Widespread Fraud in Scientific Academic Publishing

[Simon_Jester]

Is a brick a social construct?

Can you maybe explain this to me, before I get off on a tangent and start rambling on the basis of not actually knowing what social construct means to you?

I think I answer this mostly above, but you’re asking two different questions.

Does matter exist in a shape in the wall next to me? Probably.

Is my understanding of that matter, of the distinctiveness of that item, of how I understand it dependent on concepts external to the brick? Yes.

Does that include my understanding of the first question? Yes.

To make crystal clear, I’m not rejecting the study of the brick, per se. I’m saying there are limits on any possible study of the brick and that those limits are worth investigating and exploring in-depth in their own right.

[Slight rearrangement of the text made to increase clarity for my use, so that I can respond to you effectually]

Very well. You're one up on the philosophers Feynman asked the question of originally- but that was before deconstructionism.

Here's my problem. For our philosophical studies to stay in touch with reality, we must preserve the distinction between the external reality of the brick, and the inner-space negotiable-reality of how we think about the brick. I would argue that this distinction is the single most important concept you've expressed.

...

The ancients had many ways of thinking about a brick; what they often did not have was a clear way to distinguish between the material reality that is "the brick" and the abstractions dancing in their heads. Or they degraded and demeaned the reality because it did not match up with the abstractions. Or they simply did not see any point in using the material reality that is "the brick" as some kind of test or experiment to judge the value of their abstractions.

As a result they came up with many theories of being, form, and nature that were very very much socially constructed... all of which were basically useless crap for practical purposes. Oops.

Granted that these people did not know they were creating social constructs, but they clearly were.

...

Now in my perspective, we fast forward to the rise of rationalism in Europe. Among the two biggest useful ideas to come out of this were the idea of forcing people to justify claims, and the idea of taking advantage of material reality to judge the merits of abstract ideas.

[I am not saying these ideas were unique to Europe in that time or place, but they're important to the evolution of science-as-social-construct it's important.]

As I see it, what made science different from the frameworks for knowing things that came before it is that it really does try to free itself from the limitations of being a social construct. It does this in order to get as close as possible to material reality, for purposes of letting us know, predict, understand, and control that reality.

The problem is that when we examine science as a social construct we then have to circle back and look- to what extent is it a social construct, and to what extent has it transcended a social construct? Which parts of it are 'expendable,' in the philosophical sense? And which parts are not expendable- which parts are the sort of thing that, when we stop believing in them, do not go away?

It's not enough to think about the evolution of ideas and constructs in science- we must also think about the following:

To what extent is science socially constructed, and to what extent has the construct-that-is-science actually succeeded in transcending its own limitations, and locating truths that are not themselves constructed but simply... are?

Arguably we should be asking this question about any construct that is intended to allow us to know truths. However, it is especially important in light of the track record science has of letting us do things that... really shouldn't be possible, if science had not uncovered material truths.

...

So when we engage in philosophical study of science there is a profound need to be aware of this, and that extends to all disciplines of science including the ones that themselves study social constructs like economics. One of the problems economics has is that many of its practicioners are not introspective and careful about distinguishing their constructed assumptions from the reality that is the economy... and this is the very thing that causes some scientists to reject economics as a non-science.

---

To return to the brick, what it kind of comes down to is that even while our understanding of bricks and brickiness and how bricks are made can be constructed... we ignore the brick itself at our peril. The brick has a very substantial material existence that is independent of what we think about it.

This makes social-construct analysis of bricks more difficult than a similar analysis of, say, prison systems* or comic books.**

And when social-construct analysis of bricks is done badly, the most common failure modes are going to be:

1) Failure to recognize that a constructed aspect of the brick is constructed, because it gets mistaken for a physical fact about the brick. This is a recipe for unthinking folly, because we assume, say, that all bricks must always be rectangular, which is simply not true.
2) Failure to recognize a physical fact, because it gets mistaken for a social construct. This is also a recipe for blind folly, of an even stranger and sillier type- such as insisting that the brick wall can be made to get out of the way given sufficient enlightenment.

*(Which societies routinely construct and reshape almost on a whim, and whose operating rules are blatantly artificial in all respects, and which I gather was one of the first things Foucalt started taking apart with his deconstruction equipment)
**(Which are if anything even more blatantly constructed than prisons because they reference events that are not real and so far as we know never could be real; prisons at least have an existence and life outside our collective unconscious)

...

Now, generalize away from the brick again. Scientists are already trying to separate the socially-constructed aspects of their perceived reality from the material aspects; it's what they do. Science is a big socially constructed engine, nominally intended by its practicioners for finding as many material facts as possible, and carefully separating these facts, weaning them away from social context so that they can be used even if the context should happen to change.

To give an example, for much of the past 60-70 years, scientists have been weaning the facts about human genetics away from cruder ideas of 'race' and 'good stock' that were quite common social-constructs in the past.

So basically, when scientists look at social-construct analysis of science they tend to quickly think of the two great failure modes:

1) Looking at material reality and assuming that one of our socially-constructed ideas is a material fact, and
2) Looking at material reality and assuming that one of our material facts is a socially constructed idea.

But resisting, cancelling out, and correcting errors of type (1) is what scientists try to do literally all the time; it is the purpose they have set themselves. Most of the socially-constructed practices of science are at least nominally devoted to rooting out errors of type (1).

So the scientists will look at social-construct analysis and go "Hm. Yet another of the many things we could do to root out type (1) errors. I wonder how effective it is..."

Then they start thinking about the potential for errors of type (2). The problem is that any philosopher who lacks firm grounding in science's ways and ideas is very much at risk to commit errors of type (2). A few areas create especially serious pitfalls, such as quantum mechanics, evolution, and the weirder and wilder speculations of some of our out-to-pasture cosmologists.

Any hint of an error of type (2) is going to draw very negative reactions from scientists- for example, Alyrium is a scientist and will immediately start making unfavorable comparisons to the fantasy game Mage: the Ascension as soon as he so much as catches a hint that someone considers material realities negotiable.

...

Now, in most of the areas where social-construct analysis is applied, there is very little risk of type (2) errors. It's hard to commit such an error when talking about prisons because prisons are what we have made them to be- no real room to question that proposition. It's hard to commit such an error when talking about patriarchal gender roles- same thing. Or literature, or pretty much anything else. Where there are few truly non-negotiable facts, there is little risk of accidentally committing a type (2) error and mistaking the concrete for the negotiable and constructed.

When analyzing science the risk of such errors suddenly skyrockets... and yet this is exactly the class of error most likely to draw derision from practicioners of science. Because type (2) errors are the most profound acts of nonscience, antiscience, unscience that can be imagined. To make a type (2) error is, within the frame of reference of science, an utter failure to comprehend anything of real importance.

The scientists are unlikely to perceive any real utility in anything that produces type (2) errors, because from their point of view it's a complete functional failure- the equivalent of a knife that is not sharp, or perhaps of a machine that habitually makes dull knives.

So no wonder people trying to do social-construct analysis of science, using the normal tools of their trade from analysis of other fields, draw massive and harsh reactions from the scientists.

...

So, that's what I think about where all this comes from. What do you think?

---

This does suggest a problem with the practice though. While Sokal being an asshole may have been the proximate cause of this gibberish paper being printed, it would seem fairly easy for random quacks to insert papers into Social Text this way. As long as they seem reasonable and can write coherent English... who's going to gainsay them if they make a false assertion about their own field?

One of the reasons why so many journals have (or claim to have) a meaningful review process is to stop pretentious gibberish from driving out serious debate. If it's a design feature of this journal that its review process doesn't even try to correct false assertions about the field it discusses, then that's a problem in its own right.

And while Sokal himself may have behaved badly, I approve of the idea of at least trying to get bad papers through a review process as a way of testing that review process and its ability to strain out gibberish or nonsense. I honestly can't think of any other way to do it.

I’m not disagreeing with you. My grudge with Sokal is not based on a defense of Social Text’s quixotic hopes for open dialog (no matter how sympathetic to them I may be), but that he conflates two different questions:

1. Is the Social Text experiment worthwhile in producing academic conversation?
And
2. Does Critical Theory/Modern Philosophy/Cultural Studies have anything worthwhile to say?

If, after he got his paper published, he went to Lingua Franca and made the claim that Social Text’s editorial policies were conducive to getting gibberish published and that maybe the editors should either rethink their open door policy or stick to their guns when dealing with recalcitrant authors (like him) instead of giving them the benefit of the doubt this would be a non-issue. He would have offered more proof to an obvious point that everyone already understood and had debated, there would be a few people with hurt feelings, and nobody would give a shit almost two decades later. Instead he conflated the former, the utility of a journal, with the latter, an entire of study and discourse, and created a modern-day Piltdown man. A trope people use in their ignorance to justify their continued ignorance of an entire field of study and to reject it out of hand. That ain’t cool.

I am inclined to agree. On the other hand, I can see how his act of conflation may have flowed out of a broader perception. Scientists have been having unproductive conversations with philosophers for a long time, and postmodernism has done little if anything to reduce the risk of the type (2) errors I class above... the ones most likely to cause scientists to hold philosophers (or theologians, or politicians, or pretty much anyone else) in contempt.

[mr friendly guy]

Philosophers criticising Sokalby saying "well science does that too," is like Creationists criticising biological science because of the case of Piltdown Man. Totally missing the point that scientists discovered the error and made the appropriate changes.

First, is that I’m not anti-science. Science is fucking rad, and regardless of my anti-enlightenment stances I’m leery to say the least of any blanket rejection of science. But we have to understand science as an epistemological tool in the toolbox of our existence. It has its uses, and can be truly productive, but it also has limits, and profoundly troubling ones at that. The problem arises when we stop viewing science as a tool and start viewing it as the tool whose existence justifies its own use no matter the situation. That’s where things like vivisection and Tuskegee start coming to the fore.

To me saying science has its limits (and illustrating it with lack of ethical concerns) is like someone saying a Sony Playstation has its limits because you can't do word processing on it.

[Thanas]

Not only would no one accept that prima facie, I would question the truth value of the claim that someone getting a doctorate in the humanities is more work.

Indeed, as any general claim - no matter the content - is worthless and it always depends on the individuals in question.

Social Text is not, as far as I am aware, considered a shit journal within its broad category. That it did not engage in peer review and as of 2009 still does not, indicates that the lack of rigor is still tolerated.

I have never heard of it. Doesn't mean it is not counted as a legitimate publication but I think you are overstating its importance.

You will notice how those things are not complete and utter gibberish where the practitioners reject the very notion of some sort of truth-value to their claims, and where arguments have actual evidence presented. However, once someone starts rejecting the realness of the universe, or rejects the concept of urban planning and street grids because they object to homogenous city environments (and also road safety and ease of navigation) or reasons that amount to intellectual masturbation, we have a problem.

To me it depends on the value of the things. If a postmodernist comes up with a model that allows me to test other things, it has worth.

That is why we now have ethics committees, sting operations with fake papers, voucher specimens, peer review, conflict of interest disclosures and numerous other mechanisms to root out such malfeasance.

As do all the humanities I know of. Do those fail sometimes? Sure, just like the entire natural sciences of my universities were found to be misappropriating money for their own gain.

But lets compare and contrast. When, in the sciences, someone pulls a sting operation of this sort, the collective response from publishers is to change editorial policies etc. The community response is to laugh at the misfortune, and strike them off the list of journals we want to publish in until such time as those policies are changed. Lists are maintained.

With Sokal's little sting, you get people like Straha, who bitch about the unfairness of the method and castigating arrogant scientism, rather than address the point. Namely, that a particular journal has a shitty editorial policy, and decided to publish over their own objections on the strength of an author's good name, in a special issue no less. The editors themselves did not take the criticism, they instead called him half-educated etc. Some individuals suggested that he needed psychiatric treatment. When the reality is, the editors failed to spot a parody of their own area of study, and then bitched about it, rather than take responsibility for the fact that they let unintelligible bullshit into their publication. One of the journals own former editors responded to the then-current editor's bullshit with "you need a reality check".

Yes. But I fail to see how this proves anything other than "journal X is in need of reform".

I mean, there is plenty of arrogance on both sides to go around. However, AFAIK no humanities professor has ever actively colluded with criminals to destroy whole fields of studies, whereas the opposite has happened. Remember the physicists and ancient Roman lead?

As for Springer, they dont have a unified set of editors. Springer has some of its own journals, but also has agreements with various professional organizations to do the actual printing and archiving for them. However the editorial staff and peer reviewers are selected internally. There is... variation in the quality of the peer review, depending on the journal, how tired the editor is, chosen reviewers etc. It happens. Spam enough submissions and something gets through.

Sure, just like in any publication.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I have never heard of it. Doesn't mean it is not counted as a legitimate publication but I think you are overstating its importance.

Possibly, but the editorial response and to a large extent the academic-community response were completely at odds with what SHOULD have occurred.

To me it depends on the value of the things. If a postmodernist comes up with a model that allows me to test other things, it has worth.

Sure. But that rarely happens. If I want to know about the impact of the black death on the economy of 14th century england, I can go through old documents and I can find out how the mass mortality created changes in the labor market and the dynamics of military service in the already-weakened feudal system. Post-modernism when applied to that discussion adds nothing. No explanatory power.

As do all the humanities I know of. Do those fail sometimes? Sure, just like the entire natural sciences of my universities were found to be misappropriating money for their own gain.

What university? I dont want to apply for a post doc there.

Yes. But I fail to see how this proves anything other than "journal X is in need of reform".

If it was just the editorial response, it would be one thing. However, the academic community that publishes in that journal also reacted poorly.

Compare this to what happened a few years ago in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Someone published a paper that was stark-raving madness, because they convinced an academy member to "communicate" it to the journal, bypassing peer review. This procedure was originally intended to serve a function similar to Social Texts' policy. However, when this insane piece (which was written sincerely, incidentally) was published... the response was the exact opposite of the one Sokal's actions evoked.

Biologists reading this paper responded with:
"This paper is shit. Here is why. Who the fuck decided to communicate this, we want his/her metaphorical head on a plate."
The National Academy responded with:
"Holy Fuck, how the hell? Who did this? You!? Seriously? OK. We are no longer permitting papers to be 'communicated' to PNAS."

[Simon_Jester]

Sure. But that rarely happens. If I want to know about the impact of the black death on the economy of 14th century england, I can go through old documents and I can find out how the mass mortality created changes in the labor market and the dynamics of military service in the already-weakened feudal system. Post-modernism when applied to that discussion adds nothing. No explanatory power.

Where postmodernism has actual value is in studying fields where the history of how our social constructs evolve is itself a big part of the history of the field. For example, in order to understand the way we treat criminals, we have to understand that our concept of what it means to "break the law" has itself evolved over time, as has our concept of "the law" itself, and our concept of what it means to "punish" someone.

We start needing this in the context of, say, historical economics when some lolbertarian dolt comes along and starts asserting that we can understand 14th century economies in terms of 20th century indicators like GDP, and in terms of 20th century ideas like "Relaxing trade barriers is good! FREEDOM makes the world go round!"

At this point, the "no, you are applying the wrong framework for understanding that time because your arguments reference only the realities of this time" is pretty close to the center of postmodernism as I understand it.

The problem I think postmodernism faces is that some of its adherents seem to have adopted a tone of... call it intellectual 'playing' in which they seem to become something like the cartoon-sophists Plato invented in his dialogues to make sophism look stupid. They sometimes speak of subjects about which they know little, they make comparisons that are inappropriate or misleading, they fixate on attitudes rather than facts so as to make large things appear small and small things appear large.

This makes the postmodernist ideas, which as I understand them are actually quite helpful, much less accessible and useful than they ought to be.

[Thanas]

Simon pretty much dealt with the postmodernist value to things and Alyrium, I feel that you are vastly overstating and understating the things. Editorial mistakes happen in every discipline, most of the times they are caught and changed.

And while you can point to such scandals in recent years there have been even much bigger scandals in the natural sciences, for last I checked the "peer review" has not helped to bar the US physicists who committed illegal grave-robbing to be thrown out.

What university? I dont want to apply for a post doc there.

I am sure there are enough natural scientists who will gladly give you a fair peer-review of their own departments. It is not my place to talk about small scandals involving other fields where I don't have seen the documents myself.

[Lagmonster]

Jacques Derrida himself noted that Sokal's broadside had basically ruined the chance for postmodernist views to be taken seriously in public discourse, substituting spectacle and mockery for worthwhile discussion. He was right. Things have changed slightly since as scientists have moved on from the so-called 'science wars', but I find that postmodernism is still popularly synonymous with anti-scientific, mouthy gibberish.

Re: Derrida, that's overstating what he had to say:

You've got me there, having only been told about his response second-hand from ex-peers who referred to humanities students collectively as 'baristas in training' (which highlights the kind of discrimination that carries on). I only really wanted to segue into the fallout from the whole affair, that re-established the idea that only scientists should criticize science, by virtue of the notion that these other guys couldn't or wouldn't pick out a mindless parody when handed one.

Frankly, if I'd have been looking to show cracks in the ivory tower, I'd have mentioned Randy Schekman's boycott and criticism of the culture of working solely for the prestige of an S-N-C paper. That was barely a few months ago, and exposes a problem that scientists are going to have to address.

[Simon_Jester]

I think we really do need a method to produce scientifically literate critics of science- because at the moment the only people who even vaguely understand science seem to be the scientists themselves. I think the way we educate people is part of the problem- because students are basically tracked from freshman year of college as "science majors" or "philosophy majors" or whatever. The philosophers don't learn any science to speak of. And the scientists learn effectively no philosophy other than whichever bits of philosophy science has adopted for its own (positivism, for instance).

[Ziggy Stardust]

The philosophers don't learn any science to speak of. And the scientists learn effectively no philosophy other than whichever bits of philosophy science has adopted for its own (positivism, for instance).

I think part of the problem is that many liberal arts schools are bad at emphasizing multidisciplinary studies. For example, at many such institutions a philosophy major will have to take one "science" credit, and biology/chemistry/etc. majors will have to take one "philosophy" credit (actually, typically they only have to take a more vaguely defined "humanities" credit, so may take an English class instead).

What I find ends up happening is that people will take the bare-minimum intro class to whatever subject is not their major. Intro classes are nice for giving a broad overview of a field and an introduction to some of the internal logics and processes inherent in a field of study, but do not give you a thorough understanding of said logics and processes. What I see happen constantly is that college students will take these intro classes, and then assume they know everything about the field in question, and treat it dismissively as a result of their shallow/ill-founded comprehension.

Basically, college students just have a tendency to be arrogant little shits (especially ones who excel in their specific field and never have to put much effort into other fields), which has a way of carrying itself upward into the disciplines themselves.

[Simon_Jester]

Problem is, the more interdisciplinary study you require, the harder it gets to complete a rigorous program of study in a timely fashion...