That is, opposed to people with disabilities! Or anyway, as progressives — running out of new targets — turn on unaccustomed ones, that’s their latest claim.
From the Daily Wire:
The paper argues that concepts like “fitness” and “natural selection” — foundational to the field of evolutionary biology, which studies the diversification and adaptation of life forms over time — are “harmful” and have been “weaponized against marginalized communities in the modern day.” And the authors’ thesis is that evolutionary biology’s use of purportedly “ableist” terms and concepts discourages disabled people from studying the field, and is therefore more discriminatory of the disabled than other areas of study. But instead of sampling from other academic disciplines, the authors claim that “the proportion of disabled evolutionary biologists is far below the population average.”
The authors compared a National Center for Science and Engineering Studies (NCSES) statistic that found 8.1% of disabled doctorate recipients in the life sciences with a CDC statistic that found 26% of the US population was disabled. But upon closer inspection, this 26% CDC statistic was determined through self-reporting, based on a six-question set, and included participants 65 and over who have considerably higher rates of age-related disabilities.
Christina Buttons, “New Paper Claims Evolutionary Biology Is ‘Ableist.’ Here’s How It Misrepresented The Data.” at Daily Wire (January 16, 2023)
The paper requires a fee or subscription.
The topic is complex in this case. True, the evolutionary biology field is totally dominated by Darwinism, a survival-of-the-fittest cult which is supposed to explain the history of life on Earth. Hence the “ablist” terms employed.
But, in fairness to the Darwinists, they probably aren’t intentionally discriminating against people with disabilities. They are used to destroying the careers of doubters, able or otherwise. They have never before been called to account for that.
Will the apparent pixie dust that has protected them even from evaluation of the popularity of Darwinism among white supremacists continue to protect them today? We shall see.
You may also wish to read: Michael Shermer is complaining about the Cancel Culture Darwinians like himself helped create. Now that it is attacking the revered Darwinian E. O. Wilson (1929–2021).
and When scholars simply don’t want to believe something obvious … they are very good at developing clever arguments to avoid seeing it.The relationship between white supremacy theories and pop science mag evolutionary theory is quite clear but also very embarrassing to acknowledge.