Fashionable nonsense still in fashion

Abstract

The article is an account of a hoax by the author, which led to publishing a paper introducing a new, non-existent therapy in a popular science monthly, Charaktery. The hoax, partly based on a similar provocation by Alan Sokal in 1996, was designed to examine the possibility of introducing a scientifically untested conception into popular science. Another goal was to provoke a public discussion about the phenomenon of pseudoscience penetrating science. The article recounts the history of the publication and briefly presents the content of the paper; it also shows the basic differences between Sokal’s hoax and the author’s sham. The paper ends with conclusions and questions raised by the experiment.