"The Postmodernism Generator has given rise to a lot of interesting comment. Many people were impressed or amused by the fact that convincing text can be generated in a genre such as this. I have heard (unsubstantiated) anecdotes about graduate students and academics in the arts, when presented with output from the Postmodernism Generator, reading several paragraphs, or even a page, before realising that it does not make sense. If these are true, this could be the result of a combination of the subjectivity of the disciplines involved and the tendency of people (particularly those not trained in computer science) to not believe that such a text can be produced using an algorithm."
(Andrew C. Bulhak, On the Simulation of Postmodernism and Mental Debility using Recursive Transition Networks, Technical Report 96/264,
Dept. Computer Science, Monash Univ., Melbourne, pdf)
Dept. Computer Science, Monash Univ., Melbourne, pdf)
"Which brings me to the last, and in my opinion most dangerous, set of adversaries of the evidence-based worldview in the contemporary world: namely, propagandists, public-relations flacks and spin doctors, along with the politicians and corporations who employ them − in short, all those whose goal is not to analyze honestly the evidence for and against a particular policy, but is simply to manipulate the public into reaching a predetermined conclusion by whatever technique will work, however dishonest or fraudulent. So the issue here is no longer mere muddled thinking or sloppy reasoning; it is fraud. [...]
What remains unchanged in all areas of life, however, is the underlying philosophy: namely, to constrain our theories as strongly as possible by empirical evidence, and to modify or reject those theories that fail to conform to the evidence. That is what I mean by the scientific worldview." (Alan Sokal, What is science and why should we care?,
Third Annual Sense About Science lecture, 2008, mp3)
Third Annual Sense About Science lecture, 2008, mp3)