This article about mapping the brain used the expression 'lol' in the first paragraph. I don't think it's nitpicking to say that significantly undercuts the seriousness with which I read the article.
KATHRYN HESS CAN’T tell the difference between a coffee mug and a bagel. That’s the old joke anyway. Hess, a researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, is one of the world’s leading thinkers in the field of algebraic topology—in super simplified terms, the mathematics of rubbery shapes. It uses algebra to attack the following question: If given two geometric objects, can you deform one to another without making any cuts? The answer, when it comes to bagels and coffee mugs, is yes, yes you can. (They only have one hole apiece, lol.)
I'm not sure what the people who are taken aback by it usually read -- or what did they expect to find here.
They don't understand what they're reading, so instead of asking for an explanation, they attack the lowest hanging fruit (the 'lol').
It's just a form of position signalling, basically they assume everyone else understands it and they want to be in that 'in-group', so they try and look smart by tearing it down by attacking nothings.
That said, it's a perfectly fine introduction.
The other thing I thought about the article is that I hate being told what the Sokal Hoax is _every time it's mentioned_, doesn't everyone know by now? Also, aren't most people (okay, the sort of person who's reading a Wired article on computational neuroscience) going to know that bagels and coffee-cups are topologically identical? It's not that esoteric is it? And that's happening more and more these days. I think if you're writing about complex neuroscience you've got to assume your audience knows about these things. Is that a small or big gripe, I'm not sure. Grumble grumble.
But with regard to trivia, such as The Sokal Hoax, it is always, always, always the job of the journalist to inform the reader. This is true for acronyms, units of measurement, coincidental circumstances and more.
If someone writes an article about the JFK assassination, they should be explaining JFK's initials, events surrounding the cuban missile crisis, the MLK assassination, Jack Ruby's mob ties, LBJ's rivalry, Bobby Kennedy's assassination, Ted Kennedy's car accident, the grains of the bullet used, what the unit of measurement known as the grain measures for a bullet, even what a knoll is.
The journalist should capture as much information as needed to convey all relevant information to tell a complete story. A bad journalist leave details out, and expects the reader to "just know everything."
Agreed on LOL. However, just to play devil's advocate – algebraic topology was directly related to the story so I guess it needed explaining, whereas the Sokal Hoax was invoked by a correspondent
> Chris Eliasmith, a theoretical neuroscientist at the University of Waterloo, didn’t find much to be interested about in his first reading: “It strikes me as an over-stated and minor contribution,” he wrote in an email. Peter Latham, a neuroscientist at the University College London went one step further, saying that it “reads a bit like an Alan Sokal hoax”
Furthermore, the explanation —referring to the NYU mathematical physicist who got a bogus article about quantum physics as a "social construct" published in an academic journal — doesn't convey the salient details about the Sokal Hoax (the style of language used, the reliance on science analogies to convince a non-science audience, the purpose of the hoax (to make a point about what they saw as a certain type of bullshit article, and so on).
But I totally take your point – and together with the other reply I stand corrected.
Science writing should be accessible to all. Especially in publications like wired.
Also, jokes about holes are funny... to topologists at least.