After holding the article back from earlier issues due to Sokal's refusal to consider revisions, the staff published it in the "Science Wars" issue as a relevant contribution. Soon thereafter, Sokal then revealed that the article was a hoax in the journal "Lingua Franca", arguing that the left and social science would be better served by intellectual underpinnings based on reason. The affair was front-page news in "The New York Times" on May 18, 1996. Sokal responded to leftist and postmodernist criticism of the deception by asserting that his motivation was to "defend the Left from a trendy segment of itself".