Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
Another case showing that conservatives aren't the only ones who denounce and suppress science that challenges ideological orthodoxies.
Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole
tldr:
- Researchers produce study on the possible mathematical underpinnings of the Greater Male Variability Hypothesis.
- Experts in the field praise the study. Editor of journal, though aware of the controversial nature of studies into intelligence and gender, offers to publish the article to encourage a robust debate on the subject.
- When interest groups in academia find out, they denounce the paper. One of the authors is encouraged to remove his name from it.
- Under pressure from diversity professionals, the National Science Foundation requests that the authors remove mention of their funding for the research.
- The editor withdraws her support and rejects the article, citing the possibility that it could be used as political ammunition by the right.*
- One of the researchers buckles under the attack and withdraws his name from the paper.
- Another journal offers to publish revised article, after assessment by referee. Conditions met, publication is confirmed.
- This journal is attacked in turn, and half the board threaten to resign if the paper is published. It's pulled from the journal.
* This is the same argument that religious authorities use to suppress the teaching of evolution - its scientific merits matter less than the threat it poses to social values. |
Holy over-reaction. On both the WIM and Cliff Fletcher.
I can understand the concerns of WIM, but the research stands on its own. If you think this doesn't forward your cause, do research to disprove or refute the findings. Pretty straight forward process, but we do see politically oriented groups representative of only one perspective resorting to these behaviors from time-to-time.
On to Cliff, this is yet another over-reaction to the actions of one select group which he attempts to paint on all of academia. I don't get it. Academia is full of all sorts, and yes, there are plenty that would prefer to represent their limited interests over that of the whole academy. This is one of those instances, and one where the interest in question has been called out by others with the academy. So should all of academia be accused of suppression of scientific evidence, or should the very small group be pointed at as a bad actor in the larger setting? That would seem to be the more pragmatic approach, seeing as WIM doesn't even get support of their own faculty or department, based on responses to the blog and the support for the original journal article. This isn't a situation where all of academia is clamoring to support the actions of WIM. In fact, its just the opposite.
So while I'm certain their will be some false equivalency dreamed up, saying that liberals (ooh, the boogey man!) have suppressed science just like their conservative counterparts, the reality is that one very small segment of one school within the academy has taken a political action, and failed miserably. So while climate science is indeed suppressed by conservatives in politics, to peril of us all, a journal article thought to be repressive to the cause of recruiting women has some how become an equitable transgression by those filthy dirty hippies!