David Byrne, Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences: An Introduction. London: Routledge, 1999, £45.00 (£:15.99 paperback), viii+206 pp. (ISBN 0-415-16296-3)
Raymond A. Eve, Sara Horsfall and Mary E. Lee (eds.), Chaos, Complexity and Sociology: Myths, Models and Theories). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1997, £37.00 (£16.99 paperback), xxxii+328pp. (ISBN 0-7619-0890-0 pbk)
Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont, Intellectual Impostures. London: Profile, 1998, £9.99 paperback, xiii£274pp. (ISBN 1 86197 074 9)
Natural scientists and their lawyers in the philosophy of science, can often be heard to complain that sociologists (and social scientists in general) misunderstand science, their methods are not methodical and their conclusions often unwarranted. Few, however, have actually gone out of their way to present systematic evidence of the failure of social science to live up to the rigour they feel obtains in their own disciplines. An exception was Alan Sokal, a Professor of Physics at New York University, who submitted a spoof paper entitled ‘Trangressing the boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity’ to the journal Social Text. This paper, Sokal and Bricmont admit, in Intellectual Impostures, was ‘brimming with absurdities and non sequitors’ (p. 1), but not only was it published, but it was published in a special issue ‘devoted to rebutting the criticisms levelled against post modernism and social constructivism by several distinguished scientists’ (p. 2). The reaction both for and against the value of Sokal's ‘experiment’ was robust, but Sokal had in mind something more specific than simply to show that the social sciences (the humanities and philosophy) were not rigorous. His project was to expose the misunderstandings and pretensions to scientific language and concepts used in these disciplines. This book, initially published in France (the intellectual heartland of ‘post’ critique), continues this project with rigour and relish.
