Re:Proceedings Start Against ‘Sokal Squared’ Hoax Professor
by YeGoblynQueenne on Monday January 14, 2019 @05:33AM
(#18902038)
>> Do you seriously think someone could spend a year just learning the lingo of a real STEM discipline and get similarly farcical work published?
I think it would be possible to publish a paper in one of the large machine learning venues with completely made up results and techniques, that nonetheless looked very impressive. One would have to take a bit of care to make the paper look legitimate, in other words, copy the style and conventions of a machine learning paper- but it's not that hard to do. After all, a great deal of machine learning research is, well, not quite made up, but for example there are important details left out of papers, experiments are poorly described, data is not available, results are interpreted in fanciful manner, etc etc.
Of course, such a "hoax" would be immediately condemned by the whole field because results would have to be fabricated. Then again, that is what Boghossian is accused of.
I think it would be possible to publish a paper in one of the large machine learning venues with completely made up results and techniques, that nonetheless looked very impressive. One would have to take a bit of care to make the paper look legitimate, in other words, copy the style and conventions of a machine learning paper- but it's not that hard to do. After all, a great deal of machine learning research is, well, not quite made up, but for example there are important details left out of papers, experiments are poorly described, data is not available, results are interpreted in fanciful manner, etc etc.
Of course, such a "hoax" would be immediately condemned by the whole field because results would have to be fabricated. Then again, that is what Boghossian is accused of.