybe Sokal’s expose was over-rated, however the storm of controversy which ensued surely demonstrates the strong undercurrent of intellectual dissatisfaction with what history will hopefully record as an embarrassment to late 20th century academia.

Well, I think the controversy had its interesting moments. There was a rich vein of historical irony in watching the Marxist Sokal become the darling of the Establishment press. I suppose that when Social Text accepts Sokal's parody on political grounds thats bad, but when the NYTimes accepts Sokal because they agree with his epistemological politics, that's good. Mustn't get reflexive, that's really a pomo thing to do...I am sure the media supported Sokal because they carefully researched the opposing sides and realized he was right, and not for any political reasons. :)

But now you've really aroused my curiousity. What did I advise you to do?
Vorkosigan

seebs

May 28, 2002, 07:57 AM

[quote]Originally posted by Vorkosigan:

I'm glad you have your opinion, seebs. The actual facts are well-known to anyone who was involved, seebs, as you weren't.
<hr></blockquote>

The actual facts, as stated by the editors themselves, are *AT BEST* that they thought the article was bullshit, and published it anyway.

Pure academic sleaze.

Honestly, it would have looked better if they'd admitted they'd been taken in.

[quote]
Social Text is a non-peer reviewed journal. Its purpose is to act as a forum for differing views or commentaries. It seeks to encourage communication. You bet that they were happy to get a piece from a physicist that seemed to reflect their politics. They published it even though they felt it was silly. However they are not under any obligation to be "nuetral" in the realm of politics. They publish left-wing political shit since day one. That's their editorial slant. Sokal could never have gotten a piece like that past a serious peer-reviewed journal. The only reason he got it in Social Text is because he forced them to either accept it whole, or reject it.
<hr></blockquote>

In other words, despite all pretention, they're a kid's magazine where you can get published for caring.

[quote]
For example, there have been several notable cases of fraud in scientific journals. I assume, since Sokal invalidates postmodernism,<hr></blockquote>

Who said any such bullshit?

He demonstrated that at least some people at a particular journal had no academic standards, and no particular honesty. I see no invalidation of a "field".

[quote][QB
Why don't you stop keeping me in suspense, and identify by name which members of the field have questionable academic integrity? By the way, are you even aware of what field is under discussion?
[/QB]<hr></blockquote>

Editorial work. Bruce Robbins and Andrew Ross have demonstrated a sincere lack of academic integrity.

[quote]
Perhaps you can begin by explaining what standards were allowed to slide? Again, in case you missed it over the last five years, Social Text is a non-peer reviewed journal. Editorial goals and standards are much looser. Its purpose is to encourage engagement and discussion.
<hr></blockquote>

And, indeed, to publish *hilariously* funny total nonsense, complete with idiotic puns, in the argued hope that it will make someone feel better.

[quote]
Note by the time Sokal got around to writing this intro, he was a lot better educated about what he was talking about.
<hr></blockquote>

I believe you've misunderstood the point.

The point is, people were accepting as "scholarly work" utter and complete nonsense, and *FUNNY* nonsense at that, simply because they couldn't be sure whether or not they understood it.

I think people tend to take this as an indictment of entire fields of study; I think they're probably wrong. It was an indictment of at least some people within a field, but that hardly shows that the field itself is flawed, or devoid of value.

When we expand the charges, we open them to trivial refutation, which is one of the reasons I'm not expanding them. The actual focus was simply to observe that people emit spurious nonsense about fields they don't understand to sound cool, and journals such as Social Text seem over-willing to present such things.

It may not be peer reviewed, but Social Text makes substantial pretensions at being an academic journal.

The fact that they wanted him to "clean up" this piece is no saving virtue; what, exactly, do you think the meaningful content is which would have been left after the nonsense had been removed? The whole thing was unmitigated bullshit! There were no arguments, there was no meaningful conclusion, and insofar as there was a conclusion, it did not follow from much of anything, and it wasn't exactly clearly stated.

<a href="http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/mstsokal.html" target="_blank">http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/mstsokal.html</a>

There's a bunch of letters there from people in various fields who, I think, understood what happened very well, and made some very good points. Yes, we need to seriously consider the ways in which bias and cultural norms affect science - but this shouldn't cause people to accept pure nonsense just to make someone feel good.

(Frankly, I don't believe the excuses offered by Ross and Robbins; they are a beautiful example of retroactive reasoning.)

seebs

May 28, 2002, 08:05 AM

[quote]Originally posted by Vorkosigan:

Well, I think the controversy had its interesting moments. There was a rich vein of historical irony in watching the Marxist Sokal become the darling of the Establishment press. I suppose that when Social Text accepts Sokal's parody on political grounds thats bad, but when the NYTimes accepts Sokal because they agree with his epistemological politics, that's good. Mustn't get reflexive, that's really a pomo thing to do...I am sure the media supported Sokal because they carefully researched the opposing sides and realized he was right, and not for any political reasons. :)
<hr></blockquote>

I can't speak for "the media" in general... My mom reported on it because *any* kind of journal publishing absolute nonsense is interesting, and she respected Sokal's interest in ensuring that the people on his side of the political divide were adhering to high standards of honesty and intellectual integrity.

See, I don't see this as any kind of sweeping claim against "the left", or against "all cultural studies". I see it as a claim that someone managed to find at least some people who were causing a lot of trouble for everyone else in their fields.

I tend to be dismissive of some social sciences; I think there's an unfortunately high bullshit ratio in them, which survives simply because the real problems are so unbelievably hard that real progress must be brutally difficult to achieve. And yet... Fresh out of 9th grade, I got access to a stack of "practice" GRE's; I couldn't clear 20th percentile on most of 'em, but I got 85th percentile on the Sociology one by guessing a lot.
("The process of assigning a label to something is known as: [A-C: weird names] D: labeling")

Still... There's people in those fields doing real work, and the best hope I can see for them is to have the bullshit artists humiliated and removed from the playground. One can always hope.

Vorkosigan

May 28, 2002, 09:18 AM

There's not much to say anymore, is there? If you want to see why everyone in the field was so tough on Sokal, see this discussion of his misquoting and misunderstanding of Derrida.

<a href="http://www.drizzle.com/~jwalsh/sokal/articles/gstolzen.html#ijd" target="_blank">Right here.</a>

Like I said in the earlier post, the reason the attacks were mounted on Social Text, was that Sokal had to backpedal significantly once his utter lack of knowledge about the topic became apparent.

As another letter, I believe from the same author, points out:

Finally, I am not the only one to have remarked that the naive
attempts of Weinberg and Sokal to refute the metaphysical position
they attribute to the social constructivists have gotten them into an
embarrassing situation. These questions have been discussed since
antiquity, with great philosophers weighing in on different sides.
(There are more than two sides.) Now is an especially active time.
Subtle issues have been brought to light. (Weinberg almost stumbles
on one when he says that he has to assume that there is a one-to-one
correspondence between statements and aspects of reality.) But there
is no recognition of any of this in Sokal's rhetoric or Weinberg's
arguments, which work equally well against Sandra Harding and Immanuel
Kant. Weinberg and Sokal write as if our everyday, unreflective conception
of external reality suffices to settle these issues. If they really
believe this, perhaps they should go back to school. If they do not,
they should give us a sign.

Vorkosigan

seebs

May 28, 2002, 09:49 AM

[quote]Originally posted by Vorkosigan:
There's not much to say anymore, is there? If you want to see why everyone in the field was so tough on Sokal, see this discussion of his misquoting and misunderstanding of Derrida.
<hr></blockquote>

I don't see that as relevant at all.

The fact is, Social Text's editors published *UTTER TRIPE*, and *their* spin on it, even if we accept it, makes it clear that they have no academic standards, nor anything similar to them.

In the end, the existance of at least one passage that may have been misunderstood is hardly a justification of the sorts of nonsense that *aren't* simply misunderstood.

Finally, the original "misquoted" statement is, so far as I can tell, an accurate, but misunderstood, quote.

"The Einsteinian constant is not a constant, is not a center. It is the very concept of variability -- it is, finally, the concept of the game. In other words, it is not the concept of something -- of a center starting from which an observer could master the field -- but the very concept of the game"

If someone misunderstands this to be implying that the constant is not a constant, but a variable, then it is because that person mistakenly thought it was written in English.

Vorkosigan

May 28, 2002, 04:22 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by seebs:
[QB]

I don't see that as relevant at all.[/b]

Yes, somehow it isn't relevant when Sokal is clueless about what he is criticizing...but when Social Text makes a mistake, out come the hounds baying for blood.

The fact is, Social Text's editors published *UTTER TRIPE*, and *their* spin on it, even if we accept it, makes it clear that they have no academic standards, nor anything similar to them.

Social Text is not an academic journal, but a magazine that was doing a special issue on the "science wars." Did you see who was writing in that issue? People like Nelkin and Traweek. Clearly they have standards; they got some of the best. So the issue is why Sokal's piece was allowed in despite these standards. Could it be that the editors were telling the truth? I don't recall Sokal disputing any specific points of their claims with evidence, just self-serving claims of his own.

You seem to have a totally screwed up understanding of what Social Text is. Once again it is a left-wing magazine, not an academic journal. It isn't peer-reviewed. That is why Sokal sent the piece there; a peer-reviewed journal would never have allowed it. Of course they have no academic standards, any more than Newsweek or Z magazine does; it's not what they do. Your criticism amounts to hacking on a Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme because it doesn't have 4-wheel drive.

The goal of Social Text is to create a space where conversations take place. The screening process is loose by definition.

Using your more restrictive definition of Sokal's success, why do you think Sokal's hoax proves that Social Text has no standards, but fraud in scientific journals does not prove anything about those journals? For example, a couple of years ago a U of Texas psych prof admitted to fraud and submitted retractions to two journals, including the APA's Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. How is it that you aren't out there shouting that the peer-reviewed Journal of Personality and Social Psychology is a fraud that published utter tripe and has no academic standards?

Vorkosigan