Sokal and Bricmont have done an impressive job in making Lacon, Irigaray, and others look dumb when it comes to science and physics. Though the book was throroughly interesting and well worth while, it seemed like the authors were criticizing postmodernism not only for factual errors, but also for the general atmosphere and laid-back intellecutualism, elitism, and emphasis of fluidity and triviality. As far as I can see, Sokal and Bricmont just aren't the right temperament for the postmodern text.

As much as we agree with Sokal and Bricmont that people should know what they are talking about, if they are going to act proffesionally when doing so, I think that the creative associations that are drawn by postmodernists are, many times, quite insightful and edifying. Just because there is no strict logical connection between the under-development of fluid mechanics and masculinism doesn't mean that we can make similar edifying associations.

But, over all, I think it was a good read. And, we should be careful and respectful when using scientific jargon, and not just use it for the sake of looking knowledgable and important.

The physicists who wrote this book have set out to expose the folly of those social scientists and humanists who adopt the methods of mathematics and pure science in their work. They target such luminaries - mostly form the French School - as Lacan, Kristeva and Latour and show that not only is their understanding of the mathematics they use dubious but that this very approach to psychoanalysis, sociology and literature is completely irrelevant. In many cases Sokal and Brincmont - who often cite the original untranslated text - make very clear that the Lacans and Kristevas deliberately fail to even attempt to show or explain the connections they purport to suggest.
I found the book entertaining and, despite the subject matter, the authors do their best to explain to the non-scientific reader where and why the mathematical usage is fallacious. I only hope that soon someone will show how fallacious it is to use mathematics to explain economics - econometric fantasies -, rational choice and sociology. An Excellent book that will have you gasping in incredulity and laughing out loud.

Sokal and Bricmont, two professors of physics, show that fashionable French intellectuals in the fields of social and cultural studies - Jacques Lacan, Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze, Julia Kristeva, Jean-Francois Lyotard and Luce Irigaray - habitually misuse scientific concepts and terms. Unable to produce genuine science in their own fields, Lacan et al import concepts from the physical sciences - typically, chaos theory, fuzzy logic and the uncertainty principle - to try to impress. They regard science, evidence, reason and knowledge as oppressive. Kristeva characteristically responded to criticism by calling Sokal and Bricmont Francophobes!

The two physicists attack relativism, the idea that a statement's truth or falsity is relative to an individual or social group. (Some US colleges run courses like 'queer studies', whose very subject is defined in relation to the interests of a social group, not by its field of study.) Relativists imply that modern science is just a 'myth', a 'narration' or a 'social construction'. This allows in the notion that, for instance, creationism is just as valid as the theory of evolution.

The editors of 'Social Text' accepted Sokal's famous spoof article, 'Transgressing the boundaries: towards a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity', in which he wrote: "Physical 'reality', no less than social 'reality', is at bottom a social and linguistic construct." The editors of 'Science and Culture' accepted the Madsens' supposedly serious article, 'Structuring postmodern science', in which they wrote "A simple criterion for science to qualify as postmodern is that it be free from any dependence on the concept of objective truth." Says it all really!

This book tears apart these postmodernist theorists. Sokal and Bricmont uphold the scientific approach, that knowledge is based on respect for the clarity and logical coherence of theories and on the confrontation of theories with empirical evidence. Knowledge in both natural and social science is cumulative; our understanding of the world grows as we constantly check our ideas against the reality.