> They're being coy. The point of Sokal's initial prank was to discredit a
> whole kind of thought, most of which he was ignorant of - and still is. To
> retreat now to saying they're just cataloguing the abuse of scientific
> metaphor, without commenting on the rest, is either silly or dishonest.
I haven't read Sokal, & I'm not sure I'm going to, but Doug is developing tunnel vision here.
First of all, this habit of hauling (pseudo)science into historical (humanist, literary, etc) discourse is not at all new, and it has *always* been pretty stupid -- Keats on Newton and the rainbow leaves a bit to be desired. Moreover, it has always been proper to hit this misuse of science (or "science") -- even if the science was accurate. Endless confusion was created in the humanities because of Einstein's decision to call his theory of the absolute speed of light "relativity theory." Similar confusion is being created by someone's calling the discovery of order in unexpected places "chaos theory."
For a recent egregious example (which may or may not be a "postmodern" example), those with a toleration for literary criticism and a knowledge of Paradise Lost might read the following:
Catherine Gimelli Martin, "Fire, Ice, and Epic Entropy: The Physics and Metaphysics of Milton's Reformed Chaos," *Milton Studies* 35 (1997), 73-113.
This abuse of entropy goes back a long way too. There was a huge Harvard dissertation (later published as a shorter book) back in 1956 or so which went on for hundreds of pages applying the third law of thermodynamics to Pope's *Dunciad*.
If it was obnoxious in a Harvard grad student in 1956 it is obnoxious in a French feminist in 1995 or whenever.
Carrol
Just a taste of Martin on Milton, chaos, etc:
Hence the relevance of Frost's "Fire and Ice" as an alternative thermodynamic version of the same recreation of myth to which Milton's Chaos adds both scientific substance and prophetic reaffirmation. Yet unlike Frost's, Milton's evolving universe accords even negative entropy a positive potential in maintaining the wisest of Providence's provisions: the primeval *im*balance of uncreated matter, the reactive check on the balances of the rest of God's creation. . . .
In current physics we are told that within the attenuations of difference Chaos expands into the vast samenesses of interstellar and even interior spaces. Ultimately, then, Chaos is like hell, an everywhere. However, unlike hell, *in potentia* its universal physical problems........
p. 104