C. Frances,
To say that scientific work is "culturally determined" is to mix two very separate dynamics. First there are the things which scientists choose to look at and the *inevitable* (I thought I used that word enough) doctrine an dogma that creep into the pursuit of natural science. In natural science, pursuit is not conclusion. The point is not that natural science lets many bogus theories stand for a time, it does and it will do. The point is the way in which those theories can be attacked. If a scientist looks at nature selectively then the next scientist can come along and unmask his chicanery. She has *impartial* nature as her ally. In fact, that is exactly what Sokal did to the Pomo's.
I think it's entirely incorrect to say that Sokal was undermining all of Pomo thought. What he was undermining was the very false idea that the social sciences and the natural sciences are ultimately determined by culture and society in the same way. He was also debunking the notion that self-referential social science can end its process of argumentation by appealing to impartial nature when such an appeal is bogus. If a person tries to back up his claims about Milton with references to thermodynamics, she is talking out of her hat. If a person tried to claim that Einstein's theory of special relativity was a Jewish theory, she would also be talking out of her hat. Einstein may well have been inspired by the Torah, but that is completely moot. The question is whether, by whatever cultural means, he has found out the law which the stars obey. Ramanujan claimed his theories were gifts from Hindu gods. So what? No Q.E.D., no theory - Shiva or no Shiva.
Look, the woman biologist who proposed that mitochondria and chloroplasts developed from an endosymbiotic relationship was mocked openly by her male colleagues in a very sexist way. Then, mitochondrial DNA was discovered. Was this a victory for feminism? No, not really. It was a victory for the scientific method of testing hypotheses against impartial nature against the inevitable dogma, doctrine and prejudice that the scientific method anticipates and was created to overcome.
I think social scientists are frustrated by the fact that their pursuits are not verifiable against nature because this makes them feel that hard science is pursuing truth and they are simply arguing with each other. I would ask you to consider this. If a scientists does a mathematical study about the behavior of stars or fish or something and then theorizes as to the why and wherefore of that behavior she is doing two separate things, She is conducting science and then she is theorizing. However much scientists may theorize and speculate, science does not know, care or speculate *why* stars and fish behave as they do. That is because science is permanently and unalterably skeptical about any such conclusion as to "why". "Why" is not really a question that science can answer because you cannot ask a star or a fish why it behaves as it does. That inability to "ask" why is central to the objectivity of science. The very impartiality of nature in science derives from observation without interaction (or with trivial or precisely and repeatably controllable interaction). The condition of observing without interacting and concluding is skepticism and that skepticism is permanent in science.
Social scientists cannot help but interact with their subject since they themselves are always included in that set of things they are studying and the subjects of their study become aware and may change their behavior on the basis of the results of social science. Social scientists can, however, ask their subjects "Why?". That is a wonderful advantage. Obviously it undermines a sort of constant, permanent objectivity, but is objectivity the point of social science? I think not. I think social science is out to get the best arguments about how people should conduct their affairs. Natural science never intends to tell nature how to conduct her affairs. In fact, it wouldn't be natural science if it did.
Sokal is doing wonderful work debunking false claims of objectivity in a pursuit that has no business or purpose claiming such a thing and debunking the notion that inevitable prejudice, dogma and doctrine reduce natural science to something less than maximally objective in its ultimate conclusions (especially given the fact that natural science never can come to any ultimate conclusions, so let's call them penultimate conclusions).
peace