White Empiricism and The Racialization of Epistemology in Physics: A Critical Analysis

Jul 6, 2026

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Critical Analysis examines Alan Sokal’s evaluation of Chanda Prescod Weinstein’s article “Making Black women scientists under white empiricism: The racialization of epistemology in physics.” It focuses on flaws Sokal identifies in both the scientific and philosophical reasoning, while assessing the core claim that race and ethnicity affect epistemic outcomes in physics only in an extremely limited sense. The essay outlines risks of uncritical uptake for science and science education, especially for recruiting women and Black people, and presents a structured multi-section rebuttal and conclusion.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages21

Reading Time53 min

Framing the Critique

Purpose and significance

General Covariance

Key argument and approach

Summary and Response to Main Claims

How Section 2 addresses Weinstein

Anti-empiricism in String Theory

Prescod Weinstein’s arguments

Social Diversity and Epistemic Consequences

Implications for knowledge

Social Injustice vs. Epistemic Injustice

Core conceptual distinction

Colonialism, Decolonization, and “Indigeneity”

Assessment of related assertions

Synthesis and “Why Does It Matter?”

Negative social consequences of uncritical acceptance

Article “White Empiricism” and “The Racialization of Epistemology in Physics”: A Critical Analysis* Alan Sokal a, b a University College London, London, UK b New York University, New York, USA; [sokal@nyu.edu](sokal@nyu.edu) Submitted: 1 March 2023, accepted: 27 June 2023, published: 31 October 2023 Abstract: I critically analyze the reasoning in Chanda Prescod Weinstein’s article“Making Black women scientists under white empiricism: The racialization of epistemology in physics”. Keywords: White empiricism; epistemology; critical race theory; feminist standpoint theory; physics How to cite: Sokal, A. “White Empiricism” and “The Racialization of Epistemology in Physics”: A critical analysis. Journal of Controversial Ideas 2023 , 3(2), 1; doi:10 .35995/jci03020001 . ©2023 Copyright by the author. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4 .0) license ([https://creativecommons.org/l](https://creativecommons.org/l)icenses /by/4 .0/) . Chanda Prescod Weinstein’s article, “Making Black women scientists under white empiricism: The racialization of epistemology in physics”(Prescod Weinstein 2020), has been widely cited and praised. It is \#56 in the Altmetric ranking of the Top 100 Most Discussed scholarly articles for 2020 .1 It has been cited 37 times in the scholarly literature – including 14 citations in the Science Education literature – all of them completely uncritically.2 There has not, to my knowledge, been any detailed engagement with the content of the article’s reasoning. * 1 2 This article was submitted to Signs – the journal that published Prescod Weinstein (2020)– on Friday 3 February 2023 . At 9:10 AM local time on the next working day, Monday 6 February, the editor in chief of Signs decided to reject the article without sending it to reviewers. It is therefore now being published, in slightly revised form, here. Of the 55 higher ranked articles, 20 concerned COVID 19 or related [issues. See www.altmetric.com/to](issues. See www.altmetric.com/to)[p100/2020.](p100/2020.) Web of Science as of 1 March 2023 . I have checked all 37 articles (except one to which I was unable to get access), and none of them contains even the slightest critical commentary on, or critical analysis of, the reasoning in Prescod Weinstein (2020) . The only critical citations of which I am aware are a blog by biologist Jerry Coyne (2019) and a brief comment in the book of linguist John McWhorter (2021, 109–110) . Google Scholar, which has a wider scope than the Web of Science, shows 90 scholarly citations as of 1 March 2023 . That detailed engagement is the purpose of the present article. I will argue that the reasoning, both scientific and philosophical, in Prescod Weinstein (2020) is deeply flawed. I will also argue that the article’s main contention – that “race and ethnicity impact epistemic outcomes in physics” – is valid, if at all, only in an extremely limited sense. I will finally argue that the flawed reasoning in this article, together with its uncritical acceptance in many progressive educational circles, threaten to have negative practical consequences both for science and for science education, and in particular for the goal of attracting more women and Black people (and especially Black women) to scientific careers. For all these reasons, I believe it is of some value that the reasoning in this article be openly and rigorously debated. I trust that readers of the present essay will understand that criticism, even harsh criticism, of the reasoning contained in a scholarly work in no way constitutes a personal attack on the author. In the same way, I look forward to criticism, even harsh criticism, of my own reasoning, and trust that it will be offered in the same spirit. The plan of this essay is as follows: I begin, in Section 1 , by addressing oneof Prescod Weinstein’s key arguments, concerning the principle of g

FAQs

What is the central goal of Sokal’s critical analysis?

Sokal critically evaluates the reasoning in Prescod Weinstein’s article, arguing it is deeply flawed and that its main contention about race and ethnicity affecting epistemic outcomes in physics holds only in a very limited sense.

How does Sokal justify the relevance of his critique for science and education?

He argues that uncritical acceptance of the ideas in Prescod Weinstein’s work can produce negative practical consequences for both science and science education, with particular concern for attracting women and Black people to scientific careers.

How is the essay organized to address Prescod Weinstein’s arguments?

Sokal lays out a section-by-section plan, starting with general covariance, then summarizing and responding to main claims, followed by discussions of anti-empiricism in string theory, social diversity’s epistemic effects, epistemic injustice, colonialism/decolonization/“indigeneity,” and concluding with a “Why does it matter?” assessment.

Jul 6, 2026

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