Heterodox STEM: International

Indivisible. The Israeli Academy after October 7th

Evan D. Morris — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 12:03:34 GMT

These are introductory remarks I gave at The Buckley Institute in New Haven on March 26, 2026 prior to screening the short documentary: “Indivisible. The Israeli Academy after October 7^th”. I am the executive producer of the movie and organized the mission to Israel that led to creation of the movie.

First: The film you are about to see would not exist if it were not for the limitless energy of Prof. Ed Kaplan and the limitless brilliance and narrative ability of Roya Hakakian. Our joint accomplishment owes much to their shared commitment to truth, objectivity, and the people of Israel.

I was the executive producer. That is a difficult function to explain. But I have a sports analogy - at least for Red Sox fans. I put the players on the team (ala Theo Epstein if you know about 2004), but Roya arranged them to tell an important story (or in the case of Terry Francona, managed them to win the World Series).

Story 1: I have told this in print, and I can share the article in American Spectator. But in brief, it was 2018. To my surprise, I was asked by the Egyptian Fulbright committee to review applicants. I am a Jew. I went to Israel on a Fulbright. Egypt and Israel do not always see eye to eye. Especially not in 2015/16 if you know your history. How did the Egyptians even get my name? The Israelis gave it to them! The Egyptians had a specific need for a biomedical engineering professor to review proposals of biomedical engineers. So, I did it. Without regard to national origin. My point: the science community cannot play politics. When it does, it ceases to function.

Story 2: I was recently on a PhD thesis committee at another university (in another country) as the outside reviewer. Some of the other members were known to me. One in particular does a type of mathematics that is complementary to mine. But the two intersect - increasingly of late - and we have had nice meetings and conversations over the years whenever we see each other at conferences.

The other guy was born in Iran. We never talked about politics. It’s not why we run into each other. It was delightful to see Professor Z on the committee (via zoom) and I am sure he felt the same toward me. We greeted each other warmly.

Modesty aside, the PhD student had the ideal committee to review his thesis. Both Professor Z and I are experts in our respective, overlapping areas most relevant to the student’s work. And, as we would have hoped, there were good questions during the defense, and very nice collegial interactions between me and Prof Z - at an informative and high level - all for the student’s benefit. The student can honestly say he was tested by the experts!

Fast forward one month.

Israel and the US bombed Iran. I was strongly in favor, and I am still strongly in favor.

Professor Z circulated a petition calling for a stop to the war against Iran… and blaming Israel for an “unprovoked” attack. His social media posts (of which I was ignorant at the time) even descend into anti-Israel lies, some of which are addressed in the film. Suffice it to say I was angry and rejected his characterization of Israel and her actions.

Now, let’s consider how boycotts might have played into this had the timing of the thesis defense and the war been reversed.

If I had learned of Prof Z’s petition before the thesis defense, should I have refused to sit on the committee with him? If Prof Z had known about my unapologetic self-identification as a Zionist, and my position on the war, should he have refused to sit with me? And what would that have accomplished? And who would have benefited? Surely not the student.

Just some food for thought.

Let’s watch the film.

Rethinking Immigration

Kent Osband — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 13:03:08 GMT

Rethinking Immigration

Kent Osband

7 February 2026

Immigration policy has become the most contentious issue in the US. HxSTEM has hosted contributions from leading economists on each side, with Garett Jones advocating more selectivity and Alex Nowrasteh advocating more openness. To help illuminate the big picture, this essay engages with Alex’s well-researched book Wretched Refuse, co-authored with Benjamin Powell. It summarizes their main pro-immigration findings, notes the dependence on context, and argues for a bifurcated US policy: welcoming the best and brightest from all countries while turning away most low-skilled immigrants.

Nowrasteh and Powell (“N&P”) start with the economic truth that mixing two populations with different comparative advantages, assuming stable property rights and free trade at market prices, helps both sides prosper. The main concern they address is the “social baggage” immigrants might bring, undermining host institutions. N&P contend that this fear is not only grossly exaggerated but also largely contradicted by empirical evidence. The core of their book is three case studies involving massive migration to the US 1850 -1920, Israel’s absorption of Soviet Jews 1989-1995, and Jordan’s absorption of Kuwaiti refugees 1990-1991.

In the US, critics at the time warned that the “new” immigrants—e.g., Irish, Germans, Italians, Slavs, and Jews—were fundamentally unsuited for American institutions. Yet American institutions did not collapse, even though the foreign-born population reached a peak of around 15% that would not be approached again for another century. To the contrary, this era coincided with the expansion of the franchise, the strengthening of the rule of law, and the rise of the U.S. as a global economic hegemon. N&P also note favorably Marx’s complaint that ethnic frictions among US workers strengthened capitalist control and sabotaged chances for socialist revolution.

In Israel, the influx of Soviet emigres increased its population by 20%. The migrants came from a society with bad institutions: a command economy with no private property rights, no price signals, and a total lack of democratic tradition. Yet they did not encumber Israel with those institutions. To the contrary, their influx pressed the political system to loosen up and catalyzed a pro-market evolution. A sluggish, state-led economy morphed into something far richer and more dynamic.

In Jordan, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians expelled from Kuwait increased the population by 10% in just six months. Yet Jordan’s institutions did not degrade by any near-term metric. To the contrary, the country remained politically stable while weakening the interest groups that had stifled startups and market competition.

In all three cases, N&P present solid evidence that the correlation was not accidental. Immigration made the host countries both healthier and freer. Their book is much lauded for the demonstration.

However, their findings downplay crucial context. In Jordan, the cultural differences between hosts and immigrants were relatively minor. Politics remained stable because the Jordanian state, responding to assassinations and attempted coups, suppressed Palestinian dissidents. In Israel, the Soviet emigres hated the system they came from and brought unusually high aptitudes in STEM. Logically, N&P’s arguments suggest that gains would have been even greater if Israel had accepted the displaced Palestinians or Israel and Jordan merged. Yet N&P concede that an Israel absorbing massive influxes of Arabs would no longer be Israel.

In the 19^th century US, political disruption was minimized by the ethnic fragmentation of immigrants; their political influence was more local than national. Social disruption was reduced by the hardships of adjustment. With little government welfare aid or accommodations for non-English speakers, about 30% of immigrants eventually returned to Europe. The shares were even higher for Southern and Eastern Europeans, apart from Jews expecting discrimination on return. Pressures were strong to assimilate or leave.

N&P also downplay the highest social price of mass immigration: dramatically higher inequality. Capital and highly skilled workers benefited from the influx; less skilled workers did not. Class conflicts grew more intense than any observed for the rest of the 20^th century.

N&P can reasonably counter that (1) ethnic frictions helped maintain competitive market institutions (Marx’s point again), (2) the efficiency costs were low, and (3) class tensions eased over the next 1-2 generations. However, offset (1) relies on context not likely to be repeated. The share of immigrants speaking the same non-English language (Spanish) is by far the highest ever, while peoples-of-color-against-white-supremacy offers a rallying cry fanned by DEI. Market institutions face far less threat from employed workers than from state over-regulation in the name of promoting ethnic parity. Furthermore, pressures to assimilate to have greatly eased. Indeed, an Islamist subset that actively opposes assimilation, equal rights, and secular democracy is growing in political and social influence.

Offset (2) has long ceased to apply. While employment directly benefits both employers and employees, the public benefits are small for unskilled workers. The taxes they pay do not come close to covering the costs of the housing, schooling and medical care their families receive. This raises the marginal tax burden on other workers, although this is obscured by rising fiscal debt. Moreover, their low-wage labor to some extent retards innovation by giving employers a cheap alternative.

Offset (3) was facilitated by drastic restrictions on further immigration, most notably the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the Emergency Quota Act of 1921, and the Immigration Act of 1924. Were these measures fueled in part by racism? Undoubtedly. Should they never have been enacted? Perhaps. But they undoubtedly mitigated downward pressures on low-skilled wages and offered immigrants’ children better opportunities to advance.

Fast forward to the US present. Social inequality and class divides have re -intensified to levels unseen since the 1890s. No one seriously denies that this is sorely exacerbated by mass immigration of the low skilled. It was the main reason left-leaning Democrats invoked in the 1990s to oppose mass immigration, and which Bernie Sanders repeatedly emphasized until he didn’t. They changed their tune only when they saw immigrant votes (illegal absent citizenship, but un-enforceable without voter ID) and immigrant census counts (which boosts Democratic districts’ electoral weights even when immigrants don’t vote) as electoral advantage and NGO-related funding as partial reflow to their campaigns. Republicans implicitly conceded this too as employers lobbied them not to enforce e-Verify, which requires formal verification of immigration status. This non-enforcement is the main reason Minnesota-type showdowns dominate the media: eVerify would be vastly quieter, safer and more effective.

To be clear, concerns about social inequality should not trump all others. For libertarians like N&P—Bryan Caplan is another—the benefits of immigration vastly exceed the costs. The downsides come mainly from distortions like DEI or big public handouts that penalize excellence and reward sloth. They want to target the distortions without targeting immigration. I find this unrealistic. In the current political and social context, the distortions are mainly pitched as responses to social inequality and remedies for it, and immigrant votes help secure it. Does anyone imagine that mass Somali immigration will promote small government and race-blind judgment, except as a reaction that shuts down mass immigration?

I have two additional, more personal reasons for doubting N&P’s advice. First, my vision of a better 21^st century world is neither one uniform world culture nor a uniform distribution of different cultures. Instead, I envision numerous islands of excellence, with each interpreting excellence in different ways, cultivating their comparative advantages and curbing their historic shortcomings. Second, my vision of our US island is a high-wage, high-tech, Enlightenment-oriented oasis that benefits others mainly through the innovations it develops and the know-how it shares with others. For that we need to welcome the best and brightest from all nations, reward achievement rather than ancestry, protect the vulnerable without suicidal empathy, and make low-skilled immigration a rare exception to the rule.

Science can address meaning and purpose

Coel Hellier — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 13:07:09 GMT

Bo Winegard writes about science and philosophy at the Aporia Substack, where, in a recent article, he discussed the relationship between science and notions of “meaning” and “purpose”. He concluded that “science cannot discover meaning” and that it must set any such notions aside; indeed he sees doing so as a major strength of science. I think that this is misguided and that it impoverishes science.

I do agree with much in Winegard’s essay, for example when he says:

“Before humans engage in science, or even philosophical reflection, they encounter a world that is full of significance, full of threats and opportunities, of purposes and failures, of tragedies and triumphs. Long before the scientist measures, the human being cares. Science does not create our meaningful engagement with reality. It presupposes it.”

But I suggest that he goes wrong when he continues:

“Science is extraordinarily effective precisely because it sets aside questions of meaning, value and purpose in order to focus on causal processes. It asks how things work, not what they mean; how events follow one another, not why they matter.”

I actually agree with much of the spirit of Winegard’s essay but want to dispute his implementation. I agree with him when he (correctly) rejects the idea that because “love, hope, meaning, morality are all products of brain cells and chemicals” they are therefore “not actually real”. Indeed those things are real precisely because they are products of brain cells and chemicals. Things that are made out of physical material, things that amount to being patterns of material stuff – such as cars, trees, rocks, babies, and indeed human feelings – are the things that are real. Anything else (such as a Platonic essential tree, or a human soul) is not real and does not exist precisely because it is not instantiated in physical stuff.

But I disagree with Winegard’s conclusion that “science cannot discover meaning” and that notions of love, hope, meaning, morality are not within the purview of science. Instead, the crucial distinction – echoing Hume’s famous is/ought distinction – is between describing values (which science can do and does) and generating or prescribing values (which science cannot do). The mistake is to suppose that, because science cannot prescribe values, it also cannot describe them, and thus that they are entirely outside the scientific domain.

Science is all about describing and understanding the world and how things relate to each other. That’s all it attempts to do. It cannot generate values, it cannot adjudicate them, and it is not a prescriptive oracle that tells us what we “ought” to do. Prescriptions, instead, must come from sentient beings that have feelings, values, goals and desires. But there’s no reason why science cannot properly concern itself with describing those things.

Indeed, a proper understanding of the origin of feelings, values and meaning must come from science, namely the science of evolutionary psychology. Baby mammals need a lot of nurturing and care. So evolution has programmed female monkeys to love their offspring. I don’t see anything “unscientific” in stating that. One could perhaps (in a mistaken bid to be more “scientific”) try to avoid a word like “love”, and one could perhaps insist that science should only concern itself with behaviour, but I don’t see any way of denying that a mother monkey has intense emotional feelings about her baby, and I don’t see any way of understanding monkey behaviour without recognising that.

Chimpanzees are social animals, and their interactions with each other are a major part of their lives. They have friendships, they have desires, they get angry, they show empathy, they have notions of fairness and loyalty, and they get upset at violations of fairness. A primatologist recognises all of this and cannot understand chimpanzee behaviour except in such terms. The idea of a p-zombie might be a useful philosophical thought experiment, but no primatologist thinks of their subjects that way. I reject the idea that science must treat mammals as p-zombies (if that is indeed what Winegard is suggesting).

Social mammals communicate, and that means that they must know what each other’s vocalisations mean. Vervet monkeys have one alarm call for “snake” and a different alarm call for “eagle”. The other monkeys understand those meanings, as demonstrated by the fact that they respond by scanning the ground or the air respectively. Have I just said something unscientific? I don’t think so. Yet Winegard declares that “science cannot discover meaning”.

Chimpanzees enjoy eating termites, and strip the leaves off a long twig to create a “fishing rod” that they poke into a termite mound to fish-out termites. The action of stripping the twig has a clear “purpose” in terms of the chimp’s “goal”. Have I strayed outside science in invoking those concepts? I don’t think so. Is the chimp consciously aware of that purpose (and thus is not a p-zombie)? I’ll bet that it is.

In order to facilitate their survival and reproduction, evolution has programmed social animals with feelings, values and goals. Their lives and their interactions with each other are meaningful and significant to them, precisely because social animals are programmed with values and desires as part of their fundamental nature. And that’s because an animal that literally did not care about anything (didn’t care whether it ate, didn’t care whether it got eaten by a predator) would not survive.

There is nothing to stop science from describing these aspects of human nature, though, again, science cannot declare normative prescriptions for the simple reason that those derive from values and goals. And while humans have values and goals, science does not and cannot generate them.

Bo Winegard’s essay was a response to a quote from Yuval Noah Harari:

“From a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning. Humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose. Our actions are not part of some divine cosmic plan, and if planet Earth were to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going about its business as usual. As far as we can tell at this point, human subjectivity would not be missed. Hence any meaning that people ascribe to their lives is just a delusion.”

Harari’s last sentence is wrong. Human lives are full of meaning. That meaning is part of our human nature and is generated by ourselves and our interactions with each other and the wider world. Nothing about that is a delusion.

But what about us not being part “of some divine cosmic plan” such that “if planet Earth were to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going about its business as usual”. Well yes, this is true. Science tells us what types of entities have feelings and plans and goals that generate meaning and purpose, and the only such entities that we know of are the neural-network brains that are the evolved products of Darwinian evolution.

Entities that are not evolved animals (such as rocks, planets, stars, galaxies) do not have feelings. Harari is thus right that, in the “cosmic significance” sense (as distinct from the “significant to humans” sense), human life has no “meaning”. And, yes, science is not only capable of arriving at that answer, it is the best way of arriving at it! It is only by understanding ourselves as evolved social animals that we can understand human psychology, and only in that context can we understand the origin of feelings, values and goals.

If the Earth had been deliberately created for some purpose (as envisaged in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams’s satire on the human need to feel cosmically significant) then there would be nothing to stop science discerning that, just as it can discern the purpose of a chimp stripping a twig of leaves. The fact that science does not report a “cosmic purpose” for Earth is not because science is necessarily blind to such concepts, it is because there is no such purpose for the straightforward reason that Earth was not deliberately created. Nor, as far as we can tell, were we humans.

Einstein made this point well in response to a letter enquiring about the purpose of life, where he replied that questions about “meaning” and “purpose” must relate to the goals and desires that people have:

“I was impressed by the earnestness of your struggle to find a purpose for the life of the individual and of mankind as a whole. In my opinion there can be no reasonable answer if the question is put this way. If we speak of the purpose and goal of an action we mean simply the question: which kind of desire should we fulfill by the action or its consequences or which undesired consequences should be prevented? We can, of course, also speak in a clear way of the goal of an action from the standpoint of a community to which the individual belongs. In such cases the goal of the action has also to do at least indirectly with fulfillment of desires of the individuals which constitute a society. If you ask for the purpose or goal of society as a whole or of an individual taken as a whole the question loses its meaning. This is, of course, even more so if you ask the purpose or meaning of nature in general. For in those cases it seems quite arbitrary if not unreasonable to assume somebody whose desires are connected with the happenings.”

Winegard suggests that:

“Dawkins seems to expect science to provide an objective, non-superstitious answer to the question “What is the meaning of life?””

And science can indeed answer! The question is not outside the realm of science, but, as asked, the question is poorly posed. Dawkins would give the same answer that Einstein did. “Meaning” and “purpose” are indeed fully real and of the utmost importance to us humans. They are generated by sentient animals with goals and desires, and questions about meaning and purpose can only be asked in that context. To ask “What is the meaning of life?” in the abstract, stripped of that context (Whose purpose? Meaningful to whom?), is a category error. But to ask about the meanings and purposes within our lives is not.

Don't Negotiate with Terrorists

Spartacus — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 13:03:52 GMT

"Those who say that Islam is not about war know nothing of Islam." - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeni

Let us recap the past 15 years of negotiating with Iran's regime.

For 15 years of negotiations, Iran has delayed, dragged things out, and continued to advance its nuclear program. In Sep 12, 2023, the US, as a token of good faith for a prisoner swap, released $6 billion of frozen Iranian assets. In response, Iran ordered the Oct 7th Hamas attack on Israel. Today, Iran is once again slaughtering its citizens with its military, paramilitary, and police with efficiency. The outstanding feature of this latest mass murder is that the Trump administration fueled it, and Israel's administration fueled it, and then did nothing.

I warned everyone I could that Trump would do nothing, and if he did, it would leave the mullahs in power, just like after Oct 7th. Here is why.

First, the Trump admin is negotiating with Russia over Ukraine. Russia has used Iran as an ally, and in 2022 and into 2023 was completely dependent on Iran to supply drones that they now produce in Russia. For several months Russia used Iranian troops in Ukraine. Iranian troops were extremely effective---more effective than Russian troops. Russia thought better of using Iranian troops, and sent the Iranians home. So an American incursion into Iran would not be helpful to an outcome Trump wants in Ukraine. But if this was the only reason Trump would probably do it anyway, because Russia's alliance with Iran is realpolitik, not cultural like Serbia, nor is Iran viewed as a matter of Russian survival like Ukraine.

Second, Trump is corrupted through his family. The master of corruption is Steve Witkoff, who Qatar targeted in 2015 when Trump appeared a possible president. Steve Witkoff got $627 million to save his hotel. Since then, Mr. Witkoff has acted as an unregistered foreign agent while being named Special Envoy, by Trump, which is a gray legal area. At every step, Mr. Witkoff advocates for more negotiations. Steve Witkoff arranged for President Trump to visit Qatar where the Emir infamously gave Trump a $500 million aircraft as a gift. Then, Steve Witkoff brought Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr to Qatar where the Emir offered them "business deals". This locked in two family allies with personal access to the president to strengthen Witkoff's hold on Trump.

Third, the US State Department is filled with legacy hires who all believed the "intelligentsia consensus" that negotiation with Iran was the correct course. This group also believe that Islam is no different from any other religion, and that muslim terrorists are just fringe weirdos that do not represent Islam. This consensus has compared muslim terrorists to the Tamil Tigers, which do not represent Hinduism. This active disbelief in Islam as a militant cult is compounded by a belief instilled from neoclassical economics that all people are just economic seekers after fulfillment subject to indifference curves. Like other true believers, any evidence to the contrary is "just a setback". And, for the ambitions of State Department careerists, admitting they were completely wrong is a weakness that will be seized upon to end any chance of advancement. So, the foreign policy "intelligentsia" response to an event like Oct 7th can only be, "Stay the course. Give it time." Readers may add an arch, I-know-better expression here.

Fourth, the US State Department cannot differentiate between nations that will be Islamic quagmires like Iraq, and Libya, from nations that actually will dance in the streets and welcome liberators. The reason for this is, again, that they do not believe that Islam is anything except a mild mannered offshoot of Judaism. Their minds cannot believe in the reality of Islam no matter what evidence is presented because they are stuck in neoclassical and neoliberal fundamentalism. So they cannot do the math on the ethnic-religious composition of the nation. In Iran anti-Muslim is the vast majority.

Fifth, Donald Trump has long been a fan of strategic treachery for personal gain. This was visible on his show, The Apprentice. It is also visible in over 3500 lawsuits and mechanics liens against Trump over non-payment of bills by his businesses. The explanation provided is that all of these plaintiffs, from waiters and subcontractors to attorneys, did substandard work. With anything affecting Qatar, Trump's calculus of personal gain for his family overrides any other factor.

Last, in the book that came out by National Security Advisor HR McMaster, "At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House," a picture that emerged was of a man who was wishy-washy on many matters and could be worn down fairly easily. Trump is given to bluster and lack of follow-up.

Let me be clear that I am not anti-Trump most of Trump's foreign policy. I agree with his stance on Ukraine. The Venezuela operation makes sense, cutting off an emerging nexus of nations with interests against the United States, the most concerning of those being Iran's current regime that has a new military drone manufacturing plant in Venezuela. I also follow the arguments on Greenland, an island near-continent, which is part of the North American continental plate. The US has provided most of the funds for infrastructure in Greenland, and Denmark's claim is weak at best. There are serious allegations relative to Danish intentions in the past 50 years toward the Inuit with the Danish IUD program. Like the acquisition of Alaska, Greenland will be looked upon in the future as a wise choice.

However, in the middle-east and relative to Iran, Donald Trump, and every US administration since Jimmy Carter, has been gravely misguided. This is a general feature of the West, also visible in Europe (excepting Hungary and Poland) with migration policies that threaten to topple nations, possibly rather soon.

A Tale of Two Protests

Mark D'Souza — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 13:03:24 GMT

In the last month, Iran has again witnessed mass protests—among the largest and most sustained challenges to a regime that has ruled since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. While a prominent nationwide uprising was ignited by the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022, killed in custody for allegedly failing to wear her hijab “properly”, the current unrest reflects something deeper and more enduring: a population repeatedly pushed to the breaking point by clerical tyranny.

Iranians have poured into the streets knowing the risks. Thousands have been killed, and internet blackouts imposed. The dictatorship’s so-called Guidance Patrol—more commonly known as the morality police—continues to enforce ideological obedience with lethal seriousness. Protesters are branded “enemies of God”, a grotesque perversion of religion that sanctifies raw power and violates the Judeo-Christian commandment against invoking God’s name for self-interest.

I was born and raised in Toronto, home to a large Iranian expatriate community. Nearly every family story shared about “back home” followed the same arc: a once-proud civilization hollowed out by a state that crushed talent, prosperity, and freedom. They did not leave Iran lightly. They fled because the government had made normal life impossible.

This is not some minor country struggling with modernization. Iran is the successor state of ancient Persia—a civilization that stood against Sparta, Alexander’s Macedonia, and Rome. Iranians are a proud, highly educated people now trapped under an unforgiving Islamo-fascist autocracy that polices clothing, thought, and speech.

Like all tyrants, the regime and its ideological loyalists respond to dissent by doubling down. Psychologist Leon Festinger documented this in his investigation of a UFO cult whose prophecy failed. Rather than abandoning belief, adherents intensified it to suppress cognitive dissonance—a dynamic now commonly referred to as the backfire effect. The emotional cost of admitting error is too high, so when reality contradicts ideology, repression escalates—internet shutdowns and executions aren’t signs of strength, but symptoms of panic.

And panic is justified. Theocracies cannot compete with modern democracies. Iran’s economic collapse is stark: living standards have plummeted, and infrastructure has decayed. But its failure goes deeper than economic mismanagement. Antisemitism is not incidental to the Islamic Republic—it is its raison d’être. Journalist Douglas Murray recounts that friends of his once asked the Ayatollah what he thought about first each morning. The answer was not prayer or coffee, but “how to destroy the Zionist entity”.

I’ve written about how antisemitism and scapegoating destroy individuals and societies alike. Hatred replaces self-examination. External enemies become excuses for internal decay. Rather than improving the lives of their people, Iran’s leaders invested in Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis—the regime’s terrorist tentacles—and nuclear brinkmanship. The result is a country rich in history and human capital yet unable to reliably provide water or electricity.

If the chain reaction triggered by Hamas’ October 7, 2023 massacre—an attack commanded by Iran—ultimately contributes to the theocracy’s collapse, it would be a fitting end. Tyrannies are often undone by the monsters they create.

Yet what has been equally striking in recent weeks is what has happened outside Iran. Across Western cities, there are numerous dignified protests in support of the Iranian people—marches marked by Iranian flags held alongside Israeli and national flags of host countries. These demonstrators understand the ideological connection between tyranny abroad and terror at home.

This stands in jarring contrast to the barbaric pro-terror demonstrations that have erupted across Western cities since the Nova music festival massacre—mobs chanting death to Israel, America, and Canada, a hypocrisy rooted in profound moral ingratitude toward the liberal order that protects them. Few spectacles better capture our civilizational rot than the takeover of Sydney Harbour Bridge, with portraits of the Ayatollah held aloft.

It has been especially revealing on university campuses. Students who spent months glorifying Hamas suddenly found themselves, however unwittingly, aligned with the Iranian government itself. When the Ayatollah publicly thanked Western protesters for their “support”, it exposed the grotesque inversion at the heart of this activism: the privileged cheering on a regime that jails, tortures, and kills the truly oppressed.

Moreover, a 2023 study revealed narcissism and psychopathy as predictors of left-wing authoritarianism. It suggested that activism is driven less by concern for justice and equality than by using it as a pretext for aggression, social status, and thrill-seeking. The activists are, in fact, pretend-altruistic. The oppressed are secondary; the performance is the point.

Young adults are especially vulnerable to this inversion. Jordan Peterson has labeled early adulthood a messianic stage—high moral confidence paired with little real-world experience—making activism an easy shortcut to performative meaning. In that sense, the liberation of Iran may coincide with something else: the freeing of Western youth from pro-terror trendiness masquerading as virtue.

The contrast could not be clearer. On one side, Iranians risking everything for freedom. On the other, Western activists chanting for a state that would imprison or execute them without hesitation.

Some countries are known for exporting oil. Others for potassium. My own country, Canada, exports ice hockey. Iran’s theocracy is the world leader in exporting terrorism.

But regimes are not peoples. The civilized world sends its solidarity to the Iranian people—those who remember who they were and who they could be again once unshackled.

After a decade defined by pandemic, war, and moral confusion, the fall of the Islamic Republic of Iran would be a singular blessing.

Forty-seven years is enough. Free Iran. May the lion of Persia rise.

Mark D’Souza is a Toronto-based physician and author of Lost and Found: How Meaningless Living is Destroying Us and Three Keys to Fix It.

When Scientific Observations Become Political Narrative

Hezi Gildor — Sun, 18 Jan 2026 13:02:41 GMT

Dear colleagues,

I am sharing the attached commentary for discussion and perspective. It was submitted to the Editor-in-Chief of *Eos* (AGU’s science news magazine) and declined; a subsequent inquiry regarding whether *Eos* has a mechanism for correcting published articles has not received a response. I have since submitted a formal complaint through AGU’s ethics process. I am posting this here in a personal capacity, seeking feedback from colleagues concerned with scientific integrity, editorial standards, and the boundary between empirical observation and advocacy in scientific venues.

Best regards,
Hezi

When Scientific Observations Become Political Narrative: Concerns Regarding an Eos Article on Agricultural Damage in Gaza

I write regarding the article “98% of Gaza’s Tree Cropland Destroyed by Israel” (Cartier, 3 December 2025, https://eos.org/articles/98-of-gazas-tree-cropland-destroyed-by-israel) to express serious concerns that its framing and language are not appropriate for a publication of a scientific society. Although the remote-sensing analysis itself appears technically competent, the editorial framing, causal attribution, and normative conclusions that accompany the analysis cross a boundary that should not be crossed in a venue such as Eos. Remote sensing can document what changed, and often when, but it cannot determine intent, legality, exclusive responsibility, or what existed beneath the tree tops. Introducing such claims represents an error, in which empirical observations are rhetorically coupled to unresolved moral and legal judgments.

Eos, as a publication of a scientific union, enjoys the trust of its readers precisely because it is expected to adhere to standards of accuracy, context, and to non-biased presentation; to see through the political fog. I recognize that Eos is a science journalism outlet rather than a peer reviewed research journal. Precisely for this reason, it is especially important to distinguish clearly between empirical findings, interpretation, and advocacy. By adopting a title and narrative that assign moral and legal culpability rather than describing observed environmental changes, the article risks undermining trust not only in the conclusions presented, but also in Eos and AGU as institutions committed to scientific integrity. As a scientist, I was surprised to see this article, which mixes political assertions with scientific reporting, published. I expect Eos to be a beacon in an era of confusion and attacks on science, enabling its readers to reach their own conclusions based on facts.

Before pointing out various biases, the article itself requires a fuller account of the events before and after 7 October 2023. It mentions in passing that “Agriculture comprised 32% of land use in Gaza before 7 October 2023, when Hamas, a recognized terrorist organization supporting Palestinian self-determination, attacked Israeli communities in Gaza and Israel launched a massive military response.” A more accurate account should state that the current conflict was initiated when Hamas-led forces invaded the agricultural communities and towns of southern Israel, killing unarmed civilians (including children), raping women, and abducting hostages, among them a nine-month-old infant, Kfir Bibas, who was later murdered, and an 85-year-old man. Among the hostages and murdered were also students from developing countries (including Kenya and Nepal) who had come to the region to learn advanced agricultural methods so they can apply them in their home countries. This initiating event is a matter of established fact and forms the essential context for subsequent military operations (e.g., 1, 2).

Similarly, the description of Hamas is deeply misleading. Hamas is not only formally designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and others, based on decades of attacks targeting Israeli civilians. More fundamentally, Hamas’s founding covenant and subsequent ideological documents explicitly call for the destruction of Israel as a state, not merely for advancing “self-determination” within a two-state framework. As summarized in analyses of Hamas doctrine: “Palestine is ours from the river to the sea; there is no legitimacy for Israel” (3). The 2017 Hamas charter likewise maintains rejection of Israel’s right to exist. Omitting this context distorts the nature of the actor whose attack triggered the war the article describes. These positions are directly relevant when interpreting land-use choices and the military use of civilian infrastructure.

The article also states that “Israel has used many of the same types of munitions to attack Gaza as it has to attack southern Lebanon,” without noting that Lebanese forces (Hezbollah) launched guided rockets and artillery into Israeli positions on 8 October 2023, in solidarity with Hamas (e.g., 4), without provocation from Israel.

1. Conflation of empirical observation with contested legal and moral claims

The article repeatedly moves from measured land-cover change to claims involving allegations of “ecocide” and “genocide,” presented as contextual established background rather than as contested legal determinations. It includes statements concerning blockade, famine, and responsibility for reconstruction that are not required to analyze the satellite observations and do not follow from satellite imagery. Needless to say, these claims remain unresolved and actively disputed in international legal and political forums. Several high profile claims regarding famine, for example, have subsequently been challenged by international agencies and major media outlets, illustrating the risk of embedding evolving and disputed political assertions in a scientific outlet (e.g., 5, 6, 7).

2. Military use of agricultural land, schools, and hospitals by Hamas

Multiple independent sources, including the United Nations and international human-rights organizations often critical of Israel, have documented that Hamas and other armed groups have repeatedly used agricultural land and civilian facilities. These include schools and hospitals that were used for military purposes such as rocket launches, weapons storage, and tunnel infrastructure (e.g., 8, 9). Such practices directly expose surrounding agricultural areas to military damage and fundamentally complicate causal attribution from satellite imagery alone. It is therefore not logically consistent to describe all resulting damage as “ecocide” without addressing this context.

3. Prior destruction of agricultural infrastructure by Hamas

Following Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza and the transfer of full control to the Palestinian Authority, substantial greenhouse and agricultural infrastructure was left intact by Israel. These greenhouses and infrastructure, financed largely by international Jewish donors to be used by Palestinians after the Israelis’ departure, were looted, dismantled, or destroyed after the withdrawal, instead of forming a basis of a sustained agricultural sector (e.g., 10, 11) as intended. This demonstrates that Gaza’s agricultural decline cannot be attributed solely to the current war or to Israeli military action alone.

4. Gaza’s borders and the question of blockade

The article frames agricultural damage within a narrative of unilateral Israeli control. However, Gaza also shares a border with Egypt, including the Rafah crossing, which is administered by Egypt, sometimes in coordination with Israel. Israel, therefore, does not control all access to Gaza unilaterally, given Egypt’s authority over Rafah (12). Incidentally, smuggling tunnels under the Egypt–Gaza border were widely used over many years to transport goods, including weapons and dual-use materials, into Gaza.

The article contains numerous further inaccuracies and distortions that I will not address here. I note that the photo chosen to accompany the article is from 2016 and the West Bank, completely irrelevant to the present article.

Conclusion

In summary, the satellite analysis presented in the article may be technically sound, and its findings indeed demonstrate the tragedy of agricultural destruction. However, the interpretive framing, selective contextualization, and language choices move beyond what the data support and into political advocacy. One might argue about the right balance between the protection of the civilian population in Israel vs. damage to agricultural areas due to Hamas’ use of civilian infrastructure for carrying out its horrendous activities. [I realize that the exchange rate between olive trees and the life of an Israeli child differs from person to person.] But scientific credibility is best preserved when scientific publications such as Eos clearly separate observation, interpretation, and advocacy. History offers numerous examples in which science was used, or misused, for political aims, with damaging consequences (the Eugenics Movement, Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union, and the suppression of scientific findings on tobacco are just a few).

Eos should avoid publishing articles that blur this boundary. At a minimum, it should not allow contested narratives to be presented as settled truth. By omitting debates, uncertainties, and historical context, the article departs from the norms of scientific balance and is not fully consistent with AGU’s code of Scientific Integrity and Professional Ethics.

Sincerely,

Prof. Hezi Gildor

The Institute of Earth Sciences

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Jerusalem, Israel

1: Human Rights Watch — October 7 Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes, www.hrw.org/news/2024/07/17/october-7-crimes-against-humanity-war-crimes hamas-led-groups

2: UK 7 October Parliamentary Commission Report, Chaired by Lord Roberts of Belgravia, https://www.7octparliamentarycommission.co.uk/

3: Wilson Center, “Doctrine of Hamas,” March 2025, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/doctrine-hamas

4: Reuters, Oct 8, 2023: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-strikes-lebanon-after-hezbollah-hits-shebaa-farms-2023-10-08/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

5: Fox News, Oct 18, 2025: https://www.foxnews.com/world/gaza-famine-claims-face-mounting-scrutiny-mortality-data-falls-far-short-predictions

6: camera-uk.org, August 24, 2025: https://camera-uk.org/2025/08/24/bbc-coverage-of-the-ipc-gaza-city-famine-report-part-one/

7: The Medialine report, July 31, 2025: https://themedialine.org/headlines/nyt-criticized-for-scaled-response-after-false-reporting-on-emaciated-gazan-boy/

8: UN Watch, “UN admits Palestinians fired rockets from UNRWA schools,” citing UN Board of Inquiry, January 2024, https://unwatch.org/un-admits-palestinians-fired-rockets-unrwa-schools/

9: Amnesty International (2015). Unlawful and Deadly. https://www.amnesty.nl/content/uploads/2015/05/unlawful_and_deadly_web.pdf?x61407

10: ReliefWeb / humanitarian reports (Oct 2005) https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/opt-troubled-season-gazas-greenhouses

11: Camera.org (AFP & AP compilaTon) https://www.camera.org/article/afp-reports-without-clarification-false-claim-that-israel-destroyed-all-greenhouses/

12: Rafah crossing background, https://www.britannica.com/place/Rafah

13: Reuters, Sep 14, 2024: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-army-shows-reporters-tunnels-southern-gaza-2024-09-13/

14: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Jan 23, 2024: https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/01/23/egypt-claims-it-destroyed-hamas-tunnels-but-smuggling-continues/

Canada the Theocracy: How a “Secular” Nation Adopted a State Religion

Mark D'Souza — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 13:01:58 GMT

“Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s.” This biblical line birthed the radical idea of the separation of church and state. Theocracies reject this boundary. Whether in today’s Iran or the Christian states of the conquistadors, the outcome is identical: dissent becomes heresy, power hardens, and societies stagnate. The problem is not religion, but its merger with government.

Canada is marching down the same path. We claim to be a secular country, yet while the state is no friend to the Judeo-Christian God, it has nationalized a different faith. Our state religion is social justice – making holy race, gender identity, and climate. The French Revolution followed a similar arc, abolishing Christianity only to invent the Cult of Reason, complete with state rituals in Notre Dame Cathedral. It illustrated the enduring human need for ceremony and a metaphysical framework. As historian of religion Mircea Eliade observed, when a culture lives entirely in the mundane, it sanctifies the worldly – giving rise to a false priesthood that enforces dogma, not truth.

The consequences of state religion are not merely cultural, but material. It is no coincidence that countries ruled by religious law, especially contemporary Islamic theocracies, are uniformly unprosperous. Not one ranks among the world’s leaders in economics, scientific innovation, or cultural exports. Because when ideology, religious or secular, dictates truth, reality becomes negotiable. In Iran, the state’s religious doctrine governs access to medical education. In Canada, a secular creed now performs a similar function, reshaping medical admissions through ideological litmus tests rather than academic excellence. The difference is one of aesthetic, not structure.

The tragedy is that Canadians still imagine themselves secular, rational, empirical. Look closely at our institutions, however, and you find four features indistinguishable from religious absolutism. First, we have the “oppressor-oppressed” cosmology, reinforced by splitting – a psychological habit associated with certain personality disorders – that divides the world into a good-and-evil binary. Second, we have rituals: mandatory pronouns, land acknowledgements, and public confessions of privilege (e.g., declaring oneself a settler on stolen land). Third, we have blasphemy laws. Critique gender ideology? Lose your medical license. Disagree with DEI? Lose your academic post. Conservatives function as designated regime heretics. Under the woke banner, we no longer live with questions we can’t answer, but with answers we’re forbidden to question. Finally, we have clergy and canon. DEI commissars enforce doctrine with a severity any medieval bishop would envy, guided by sacred texts and an unspoken concept of original sin (e.g., being a white male).

Abandon merit for sacred identity categories and ideological utopianism, as Canada has, and the bill comes due. OECD long-term projections place Canada dead last among advanced economies for per-capita GDP growth (a proxy for living standards) through 2060. Canada also ranks last in the G7 for housing availability, with just 424 housing units per 1000 residents, turning scarcity and unaffordability into a generational catastrophe. Medical school admissions are now explicitly non-meritocratic.

While parts of the U.S. have begun pushing back against DEI excesses, Canada has doubled down. A 2025 Aristotle Foundation study found that 98% of academic job postings across Canadian universities either discriminated on the basis of identity (e.g., barring white male applicants), or imposed ideological fealty oaths. An upcoming study from the same think tank suggests that Canada’s corporate sector is similarly DEI-marinated. From Afghanistan to woke Canada, religious states are not designed to prosper; they are engineered to virtue signal, redistribute guilt, and punish infidels.

Commentator Dennis Prager once said that society needs religion everywhere except government. I would go further: a healthy state must create room for religion precisely by refusing to become one. Canada forgot this. Rather than embracing a diversity of philosophical and religious frameworks, we replaced them with leftist monolithic groupthink.

The irony is profound. As Canada becomes post-Christian, it is reverting to something pre-Christian and pagan. When a sophisticated moral tradition collapses, it gives way not to reason, but to something older and cruder. Most pagan faiths worshipped nature, and we do so again – sometimes at the expense of human flourishing, as when energy development is treated as an ecological crime. Care for the natural world is a virtue, but only when it remains ordered toward human dignity, not elevated above it. The structure now resembles a theocracy; only the gods have changed.

The culture war isn’t political, but theological. Christianity asserts that truth exists, that the individual has inherent dignity, and that law must apply equally to all. Woke ideology rejects these premises outright, replacing truth with power and individuals with groups. That is why Christianity poses such a threat to the new orthodoxy of social justice – a reality made visible when around 100 Canadian churches were burned or vandalized, largely met with silence. The culture war is, ultimately, a battle between two religions.

The solution is not a new state religion, but the recognition that Caesar is not God, and government is not a moral authority. Nations thrive when citizens are free to worship, disagree, and pursue truth while the state confines itself to essentials, such as safety, borders, and functioning institutions. To recover what Canada once knew, we must exorcise the social justice religion currently governing us. Because the problem with theocracies – be they Islamic, Christian, or woke – is that they all make the same fatal assumption: that Caesar, meaning the state, can save souls. He cannot. He can only destroy them.

Mark D’Souza is a Toronto-based physician and author of Lost and Found: How Meaningless Living is Destroying Us and Three Keys to Fix it.

Decolonizing Academic Freedom

Zachary Patterson — Sun, 23 Nov 2025 13:01:17 GMT

Across the country, the “decolonization” of curricula, and indeed universities themselves, is being advocated as necessary and adopted with seemingly little resistance. The most recent high-profile example of this is Concordia University, which released a five-year strategic decolonization implementation plan. Its priorities, among others, are to “critically evaluate and decentre Eurocentric knowledge systems across all academic programs university-wide.” Moreover, this is to be achieved by “cultivating a ‘collective critical consciousness.’”

Universities receive large amounts of public money. Unlike private sector companies, political parties, or non-governmental organizations, they are funded to provide society with a neutral and disinterested perspective on the world and how it functions.

Academic freedom enables universities to fulfill this role and their missions as truth-seeking institutions. It does so by protecting professors from universities interfering in their scholarly activities. It’s necessary because it frees professors to openly pursue, teach, analyze, and debate important questions, even those that might challenge the status quo.

This allows for the rejection of wrong ideas while strengthening our understanding of truthful ideas. It has been an important ingredient to the secret sauce that has contributed to the incredible advances in knowledge since at least the Enlightenment.

Academic freedom is most commonly associated with the right of professors to express themselves without suffering repercussions from their universities on topics considered to be controversial. In this respect, it is epitomized by the well-known “Chicago Principles.”

Equally important for academic freedom is the political neutrality of universities. This is essential not only because universities are publicly funded, but because non-neutrality itself impinges on academic freedom. In fact, the University of Chicago also articulated this important principle in its Kalven Report.

When universities take political positions or support political causes, they implicitly and, often explicitly, interfere in the teaching, research, and commentary functions of those who work there. If you were a professor and your university took a public position on a topic, would you feel more or less free to teach, comment on, or pursue research that comes to different conclusions than those of your university?

Some argue that universities have a right and even an obligation to influence teaching and research through training on the use of new equipment and technologies, or perhaps best practices. This may be true if done neutrally. But what if the university insists on promoting political ideologies in teaching and research?

This question is central to discussions around “decolonization.” While many things could be said about the notion of decolonization and the Concordia implementation plan, it’s difficult to argue they are politically neutral.

The first sign giving the game away is the word “critical.” This is not “critical” as in critical thinking that we expect to be at the centre of a university education. No, critical here refers to “Critical Social Justice.” It’s a mix of neo-Marxist “critical theory” and postmodern theory. Its aims are variously to disrupt and subvert society with no less a goal than overthrowing Western Civilization.

If that doesn’t seem political enough, the term “critical consciousness” comes directly from the influential neo-Marxist educational theorist Paulo Freire. Freire believed that education was an inherently political act and that it should be undertaken to cultivate the critical (i.e. neo-Marxist) consciousness of students with the aim of turning them into revolutionaries.

The term “decolonization” draws on the same “critical” roots as Freire through well-known post-colonial theorists like Edward Said and, most relevant here, Frantz Fanon. Fanon was a Marxist decolonial theorist. Among other things, he is known for having justified and defended the use of violence and terrorism in conflict against “colonizers.” If he was not the intellectual inspiration for Hamas on October 7th, he is for many sympathizers of Hamas on university campuses across Canada.

As such, Concordia’s decolonization plan (as well as other decolonization initiatives at universities across the country), with its reach “across all academic programs university-wide,” seeks to advocate for, and directly impose, a radical political ideology onto university teaching and curriculum. It also implicitly imposes the ideology on research and public commentary. But these activities are exactly what academic freedom is intended to protect—even from universities themselves.

Such interference is antithetical to the entire mission of the university as a dispassionate, rational, truth-seeking institution. And besides violating academic freedom, these initiatives betray the public’s trust. Moreover, the vast majority of the Canadian public appears to disagree with the ideology inherent in these initiatives.

Since universities function and are funded at the pleasure of the public, they should refrain from undermining their core functions through the imposition of radical ideologies on faculty and students—unless, that is, they seek to be defunded.

This post originally appeared in The Hub under the title “University ‘decolonization’ is a threat to academic freedom”

Antisemitism and the Judgment of Civilizations

Mark D'Souza — Sun, 16 Nov 2025 13:01:57 GMT

“First they came for the Jews.” That line is more than a warning; it is a pattern. Societies that indulge antisemitism do not stop with Jews. The hatred metastasizes, corroding trust, institutions, and truth. That is why the roaring antisemitism now filling Western streets is a civilizational threat. The West is struggling to define itself, and the central question is tolerance. Who are we, and what do we stand for?

Antisemitism tells you more about the hater than the hated. Douglas Murray explains that Western societies have been conditioned to carry guilt – for slavery, colonialism, past injustices — yet offered no path to forgiveness. By chanting against Israel, activists project their own national sins onto Jews as a release valve. The Nazis also projected, accusing Jews of being racial supremacists.

Antisemitism thrives on splitting, a hallmark of Cluster B personality disorders. In splitting, the world is neatly divided into good and evil, oppressor and oppressed. This framework animates today’s woke umbrella religion, whether applied to race, gender, or Israel. To admit that Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East or that Hamas uses civilians as shields would shatter the illusion. This is not confusion but moral inversion. As Carl Jung warned, the unacknowledged “shadow” – the darker impulses we refuse to see in ourselves – erupts when projected onto others, so mobs feel righteous shouting “Death to Israel” or glamourizing paragliders once they’ve cast Jews as “oppressors”.

Beyond projection, antisemitism reveals a deeper resentment against excellence itself. George Gilder’s “Israel Test” puts it starkly: what is your attitude toward those who surpass you in creativity, resilience, or success? Do you admire and emulate them, or do you seethe and seek to tear them down? In this sense, antisemitism is an inverted mirror. To resent Israel is a confession that your own life hasn’t amounted to everything it could be, and you know it. Rather than rising to the challenge of excellence, the antisemite finds it easier to scapegoat.

And when societies fail this test collectively, the consequences are not abstract – they show up on our streets. In Canada, antisemitism surged 670% since October 7, 2023. Marches resound with “Allahu Akbar” alongside calls for Jewish death, Jewish businesses are vandalized, and Jewish students harassed. Meanwhile diversity committees issue dossiers on “microaggressions” while struggling to condemn open calls for genocide. (Would shooting up a synagogue be a macroaggression?) This double standard is antisemitism itself.

Pro-Israel marches feature Canadian flags and the singing of O Canada. By contrast, terror sympathizers, often masked, are reluctant to show any gratitude. What a great country we live in with freedom to protest, though these are clear signs that unbridled multiculturalism has failed. This tacit support for Iran, Hamas’ patron, insults those who fled its tyranny.

Diversity is like yoga pants: just enough makes things fit and move beautifully. Pushed too far – like diversity without shared values – and it tears at the seams. This is how we end up toppling our cultural gods – John A. MacDonald, Queen Victoria – and branding the Canadian military as rotten to its core.

Antisemitism, like every brittle ideology, has an Achilles’ heel: facts too devastating to face. Pro-Hamas activists rip down hostage posters because a single image of a Jewish civilian in a Gaza tunnel collapses the fantasy of “resistance”. The silence on hostages is itself a test. If someone waves the Palestinian flag but cannot acknowledge the kidnapped, the mask has slipped. That is antisemitism, plain and simple – the same as denying Hamas’ responsibility for Palestinian suffering.

The truth is not ambiguous. Hamas is a death cult that revels in murder. Its founding charter explicitly calls for killing all Jews. Even the Nazis tried to hide their crimes. Hamas livestreamed theirs, boasting to cheering families. One intercepted call captured the barbarity: “I killed… with my bare hands, dad…Mom, your son is a hero! Kill, kill, kill them!” Facts like these are anathema to the ideological narrative.

After the Jews, they come for Christians then for the West’s foundations. Antisemitism is a referendum on who we are as a society — in Canada, and in the West at large. Our civilization now resembles a Jenga tower. Remove Enlightenment values – merit, free speech, colourblind justice – and the whole structure teeters. The culture war is fundamentally about first principles: Judeo-Christianity insists on the dignity of the individual, while woke ideology reduces people to group identity.

If we wish to preserve the freedoms and prosperity that made the West the envy of the world — the societies people risk everything to enter — we must defend our values. As Karl Popper warned, tolerance has limits: extend it to those who despise our philosophical bedrock, and tolerance itself disappears. Multiculturalism, untethered from a unifying story, degenerates into tribalism, and the West will be destroyed by our goodness and naivety.

The threat of antisemitism is not only a collective test but an individual one. The way you respond to those who surpass you — with envy and resentment, or with admiration and emulation — reveals your true posture toward excellence. Choose the latter, and strengthen both yourself and civilization. A society that will not defend Jews will not defend anyone for long. In that case, Martin Niemöller’s chilling warning will be our own: after they came for the Jews, they came for me — and by then, there was no one left to speak for me.

The Oldest Hatred and the Blind Spot of Academia and Medicine

Mark D'Souza — Sat, 08 Nov 2025 13:00:34 GMT

As a teenager and future Canadian physician, I visited the Wannsee Conference building—now a museum just outside Berlin—and stood in the room where the “Final Solution” was formalized—the Nazi plan for extermination of the Jews. I was horrified to learn that 8 of the 15 signatories had doctoral degrees. This is a stark reminder: academia is not immune to moral corruption. 8 decades later, the same hatred has resurfaced in progressive clothing.

Wannsee Conference building, by A.Savin, Wikipedia

That history should make us vigilant, as antisemitism mutates, taking on fresh disguises in every age – and disturbingly, medicine and academia are once again bending to a verboten zeitgeist. One study from 2024 showed a gross asymmetry between medical school and medical association statements on the wars in Ukraine and in the Middle East. And a more recently published study, cheekily titled Ask Your Doctor if Jihad is Right for You, found that health professionals are 2.5 times more likely to be antisemitic than the general population. Doctors specifically are 26 times over-represented among publicly identified antisemites. Likewise, nearly 50% of our Teutonic physician predecessors were Nazi party members, and physicians were 7 times more likely to have joined the SS. What is our profession’s affinity for such timeless hatred?

As a prime example of corrosive woke curricula, last year first-year UCLA medical students in their mandatory structural racism and equity course were taught by a masked lecturer wearing a keffiyeh who praised the October 7 Hamas attacks. The speaker derided modern medicine as “white science”, led the medical students in “free Palestine” chants, and asked that they bow down to “Mama Earth”, another reminder of the religious underpinning of the woke movement.

Closer to home, many Jewish physicians at the University of Toronto resigned their affiliation with the school for a failure to protect Jewish students and professors – for example, fellow faculty calling for intifada at rallies, and physical confrontations during the lengthy pro-Hamas encampment calling for Jews to return to Europe. This echoed the institution’s past Jewish-limiting quotas from the 1920s through the 1960s. A 1959 memorandum explains: “There is a definite limitation imposed by the selection committee on the number of Jewish students…” It cited examples where Jews were rejected in favour of non-Jews with lower grades. For Canada’s flagship medical school, “never again” came with an asterisk.

But antisemitism is felt from coast to coast throughout the medical profession. A survey revealed that 31% of Jewish doctors are seriously considering leaving Canada. I personally know several that are.

Why the connection in 2025? Academia has been marinating under DEI – diversity, equity, inclusivity – and all DEI roads ultimately lead to antisemitism. When people are reduced to group identity in an oppressor-oppressed binary, the disproportionately successful minority becomes the scapegoat.

Antisemitism manifests most reliably as double standards: holding Jews or Israel to harsher judgment than any other group. A study of DEI university staff’s X feeds found that 96% of tweets about Israel were critical. China received about 1/3 as much attention, most of it favourable. Notably, this study was from 2021, 2 years before Hamas’ 2023 attacks. Such examples illustrate why antisemitism is so often the ideological Achilles’ heel. It exposes the brittleness of belief systems that pretend to stand for justice while tolerating — even celebrating — the oldest injustice.

When institutions champion the oppressed but single out Jews for exceptional criticism, the Trojan horse of DEI is laid bare. So long as wokeism functions as our state religion, the flames of antisemitism will always be fanned. Israel, as Douglas Murray notes, is judged not by a double but a triple standard—scrutinized more harshly than democracies, excused less than dictatorships, and uniquely held to an impossible moral ideal. It was Rabbi Jonathan Sacks who famously called antisemitism a mutating virus. Jews have been hated at times throughout history for being poor, rich, not having a state, and, now for having a state.

Why focus on antisemitism, when hatred abounds? Because it functions as a civilizational barometer. French philosopher René Girard described how societies project their tensions onto scapegoats; by expelling or destroying the victim, they achieve a false unity. Judaism and Christianity disrupted this mechanism by insisting on the innocence of the victim. That insight desacralized violence and birthed modern human rights. Many activists, steeped in moral guilt about the West’s past, project their resentment onto Jews—and with schadenfreude, revel in cutting down a people who have succeeded disproportionately. How does 0.2% of the world’s population bag 25-30% of all Nobel prizes? It’s easier to hate and harbour conspiracy theories than aspire to rigorous study and work habits.

The uncomfortable truth is that medicine and academia again risk walking down that dark road paved with intellectual hubris. We physicians pride ourselves on ethics — but history shows how quickly ethics can be rationalized away when ideology demands it. The lesson of Wannsee is that no profession is immune from ideological capture. If our medical schools and universities cannot protect Jewish members against ideological scapegoating, then the same structures cannot be trusted to defend freedom of conscience, speech, or religion, for anyone. Canada’s institutions must reclaim their moral nerve: name antisemitism for what it is, resist its disguises, and refuse to sacrifice truth for ideological convenience. Tell the difference between healing and scapegoating, or medicine and academia at large will forfeit the trust they cannot live without.

Mark D’Souza is a Toronto-based physician and author of Lost and Found: How Meaningless Living is Destroying Us and Three Keys to Fix it.

Acknowledging God and Truth: The Founding Mottos on Canadian University Emblems

Brady Loenhart — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 12:02:55 GMT

“Τὰ Πάντα Ἐν Χριστῷ Συνέστηκεν” — All Things Hold Together in Christ.

This audacious declaration, taken directly from Colossians 1:17, is the official motto of McMaster University. It makes a bold claim: Christ is the integrating principle of all knowledge. Every discipline, every field of study finds its coherence and meaning in Him.

The Latin mottos emblazoned on the shields of Canadian and American universities reveal something profound: our most prestigious academic institutions were built on foundations of faith, truth-seeking, and divine wisdom. In an era where universities face unprecedented challenges, from bitter polarization to restrictions on open dialogue, there’s wisdom in examining these founding mottos as potential guideposts for renewal.

Mottos like Harvard’s past “Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae” (Truth for Christ and the Church) or “Quaecumque Sunt Vera” (Whatsoever Things Are True) at St. Francis Xavier and the University of Alberta show an unwavering commitment to truth as something sacred and transcendent. These institutions believed truth existed and was worth pursuing with everything they had. They understood that real academic freedom flows from humility: acknowledging that truth is bigger than any individual or ideology.

The Emblems That Speak: A Non-Exhaustive Collection

What follows is a curated collection of university mottos that particularly resonated with me. This is by no means an exhaustive list—there are many more Canadian institutions with equally inspiring mottos—but these represent examples that speak powerfully to the founding vision of higher education. Few American examples provided as well.

Acadia University

In Pulvere Vinces
In Dust Thou Shalt Conquer
Official Heraldry

This striking motto speaks to humility as the foundation of true achievement. The dust imagery evokes both human mortality and the fertile ground from which great things grow. It’s a reminder that lasting victories come not from pride or power, but from recognizing our humble origins.

Bishop’s University

Recti Cultus Pectora Roborant
Sound Learning Strengthens the Spirit
Official Heraldry

This motto beautifully captures the holistic vision of education—not merely filling minds with information, but strengthening the human spirit itself. Learning, when done rightly, fortifies the soul.

Dalhousie University

Ora et Labora
Pray and Work
More about Dalhousie’s History

The ancient Benedictine motto adopted by Dalhousie encapsulates the integration of spiritual life and practical action. True education requires both contemplation and labor, prayer and effort working in harmony.

McGill University

Grandescunt Aucta Labore
By Work, All Things Increase and Grow
And on the family crest:
In Domino Confido
I Trust in the Lord (from Psalms)
Official Heraldry

McGill’s dual mottos present both human effort and divine trust. Growth requires labor, but the foundation is confidence in God. This balance between human agency and divine providence characterized the vision of education.

McMaster University

Τὰ Πάντα Ἐν Χριστῷ Συνέστηκεν
All Things Hold Together in Christ (Colossians 1:17)
Official Heraldry

This direct Biblical quotation in Greek makes an audacious claim: Christ is the integrating principle of all knowledge. Every discipline, every field of study, finds its coherence and meaning in Him. This wasn’t sectarian education; it was education grounded in the belief that all truth is ultimately unified.

Mount Allison University

Litterae, Religio, Scientia
Literature, Religion, Science
Official Heraldry

The trilogy speaks volumes: authentic education requires the humanities (literature), spiritual formation (religion), and empirical investigation (science). Not one at the expense of others, but all three integrated as essential components of learning.

Queen’s University

Sapientia et Doctrina Stabilitas
Wisdom and Knowledge Shall Be the Stability (inspired by Isaiah 33:6)
Official Heraldry

Drawing from Isaiah’s prophecy, Queen’s motto identifies wisdom and knowledge as the foundation of societal stability. Not military might, not economic power, but the pursuit of truth provides lasting security.

St. Francis Xavier University

Quaecumque Sunt Vera
Whatsoever Things Are True (Philippians 4:8)
Visual Identity Information

Another direct New Testament quotation, this motto from Paul’s letter to the Philippians establishes the breadth of truth-seeking. The “whatsoever” is crucial: truth is truth, wherever it’s found, and all of it worthy of pursuit.

The University of Regina

As one who serves (Luke 22:27)
Official Heraldry

Drawing from Jesus’s teaching about servant leadership, Regina’s motto frames education as preparation for service rather than power. Knowledge exists not for personal advancement but for serving others.

Université Laval

Deo Favente Haud Pluribus Impar
By God’s Favor, Not Unequal to Many
Official Heraldry

This motto acknowledges that any accomplishment ultimately depends on divine favor. Human achievement, including academic excellence, is a gift requiring humility and gratitude.

University of Alberta

Quaecumque Vera
Whatsoever Things Are True (Philippians 4:8)
Official Heraldry

Sharing a similar motto with St. Francis Xavier, the University of Alberta embraced the same comprehensive commitment to truth from all sources.

University of Ottawa

Deus Scientiarum Dominus Est
God is the Master of the Sciences
Official Heraldry

A bold theological claim: God is not only the creator but the master of all sciences. This motto positions every academic discipline as ultimately under divine authority and coherence.

University of Saskatchewan

Deo et Patriae
For God and Country
Official Heraldry | Historical Context

Education serves two masters: divine purpose and national flourishing. Service to God and service to country were understood as complementary, not competing loyalties.

Western University

Veritas et Utilitas
Truth and Usefulness

Western’s motto balances the pursuit of truth with practical application. Knowledge should be both true and useful, combining intellectual rigor with real-world benefit.

Wilfrid Laurier University

Veritas Omnia Vincit
Truth Conquers All
Official Heraldry

A personal favorite (my alma mater). This motto makes perhaps the boldest claim of all: truth doesn’t just exist, doesn’t just matter, it conquers. Not through force or coercion, but through its inherent power. The coat of arms features symbols of Canadian identity, Lutheran heritage, and learning, with a beaver bearing the torch of enlightenment. If truth really does conquer all, then we have nothing to fear from honest inquiry. This motto isn’t defensive; it’s confident in truth’s ultimate victory.

What about some well-known American examples? They follow the same pattern and help illustrate just how widespread these founding principles were.

Harvard University

Veritas
Truth
Historically also: Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae
Truth for Christ and the Church
Harvard Shield History

Perhaps the most famous academic motto in the world, Harvard’s simple declaration of “Truth” once carried a fuller meaning. The original motto explicitly connected truth-seeking to Christ and the Church, acknowledging that ultimate truth had a divine source.

Princeton University

Dei Sub Numine Viget
Under God’s Power She Flourishes

Princeton’s motto exemplifies the same principle seen across Canadian institutions: flourishing depends on divine power. Academic excellence isn’t self-generated but rooted in God’s blessing.

Columbia University

In Lumine Tuo Videbimus Lumen
In Thy Light Shall We See Light (Psalm 36:9)
Columbia Heraldry

This example parallels Canadian thinking: human understanding depends on divine illumination. We see light (truth, knowledge, wisdom) only in God’s light. This motto elegantly captures the epistemological humility that characterized these institutions.

The Pattern: Truth as Sacred, Wisdom as Divine

Looking across these mottos, a clear pattern emerges:

Truth is not subjective or negotiable: it’s something to be discovered, pursued, and served. Institutions like Harvard, St. Francis Xavier, and the University of Alberta declared their commitment to “whatsoever things are true,” suggesting truth exists independently of human opinion.

Divine wisdom grounds all learning. From McMaster’s “All things hold together in Christ” to Ottawa’s “God is the Master of the Sciences,” these institutions saw God as the ultimate source and integrator of knowledge.

Humility precedes excellence. Whether it’s Acadia’s “In Dust Thou Shalt Conquer” or Laval’s acknowledgment of divine favor, these mottos reflect institutions that understood human achievement requires recognizing something greater than ourselves.

Education serves higher purposes. Mottos referencing service (Regina), stability (Queen’s), and both God and country (Saskatchewan) frame education as fundamentally about serving transcendent goods, not merely personal advancement.

When Universities Remembered Their Foundations

These mottos weren’t marketing slogans; they were foundational declarations of what these institutions existed to do. When McGill declared “I Trust in the Lord” or McMaster proclaimed that “All Things Hold Together in Christ,” they were making philosophical and theological commitments about the nature of truth, knowledge, and education itself.

The founders understood something we’ve largely forgotten: genuine intellectual freedom requires acknowledging that truth is bigger than us. When you believe truth is transcendent and sacred, you approach learning with both confidence and humility. Confidence that truth exists and can be found, humility that you don’t possess it completely and must remain open to correction.

This paradoxically creates more space for disagreement and debate than modern relativism. If truth is just subjective preference, then disagreement becomes personal attack. But if truth is transcendent and worth pursuing together, then disagreement becomes collaborative investigation. Iron sharpens iron precisely because both believe the blade can actually become sharper, that truth can be approximated more closely through rigorous engagement.

The Modern Challenge: Can We Recover What We’ve Lost?

Today’s universities face unprecedented challenges:

Political polarization that makes genuine debate nearly impossible
Speech restrictions that limit inquiry in the name of protecting feelings
Ideological conformity that punishes dissent and rewards groupthink
Loss of shared purpose as institutions fragment into competing identity groups
Erosion of trust as universities are seen as partisan actors rather than truth-seekers

Is it coincidence that these problems intensified as universities abandoned their founding principles? When Harvard quietly dropped “Christo et Ecclesiae” from its motto, keeping only “Veritas,” did it lose something essential: the grounding that made truth-seeking meaningful?

When institutions stopped believing in transcendent truth, they became unmoored. If there’s no truth to discover, only power to exercise and narratives to construct, then universities become merely battlegrounds for competing ideologies. The strongest narrative wins, not the truest one.

Conclusion

These mottos aren’t gathering dust in archives. They’re invitations to remember what made these institutions great. When universities anchored themselves in transcendent truth, they created spaces where iron sharpened iron, where disagreement coexisted with respect, and where pursuing knowledge was itself an act of reverence.

The path forward isn’t found in new policies or political victories. It’s in recovering what we’ve forgotten. When institutions recognize truth as sacred rather than subjective, wisdom as divine rather than merely human, and learning as service rather than power, genuine diversity of thought can flourish. History proves the point: academic freedom hasn’t been threatened by acknowledging God. It has thrived under such acknowledgment.

Imagine for a moment: what would our world look like if those who wield political and corporate power lived as though they stood before an all-knowing God—One from whom no truth can be hidden, before whom no deception stands? What transformation might unfold if our leaders governed not merely by opinion polls and profit margins, but with the fear and reverence due to One who sees everything?

“In Lumine Tuo Videbimus Lumen” (In Thy Light Shall We See Light). This isn’t religious imposition. It’s a return to the humility and wonder that makes true learning possible. If truth really does conquer all, then we have nothing to fear from honest inquiry and open debate.

The foundation stones are still there, inscribed with wisdom from centuries past. The question is whether we have the courage to build on them again.

P.S. Maybe we should dare to ask ourselves why the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms itself opens with a preamble that reads:

Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law:

Notice that colon. In my opinion, it’s the single most powerful colon in Canadian law, connecting every freedom that should be afforded to you in Canada with one simple statement. The freedoms that follow don’t exist in a vacuum. They flow from foundational principles: the supremacy of God and the rule of law.

Perhaps Canada’s universities and Canada’s Charter were both trying to tell us something we’ve been too eager to forget.

Note: This is a non-exhaustive collection of university mottos that particularly resonated with me. Many other Canadian institutions have equally inspiring founding principles worth exploring. For official heraldry information, please visit the Canadian Heraldic Authority and individual university websites.

"Do I work for a public university, or Tony Soprano?"

Geoff Horsman — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 12:02:12 GMT

On September 22nd, I appeared before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Science and Research. I was invited as an expert witness for their study “Impact of the criteria for awarding federal funding on research excellence in Canada.”

Late this week, I began receiving emails thanking me for speaking out (presumably due to this clip on YouTube). While wonderful to receive, the messages revealed severely isolated dissenting academics. Few have established support networks, and they are insecure about speaking their mind. As a result, they quietly conform to values antithetical to their own.

This begets a spiral of silence. Fear keeps people from challenging EDI injustices. Lack of dissent builds false consensus, which further increases the risk of speaking out.

Few truly agree with the race/sex discrimination, censorship, and compelled speech of EDI, yet it has quickly permeated every institutional nook and cranny. A small number of activists—willing to punish dissenters—have entrenched this illiberal worldview. But if only a few can inflict such damage, then a small committed band of liberal defenders can stop it.

Being free to follow your conscience and communicate your honest thoughts is non-negotiable in a free society. We should accept no less. Administrators trying to improve employee engagement need not concern themselves with support groups and petting zoos. They need only aggressively promote a liberal culture of open contestation, and improved morale will follow.

I hope that my testimony, among others, may help motivate people to speak their minds. We need a Spartacus moment. I believe it will come. But each of us needs to engage and speak honestly, including those who support EDI.

Below is the text of my testimony followed by a video that includes questions from MPs of the standing committee.

This year my long-held NSERC Discovery Grant was not renewed. Not for any scientific reason, but for a political one. Specifically, I was unable to profess sufficiently enthusiastic support for the official state ideology of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, or EDI, which one now must do to receive Tri-Council funding.

Essentially, scientists must say how they will recruit diverse people and identify and address “systemic barriers” to inclusion.

I attempted to meet these requirements by arguing that, because EDI requires racial discrimination and speech restrictions—policies opposed by most Canadians—EDI is itself a barrier to inclusion. To overcome this barrier, I proposed ensuring that EDI critics feel included and that we prioritize a culture of free speech and viewpoint diversity, without which science simply cannot flourish.

The NSERC evaluation committee obviously did not buy my interpretation of EDI.

Unhelpfully, my rejection was accompanied only by the vague scolding that I did not “describe an approach to recruit a diverse HQP and provide an inclusive training environment.” While friendly enough, NSERC program officers couldn’t tell me what this meant.

Luckily, a senior administrator at my university who speaks Tri-Council could decipher this message. He relayed to me that, while I don’t have to sincerely support EDI, I most certainly must give the impression that I do. Just say what needs be said, and get your money.

To attract a diverse array of candidates, for example, I was told it’s not enough to assume that those interested in my work will seek me out with a simple email. Instead, I must boldly proclaim my commitment to finding diversity at intersectional sanctuaries like the campus Rainbow Centre. This is puzzling advice. Not least because, of those struggling to find people on the internet, it seems unlikely that foremost among them are members of the gay community.

Now, senior administrators are very attuned to the linguistic practices surrounding the acquisition of public funds, so this advice rings broadly true—the Tri-Council aims to tell us what to think and what to say.

For skeptics, let me quote from the EDI Best Practices Guide. It says, systemic barriers may be “‘unseen’ to those who do not experience them,” but nonetheless “all individuals must recognize that systemic barriers exist.”

It would be charitable to describe this as pseudoscience. Reputable scientists require experimental results to be universally observable and replicable by people of other languages and cultures, centuries into the future. Claiming that knowledge is invisible to some people—based on skin colour, for example—is anti-science.

In other words, the Government requires scientists to affirm the existence of phenomena that are not empirically verifiable. To invoke Paul McCartney, it’s beginning to feel like we’re “Back in the USSR.”

So how has this nonsense so completely permeated Canada’s research ecosystem? Well, after a few cancellations, people fall in line. Fear leads to self-censorship, and open, vigorous debate fizzles out.

I’ve tried to discuss EDI on campus a few times, with the following results:

First, I was told that “EDI is not debatable” by two different administrators, on two separate occasions.

Second, I was kindly advised to stop talking about EDI because I have a family. I should think about my kids, I was told. It made me wonder, do I work for a public university, or Tony Soprano?

To summarize: Tri-Council EDI requirements are compelled political speech, and we find ourselves here because many have allowed themselves to be silenced.

I will leave you with two broad recommendations that I believe are critical for restoring the integrity of science; the first is corrective, the second preventative.

1. As a CORRECTIVE measure: depoliticize science funding—this includes, among other things, removing EDI requirements.

2. As a PREVENTATIVE measure: entrench a culture of free speech, which is the best defense against bad ideas. All recent manias—from gender medicine to EDI—could have been avoided had they been openly debated from the start. I propose an Office of Devil’s Advocacy, to fund evidence-based arguments against emerging scientific fads. This builds in viewpoint diversity and ensures that counterpoints are officially aired. Everyone benefits as ideas are defended, sharpened, and refined.

I am happy to expand on any of these points during questions, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to be heard. Thank you.

Global Math Divides

Kent Osband — Sun, 12 Oct 2025 12:02:24 GMT

One of the most striking trends in world economic development since 1960 has been the widening gap between east Asia and sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). While SSA population has grown much faster, east Asians have become much richer and better educated. Economic studies link this to regional differences in students’ math competence, which average three intra-country standard deviations. How much of this is cause or effect, and how social or genetic influences weave in, remain unclear. However, they seem persistent enough that east Asia will likely retain throughout this century a strong comparative advantage in math-heavy occupations, while SSA will remain relatively math-light. In recognition of this, SSA has geared most of its educational systems to focus on basic arithmetic competence, without trying to emulate the world’s leaders.

East Asia—Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and coastal China—regularly dominates the global math tests administered by OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) for 15-year-olds and by Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS) for 4^th and 8^th graders. The laggards are more dispersed. In the past few years, most countries tested in Latin America, southeast Asia, and the Muslim world—rich city states excepted—had means that were 2.0-2.5 standard deviations lower than the east Asian mean. (My standard deviation measure averages the reported intra-country standard deviations; the aggregate standard deviation is about 20% larger.)

However, countries in South Asia and SSA tend not to be tested, partly due to logistic challenges but mostly due to embarrassingly low scores in experimental runs, ranging from near the bottom of PISA or TIMMS rankings to much lower. Since a dearth of evidence might not evidence a dearth, I used the World Bank’s Human Capital Index for 2020, which is 0.94 correlated with PISA’s 2022 mean scores and 0.86 correlated with TIMMS’ 2023 mean scores for 8^th graders. They project a roughly 2.5 standard deviation lag for India relative to east Asia and a roughly 3.0 standard deviation lag for Pakistan and SSA. This is consistent with findings for Senegal and Zambia in 2018 from experiments with “PISA for Development”. A comprehensive report in 2016 for the World Bank corroborated the lags in more detail (see Chapter 3).

These disparities make it very difficult to narrow regional differences in incomes. According to the Penn World Tables database, Singapore, South Korea, and China in 1960 all had lower per capita GDP in purchasing power parity (PPP) than Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria. At the time, most economists viewed economic development as largely a function of infrastructure of fixed capital investment. In hindsight, the statistical measures most correlated with per capita growth have involved human capital. Hanushek and Woessmann, two experts on the economics of education, found that cognitive skills, as estimated by the highly correlated average of math and science scores in TIMMS, explain longer-term rates of economic growth far better than nominal years of schooling:

“School attainment is never statistically significant in the presence of the direct cognitive-skill measure of human capital. One standard deviation in test scores (measured at the OECD student level) is associated with a two percentage points higher average annual growth rate in GDP per capita across 40 years.”

While my previous essays on ethnic and gender disparities posited relatively stable Gaussian distributions, that seems inappropriate in analyzing big differences across countries. The core lags are rooted in poor education: limited hours and offerings, unknowledgeable or uninspired teachers, weak parental and peer support. Each generation that acquires some education will better prime the next. Furthermore, subgroups can set much higher standards and tap into cutting-edge knowhow, making the upper tails much fatter than Gaussian approximations suggest. This is particularly evident in India, whose admissions exams for its top engineering institutes rank among the worlds’ most exacting.

South Asia and SSA do not try to make a single pedagogy handle both extremes. Their main systems focus on raising competencies that PISA and TIMMS consider too low to reasonably evaluate. Two African consortiums SEACMEQ and PASEC monitor students in mostly Anglophone and Francophone countries respectively for degrees of basic learning. Hanushek and Woessmann found that both basic STEM competence and higher-level STEM competence fuel economic growth. While basic levels were less potent than high levels, they were cheaper to produce.

Knowledge Capital

Hanushek and Woessmann frame cognitive skills as “knowledge capital”. This helps defuse the nature versus nurture arguments that derail many discussions of intelligence. Slower learners may surpass faster learners if they study longer and harder. In that sense, mean scores on standardized tests of 10-year-olds to 15-year-olds invariably mislead. What most matters is how much competence they eventually acquire. Pace and interim levels gain credence mainly because diplomas are tied to years in school.

However, the term “knowledge capital” misleads too. It is not the stock of know-how that humans most value, or else LLMs would immediately replace us. Rather, it is the ability to process new information, drawing on what we already think we know, which includes discarding what we thought was true but evidently isn’t. Education fortifies that ability. Indoctrination numbs it. Two of the great advantages of math education are that it encourages creative problem-solving and provides clear ways to identify errors.

Another shortcoming of the term “knowledge capital” is the hint of exclusive property rights. In practice, most know-how eventually gets shared widely, and most institutions that cultivate know-how aim to share it faster even if they ring-fence some against commercial rivals. It follows that what we most want of teachers is good cognitive skills that they share. The more eager and advanced the students, the more cognitive skills the teacher needs. Conversely, with struggling students—particularly students struggling not to be there—teachers need to act more like drill sergeants drumming in fundamentals even if they veil it nicely.

When the majority of students fall well below desired standards, schools naturally focus on remedial help. Absent ability grouping, this leaves a talented minority underserved. While advanced online learning is more accessible than ever before, it tends to leave learners feeling isolated. Humans are such social animals that most prefer learning with each other than learning on their own. Perhaps LLMs can learn to provide a more emotionally satisfying engagement.

In the meantime, the teacher-led classroom of mixed abilities remains the overwhelmingly dominant form of instruction. With few exceptions, East Asian classrooms cover significantly more advanced material than corresponding African classrooms and stretch faster learners more. This expands east Asian diversity in math competence relative to African diversity. It is very hard to counter this as advanced training generally helps the best learners most. For the 81 countries tested by PISA in math in 2022, internal standard deviations were 0.8 correlated with means.

It follows that east Asia will tend to outperform SSA even more in the top tiers of math competence. Of course, this does not rule out major outperformance by African individuals or subgroups, which we should scout for and promote. I am simply noting a statistical regularity that will shape global inequality for the rest of this century. The ethnic disparities in the US look relatively mild in comparison.

Social Justice Critique

From a “social justice” perspective, core differences in group performance are mostly relics of Western colonialism or products of capitalist oppression. Enlightened elites trained at progressive universities could blaze a better path forward. Racial/ethnic targets for STEM admissions, hiring, and promotion would narrow the gaps without impairing quality.

Unfortunately, the evidence refutes these musings. Let’s start with the universities’ own experiences. They were founded and aided on the principle that top professors working with top students added more valuable social know-how than random shuffling or intentionally coupling weak with strong. In the short run that is bound to widen disparities in competence, even though the brewed know-how eventually percolates more broadly.

As for colonialism, three of the world’s top performers in general math competence are former colonies: Singapore, Hong Kong, and Macao. The two lowest ranking countries in PISA 2022 math tests were Cambodia and Paraguay, whose colonial yokes were much milder than their neighbors’. This should not surprise, since the main disparity between colonizers and colonized was the former’s better grasp and application of STEM. Japan’s successful pushback against colonialism hinged on its rapid mastery of Western know-how.

As for capitalist oppression, a previous essay noted that over half a century of ardently anti-capitalist rule in the Soviet Union left big ethnic disparities in STEM representations. While that partly reflected Russian nationalist influences, the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 has given the former Soviet republics a generation to gain or regain their independent bearings. Eleven of them took PISA tests between 2015 and 2022. I have averaged their scores and measured the Margins versus top performer Estonia as the mean gap in performance divided by the mean intra-country standard deviation. The Margins average -0.9 with Uzbekistan 1.8 behind Estonia, and the untested Central Asian countries would likely have been lower.

For a broader perspective, we can compare the PISA math scores and log per capita GDP in purchasing power parity terms for all countries formerly in the Soviet bloc or socialist Yugoslavia. The correlation is 0.83. Each 1.0 improvement in Margin is associated on average with a doubling of per capita GDP.

Why is the correlation between math competence and per capita incomes so high? I don’t know. One partial explanation—namely, that STEM education raises competence and productivity—seems so potentially cost-effective that it seems silly not to make it a development priority. However, there are no signs that education per se equalizes group performance. The rising tide seems to lift the best boats highest.

The Canadian university is antithetical to the true mission of the university

Zachary Patterson — Sun, 05 Oct 2025 12:01:28 GMT

Context: Remarks by Zachary Patterson at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute event, Rethinking Higher Education: Free Inquiry, Policy, and the Future of Learning, Thursday, August 28th at 9:00 am. Made in Panel # 2: Restoring Merit in Higher Education and Teaching Critical Thinking in an Age of Polarization

In my remarks I’m going to answer the question of whether the contemporary university is respecting its mission.

The short answer is that the de facto mission of the Canadian university is antithetical to the true mission of the university. Here’s why.

The mission of the university is truth seeking. It’s held up by two pillars, one metaphysical and one epistemic, that have guided the university since it emerged spontaneously in Bologna and Paris in the 12th century.

The metaphysical pillar is simply that a transcendent truth exists. As Fox Mulder said “the truth is out there.”

The epistemic pillar is that the truth can be approached through the uninhibited presentation of explanations or hypotheses, that are then subjected to robust and open debate based on reason and evidence.

The mission of the modern Canadian university on the other hand is identitarian retributive redistribution known under various names such as equity or decolonization.

This mission rests on two replacement pillars. The replacement metaphysical pillar is the self-contradictory claim that all knowledge or truth is socially constructed by so-called oppressors at the expense of the so-called oppressed. It’s self-contradictory because the claim itself is considered inviolable, that is, not socially constructed.

This flows naturally to the replacement epistemic claim that only explanations consistent with the metaphysical claim are acceptable. Fealty to the metaphysical claim is demanded in the form of loyalty oaths in job and funding applications, and all manner of administrative arm-twisting and jawboning.

Anything that stands in the way or contradicts these metaphysical and epistemic claims is on the chopping block.

As a result, the de facto mission of the Canadian university is antithetical to its true mission. It also abandons at least 2,500 years of Western civilization.

This is not hyperbole. It is the goal of the ideology giving the mission to the contemporary Canadian university - it’s what Decolonization is. It’s what Antonio Gramsci had in mind when he scribbled in his notebooks from a prison cell in Turi di Bari in the 1930s.

It goes without saying that this is almost all paid for by the Canadian public to the tune of around $44B per year. One in three Canadian-born young people go through the university system which is both antithetical to the true mission of the university and hostile to the foundational institutions of Canada that have made it peaceful, orderly and well-governed.

The institutions to which this ideology is hostile include among many others: freedom of speech, free enterprise, capitalism, equality, the rule of law, family, marriage, Christianity and Judaism.

At the same time, you will be hard-pressed to find professors on a university campus willing to defend any of these foundational institutions.

The reason is that these foundational institutions are what they call “right-coded” and right, on university campuses is a four-letter word. In fact, the right has basically been purged from universities.

It’s hard to understand why Canadians - of any political stripe, apart from the radical-far-left - continue to fund these institutions that are so influential and at the same time antithetical to the mission of the university itself and hostile to our country and its origins. It’s extraordinary to think that we’re spending only $30B to defend our country (well below our commitments to NATO) but $44B to subvert, delegitimize and destabilize it.

My Suspension of Disbelief and the Treacherous Two-Tier University of Toronto

Leigh Revers — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 12:01:55 GMT

Why ideologically captive universities like mine are blinkered to their own asymmetric behaviours and how it must all, inevitably, come to an end.

I’ve written earlier in the year about freedom of expression and its untimely demise at our once-esteemed Canadian institutions of higher education. In that liturgy, I mourned academic freedom’s gruesome passing, bludgeoned into the dust by a murderous administrative regime that has now—for long—usurped control of our universities. The craven, credentialled but wholly irrational mavens among our higher-ups—which is absolutely all of them—have peddled an unpalatable gruel of social justice advocacy that has been served up in one form or another in every corner of the campus; and it has prompted an increasing number of bilious professors to make an existential dash for the vomitorium. I am one of those.

It has come as no surprise (really, none at all) that I have been assailed from all sides. Why? Because today’s stunning reality seems to be that I represent one among the ranks of those anointed few that still remain among my otherwise terminally timid contemporaries, the ones who still cleave to empiricism and the primacy of truth. Now, I’m no match for Leslie Howard’s masterful portrayal of Supermarine Spitfire designer, R. J. Mitchell in the 1942 biopic, The First of the Few, a movie which Howard also directed; and my contributions are certainly not going to turn the tide of the ongoing war, as his innovative aircraft design undeniably did as the Battle of Britain raged over England’s skies.

Leslie Howard plays R. J. Mitchell, the designer of the Supermarine Spitfire that arguable won the Battle of Britain, in The First of the Few (1942). Image courtesy of Amazon.

How can an openly gay man embody Judas, become such an apostate, and turn traitor to the cause? No wonder they hate me so much. There are, doubtless, images of me on dart boards on office walls, pin-cushioned with projectiles. But those missiles are harmless, they are easily deflected; and they are hurled by unthinking ideologues who cannot see beyond their own noses.

In recent days, the battle has become ever more ridiculous and, let’s be honest, spectacularly jejune. Readers of my Substack and of the wider print media will recall my strenuous objections to being labelled as a catalyst of transphobia by my department at the University of Toronto Mississauga, where I am still a tenured faculty in the so-called teaching stream, despite my many unfashionable opinions. We can get into arguments about the merit of that status, and whether I in fact have tenure or am simply a ‘continuing appointment’ but it makes little difference. Whichever is the case, they cannot eject me from my job quite so easily as, I imagine, they would like.

But I have, rather, chosen early retirement from university life as an effective one-shot panacea that will banish that modern ailment of the Western academic—pervasive social justice lunacy among the educated elite. Fortunately for me, and much to my satisfaction, this superannuated echelon of overpaid mid-wits is under siege, and their names are all written on the populist revolutionary wall in massive, serifed lettering. Already the cogs are grinding in the opposing direction, as became clear from the recent declarations by Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, who announced significant curtailment of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the provincial education system.

Heartened by news from my homeland that the highest judicial body in the nation had finally concluded that men and women are two different and immutable categories in biology, and reflecting on my own lived experiences being denigrated by those above me for even countenancing a debate on such topics, I took to writing about my sense of vindication over the Easter period. It felt strangely religious, like the coming of the Lord’s judgement, despite my ingrained atheistic tendencies, and I chose to riff on that sentiment. Biological sex was at last being resurrected in modern times, like the Christ who arose. And, boy, was Mary Magdalene, the witness to the new dawn of a religion, astonished when the truth finally dawned on her.

But, for an unbeliever like me, such revelations are slight and superficial when compared to my own reality after I was called—I will resist saying frogmarched—into yet another meeting with my dean in recent days. Being of a sanguine disposition, I expected to receive the routine treatment that I have successfully weathered on no less than four previous occasions. Being British, I am a stickler for fair play, and it’s uncharitable to point fingers or assign blame to the current decanal incumbent, who finds himself cosplaying for an interim term as UTM’s fourth face in that undesirable role in as many years.

Glancing disinterestedly across the table in his office, accompanied by my stalwart colleague, and author, Mark D’Souza, I recognise in the dean the unconcealed weariness that stems from the seemingly endless torrent of risible and frivolous complaints that, daily, land on his desk. Here is a man with the resigned frown of someone doing their duty. [Sidenote: Apologies, Sir, I made an assumption about your gender identity there.]

In that meeting we discussed my priors, and in particular the official letter of warning I had received from his predecessor—a fellow gay man as it turns out, so doubtless we have some shared oppressions—who had dispatched his reprimand just a few hours before departing UTM to take up the mantle of Vice-Provost of the university, leaving in his wake a cadre of blinking staffers here on the Mississauga campus who had just completed an expensive overhaul of a recently acquired residential property long slated to be the dean’s official residence. For those legally-minded out there who happen to be reading this: I have the receipts.

To be clear, those tax-payer subsidised efforts were wholly in vain, and the pricey designer furniture was no longer needed, or so it would appear. I highly doubt that our new dean has taken up residence in 3338 Mississauga Road. I am still pondering what became of the living room Eames chair that was ordered as part of the fancy refurbishment, presumably tossed into a skip like Glen’s inauspiciously flamboyant office chair in Armando Iannucci’s The Thick of It, and later lampooned by Prime Ministerial enforcer Malcolm Tucker as resembling “a massive vibrating throne.” But that is another story for another time.

Gated entrance to the residence at 3338 Mississauga Road, which UTM administrators had earmarked to serve as the previous dean's new home during his tenure at the campus. Image courtesy of Google Street View.

The consequence? This week I received an early-morning wake-up email from the dean’s assistant unilaterally declaring I was to serve a three-day unpaid suspension from my job, ostensibly for ridiculing my peers; and my using unforgivable language impuning their opinions and political positions defending today’s transgender madness as being a tad ‘stupid.’ Of course, this is a textbook example of victim-blaming, one entirely at odds with the meeting that had taken place in front of witnesses. On that occasion, towards the end of the meeting, the Acting Dean had stated,

“... There is always … an opportunity to see if we can have resolution. […] discipline usually takes place when you have failed at coming to a resolution or there’s been an egregious breech of something. There’s grey areas here and I recognize [what] you went through yourself, so let see if we can find a way forward. I’m not guaranteeing it, but I’d like to explore that first before going in another disciplinary pathway, if we can.

Or words to that effect; I cannot be certain. We had to scribble our notes down.

The pivotal phrase, of course, is “I’m not guaranteeing it.”

The decision-making flows from above. Such a revelation is obvious because the stubborn blight of social justice reaches far higher into the crown of the prestigious oak tree—that once noble sigil symbolising the University of Toronto’s endurance and resilience—and is more than likely poisoning its highest canopy. But the rotten fruit is far more persistent and difficult to dislodge, despite many observers perched on the lower boughs having long descried the unmistakeable sound of distant chainsaws in the forest.

For my own part, I am being edged to the furthest extremities of my own branch of study, pausing only briefly on a sabbatical before taking the jump-off, a leap of faith into the unknown world beyond university life. But even if you suffer from vertigo, as I do, it becomes an existential necessity to set aside fear, grit your teeth, and parachute from the burning aeroplane.

What I would like to categorise as ‘unexpected’ in all of this is the absurdly infantile tit-for-tat that the university’s administrators seem to have gleefully embarked upon, actions that have all the hallmarks of unforced errors in an ideological chess match. It is as plain as day that they cannot be victorious in the longer trench warfare that will cede the muddy social justice terrain for the simple reason that the truth is not on their side. In a week, or a month, or a year—maybe in a generation—this absurd denial of the reality of the world will spell these institutions’ downfall, unless they repent of the intoxicating Marxism that now suffuses every cornerstone of every campus building. But, in the shorter term, they will succeed in being rid of me.

For the moment, though, three days without pay is a small price to pay in exchange for welcoming some new influential followers into my Substack sphere; and let me take this opportunity to thank those who have joined. Nonetheless, I would contest that my penalty is still outlandishly disproportionate. Claudine Gay succeeded not only in making a fool of herself in front of the House Senate Committee, she also made Harvard University look as though it countenanced antisemitism in full view of a global audience. Many observers baulked at her response to the question, “Is calling for the genocide of Jews against Harvard’s code of conduct?” She answered, “It can be, depending on the context.” Yet she walked away with her full annual salary of nearly a million US dollars.

Former Harvard President, Claudine Gay, appearing at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. on 5 December, 2023. Image courtesy of The 19^th.

In my own case, I was previously upbraided for imbuing the department with an air of ‘transphobia’ simply for posing for debate among students, among many other claims du jour, that “men can become women.” But my pay is to be docked, and those labelling me a bigot are themselves immune to any repercussions. You can lob slurs around the university with impunity, it seems, so long as you hold the correct views. This asymmetry underpins a two-tier justice system within the confines of our quadrangles, a place where abstruse unmoored ideology trumps rational thought and a reliance on evidence to bolster one’s claims.

What is egregious about this latest decision, aside from the duplicitous nature of the meeting I described, is that it lays bare the inequality of the university’s absurd policies and the kangaroo courts that accompany their implementation. Yes, so the policies dictate, we must allow for the accused to plead their case. But such an opportunity is purely performative, and we, as an organisation, will actively ignore what the defendant has to say. This is entirely transparent in my own circumstance. I argued my position as a gay man, a man who had been accused of transphobia by a straight woman in authority. The university decided their response to my reaction of contempt was to slap me across the face. Shut up! Welcome to our modern world of grievance.

The ultimate collapse of this academic world, toppling under the sheer weight of its own inconsistency will be difficult to avoid. It is merely a matter of time. But, of course, time is against me; and my own time is swiftly running out. I have been appointed lawyers, naturally, to fight in my corner, though the chances of a reversal are less than evens. Most in my position rely on their faculty association for legal counsel, but just this week I learned the individual appointed to me declares she/they pronouns in her/their email signature, so following that path strikes me as unwise. I do not want criticism on the grounds of my own inconsistency. I am acquiescent, and I will endeavour to eat out on fewer occasions this month.

The battle may be lost, but the war is far from over. And I see reinforcements gathering in their multitudes. For me, this is a matter of principle. Many observers have questioned my apparent foolhardiness, risking so much in this fight. I can only answer them by pointing to my paternal great-grandmother, a proud Scot who bore the maiden name of Wallace. We all know the incandescent defiance of the Braveheart, William Wallace, immortalised even before Mel Gibson’s film of that name. In the last century, my great-granduncle was killed fighting in the Great War near Ribécourt in Northern France. These are among the ancestors of the Revers clan. I look to them. I sense somehow those ghosts are friendly, that, looking over my shoulder, they would approve of my closing battle-cry: They may take our livelihoods, but they will never take our freedom.

Mel Gibson plays renegade Scottish clansman William Wallace in Braveheart (1995). Image courtesy of The Public Medievalist.

Soviet Lessons on Ethnic Disparities in STEM

Kent Osband — Wed, 06 Aug 2025 12:01:14 GMT

The main tenet of DEI is attribution of all significant group disparities to deep-seated, multi-faceted, systemic oppression. This claim is hard to test thoroughly, even in the restricted sphere of STEM, absent socialist revolution. Fortunately, the Soviet Union provided the world’s longest-running, best-documented experiment in promoting STEM participation and countering group disparities on a thoroughly anti-capitalist foundation.

Results were mixed. The main achievements were widespread STEM education on a generally strong analytic foundation, with special gains for women and previously mistreated minorities. The main shortcomings were the semi-feudal treatment of farm workers and significant under-representation of central Asians. The huge over-representation of Jews boosted Soviet STEM until Jews emigrated to Israel and the US. Key lessons include the usefulness of (1) broad access to good-quality instruction, (2) recognition that bottom-up social influences often defy top-down efforts at equalization, and (3) veneration of outstanding performance regardless of group identifiers.

Unlike woke leftists today, Marx, Engels and Lenin were wholehearted supporters of STEM. They clearly distinguished the “forces of production”, which embrace technological know-how and the hardware that embeds it, from the social “relations of production” transferring the fruits of human labor to others. They prized natural science’s contributions to technological progress, refused to deprecate scientists for their privileges, and framed their own research as scientific analysis of society. They viewed STEM as an invaluable ally, as in Lenin’s aphorism “Communism is Soviet power plus electrification of the whole country”.

Accordingly, once the Bolsheviks secured power, they set a high priority on massive extension of STEM training. This was less liberating than their fans hoped, due to the tension between laws of nature that willful humans can master and laws of nature that override human will. Soviet authorities became increasingly uncomfortable with the latter, especially after their wrong-headed agricultural policies ran aground in the 1920s and the massive industrialization program in the 1930s caused mammoth waste. Biology and economics were stunted thereafter, including the notorious Lysenkoist campaign to cancel Mendelian genetics. But math and the hard sciences generally flourished, with attempts to cancel quantum physics rebuffed so as not to jeopardize nuclear bomb development.

The number of higher education enrollments more than tripled between 1928 and 1940, with STEM students accounting for 60% of enrollments. (The corresponding increases in the US were barely one-third, though from a much larger base, and with less focus on STEM.) While innovation slowed after World War II due to a mix of chronic shortages of critical components and accumulating inertia in huge state firms, core training remained strong, as evidenced by both Nobel Prizes and the achievements of Soviet émigré scientists. Soviet STEM instruction in primary and secondary schools was generally both more advanced and delivered more broadly and effectively than its US counterparts, facilitated by Soviet practices holding parents accountable for students’ misbehavior. Soviet youth dominated International Math and Physics Olympiads in the 1980s.

The best-documented evidence of high Soviet STEM quality involves the emigration of over 1,000 Soviet mathematicians (nearly 10% of the previous total) after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Comprehensive research found that émigrés tended to dominate their fields. They shrank publication opportunities for domestic rivals.

The Soviet Union also pioneered in encouraging STEM education for women. Girls were not segregated in classes or assigned a less demanding curriculum. By the 1980s, about half of Soviet engineers were women. However, women were concentrated at middle or lower levels of STEM. In 1989, women reportedly comprised only 2% of members of the elite USSR Academy of Sciences. I do not have the data to analyze the disproportion.

The Soviet Union also narrowed differences by nationality. “Nationality” in Soviet parlance was what Americans call “ethnic group” but it was defined far more clearly and tracked more thoroughly. Nationality was inscribed at birth to match the father’s or mother’s, with limited rights to change at age 16. No mixed classifications or strategic reclassifications were allowed. No nationalities were subdivided by color. No nationalities were fused to make a larger unit, although all nationalities were encouraged to view themselves as parts of a greater Russian-speaking Soviet whole. In comparison, US racial/ethnic/color classification is an inconsistent, overly amalgamated, politically manipulated mess.

Soviet tracking by nationality was facilitated by the concentration of each nationality in a home region. The Soviet Union was comprised of 15 largely national republics, with Russia and a few other republics containing some autonomous regions for smaller nationalities. Soviet authorities sought to promote variants on home rule without encouraging fissile tendencies, and while they ultimately lost control, they did manage to promote relatively uniform standards in STEM education with one huge exception.

The exception involved the distinctly second-class treatment of agricultural workers. Mistrust of “peasants”, which peaked in the brutal collectivization in eastern Ukraine and subsequent Holodomor, always preponderated. They were largely tied to their collective or state farms, with limited opportunities to travel outside, much less move permanently. This was enforced through a system of mandatory internal passports introduced in 1933 and which revived many of the semi-feudal aspects of the tsarist passport system that the Bolsheviks had proudly abolished in 1917. Without passport authorization and associated residency permits, urban immigrants were illegal aliens and generally treated more harshly than their Western counterparts. This limited rural incentives to gain STEM skills and even opportunities to gain them, since few skilled teachers wanted to live in the countryside.

With that background, let’s skip forward to the last years of the Soviet Union, and examine some statistics that I gathered from Soviet yearbooks and were published here in Appendix II-4 of Volume 1. Table 24 lists numbers of scientists of a given nationality at end-1987 per 10,000 nationals in 1989. Per Soviet definitions, scientists include small numbers of social scientists and humanities scholars.

In 1989, scientists comprised 0.53% of the Soviet population or 1.00% of the civilian labor force. Scientist shares ranged from 0.12% for Tajiks to 0.71% for Russians. I have charted the shares below as percent of the Russian benchmark.

The Armenian and Georgian shares were close to the Russian share, and Estonia wasn’t far behind. Latvians and Lithuanians lagged some, Ukrainians and Belarusians lagged more, but none fell as much as half below the Russian norm. The rest all did, most by 75% or more. They are all Muslim peoples except the Moldovans, who were Romanians annexed by the Soviet Union and forced to switch their Latin alphabet to Cyrillic.

History warns against treating the group differences as immutable. Moldovans descended from relatively sophisticated Roman settlers, Central Asians straddled the cosmopolitan Silk Road, and Slavs were relatively isolated backwoods farmers whose capture by technologically superior Muslim raiders bequeathed us the word “slave”. Yet the differences defied decades of Soviet efforts to eliminate them. Why?

It is hard to infer causality as many measures moved in tandem. The relation I found most interesting was the 0.88 between log scientist share and log urban share for the home republic. A regression associated each 1% increase in urbanization with an average 2.2% increase in scientist share. Yet no cause should directly induce more than a 1:1 relation. I infer that industrialization, urbanization, STEM participation and other factors resonate into what we might call a culture of productivity, even though I’m not sure what that entails. The Soviets never figured out what that entails either; what they tried to remold was less plastic than they hoped.

An alternative critique is that the Soviets failed to close the gaps because they were too imperialist, too Russian, and in Central Asia too European and non-Muslim. Here history provides us a simple test, since the 15 republics have now been independent for over 30 years and have become more nationally homogeneous. Our best single measure of economic development is GDP per capita in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP). The correlation between the logarithm of this measure and log urban share in 1990 is 0.89, and each 1% increase in urbanization in 1990 was associated with an average 2.3% increase in real per capita income. Overall, the differentials have widened considerably. GDP per capita in PPP terms averages over $40,000 in the Baltic states but under $18,000 in Moldova and all Central Asian states outside of mineral-rich, highly Russified Kazakhstan. Kyrgyzstan at $7,000 and Tajikistan at $5,500 are comparable to Pakistan at $4,800.

Ukraine is the biggest outlier. Its GDP per capita in PPP terms is $16,300, 1% less than Moldova’s. The main cause is the war with Russia. In 2013, Ukraine’s GDP per capita in PPP terms was 10% higher than it is now and 60% higher than Moldova’s. However, Ukraine was lagging other east European countries even before the war due to a mix of its own poor policies and EU reluctance to take Ukraine in.

Jewish Overrepresentation in STEM

Only one nationality outdid Russians in terms of percentage working as scientists in the Soviet Union, and its edge was enormous. In 1987, 4.24% of Jews were classified as scientists, six times the Russian share. At the higher level of kandidati/doktori, roughly equivalent to US PhDs and senior scholars, the Jewish share of 2.16% was ten times the Russian share and seven times the shares for Estonians, Georgians, or Armenians.

As noted in my recent essay on representation in basketball and football, disparate impact in specialties is most easily modeled as the tails of various Gaussian bell curves on some unknown metric of aptitude, attitude, and access. The default treatment assumes equal variances. In that case, differences can be summarized as shifts in the ratio of mean to standard deviation, which I call Margin. The bar chart below displays estimated Margins for scientists, assuming that the Soviet labor force participation rate of 53% applied to every nationality (I don’t have data on differences).

The Jewish Margin was 0.8 above the Russian benchmark, while Central Asian and Moldovan Margins were 0.4-0.6 below. The maximum difference in Margins was 1.4, slightly less than the difference between Blacks and Asians in US basketball and football. Given the understandable sensitivities, let me make clear that none of these Margins connote some overall superiority. Both biological and social evolution tend to achieve excellence in one sphere by sacrificing excellence in another, creating what Thomas Sowell calls “reciprocal advantages”. I do not claim to know the sources of these advantages, nor do I claim that advantages are permanently fixed by either genes or socialization.

I do claim that the Jewish statistical Margin in STEM was non-trivial for Soviet technological progress. Soviet authorities evidently agreed, as they could have easily capped Jewish representation much lower and did so in many other areas. However, poor treatment including chronic shortages encouraged many Soviet Jews to emigrate, taking valuable STEM talents elsewhere. Between 1971 and end-1991 when the Soviet Union was dissolved, roughly 600 thousand Soviet Jews emigrated, about 30% of the 1970 base. Most went to Israel and contributed greatly to its subsequent productivity gains; Israel now has higher per capita GDP in PPP terms than any former Soviet republic. The next most important destination was the US; prominent Soviet Jewish émigrés in STEM include Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google and frequent Heterodox STEM contributor Anna Krylov.

Jews continued to emigrate from the former Soviet Union after it collapsed, as did many prominent non-Jewish scientists. Some of this emigration was prompted by post-Soviet disorder, some by Soviet-style practices that still lingered. This doubtless has contributed to a huge STEM anomaly. Russia exhibits by far the world’s sharpest contrast between the profusion of tertiary STEM education and the rate of patent applications. Russia ranks among the world’s top five in tertiary-educated manpower but accounted for just 0.3% of foreign patents awarded by the US Patent and Trade Office and less than 0.5% of international patent applications to the UN’s World Intellectual Property Organization.

Learning from Others’ Experience

Second marriages are said to represent the triumph of hope over experience. As I am married thrice, I have no right to slur the many well-intentioned hopes for narrowing group disparities in STEM. But if the hopeful want to make a truly positive impact, it behooves them to learn from Soviet experience. Broadening access to high-quality STEM education works. Setting high standards and rewarding their achievement works. Dumbing down instruction for lagging groups doesn’t. Insisting on quotas doesn’t. If you truly respect Diversity, and if you truly aim for Inclusion, you might provide roughly Equal opportunities, but you will never achieve the roughly Equal results that so-called “Equity” demands.

McGill University: Where appealing for quiet is now a race crime.

Leigh Revers — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 12:03:10 GMT

In our contemporary Kubrickian Clockwork Orange landscape of social justice excesses, few institutions are more capable of repeatedly serving up ever more ridiculous and embarrassingly uber-woke car crashes than our leading universities.

Stańczyk during a ball at the court of Queen Bona in the face of the loss of Smolensk, by Jan Matejko (1862). Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

Take for example, McGill University—the Cambridge to the University of Toronto’s Oxford—a seat of respected learning that is undeniably top-tier in Canada, and has of late endured any number of woes, from sprawling antisemitic student encampments to a medical school placed on probation by accreditors for, among other things, being remiss in its diversity efforts. Just recently, McGill’s top team shuttered its Medical Faculty’s bespoke diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) office, terminated its racialised employees and placed a competent white woman at the helm in the wake of ongoing criticism for its failings.

According to the Aristotle Foundation’s recently published University Discrimination Index, McGill was still trailing nemesis UofT on discriminatory policies, suggesting a more moderate stance on DEI matters. But those findings obscure the political posturing of the more radicalised departments, particularly those claiming to advance teaching and education—a field termed ‘pedagogy’ by university boffins.

For context, pedagogy as a discipline is a late Twentieth Century concoction — a field that in all but name embodies a radical left-leaning political project, supercharged by the writings of Paolo Freire, the fêted Brazilian philosopher and author. Freire’s opus, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, is widely accepted by its deranged advocates as the bible of modern teaching practice in the West. In what is broadly regarded as a reframing of Marxism, Freire calls for a repackaged brand of collectivism that at once distances itself from the top-down authoritarian movements of Stalin and Mao. Instead, it seeks to indoctrinate teachers as the new foot-soldiers in a classroom revolution that will deliver utopia through a range of non-traditional educational practices.

Little surprise, then, when recently, all hell broke loose at McGill’s Department of Education, as accusations flew from the outboxes of the top brass in response to anonymous and impromptu signage reportedly posted on campus meeting-room doors beseeching—unforgivably as it transpired—the university’s summer-session attendees to ‘keep the volume down.’

Screen capture of McGill University’s Faculty of Education website. Image courtesy of McGill University.

Under normal circumstances in polite Canadian society this would be quickly recognised as a predictable—if not vaguely annoying—societal trope, one that is common to any environment in the modern West where the private activities of self-involved, socially outgoing metropolitan types inevitably bump up against one another.

But, of course, this was no routine scenario punctuating the otherwise blissfully quiescent campus summer months. The room in question had been reserved for a gathering of Indigenous students and was to be hosted by a group of equally Indigenous experts who McGill claims, “travelled far and have taken time away from their families to engage in intensive learning with academic and community experts … at McGill.”

The upsetting notice, which was found posted on the doors to the event space, asked for them to remained closed and implored event participants to remain mindful of noise levels. But this unsanctioned signage prompted a seismic reaction from McGill’s Dean of Education, Vivek Venkatesh, who fired off a strident email on July 10 repudiating the sign’s unidentified perpetrators, and scolding them for their presumably Eurocentric, colonial ways that “make [the signs], at best, deeply insensitive and, at worst, exclusionary and unwelcoming.”

Ironically, the announcement — dripping with the hectoring tone and anachronistic child-minding rhetoric transplanted from a bygone era — is penned by a scholar of modern teaching practice. Yet it succeeds only in reviving nightmare tropes from British public schooling, the kind of tyranny that prompted gay intellectuals like Guy Burgess and Kim Philby to become Russian double agents during the Cold War. For Burgess, joining the other side was a way to avenge himself on the bullying elites of his youth. But in today’s culture war, McGill professors now stand accused of weaponizing Post-It notes that aim to rehabilitate white supremacy over indigenous people. Will academics be switching sides to become apologists for Christian church burnings? The jury is out.

Venkatesh’s self-flagellatory announcement circulated widely to Faculty across the university, landing as far afield as the inbox of a professor in clinical psychology, and went on to pay obeisance to Indigenous stakeholders, many of whom are doubtless even now quietly chuckling to themselves, enjoying and recognising the wholly performative spectacle of a privileged academic of South Asian heritage so pointedly wearing an ideological hairshirt in public.

It should be noted that South Asians in Canada on average make far more than Indigenous peoples according to Statistics Canada.

Professor Venkatesh went on to point out the potential harm caused by such unauthorised public notices posted by unknown individuals, which might as well be categorised as flagrant acts of racial violence. “Anonymity, especially in ways that target or alienate others, has no place here. Regardless of intent, such actions can cause serious harm.”

Of course, the ideological underpinning informing this burst of outrage from one of McGill’s top bureaucrats is that Western social values embodying social politeness — that entrenched common thread tying our nation together — is an intolerable affront to those academics seeking to dismantle the ever-present spectre of European colonial hegemony.

Accordingly, simply asking for a quiet space is not a mild-mannered entreaty, but rather a violent imposition of colonial oppression; an act that continues to subjugate First Nations people. By extrapolation, it seems reasonable to suppose Dean Venkatesh also despises anonymous ballots in our democracy and would insist the electorate — at least, those that are non-Indigenous — be cross-examined by ‘educated’ adjudicators before casting their vote.

The descent into farce is palpable. Venkatesh seems to have donned a periwig and set about a one-man comic Restoration revival, so absurd is his breathless outrage. “Let me be clear: such actions are unacceptable. They… undermine the safe, respectful, and supportive environment we are committed to creating for all learners—especially those who have historically been marginalized within educational institutions.” Because nothing says disrespect like a sign saying ‘Quiet please.’ By the same logic, Franciscan monks — a brotherhood that was profoundly influential in the emergence of fledgeling universities in the 13th century — intoning Silencio! over loudspeakers in the Basilica in Assisi should find themselves muted and reproached.

It's hard to credit the performative absurdity, the total and seemingly effortless speciousness of these tactics adopted by virtue signalling senior academics, a censorious elite who are so divorced from modern reality that their entire raison d’être revolves around brow beating normal Canadians into submission over utter trivialities.

Veering imperceptibly close to parody, Venkatesh concludes his missive by imploring anyone still reading, “Let us take this moment to reaffirm our responsibilities to one another and to the work of reconciliation, which is not symbolic but lived in our everyday actions.”

One of those everyday actions might rather be to behave like a normal, polite human being in our modern world, rather than, say, recalling the obstreperous cuckhold, Sir Charles Lyndon, stepping out of the frame of Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 masterpiece, Barry Lyndon. In that famous scene, Lyndon correctly guesses the Machiavellian intentions of the film’s protagonist, and his protestations are genuine and command pathos. In comparison, the histrionic antics of McGill’s top administrators have slipped into bathos and unintentional self-mockery.

For anyone still objecting to notions that today’s universities fall beyond the pale ideologically, this incident offers a welcome dose of smelling salts. Others will recognise this slapstick as the height of parody and nod with the kind of weary resignation that accompanies four successive liberal terms in Canadian government.

There’s ample reason to call for universities to reform, and to jettison their tired, pandering DEI religiosity. But whatever you do, don’t say it out loud. Any entreaties for common courtesy are unwelcome.

Sir Charles Lyndon, played by Frank Middlemass, declares his outrage in Stanley Kubrick’s epic tale of social manners, Barry Lyndon (1975). Image courtesy of IMBD.

Smiley’s People

Leigh Revers — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 12:02:35 GMT

Psychologist, professor, doctor, nurse. The skilled who came in from the cold. No, these aren’t tales from the pen of British spymaster John LeCarré, but an up-to-the-minute roll call of every profession in Canada that now faces a full-frontal onslaught on freedom of expression, and whose ranks are being unscrupulously silenced for holding widely shunned views on pain of career-ending penalties.

Gary Oldman plays intelligence officer George Smiley in Tomas Alfredson’s screen adaptation of John LeCarré classic spy novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011). Image courtesy of Mere Orthodoxy.

When it comes to success and human flourishing, you either believe in the primacy of merit, or you don’t. There is no middle ground. The principle that the individual best suited for a position in society—from parking attendant to prime minister—should be chosen by virtue of their excellence is a straightforward and uncomplicated one.

What’s become undeniable in Canada—and is arguably no less prevalent in Britain—is the way our institutions have ditched merit as their guiding star. Such behaviour in a career-minded individual would be quickly diagnosed as a suicidal pathology. Both of us have written in the Canadian press about how immutable factors such as skin melanin levels and the possession of a particular set of genitals have now superseded merit, whether it’s in medical training and practice, or a part of the insufferable social justice religion that has swept across higher education in the English-speaking world.

The recent sacking of Amy Hamm, a nurse and National Post columnist, by her governing professional body, the B.C. College of Nurses and Midwives for the apparently impermissible transgression of expressing incorrect opinions outside of her workplace clinches the debate that, here at least, the merit of her case was subservient to a moralising political stance that is—to the adults in the room—intellectually backward.

For Hamm, who co-funded a billboard in Vancouver declaring her admiration for the gender critical author J. K. Rowling, a mild but high visibility exercise in her advocacy for women’s rights, the recent decision to terminate her employment marked the culmination of a four-year long battle.

The offending eight-foot-tall sign, comprising eleven characters, nine of them the famed author’s name and initials, remained intact for 24 hours and was described by one pearl-clutching local resident as “insidious.” Hamm’s perfidy includes such ‘objectionable’ views as calling for biological males to be banned from women’s toilets and changing rooms.

Canadians have been here before. The psychologist Jordan Peterson was openly persecuted with the same deranged vigour by the Ontario College of Psychologists and Behaviour Analysts for ‘unprofessionalism’ tied to complaints about his expressing opinions on Joe Rogan’s podcast, and criticizing Canada’s former prime minister, Justin Trudeau, among other alleged misdemeanours cited by complainants he had never met or who falsely claimed were his patients. Making complaints is so simple, you see; it is just a click away for every last miserable malcontent.

The result? Despite strenuous appeals to the highest court in the land, seeking to overturn the College’s coercive demands for corrective media training, judges found against him. And so, one of Canada’s leading intellectuals was banished under the shadow of further persecution augured by Canada’s controversial Online Harms Bill, Bill C-63, and now voluntarily resides—without a hint of irony—in Paradise Valley, Arizona.

The burning question, then: who’s next up to the chopping block? Certainly, in the Great White North, no one among the one in five Canadians currently working in the professions is safe from the tender mercies of moralising and vainglorious governing bodies eager to run these obnoxious Postmodernist ideas up the flagpole; and many such agencies will correctly (but misguidedly) point to the universities as their North Star.

In Canada’s publicly funded healthcare system, doctors and nurses alike are expected to self-censor or parrot only what their regulatory bodies deem acceptable across a suite of increasingly political topics. During the pandemic, those same regulators egregiously sought to position themselves as arbiters of truth, according to the final report of the Covid-19 task force commissioned by the government of Alberta.

Which medical debates will be the next to be stifled? As technology rapidly advances, instead of regulatory bureaucrats issuing unilateral diktats, the autocorrective process of free speech is best poised to safeguard patients. In our minds, we’d rather have questions we can’t answer than answers we can’t question.

Meanwhile, the progressive intellectuals who dominate the academic milieu in universities right across the Anglosphere seem to imagine they can evade detection simply by gaslighting everyone, mouthing oaths of loyalty to the concept of merit and, in the same breath, venerating—amongst a variety of other things beyond anyone’s control—skin colour and gender identity as prestige totems of our individual humanity. For instance, a recent report by the Aristotle Foundation found that 98% of job postings at Canadian universities prioritised candidates based on their race, gender or sexual identity.

In February an article in Canada’s newspaper of record, The Globe & Mail, penned by the wide-awake duchess of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), Debra Thompson—a self-declared mistress of post-colonial finger-wagging whose autobiographical opus is, predictably, entitled The Long Road Home: On Blackness and Belonging—pays obeisance to meritocratic practices and at the same time attempts to airbrush the defunct concepts of DEI back into polite acceptability.

Thompson, who appears to have bounced back and forth across the 49th parallel like a forlorn ping-pong ball in search of belonging and her lost black heritage, declares that she “still feels the echoes and intergenerational trauma of North American slavery. She was often the Only One [sic]—the only Black person in so many white spaces—in a country that perpetuates the national mythology of multiculturalism.”

This is the kind of grubby tat that passes for intellectual engagement in our modern era, embodying as it does the kind of weapons-grade truth denial that has become a commonplace across the academic landscape, a place where rafts of mid-wit professors—adrift like so many unwanted migrants—are immersed in postmodern group-think and routinely display truly exasperating levels of cowardice when underlying principles of higher education are assailed. Those principles are treating everyone equally and advancing people based on hard work, talent and aptitude.

For a start off, nobody cares. It is 2025, and Canada holds up a mirror across the Atlantic, reflecting a cost-of-living crisis where young people can only dream of home ownership in a land where property prices have been driven sky-high by reckless immigration. Making whiny noises about past injustices of slavery that only happened south of the Canadian border, or about the generational oppression served up by a ghost-train of white patriarchs, many of them harking from Britain, is tired, boring and irrelevant. Only rear-view-mirror academics would fetishise such nonsensical fantasies.

Second, right now, Canada faces major upheaval—an economic threat to its existence if not one to its sovereignty. Prime Minister Mark Carney is now captaining an already limping ship, one overburdened by Trudeau-era wokery and climate catastrophism, through uncharted and stormy waters. Staying afloat demands Canadians pull together on the oars, and for the best and brightest to guide the country. If ever there was any doubt, here is a clear and present need for excellence, for merit in the workplace, in the board room, in the offices of government.

Last month, Canadians voters unswervingly and unsurprisingly opted to re-elect the Liberal Party to power for a fourth successive term, despite mounting concerns over Carney’s ties to China and globalist utopians, his longstanding desire for net zero despite facing a trade war, and grifting manoeuvres to divest of private wealth and to shrug off plagiarism accusations underpinning his own doctoral degree from Oxford—a credential one of us shares with him, with growing chagrin.

Indeed, Carney, someone who is more suited to be the president of Harvard University, a modern-day academic zeppelin in the shape of the Hindenburg, has now been coronated as the fourth successive Liberal Prime Minister. As such, the war on merit will inevitably continue. That is a mighty shame for Canada, a country of vast open spaces, virtually endless natural resources and a penchant in its constitutional genes for freedom and the rights of the individual.

To echo LeCarré, there is—and has been for a long decade—a mole in Canada’s Liberal ‘Circus.’ It is a treacherous influence that spills out from the universities and into politics and across the professional regulators, seeking to muzzle truthsayers like Jordan Peterson and Amy Hamm; and, so far, it has succeeded. There must be a change if Canada is to avoid being existentially lobotomised. Only a revisionist leader in the mode of a calm and collected operator—a new George Smiley—can make that happen. And, for our money, that doesn’t look a lot like Mark Carney.

Prime Minister of Canada Mark Carney speaks following the announcement of his win at the party’s announcement event in Ottawa, Sunday, March 9, 2025. Image courtesy of The Canadian Press. Credit: Adrian Wyld.

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Leigh Revers is associate professor with the Institute for Management and Innovation at the University of Toronto.

Mark D’Souza is a practising Canadian physician and author of Lost and Found: How Meaningless Living is Destroying Us and Three Keys to Fix It.

Lessons from Iran’s activist engineering students and professors

Sepehr Vakil — Sun, 11 May 2025 12:00:19 GMT

Culture, politics, technology, and religion have intermingled in complex and often surprising ways in the history of the Middle East. Our forthcoming book, Revolutionary Engineers: Learning, Politics, and Activism at Aryamehr University, tells the story of what is now known as Sharif University, also referred to as the "MIT of the Middle East." We tell the dramatic and contested circumstances of its founding by the US-backed Shah of Iran, who viewed the new university as a signature initiative in his broader ambitions to modernize the nation.

Our book also describes the role of US institutions, including MIT, in the early formation of the university, as well as the opposition of leftist MIT students and faculty to collaborating with the authoritarian Shah. Central to the entire narrative is the student and faculty activism that thrived within the university despite the violent suppression and even killing of student activists by SAVAK, the Shah’s secret police.

Drawing on a robust set of archival records and oral histories, our book offers a new and, we believe, significant understanding of the momentous 1979 revolution. This is the first comprehensive examination of the relationship between Sharif University and the 1979 revolution, which altered the course of history and continues to shape the geopolitical order of the Middle East. In our book, we don't just recount historical events; we also delve into the complexities and contradictions that surround them. For example, there is a deep irony at the heart of the story we tell: students and professors at the Shah's new university, Aryamehr (literally meaning "Shah's University"), were at the forefront of the bloody revolution that ultimately led to the dethroning of the Shah himself. There are many lessons and implications, not least of which is what Sharif's early history and its relation to the 1979 revolution can teach us in this current troubled moment in higher education about the consequences of suffocating free speech on university campuses. In fact, the suppression of the speech of activists, writers, artists, and students was one of the fundamental grievances that powered the 1979 revolution.

If you're intrigued, please consider pre-ordering the book or attending one of our forthcoming talks. Alternatively, if you would like to request a book talk in your area, we are currently planning an academic and community book tour. We would love to visit your university, library, bookstore, or community space. We are happy to give talks in either Persian or English. We conducted a soft virtual book launch on April 9th, co-hosted by the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies at San Francisco State University and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. We have two forthcoming talks: one on May 22, co-hosted by my home department, the Learning Sciences at Northwestern University, and the Middle East and North Africa Studies program, where I am also a faculty affiliate. Our third talk will take place in person on May 29 at Stanford University, hosted by the Iranian Studies program.

That one in particular feels high stakes for me, not just because my mom is flying from Chicago to attend in person, or my uncles from Sacramento will be driving down for the evening talk, or my step daughter Simone who is a student at Stanford will likely be in attendance as well, but also because of the prestige and reputation attached with Stanford's Iranian studies program. It's one of those rare academic programs that has managed to be simultaneously respected for its rigorous intellectual culture and its close ties to the strong Iranian diaspora community in the San Francisco Bay Area. Anyone who knows Iranians knows we are a highly opinionated bunch. As I prepare for Stanford, I am fully anticipating many opinions, including some critical ones regarding some of our book's main theses.

Here's a quick glimpse into one of them. First, a bit of context. One of the academic conversations our book contributes to is the ongoing discussion about the role of culture and diversity in STEM and STEM education. Much of my prior academic writing has been rooted in sociocultural and critical perspectives on science and technology, learning sciences, and STEM education. Across this literature, a common critique emerges regarding how dominant Western values within science and technology have marginalized non-Western cultures and perspectives.

In a similar vein, Iran has a long history of resisting foreign powers, as well as an intellectual tradition that has resisted Western influences. Figures like Jalal Al-Ahmad and Ahmad Kasravi are just two examples that we discuss in the book.

Kasravi (above) was my grandfather's favorite writer and intellectual. His books are currently residing in my father's house in Minnesota. Kasravi is notable for his beginnings as a religious figure, but his eventual evolution to a strong critic of Islamic influences in Iranian thinking. For him, an embrace of rationality, logic, and science was the necessary antidote to the mysticism and sentimentality represented by religious thought and even the arts more generally (he was even skeptical about the place of poetry in Iranian culture and politics). Notably, Kasravi was also critical of Western science, criticizing the immorality of science being used for war and imperialism.

And then, of course, there is Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, the 3rd chancellor of Aryamehr University. By any assessment, Dr. Nasr is a very complex figure. He is Western-educated at MIT and Harvard, yet throughout his decades of highly prolific scholarly output, he has consistently assailed what he views as the corrupting influence of Western values on science and technology. He is deemed one of the preeminent living Islamic philosophers. In fact, while he was Chancellor, he attempted to Iranianize and Islamicize the Shah's university! In our book, we dedicate a chapter to exploring his philosophical positions and the specific actions and their outcomes during his leadership. Here I am in his office at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where he is currently a University Professor in the Department of Religion.

Given these intellectual precedents and the revolutionary political culture at Aryamehr, which was defined in opposition to the US-backed Shah's regime, as a researcher, I anticipated learning that the views of activist students on engineering would reflect a critical position similar to that of Nasr and other Iranian intellectuals. They didn’t.

In the oral histories we conducted, students and faculty alumni of the university, by and large, expressed admiration and respect for the authority of Western science, rejecting cultural or Islamic approaches to STEM as regressive. Many of our interviewees held fundamental epistemological positions on science and technology that align most closely with what contemporary scholars would describe as hierarchical and normative views of disciplinary domains. In fact, many of our interviewees reasoned that the inherent rationalism and objectivity of STEM disciplines are precisely what qualify them to analyze and provide commentary on social and political problems.

In one of our interviews, a former Aryamehr professor explained to us this way: “A mechanical or electrical engineer could nicely design their machines and earn good money. This makes them believe that politics works like science. That you can design and expect it to work!”

These are unexpected and complex analyses that challenged my own views, and to be honest, went against what I wanted to find in the research. In our book and in our upcoming presentations, we grapple with these contradictions and complexities. Sharif University remains one of the most significant engineering universities in the Middle East, and has consistently supplied US universities with Iran's most talented students.

There are likely dozens of Sharif alumni amongst the faculty and students at Stanford. I wonder what the current administration's immigration policies will mean for the future of Sharif students at elite American universities? I wonder how Sharif students today are dealing with the political situation in Iran? I wonder how the Trump administration and its sycophants might learn from understanding the outcomes and consequences of the full-bodied assaults on academic freedom and free speech at Aryamehr University? Some will point out that the Shah’s autocratic tendencies pale in comparison to the ruthlessness of the current Islamic regime. This is unconditionally true. It is also true, however, that the Shah and university leaders fundamentally undervalued the sacred right to speech and the value of student and faculty dissent. Who knows what would have happened in Iran if the conditions for academic freedom and free speech had been respected and cherished? One can imagine. Ultimately, the history of Sharif University demonstrates the power of students and professors to shape history, for better or worse. As the future of higher education and democracy literally hangs in the balance in the US, it is up to us to determine which lessons to learn and apply to the current crisis unfolding on university campuses in the United States.

With Indigeneity, Universities Aren’t Following the Science

William McNally — Sun, 12 Jan 2025 13:00:31 GMT

Imagine if a university faculty member claimed to have developed a vaccine for the common cold but refused to publicly present her methods or evidence. How would the university react? With intense suspicion.

Why? Because if an idea isn’t publicly explained, then it can’t be falsified. Falsifiability is the possibility of finding evidence which contradicts a theory’s predictions. Falsifiability is the backbone of the scientific method. If advocates won’t present their theory with enough detail to allow others to test the theory’s predictions, then the theory can’t be falsified. If a theory can’t be falsified then it falls in the category of non-science, which includes religion, the paranormal and hoaxes like Prof. Ranga Dias’s superconductivity ‘discoveries’ at the University of Rochester.

This background is relevant to a recent panel event at Wilfrid Laurier University where one side declined to show up. Our Heterodox Academy Campus Community invited Dr. Frances Widdowson to speak on the topic: “What is Indigenous Ways of Knowing (IWK) and What is its Place in the University.”

Widdowson is a political scientist with expertise in Canadian indigenous politics. She has written multiple books and edited a collection of essays titled “Indigenizing the University”. Widdowson criticizes IWK in part because it is usually presented as a ‘proscribed doctrine’ which limits the academic freedom of its critics.

In the spirit of viewpoint diversity and academic rigor, we wanted another panelist to explain IWK sympathetically.

Our preferred panelist was Laurier’s AVP of Indigenous Initiatives. We invited him twice, but he ignored our emails. Then we asked the President and VP Academic to help us find a panelist. They didn’t reply either. We also invited four Indigenous Studies faculty members who either declined or failed to respond. We couldn’t find a proponent of IWK who would appear in public.

Lacking a human, we turned to generative AI.

Specifically, we asked ChatGPT to create questions for Dr. Widdowson from the perspective of an advocate for indigenization and decolonization. As inputs, we provided ChatGPT with two YouTube video transcripts: one featuring the AVP of Indigenous Initiatives on the subject of Decolonizing Laurier and the second by Dr. Widdowson arguing that Indigenization Destroys Academic Freedom.

The VP Academic got wind of our plans and sent me the only formal communication we ever received, a scolding email accusing us of using GenAI to impersonate an indigenous person. In the email, the VP forbids our use of GenAI and asserts that our plan precluded any “potential for real academic engagement with ideas.” That claim rather misses the point. Having no one at the university defend the idea is what made it difficult for anyone to engage with it.

The night of the panel, no administrator or Indigenous Studies faculty member attended (video here). Many attended another, private event which was purposely scheduled at the same time. The Laurier Indigenous Students Association organized a protest, titled “We do not welcome Frances Widdowson.” They claimed that “Widdowson's presence is harmful to BIPOC communities. She invalidates the experiences of Indigenous peoples.” At the protest, they engaged in a megaphone call-and-response shouting “Widdowson” and answering “out”. Evidently, no one had explained the university’s commitment to free enquiry.

In summary, when invited, none of the experts on IWK agreed to present the idea in public. They avoided our event and their students protested it. This is not how universities are supposed to work. By not engaging in conversation, advocates of indigeneity block our ability to assess their claims. Do they expect us to accede on the basis of their identity? That is a bad system for assessing truth claims and it’s not science—it is a violation of Rauch’s empirical rule that no one person or affinity group has personal authority.

The senior administration didn’t ignore our emails because they lack expertise. On the contrary, IWK is included in the university’s collective agreement, and the new Indigenous Strategic plan calls for “[i]ncreasing the Indigenous content across all disciplines...”

The plan also calls for “decolonization” which it defines as “the overhaul of knowledge production to balance power between Indigenous and western ways of knowing”. In other words, the plan aims to supplant the scientific method with something they won’t explain in public.

Decolonization advocates will claim that my criticism is privilege-preserving pushback. Another example of western ways of knowing hegemonically oppressing indigenous ways of knowing. But that’s a self-serving Kafka trap, which is a rhetorical trick to avoid criticism. It works like this: I question the nature of your oppressed identity (e.g., your way of knowing) and you complain that my question is an example of your oppression.

This begs the question of how truth claims are adjudicated under the decolonial framework? If advocates won’t tell us, then how can we decide if ‘overhauling’ the university is a good idea?

Apparently, faculty aren’t invited to participate in this decision. As their response to our invitation reveals, indigenization and decolonization advocates don’t want to persuade. They are bringing revolutionary change to the university. They say so in the strategic plan and in their published writing. They aren’t going to make their case in public and you had better not ask questions or you might end up like Frances Widdowson, fired from your tenured position.

This isn’t how universities ought to work. The purpose of universities is learning. The method of learning is founded on rationality, free inquiry and falsifiability. Areas of inquiry that eschew those foundations fall in the category of non-science and don’t belong at the university. They belong in seminaries, which are institutions that teach topics where foundational questions can’t be asked.

When a university creates departments of non-science, places adherents in administrative positions and strategizes about converting to non-science, then it is abandoning its telos. A university that abandons its telos is a bad university. If it is publicly funded, and the public discovers the bait and switch, then the public will vote to withhold funding. This is what awaits Canadian universities that follow the path of Wilfrid Laurier University. It is time for Provincial governments to wake up and insist that their universities focus on the search for truth, not on social justice and decolonization.

Interested readers can subscribe to the Laurier HxA substack here: