The vast majority of researchers are NOT professors even!
I don't know what to tell you. I am a researcher (previously at Yale, now at MIT), and I very rarely hear other researchers complain about cancel culture. Largely, I hear horror stories of abuses of power with no repercussions or accountability. It's only, again, a small cadre of professors complaining about this.
OP is describing how major institutions, including research universities and other research organizations, publications, and even government institutions such as the National Science Foundation and NIH are now supporting this ideology.
Let's be clear here: OP's material complaint is that NIH gated access to some genetics datasets. That's the 'crisis', yet he manages to bundle in all of these groups he dislikes into a narrative.
>federal agencies, such as the National Science Foundation, now offer a surplus of grants with the purpose of “broadening the participation of members of groups that are . . . currently underrepresented”—instead of funding research to answer scientific questions.
Allow me to translate: "Give money to minorities" OR "Do Real Science". So minorities can't so real science???
(implicitly, "minorities aren't doing real science" - "real science came from people like me, so keep giving data access and money to my team, then you'll see I deserve the ability to say and do anything I want because I'm quantifiably superior and they are a waste of resources.")
> As an example: The NIH now puts barriers to access to the important database of “Genotypes and Phenotypes (dbGaP).” The database is an amazing tool that combines genomes (the unique genetic makeup of each individual) and phenotypes (the observable characteristics of each individual) of millions of people. These phenotypes include education, occupation, health and income and, because the dataset connects genetics with phenotype at an individual level, it is essential for scientists who want to understand genes and genetic pathways that are behind those phenotypes. The NIH now denies scientists access to this data and other related datasets. Researchers report getting permits denied on the grounds that studying their genetic basis is “stigmatizing.” According to one researcher, this happens even if the research has nothing to do with race or sex, but focuses on genetics and education.
I cannot explain this one better than Harvard can:
>By the early to mid-20th century, polygenism and biology-based racism were widely disproven, and racism in social science had gained popularity. Studies showing high rates of imprisonment among Black Americans were used as proof of innate criminality, while pseudoscientific intelligence testing claimed the mental superiority of white people. These flawed, biased studies failed to account for political and social factors such as poor housing, poverty, lack of healthcare, and virulent racial oppression. But they provided the so-called evidence needed to fuel systemic forms of anti-Black racism, like segregation. And, for many Americans looking for objective reasons to justify racist beliefs and behaviors, studies like these were more than enough. source: https://library.harvard.edu/confronting-anti-black-racism/sc...
>The censors and gatekeepers simply assume—without evidence—that human population research is malign and must be shut down. The costs of this kind of censorship, both self-imposed and ideologically based, are profound. Student learning is impaired and important research is never done.
"Important Research" SMH. I hope it's clear why I am so incensed about this article. In my first comment I complained about his distain for students that push minority narratives rather than seeing them as children who can be shown and taught civility. Here, he's worried about the students ability to learn if they can't have full freedom to combine demography and genetic data.
I hope it's clear why I am so incensed about this article.
This is red-pill content, full stop.
Unfortunately, as it stands, your response is simply arguing that articles bringing attention to a particular issue are not worthy because they don't bring up a solution, and dismisses the concerns as "petulant", which does convey your frustration but not what the article misses out on in its quality of arguments.
The only thing I can add is that when you try and dig a bit at how they see this group of people, it’s always a “mob” and not an aggrieved group of future scholars who might have legitimate complains. They’re always, always infantilized.
Why then is OP scared of some kids. It’s as if he’s perceiving this generation of his students as an invasive species, upsetting an ecosystem of which he is the apex. He gives no voice to his interloper’s concerns or goals; simply that it is too much. This is classic form of a well-trodden, meaningless screed.
He feels somehow powerless in the face of ignorance of his students. Find a new career, or teach them. Learn from them. Offer some dignity to their humanity even when they don’t reciprocate. Model maturity.
I think that there are vast vestiges of academia which still don’t understand how completely their relationship with knowledge has changed in the past 30 years. Universities historically have “owned” knowledge and its artifacts. Now knowledge is universally accessible and rapidly growing. We need to train people to Integrate, Validate, and Develop knowledge. That takes personal, challenging work from all.
As a biologist it’s easy to fixated on the mechanics and metrics of reproduction. We’re seeing a decline in population growth and interest in reproduction in humans despite an overabundance of food. Young adults are facing economic turmoil, religious trauma, a doomed planet, and a bunch of regressive twats violently clinging to power. They perceive it as so futile that fertility is not viable. The way an organism perceives its environs dictates its behavior, not only the environment itself.
Baby Boomers dictated the environment of the generation you proclaim to fear. You are complicit in what formed their grievances, passively or actively. You can participate in their resolution, and help these powerful young people to mature into the tolerant, curious individuals they are capable of becoming.
This piece is not instructive. It’s as petulant as a toddler that has to share. It’s the same tenor as a small business owner trying to invoke pity and obtain material support from a governing body. It’s frankly pathetic. A bunch of teens aren’t going to destroy biology. Acknowledge your own ignorance of the lives of your patrons, their novel circumstances, and do what can be done to remedy it. Or retire.
I could be writing YAML right now, but I’m writing this with the hope that someone voluntarily does what the author of this piece missed to understand that you are the solution, not the victim. Every adult needs to learn this, every mentor needs to teach it. We face challenges of unprecedented scale which test the limits of our evolutionary progress, especially around our ability to collaborate in increasingly vast numbers. We face the practical limits of human empathy, where global 24/7 news brings a deluge of tragedies to mourn and mend. We are seemingly incapable of stopping ourselves from destroying our own environment.
The weight of it all has given rise to extremes. If those extremes threaten the things you hold dear, please do what you can to reduce the standard deviation. That means welcoming unpleasant extremists into your spaces and lives, and engaging with their beliefs. It involves seeing them as whole people, valuable and vulnerable. I feel so very strongly that it is the responsibility of our leaders and literati to model and advance the cause of cooperation. If for nothing else than our own survival.