This is an outstanding reply to, and analysis of that Pamela Paul column in the New York Times that began this way:
"A paper that says science should be impartial was rejected by major journals. You can’t make this up."
Dave Karpf, an academic, takes it apart. He also testifies as a particiant in the peer review system. Worth your time.
https://davekarpf.substack.com/p/pamela-paul-cancel-culture-grifters?utm_medium=ios
Sorry, I don't follow.
She was editor of the book review. Then she shifted to Opinion to write a column.
Yep. Reaction tweet as op-ed column captures it. But we should add how easy it would be for Ms. Paul to find out, for example, how academic journals work. I'm sure there are science or climate reporters in the building who could explain it.
"they also want to insist that science is purely objective... that it stands outside of being human" is spot on.
@jayrosen_nyu Quoting from the paper in question:
"Today, biology is again being subjugated to ideology—medical schools deny the biological basis of sex"
It's transphobia. It's always transphobia.
@jayrosen_nyu The paper's treatment of physics also induces eyelid-twitching. It reads like a garbled description of a third-hand hearsay understanding, ending with a real howler:
"...Einstein’s theory of relativity did not negate Newton’s law of universal gravitation—it extended it to include new phenomena such as black holes." Black holes are well and truly beyond the regime where Newtonian physics is a viable approximation! The mathematics and the underlying worldviews are dramatically different. What gravity *means* changes radically when you advance from one theory to the other. They're not doing philosophy of science, they're doing cocktail talk.
@jayrosen_nyu
It should be noted that the PNAS noted in the article, is only widely regarded as a peer review process in America. It's not the pre-eminent Journal in civilised countries.
In Australia for example, our PhDs are expected to do original work.
Inject that into my veins. That was refreshingly clear-eyed.
Wasn't worth my time at all actually.
It started out like a political hit piece with gross mischaracterizations and innuendo. Not worthy of a socalled "academic".
Thanks for sharing anyway.
Disagree pretty strongly regarding Karpf's dismissal of "the republic of letters" (which exists, though Pamela Paul ain't in it.)
A debate worth having!
What I was thinking upon reading Dave's post is that underneath "umpteeth column on the insipid evils of political correctness" is a contest for cultural authority between journalists with a base in the media and scholars with a base in the university.
Neither legacy media nor academia is (or can afford to be) fully captured. Honest reporting, like honest research, provides cover for the crooks and grifters
Maybe it's more like 'somewhat-overlapping magisteria'
In both realms there are honest and dishonest practitioners, so if there's a contest, I would say it's between those two camps.
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