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Originally from http://www.aps.org:80/units/SNENG/news/NES-news-fall96-p14.html
La La Land is any place where the laws of physics are whatever you say they are. In this decade it is any place occupied by certain social scientists. (They are certain they are right.) It is a subjective rather than an objective place, but that's not all. It is not simply a fantasy land because they refuse to let the fantasy see the light.

An objective land is one where the laws of physics declare themselves and it is up to us to realize them. It is Kansas. A fantasy land is one where the laws mutate or abscond for a time. It is Oz, but you can expose the wizard as just some guy manipulating things from behind a screen. To distinguish La La Land you should read "Sokal's Hoax" by Steven Weinberg in the New york Review of books of August 8, 1996. You may pursue the references it lists through the literature.

Sokal wrote a partly befuddling and partly hilarious spoof of a social science article on the subjectivity and unknowability of physics (and by extension, other natural science). It is a mammoth article, drawing upon the many twisted strands that are turning social so-called science into an instrument of torture. It was submitted to a soc sci journal, accepted, published, and then exposed as an elaborate joke by the author himself.

According to the thinking (loosely defined) in this area, science is what the power structure deems it to be for their own advantage. Excuse me, for our own advantage. Change the power structure, change the science. Did you know you were so powerful? Noone was more powerful that Stalin when he turned biology into Lysenkoism. Soviet biology was not just changed, it was destroyed. It's back, though the Soviet Union is not.

It is hard to know how to argue against such rubbish. Should we attempt to use La la Language? When we use scientific terminology they call it obscure and self- serving. As Weinberg says, when your foot contacts a large rock, the conservation of momentum and energy damages your foot. Call it what you like, your foot still hurts.

I can think of two reasons, along with the dozens others have proposed, for the disrespect for our practice of science shown by (let's face it) highly educated people. One is a misunderstanding of our terms. Consider the word "theory." Almost everyone uses it as a synonym for "idea." But we mean a body of ideas that satisfies criteria of consistency and testability through experiment. It is an honorable word, not an unsavory one. That is why I bristle when I hear someone say, Evolution is just a theory, not a fact. (We are not the only ones to suffer the abuse of our language. Consider "myth." I thought it was a deep truth of a culture expressed in metaphor, but everyone uses it to mean "misconception.")

The other reason is, paradoxically, the outstanding originality and inclusiveness of our best authors. It is akin to launching a new direction in the arts. Without Stravinsky and Picasso, would music and painting be what they are? Would someone else have done it? What about physics without Einstein or Feynman or Hawking? Would someone else have done their work in their way? They have distinction, as if physics came from their minds instead of to their minds. But that does not mean physics became whatever they wanted it to be. If B, C S had entered some other line of work, would we not have the same understanding of superconductivity under other initials? Would it have taken much longer to achieve it? What about Sokal's article itself? It is original and inclusive. If he hadn't written it, would you have? I wish I had.