Maarten Boudry

Academic background

Boudry began his studies in philosophy at Ghent University in 2002, where he graduated cum laude in 2006. Between 2007 and 2011, he conducted research at Ghent University (Logic, History and Philosophy of Science), funded by a research grant from the Flemish foundation Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (FWO). After obtaining his PhD, he became a postdoctoral fellow at Ghent University, again with the financial support of the FWO. In 2013, he was also a postdoctoral fellow at the Konrad Lorenz Institute in Vienna for six months, where he worked on irrationality from an evolutionary and epistemological perspective. Boudry has undertaken many foreign study visits. Additionally, he is a frequent speaker at international conferences and gives guest lectures at academic institutions.

Boudry is a member of a number of scientifically-oriented organizations: the Flemish skeptical organization SKEPP, the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR), the Center for Inquiry and the Imperfect Cognition research network of the Epistemic Innocence Project. He is also one of the founders of Het Denkgelag, which organizes skeptical conferences in Flanders.

Boudry's Sokal affair

In 2011, Maarten Boudry pulled a Sokal-style hoax. The original hoax from 1996 perpetrated by Alan Sokal, professor of physics at New York University, was intended to test whether postmodernists would be able to identify a nonsensical text that was written to seem in line with their own ideas. Sokal submitted a hoax article, full of nonsensical reasoning and pseudoscientific jargon to the American academic journal Social Text, which readily accepted and published it. The subsequent revelation of the hoax unleashed a wave of criticism against postmodernism.

In a similar vein, Boudry wanted to put Christian philosophers to the test by writing a meaningless abstract, full of theological jargon, with the title "The Paradoxes of Darwinian Disorder. Towards an Ontological Reaffirmation of Order and Transcendence". The abstract contained sentences such as: "In the Darwinian perspective, order is not immanent in reality, but it is a self-affirming aspect of reality in so far as it is experienced by situated subjects." Under the anagram-pseudonym Robert A. Maundy from the fictitious College of the Holy Cross in Reno, Nevada, Boudry submitted the abstract to the organizers of the Christian philosophical conference "The Future of Creation Order" at the VU University Amsterdam and the Centre of Theology and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham, which both accepted it without any reservations. The hoax, which Boudry revealed mid-2012 on Facebook but only became public knowledge when the American scientist Jerry Coyne blogged about it, received attention in a number of Dutch Protestant newspapers such as Reformatorisch Dagblad, Trouw, and Nederlands Dagblad.

When asked in an interview with the Dutch popular philosophy magazine Filosofie Magazine about the reason for the hoax, Boudry said the following:

This was primarily a satirical prank for me, an exercise in grammatically correct nonsense, filled with hollow phrases and theological jargon. In that sense I seem to have succeeded, because the text was credible enough for two theology and philosophy of religion conferences: namely the conference at VU, and the 'What is life' conference, organized by the Centre of Theology and Philosophy of Nottingham University.

No one had discovered that "Robert A. Maundy" and the "College of the Holy Cross" did not exist. Gerrit Glas, president of the conference at the time, found the text to be odd and said they had hesitated for a long time, but ultimately decided to give "Maundy" the benefit of the doubt. Glas admitted that he should have been more critical and defended himself by saying that "it is not uncommon for texts on process theology, negative theology, and postmodernism to be inscrutable". Philosopher of religion Taede A. Smedes at the Radboud University Nijmegen considered Boudry's action to be unworthy of an academic, but also found it astonishing that the conference organizers had accepted the text: "Anyone who makes the simple effort to understand the first sentences of Boudry/Maundry's [sic] abstract (if that is even possible), will immediately notice that it is incomprehensible nonsense."

Skepticism

Maarten Boudry is mainly known for his skepticism and critical attitude toward pseudoscience. As a philosopher of science, one of his main interests is the study of pseudoscience in all its forms and expressions. He studies the fallibility of human reasoning that might underlie pseudoscience and irrationality. Boudry characterizes pseudoscience as "an imitation of real science". In his MA thesis, entitled De naakte Keizers van de Psychoanalyse (The Naked Emperors of Psychoanalysis), he explains why he classifies psychoanalysis as a pseudoscience and which immunizing strategies this school of thought has developed over the years to withstand criticism. Together with philosopher Johan Braeckman he wrote the book De ongelovige Thomas heeft een punt (Doubting Thomas has a point), in which they offer arguments against parascience and pseudoscience, blind faith, wishful thinking, astrology, irrationality, psychokinesis, and dowsing, as they consider these ideas to be grounded in logical fallacies. The title refers to the attitude of Thomas the Apostle, who was initially skeptical when he was told that Jesus had been resurrected. In an interview, Boudry said:

[...] [it] is also interesting for philosophers to take a closer look at pseudoscience, because it also teaches us something about the difference between good science and pseudoscience, and thus indirectly about how science works as well.

In publications and debates, Boudry also criticizes religion, intelligent design, and theology. In 2014, during the Dutch Nationale Religiedebat (National Religion Debate), philosophers Maarten Boudry and Herman Philipse (both of whom are atheists) debated Stefan Paas and Rik Peels on the question of whether belief in a god is reasonable and what the impact of nonbelief on morality is. Boudry also debated Christian philosopher Emanuel Rutten during the Denkcafé debate "Does God Exist?" in December 2012, where he said the following:

Of course we can't exclude the existence of God. But you can say the same about the Loch Ness Monster. We could also introduce another all-knowing being: the Unicorn, an intelligent ungulate. That animal knows everything, also that God doesn't exist. Or maybe God is the victim of an evil demon. He may know that he himself exists, but there could be a demon who tricked him into thinking he's the creator of heaven and earth.

Awards

• 2007: SKEPP-prize for best thesis on immunizing strategies in psychoanalysis.
• 2011: Liberales book of the year for De ongelovige Thomas heeft een punt
• 2012: Shortlist ‘Socrates Wisselbeker Filosofie’ for the book De ongelovige Thomas heeft een punt
• 2013: Shortlist Science Communication Award, Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts
• 2015, Illusies voor gevorderden. Of waarom waarheid altijd beter is, Polis, ISBN 978-94-6310-006-9

Selected publications

Maarten Boudry has published a considerable number of articles in both peer-reviewed scientific journals and in public print media (newspapers and magazines). Some of his conference presentations are publicly available as well.