[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Spent a lot of time in social science faculties recently have you there, Cliff?

No. But Steven Pinker has.

Spoiler!

Diagnoses of the malaise of the humanities rightly point to anti-intellectual trends in our culture and to the commercialization of our universities. But an honest appraisal would have to acknowledge that some of the damage is self-inflicted. The humanities have yet to recover from the disaster of postmodernism, with its defiant obscurantism, dogmatic relativism, and suffocating political correctness. And they have failed to define a progressive agenda. Several university presidents and provosts have lamented to me that when a scientist comes into their office, it’s to announce some exciting new research opportunity and demand the resources to pursue it. When a humanities scholar drops by, it’s to plead for respect for the way things have always been done.

https://newrepublic.com/article/1141...emy-humanities

(And yes, he's talking about the humanities here, but he's come out against the dogmatic insularity of the social sciences before, namely in The Blank Slate).

And so has Debra Soh.

Spoiler!

Despite this, censorship continues to impose constraints on academics in serious ways, because there has been increasing pressure for scientific research to toe the party line. Emotional grievances are being prioritized over logic and facts. For example, in my field of sexology, even if academic researchers have tenure, they will avoid particular areas of study completely (such as the topics of gender dysphoria in children or biological sex differences in the brain) because they know their professional – and personal – reputations will be at stake if their findings aren’t socially palatable.

Many of my colleagues have been bullied into silence, terrified of becoming the newest casualty in this unpredictable war. I can’t count the number of people who have told me that they walk on eggshells, keeping a low profile, avoiding social media and interview requests, out of fear of inadvertently inciting the mob. It has become a form of mind control.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opin...ticle35476933/

And Jonathan Haidt.

Spoiler!

JONATHAN HAIDT: The academic world in the humanities is a monoculture. The academic world in the social sciences is a monoculture – except in economics, which is the only social science that has some real diversity. Anthropology and sociology are the worst — those fields seem to be really hostile and rejecting toward people who aren’t devoted to social justice.

JOHN LEO: And why would they be hostile?

JONATHAN HAIDT: You have to look at the degree to which a field has a culture of activism. Anthropology is a very activist field. They fight for the rights of oppressed people, as they see it. My field, social psychology, has some activism in it, but it’s not the dominant strain. Most of us, we really are thinking all day long about what control condition wasn’t run. My field really is oriented towards research. Now a lot of us are doing research on racism and prejudice. It’s the biggest single area of the field. But I’ve never felt that social psychology is first and foremost about changing the world, rather than understanding it. So my field is certainly still fixable. I think that if we can just get some more viewpoint diversity in it, it will solve the bias problem.

...JONATHAN HAIDT: This is a disaster for social science because social science is really hard to begin with. And now you have to try to explain social problems without saying anything that casts any blame on any member of a protected group. And not just moral blame, but causal blame. None of these groups can have done anything that led to their victimization or marginalization.

OHN LEO: Well, but there’s always a possibility of truth and accuracy. I mean, why is the professoriate so…

JONATHAN HAIDT: Spineless? Nowadays, a mob can coalesce out of nowhere. And so we’re more afraid of our students than we are of our peers. It is still possible for professors to say what they think over lunch; in private conversations they can talk. But the list of things we can say in the classroom is growing shorter and shorter.

JOHN LEO: This sounds like the Good Germans.

JONATHAN HAIDT: Yes. Exactly. It is. It’s really scary that values other than truth have become sacred. And what I keep trying to say – this comes right out of my book The Righteous Mind – is that you can’t have two sacred values. Because what do you do when they conflict? And in the academy now, if truth conflicts with social justice, truth gets thrown under the bus.

http://www.mindingthecampus.org/2016...onathan-haidt/

For a thorough look at the subject: Are the Social Sciences Undergoing a Purity Spiral?