Sociological Follow-up Study
Even though many people found Sokal's hoax convincing, it was a demonstration as opposed to a rigorous scientific study. For this reason, one main hypothesis was later replicated in a controlled experiment by Cornell sociologist Robb Willer, who self-published the results in his homepage; the report was not published by a peer-reviewed journal, which returned it with a "Revise and Resubmit" advice.
Student subjects were randomly separated into treatment and control groups; both groups were presented with copies of Sokal's hoax article. Those in the control condition were led to believe that it was penned by another student; those in the treatment condition were told it was written by a famous academic. The experimenters found that those subjects who believed that the author of the text was a high-status intellectual were significantly more likely to claim that the text was comprehensible, interesting and valuable. The results of the experiment thus suggested that Sokal was correct to claim that academic status may account for the intellectual appeal of unintelligible academic texts.
Read more about this topic: Sokal Affair
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