ABSTRACT
For Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont this is symptomatic of a widespread intellectual malaise that also goes under the various names of 'post-structuralism', 'literary theory', 'cultural criticism', 'deconstruction', or – on somewhat different but related grounds – the 'strong programme' in sociology of knowledge. The repercussions are rumbling on in various quarters of scientific and literary-cultural academe. They have also provoked a stream of commentary in the up-market dailies and weeklies where the 'Sokal Affair has become a main focus for debate about the current 'Science Wars, themselves basically just another outbreak of the old 'Two Cultures controversy initiated by C.P. Snow in the early 1960s. The trouble is that a great deal of quantum-theoretical debate — including some by eminent physicists — has likewise 'gone overboard' in various speculative directions, beginning with Bohr's obscurely metaphysical thoughts on the topic and continuing with the kinds of argument advanced by adherents of the 'many-minds' and 'many-worlds' interpretations.
