The Conceptual as a Social Construct: A Sokal-Style Hoax on Gender Studies

This hoax article was published in "Cogent Social Sciences", which so far as I can tell is a new and disreputable journal (borderline pay-to-publish).

I do research in computer science, and am regularly spammed by similarly low quality journals offering to publish my work, sight unseen. So does this really speak to problems in the Social Sciences? I think the problem here has more to do with the proliferation of low quality journals across academia more generally.

This was published in what is basically a vanity journal—a for-pay outlet that will publish anything submitted.

So the hoaxers played themselves.

Details here: http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2017/05/conceptual-peni...

'After completing the paper, we read it carefully to ensure it didn’t say anything meaningful, and as neither one of us could determine what it is actually about, we deemed it a success.'

Counter - https://ketanjoshi.co/2017/05/20/the-engine-of-irrationality...

Leaving aside the fact that gender studies is one big pile of garbage for a moment, this is just a stupid troll by a pair of dudes who did it for the lulz and dressed it up as striking a blow for science. Their lengthy explanation of "why we done it" is no less ridiculous than the paper itself and as others have commented the journal they published it in is a piece of trash anyway.

I'm mostly bothered by the fact this was given publicity in skeptic.com. There are clear overtones of Men's Rights Activist and Alt-Right rhetoric in that article.