Social Researchers wrote intentionally dumb papers to prove that academic journals will accept them

Son of Jamin

Make MMA Great Again
@Silver
Joined
Jul 21, 2007
Messages
11,868
Reaction score
875
ED-AX961_Melchi_16U_20180928144445.jpg

Intro:
Dojwm3LUYAE-30w.jpg:large

An essay on their background, introduction, methodology, publications and summary

Academic Grievance Studies and the Corruption of Scholarship

Something has gone wrong in the university—especially in certain fields within the humanities. Scholarship based less upon finding truth and more upon attending to social grievances has become firmly established, if not fully dominant, within these fields, and their scholars increasingly bully students, administrators, and other departments into adhering to their worldview. This worldview is not scientific, and it is not rigorous. For many, this problem has been growing increasingly obvious, but strong evidence has been lacking. For this reason, the three of us just spent a year working inside the scholarship we see as an intrinsic part of this problem.

We spent that time writing academic papers and publishing them in respected peer-reviewed journals associated with fields of scholarship loosely known as “cultural studies” or “identity studies” (for example, gender studies) or “critical theory” because it is rooted in that postmodern brand of “theory” which arose in the late sixties. As a result of this work, we have come to call these fields “grievance studies” in shorthand because of their common goal of problematizing aspects of culture in minute detail in order to attempt diagnoses of power imbalances and oppression rooted in identity.

To summarize, we spent 10 months writing the papers, averaging one new paper roughly every thirteen days. (Seven papers published over seven years is frequently claimed to be the number sufficient to earn tenure at most major universities although, in reality, requirements vary by institution.)

Our papers also present very shoddy methodologies including incredibly implausible statistics (“Dog Park”), making claims not warranted by the data (“CisNorm,” “Hooters,” “Dildos”), and ideologically-motivated qualitative analyses (“CisNorm,” “Porn”). (NB: See Papers section below.) Questionable qualitative methodologies such as poetic inquiry and autoethnography (sometimes rightly and pejoratively called “mesearch”) were incorporated (especially in “Moon Meetings”)

Why Did We Do This?

Because we’re racist, sexist, bigoted, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, transhysterical, anthropocentric, problematic, privileged, bullying, far right-wing, cishetero straight white males (and one white female who was demonstrating her internalized misogyny and overwhelming need for male approval) who wanted to enable bigotry, preserve our privilege, and take the side of hate?


No. None of those apply. Nevertheless, we’ll be accused of it, and we have some insights into why.

https://areomagazine.com/2018/10/02/academic-grievance-studies-and-the-corruption-of-scholarship/

Facts:
* 7 papers accepted.
* 4 of these have been published online.
* 3 more have been accepted without having had time to see publication through. (This can take months).

Some examples of the published papers:

Title:
Human Reactions to Rape Culture and Queer Performativity in Urban Dog Parks in Portland, Oregon

Thesis:
That dog parks are rape-condoning spaces and a place of rampant canine rape culture and systemic oppression against “the oppressed dog” through which human attitudes to both problems can be measured. This provides insight into training men out of the sexual violence and bigotry to which they are prone.

Purpose: To see if journals will accept arguments which should be clearly ludicrous and unethical if they provide (an unfalsifiable) way to perpetuate notions of toxic masculinity, heteronormativity, and implicit bias.

Selected Reviewer Comments:
“This is a wonderful paper – incredibly innovative, rich in analysis, and extremely well-written and organized given the incredibly diverse literature sets and theoretical questions brought into conversation. The author’s development of the focus and contributions of the paper is particularly impressive.

“Fat Bodybuilding”

Title: Who Are They to Judge?: Overcoming Anthropometry and a Framework for Fat Bodybuilding


Thesis: That it is only oppressive cultural norms which make society regard the building of muscle rather than fat admirable and that bodybuilding and activism on behalf of the fat could be benefited by including fat bodies displayed in non-competitive ways.

Purpose: To see if journals will accept arguments which are ludicrous and positively dangerous to health if they support cultural constructivist arguments around body positivity and fatphobia.

Selected Reviewer Comments:

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article and believe it has an important contribution to make to the field and this journal. For the most part, I wholeheartedly agree with its argument. It is well written and structured.” -Reviewer 3, Fat Studies
“Dildos”

Title: Going in Through the Back Door: Challenging Straight Male Homohysteria and Transphobia through Receptive Penetrative Sex Toy Use

Thesis: That it is suspicious that men rarely anally self-penetrate using sex toys, and that this is probably due to fear of being thought homosexual (“homohysteria”) and bigotry against trans people (transphobia). (It combines these ideas into a novel concept “transhysteria,” which was suggested by one of the paper’s peer reviewers.) Encouraging them to engage in receptive penetrative anal eroticism will decrease transphobia and increase feminist values.

Purpose: To see if journals will accept ludicrous arguments if they support (unfalsifiable) claims that common (and harmless) sexual choices made by straight men are actually homophobic, transphobic, and anti-feminist.

Selected Reviewer Comments:

This article is an incredibly rich and exciting contribution to the study of sexuality and culture, and particularly the intersection between masculinity and anality. … This contribution, to be certain, is important, timely, and worthy of publication.” -Reviewer 1, Sexuality and Culture


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's apparent that as long as the politics are right, then dumb papers will be published and heralded, whether they are about dildos or toxic masculinity and rape culture at dog parks.
 
If you are one of those TL/DR-toxic masculine non-dildo owner, they made a video that breaks it all down for you:

 
Glossary

* Womb room
* Homohysteria
* Feminist artificial intelligence
* Fat body building
* Receptive penetrative anal eroticism
 
Leftists consistently tout academic journals as gospel because...Well they're idiots. I've been trying to tell these guys for years that these academics studies are full of shit.
 
Leftists consistently tout academic journals as gospel because...Well they're idiots. I've been trying to tell these guys for years that these academics studies are full of shit.

Desperate troll is desperate.
 
I think there are many factors at play here. One is what it takes for a publication to be considered academic, and another is the demands of modern media. Even some respectable publications run some terrible shit in the name of sales. It's another matter of tuning your bullshit radar to the new environment. It's so very tiring keeping it on all the time though.
 
I think there are many factors at play here. One is what it takes for a publication to be considered academic, and another is the demands of modern media. Even some respectable publications run some terrible shit in the name of sales. It's another matter of tuning your bullshit radar to the new environment. It's so very tiring keeping it on all the time though.
Valid point but those that reviewed them felt they met the needed standard (peer reviewed). Do you think their political angle paved the way or the same thing would happen if they wrote more right leaning papers?
 
Last edited:
Liberal who constantly touts academic journals as gospel as been identified Well they're idiots. I've been trying to tell these guys for years that these academics studies are full of shit.


You’re literally on a Device called a computer using something called the Internet.


Dem acadameic journals tho
 
Liberal who constantly touts academic journals as gospel as been identified

I'd respond with "troll identified," but I think the whole war room has caught on by now. I guess you still have Rip and N13 in your corner. Solid company.
 
I wonder what would happen if they wrote a paper claiming that Popperian falsification grants access to the objective to a philosophical journal.

The article and project really makes two claims, one supported, and the other not. The first is that these journals will accept all manner of wild, crazy bullshit. This has been conclusively shown, and in much less uncertain terms than the Sokal project (the original paper he submitted was not actually subject to peer review, IIRC). They try to make a second, related point in the article: that the scientific method purveys access to objective truth, and that therefore, anything else cannot lead to ''objective truth,'' it must lead only to nonsense. They later relax this point in saying that it gets us ''closer'' and it's ''better'' because they know they can't show it, but I'm not having that hand wavey bullshit. If you want to delve into epistemology, then you should delve: don't skim.
 
I'd respond with "troll identified," but I think the whole war room has caught on by now. I guess you still have Rip and N13 in your corner. Solid company.

Any thoughts on academic journals and the peer review studies?
 
Valid point but those that reviewed them felt they met the needed standard (peer reviewed). Do you think their political angle paved the way and the same thing would happen if they wrote more right leaning papers?
I think liberals accept more junk than they would admit, especially regarding gender and sexuality. Did the original article mention which journals they were accepted into? I only noticed publication titles in the "Best Review" section. It seems like articles of that nature are hard to peer review to begin with, almost turning into editorials.

I actually do think right-leaning scientific articles would find a harder time being pushed, but what would an example of that be? I prefer my science objective, but if the right wants to focus on their issues they should start their own publications, the framework of science has been titled left for a long time.

I should admit that I think science does naturally lean away from being conservative. Science is based on progressing consensus, it's easy to fall behind. I don't pay attention to the TMZ science, but it's easy to see how issues like these could bleed into other areas. The only real solution I can see is if either the public or another body held these publications accountable for junky studies. The problem is that there are so many of them, and they just need to grab their niche and hold onto it to make a profit, as well as generating some outrage porn clicks from conservatives.
 
Any thoughts on academic journals and the peer review studies?

Yes. They come in all stripes, and dismissing them en-masse makes you and idiot. But that's your goal, to say provocative and idiot statements.

So a question for you would be, why do you depend on such attention seeking behavior? Genuine loneliness?
 
Yes. They come in all stripes, and dismissing them en-masse makes you and idiot. But that's your goal, to say provocative and idiot statements.

Would you say that accepting them an masse also makes one an idiot? And when debating with someone would you agree that simply pointing to one as proof of something makes one an idiot?

So a question for you would be, why do you depend on such attention seeking behavior? Genuine loneliness?

Actually if I could get some more alone time in my life that would be great.
 
Leftists consistently tout academic journals as gospel because...Well they're idiots. I've been trying to tell these guys for years that these academics studies are full of shit.
Yeah it's unbelievable. I went to college later , and I knew what was up. I found so many hopes in my professors arguments. They were legit wrong about an alarmingly lot of stuff.
 
Those hoaxes date back to Alan Sokal in 1996, it's not really surprising that it is more and more commonly used against the laxest parts of gender studies. Two years ago, one of my former university teacher tricked Alain Badiou's journal, one of the most influential living French philosopher, with "Ontology, Neutrality and Strive for (non-)Being-Queer". It teaches us a lot about confirmation bias and how many bullshit you can tell if you make it look pompous enough. People don't understand what you say, but they'll agree because you gave them all the external signs that you agree with them.
 
Back
Top