On Sat, Jul 26, 2003 at 08:01:24PM +0100, Peter P. Jones wrote: (01)
> There's a snag with Peer Review systems like this, in that the clique
> is often small, and sound but iconoclastic ideas (think of Einstein)
> can simply fail to get a grip. As theorised by Thomas Kuhn with
> 'paradigm shifts', of course.
> The difference I would ascribe to the humanities is that there is a
> broader spectrum of what is acceptable and the work often requires
> less resources (How many historians need to build a plasma torus to
> prove a point?). My experience of the humanities is that there is
> more discussion and more individual dissension, but the terrain is
> richer for it.
> Science is more restricted by what matter/energy/money does or does
> not permit. (02)
Are you folks familiar with the physicist Alan Sokal and his 1996
duping of the peer-reviewed, postmodernist journal, Social Text? He
wrote a paper and a book about the affair: (03)
http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/ (04)
Recently, the postmodernists struck back and got a fake paper
published in a peer-reviewed physics journal. I'll need to dig around
for the reference, but if anyone else has it, please post it here. (05)
-Eugene (06)
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Was I helpful? Let others know. (07)
http://svcs.affero.net/rm.php?r=eekim&p=EnablingOnlineCommunities (08)
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http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/cgi-bin/mesg.cgi?a=tools-yak&i=20030728153140.GI25175@douge.blueoxen.net (010)
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