The baton is passed: The shame-stick of anti-science has changed hands
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8 May, 2023
Highly recommended and, if you care about science, essential reading: ‘A Paper That Says Science Should Be Impartial Was Rejected by Major Journals. You Can’t Make This Up,’ by Pamela Paul, published in The New York Times (link below and in comments).
Anti-intellectual, anti-liberal, and anti-science movements shift about over time with regard to who holds the shame-stick. In the U.S., that baton is now firmly in the hands of the progressivista Leftists who have gained an outsize influence in the Democratic party.
Science is inherently able to withstand and eventually overcome the arguments of those who allow partisan or trendy ideology to supersede evidence, but they can do substantial damage that crosses generations.
The recent assaults on science–as opposed to science practice–as fundamentally racist and/or in need of decolonizing are fundamentally neo-racist and neo-religious in their worldview, and so allowing them to control science policy and publishing is akin to allowing the Spanish Inquisition to be in charge of science policy and publishing.
It’s very frustrating. As someone who has spent a good part of his life trying to encourage women and empower the marginalized to study science, I’m ready to round up these folks and ship them off to science re-education camps, leaving the helicopter door open for more than a few.
Their broad-brush characterizations of science (often based on history and ideas long rejected) do nothing to promote meritocracy in the sciences or to equip and enable those from previously marginalized groups to participate in the glorious adventure of science.
The paper underlying Paul’s opinion piece has some weaknesses (e.g., it editorializes, is too long, buries and muddles some data and examples, etc.), but it is hard to believe it was rejected rather than being subject to additional editorial refinement. This is especially perplexing given the importance of the paper’s content.
If you think I am alone in my views on this issue or on the perils facing science from ideological extremists, I invite you to read the comments on The Times. Suffice it to say that the NYT readership is not known for its warm welcoming of opinions that challenge Leftist orthodoxy, yet the comments resoundingly (18 of the top 20) echo Ms. Paul’s observations and fears.
Pamela Paul. ‘A Paper That Says Science Should Be Impartial Was Rejected by Major Journals. You Can’t Make This Up.’ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/04/opinion/science-evidence-merits.html
The underlying paper, ‘In Defense of Merit in Science’ can be found at: https://journalofcontroversialideas.org/article/3/1/236?fbclid=IwAR0i0oMX6SW7fmWI1ADcAEpztHSLXlk-a7rEKLen-l30Q_hvl6mNgVRPdKs
