12 Facts About Alan Sokal

Alan David Sokal is an American professor of mathematics at University College London and professor emeritus of physics at New York University.

Alan Sokal co-authored a paper criticizing the critical positivity ratio concept in positive psychology.

Alan Sokal received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College in 1976 and his PhD from Princeton University in 1981.

Alan Sokal's interests include computational physics and algorithms, such as Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms for problems in statistical physics.

In 2013, Alan Sokal co-authored a paper with Nicholas Brown and Harris Friedman, rejecting the Losada Line, a concept popular in positive psychology.

In 1996, Alan Sokal was curious whether the then-non-peer-reviewed postmodern cultural studies journal Social Text would publish a submission which "flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions".

Soon thereafter, Alan Sokal then revealed that the article was a hoax in the journal Lingua Franca, arguing that leftists and social science would be better served by intellectual underpinnings based on reason.

Alan Sokal responded to leftist and postmodernist criticism of the deception by asserting that he was himself a leftist, and that his motivation was to "defend the Left from a trendy segment of itself".

Alan Sokal followed up in 1997 by co-authoring the book Impostures Intellectuelles with physicist and philosopher of science Jean Bricmont.

In 2008, Alan Sokal reviewed the Alan Sokal affair and its implications in the book Beyond the Hoax.

In 2024, Alan Sokal co-authored an opinion-editorial article in the newspaper The Boston Globe with evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins criticizing the use of the terminology "sex assigned at birth" instead of "sex" by the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Alan Sokal repeated these criticisms in an editorial for the magazine The Critic discussing the more general politicization of science, especially biology and medicine.