I don't believe that you're actually familiar with Sokal & Bricmont's book, merely Dawkins' argument (and of course, Dawkins is as much a literary and cultural theorist as a scientist - and I'm a fan of his work). If you have read it, you've quite fatally misread it as an attack on all "postmodern" theorists. So let's go to the primary text, as literature students, quite rightly, are taught to do.
Note before we go on: II, the primary text, is IN ITSELF a book-length form of deconstruction.
"We show that famous intellectuals such as Lacan, Kristeva, Irigaray, Baudrillard and Deleuze have repeated abused scientific concepts and terminology: either using scientific ideas totally out of context, without giving the slightest justification...or throwing around scientific jargon in front of their non-scientific readers without any regard for its relevance or even its meaning. We make no claim that this invalidates the rest of their work" (my emphasis)
OK. So that's cleared up: Sokal & Bricmont are arguing that some critical theorists employ bad science and should be called out on it - but that doesn't mean the entire field is without value, as you seem to be arguing.
Now. WHAT THE HELL does this have to do with NGJ? As I understand, it is just a more holistic, playful, literary and sharp approach to criticism than the subliterate PR feed that litters the gaming press, and has never invoked bad science, critical theory etc. If anything, it's related to ideas that ran concurrent to the wave of theorists that you don't like: the New Journalism (do you see?) gang of Thompson, Wolfe, Capote, etc. They were pretty much arch traditionalists in terms of their literary tastes, but believed (and FWIW I agree) that journalistic writing could be made more interesting and worthy by infusing it with literary values. It has nothing to do with the above. At all.
Now, can we have a similar joke paper for undergrad scientists' inability to use basic concepts of philosophical argument? And with it, state that every scientific theory that has since been discredited means that the whole of scientific research should be brought to an abrupt halt?
1) Loathe as I am to stick up for Kieron, you're talking horseshit worthy of the people you're attacking. You're presuming that other people are ignorant of the source - so you can get away with a half-baked attack on NGJ.
2) Sokal and Bricmont's book DOESN'T perform a slash&grab on postmodernism (both Lacan and Deleuze, two of the authors given a "beat down" in II, certainly aren't postmodernists anymore than they are greengrocers). What it does do, and very well, is call out the use of bad science by modern critical theorists. This is fundamentally different to what you're arguing. (Hell, if you had paid more attention to the texts in those critical analysis classes, you might have realised that already.)
3) Using theory to attack the idea of theory. Well done. Very clever. Very postmodern, even (if you want to misuse the debased term any further). I'm sure your professors are scared of you humiliating them still, not embarrassing yourself even more.
4) I have no real opinion on NGJ, other than the people who "get" it appear to be far less tedious than those who don't. It's marks out a cultural fault line, over which you choose a side to stand. The opposite of Coldplay fans, if you will.
5) Kieron, as a qualified scientist, is probably better to talk about how he uses or misuses science in his writing better than me. Or you.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't believe that you're actually familiar with Sokal & Bricmont's book, merely Dawkins' argument (and of course, Dawkins is as much a literary and cultural theorist as a scientist - and I'm a fan of his work). If you have read it, you've quite fatally misread it as an attack on all "postmodern" theorists. So let's go to the primary text, as literature students, quite rightly, are taught to do.
Note before we go on: II, the primary text, is IN ITSELF a book-length form of deconstruction.
"We show that famous intellectuals such as Lacan, Kristeva, Irigaray, Baudrillard and Deleuze have repeated abused scientific concepts and terminology: either using scientific ideas totally out of context, without giving the slightest justification...or throwing around scientific jargon in front of their non-scientific readers without any regard for its relevance or even its meaning. We make no claim that this invalidates the rest of their work" (my emphasis)
OK. So that's cleared up: Sokal & Bricmont are arguing that some critical theorists employ bad science and should be called out on it - but that doesn't mean the entire field is without value, as you seem to be arguing.
Now. WHAT THE HELL does this have to do with NGJ? As I understand, it is just a more holistic, playful, literary and sharp approach to criticism than the subliterate PR feed that litters the gaming press, and has never invoked bad science, critical theory etc. If anything, it's related to ideas that ran concurrent to the wave of theorists that you don't like: the New Journalism (do you see?) gang of Thompson, Wolfe, Capote, etc. They were pretty much arch traditionalists in terms of their literary tastes, but believed (and FWIW I agree) that journalistic writing could be made more interesting and worthy by infusing it with literary values. It has nothing to do with the above. At all.
Now, can we have a similar joke paper for undergrad scientists' inability to use basic concepts of philosophical argument? And with it, state that every scientific theory that has since been discredited means that the whole of scientific research should be brought to an abrupt halt?
1) Loathe as I am to stick up for Kieron, you're talking horseshit worthy of the people you're attacking. You're presuming that other people are ignorant of the source - so you can get away with a half-baked attack on NGJ.
2) Sokal and Bricmont's book DOESN'T perform a slash&grab on postmodernism (both Lacan and Deleuze, two of the authors given a "beat down" in II, certainly aren't postmodernists anymore than they are greengrocers). What it does do, and very well, is call out the use of bad science by modern critical theorists. This is fundamentally different to what you're arguing. (Hell, if you had paid more attention to the texts in those critical analysis classes, you might have realised that already.)
3) Using theory to attack the idea of theory. Well done. Very clever. Very postmodern, even (if you want to misuse the debased term any further). I'm sure your professors are scared of you humiliating them still, not embarrassing yourself even more.
4) I have no real opinion on NGJ, other than the people who "get" it appear to be far less tedious than those who don't. It's marks out a cultural fault line, over which you choose a side to stand. The opposite of Coldplay fans, if you will.
5) Kieron, as a qualified scientist, is probably better to talk about how he uses or misuses science in his writing better than me. Or you.