One used to hear many people say “Cancel Culture is so ridiculous, it will go away soon.” Well, that’s not happening. Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne, who usually writes about other matters, discusses two representative incidents.
Intellectual freedom
Peter Boghossian has quit at “ideas go to die here” Portland U
Would any readers who pay taxes in the state of Oregon like to write in and explain what they pay taxes for? Is this how you think your tax money should be spent?
Spare a thought for Afghanistan’s terrified scientists
They had hoped for a world that was ultimately denied them.
At Mind Matters News: Non-materialist science is wanted — dead or alive
Michael Egnor: I’ve gotten calls to my department in my university demanding that I be fired. That’s a fairly frequent thing. I was called a couple of years ago by the campus police that there was a death threat against me and they wanted to protect me. So this kind of stuff goes on. And some of these people are vicious.
Darwinian biologist Jerry Coyne defies the transgender lobby
Much more at his post. It’s pretty brave today in the world of the Woke to raise any questions at all about what they do.
Readers, thinkers: Wake up and figure out what time it is
For example: When universities no longer want you to know controversial ideas, you have a problem.
Is a Darwinian evolutionary biologist waking up to the world in which he is living?
Jerry Coyne: “It would be the ruination of American society, turning into an Orwellian nightmare.” Fact is, Darwin’s people imposed this on the rest of us for a long time. It’s good if they are beginning to see, however dimly, the problem.
Off topic: The Cancel Culture ragtag volunteer army of censors
Malicious envy was always out there but before social media it could rarely assemble so large a mob. But that’s a challenge, not a prophecy. We ID types can help fend them off. We are used to fighting Cancel Culture.
At Salon: New Atheists accused of intellectual grift and abject surrender
Torres makes quite clear that, to get on at Salon, you’d have to be a stiletto Stalinist. The new atheists have the advantage of at least being interesting people.
Hey, we’ve always given them that. And who cares about Salon anyhow?
Dawkins deplatformed by American Humanist Association — but who retains AHA awards?
Soave: “The AHA gave Humanist of the Year awards to the author and activist Alice Walker—who promoted anti-Semitic conspiracy theories—and also to Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood who promoted eugenics and white supremacy. Sanger’s legacy is so complicated that her own organization is currently disowning her.” Apparently, Rebecca Goldstein and Steven Pinker, also AHA award winners, have written an open letter, asking the AHA to reverse course.
Peter Boghossian on the Woke and cultural suicide
ON Boghossian: A lifelong liberal and critic of former President Donald Trump, Boghossian believes describing people as left or right is losing utility. It’s those who demand you think a certain way who are on one side, while those who do not are on the other.
Michael Egnor reflects on Joshua Swamidass’s proposal for effectively canceling Christian colleges
Egnor: “Notably, Swamidass completely leaves out the one criterion that is the cornerstone of accreditation of educational institutions: outcome metrics… don’t know (and Swamidass has nothing to say about it) how students from Christian colleges compare, but is it well established that homeschooled kids (who are disproportionately taught by conservative Christian families) score almost 100 points higher on the SAT and score correspondingly higher on the ACT than the national average.” Okay, but no one sponsoring the war on math is concerned about outcomes because educators have the power to jimmy marks to reward whatever they want to reward and then pass the problem on to others who must then do the same.
Josh Swamidass on the need to single out and punish creationists
One key effect of Cancel Culture is the elimination of competition by citing grounds that are irrelevant to performance. As Klinghoffer puts it, employers “will wish to know if they are about to take aboard a creationist in a science-related field. For example, a pediatric nurse oncologist, caring for little kids with cancer, while believing that the world is under 10,000 years old.” Someone with “Correct” views on the age of Earth will be deemed more acceptable even with fewer gifts in pediatric nursing. It’s a recipe for Virtuous underperformance.
David Klinghoffer muses on the (almost) Cancelation of physicist Eric Hedin
Klinghoffer: Hedin’s persecutor, Jerry Coyne, “was a prominent academic, enjoying maximum career safety at the University of Chicago. Let’s be honest: between the two, there was no contest. Coyne could move against Hedin without fear, and he did. On the other hand, Hedin’s career was on the line, and both knew it.” Sounds like Darwinism as she is spoke.
Eric Hedin, that Ball State physicist whose ID course was Cancelled, has a new book out
The funny thing is that Darwinian evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne , who spearheaded getting Hedin’s course cancelled, is often heard wittering these days about people he approves of — or doesn’t disapprove of — getting Cancelled. And it’s not likely he will ever get the significance of the role he played in starting the ball rolling.