Sad but true... The biblical analogy is 100% spot on. Academia has brought these plagues on itself -- and there is still no reckoning, no self-reflection, no indication of the willingness to change. Instead, universities are renaming DEI while academics are "marching for science," vandalizing Teslas, and protesting against the measures against antisemitism on campuses. Why noone was marching when funding agencies demanded DEI loyalty oaths as a precondition for funding? Why noone was marching when scientific papers were retracted in response to twitter mobs? Why noone was marching when merit-based hiring was replaced by DEI? We've got what we deserve.
Very good. I think the majority of university graduates from pre-2000 (who didn't go into academia) are pretty disgusted by what is going on. I certainly am. Reform is seriously needed, as you say, the current attempts at redress in the US in 2025 have zero to do with Trump per se, and everything to do with the corruption of the institutions and what was to become the inevitable societal and political backlash.
Thank you. I'm in the Humanities, and I'm sadly certain that our colleagues will neither reexamine their beliefs nor realize the benefits of viewpoint diversity.
Council for Exception Children (CEC) Board of Directors issued a statement reaffirming their commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Accessibility. They are not giving it up.
The various professional boards, academic associations, and granting agencies are as fanatically woke leftist as the universities, and equally need to be cleaned out.
Yes, but our FIRE and Heterodox ideology is no better. We all advocate for pretend-Academic Freedom that is a sacred Heterodox-STEM orthodoxy. We team up with DEI and AAUP to uphold the free expression of disinformation (lies) on campus, no matter the harm to our civilization. Until we redefine our mission, Heterodox, FIRE, AAUP, DEI deserve the same ax. But we hope that the likes of us, united in our opposition to DEI etc. and our commitment to scientific methods, will restore science..... the pursuit and iterative inquiry of objective truth...but we need to begin to do so...
When I describe this left-leaning bias, repeatedly I am told that this is because conservatives are stupid, and therefore are not drawn to intellectual pursuits.
This is complete nonsense. But I dare not argue with these fools.They hold all the power, at the moment.
Thank you. That the federal debt is close to being completely out of control is a real thing. One way or another, spending was going to be decreased. It was either going to be intentional, or it was going to happen via disaster (default). Academia made itself a big target for cuts by being so narrowly leftist. I am one of those people who self-censors, not because I'm particularly conservative, but because even middle-ground points of view are rejected. I got tired of being involved in conversations with people who are adamantly religious in their belief that their views are the only "right" ones. Despite being so-called scholars, they are incapable of even taking an alternate idea and actually examining it. Other views--and the people who hold them--are beneath contempt. I've found it extremely odd that the very same people who honor my accomplishments as a scientist think that my middle-ground political views are evidence that I am a moron. I am more optimistic than most that good scientific research will experience only a pause, though. The reason is, Trump and, especially Musk, recognize the value of good science; this will eventually sort itself out, and once the non-science programs are expunged, I am confident that organizations like the NSF will go back to funding pure science.
For god's sake. The debt is NOT a problem. Simple exercise.
- You start a new country on Mars called ParMars. For this you need to define a currency, the Parrishbuck.
- How do you create Parrishbucks? There are none in existence.
- You must spend them into existence, purchasing things from the private sector. How do you do that?
- You borrow Parrishbucks from your central bank you create. We'll call that the ParMars Reserve Bank. You set your interest rate to whatever you like. (Central bank interest rates have been as low as -0.5% in recent years.) And your nation of ParMars owes its own bank for the Parrishbucks borrowed to spend with.
- Now you spend the Parrishbucks into existence. Those enter the private sector. Voila! The private sector has money! And, because businesses have money coming in from government contracts, the employees and the secondary businesses like grocery stores they patronize can get loans from private sector banks. Each of those loans further expands the money supply.
- Now you can tax. Taxation removes money from the private sector. The government must spend that money back into the private sector, or the private sector's money equity decreases.
- It will always be the case that the core money, the positive equity in the private sector is equal to the deficit in the public sector.
Elon is possessed of a grave error. Like most people, he hasn't thought it through. He thinks that money just magically appears in the private sector. He thinks that the deficit is destroying money the private sector needs and that cutting that deficit will make MORE magical money available. This is utterly ridiculous.
What matters is not the presence of the deficit. The deficit is required. What matters, as with any loan are two things:
1. What is it being spent on? Is that spending positive ROI or not? Overall, the system needs to produce real value that is greater than the cost of the loan.
2. What is the interest rate? Since the interest rate paid to the central bank is 100% voluntary, this interest rate is a choice. A nation can choose to hit itself over the head with a brick every day if it wants to. But this is not a law of nature, it is choice.
I am supposed to write an article examining this debate from the current perspective. I have been somewhat remiss in fulfilling this promise. But I have not forgotten it.
Holden Thorp is the current executive editor of Science Magazine. And Thorp has maintained that scientists MUST weigh in and choose political sides on various issues. The author of the Heterodox STEM article above, Professor Luana Maroja, disagreed. I agree with Professor Maroja. Once we choose sides, we are subject to all kinds of crazy vagaries of the political process. We should be disinterested, just producing reliable research.
Thorp has a somewhat checkered history, having been fired at least once for academic fraud, apparently. I first became aware of him about a decade ago, when he wrote a letter to the editor of Science at the time, demanding that we MUST lower our standards in STEM to get "more butts in seats". Thorpe claimed we must make STEM as easy as possible to get more students into our discipline, at all costs.
That did not sit well with me at the time, and it does not sit well with me now. Lowering standards is at best a short term fix, but it inevitably harms our long term reputation with the public. Just as taking sides in political fights does. And now, these chickens are coming home to roost, it would seem.
I am also reminded of that climate science activist, Greta Thunberg, who in the last couple of months has stopped all protests and activity on the climate front in favor of advocating anti-Semitism instead. Reportedly, when Thunberg was questioned about missing recent conferences on climate, Thunberg said, "Climate is not important any longer". This from someone who repeatedly claimed that the world was about to end because of climate change. Thunberg also protested for windmills, and then against windmills. And when asked about climate change solutions, says she has no idea what to do. She just wants to protest. About anything at all, apparently.
A close associate, envying the attention that Thunberg was garnering, even appeared in the international media proclaiming, with no scientific justification whatsoever, that the ONLY reason that there is snow and ice in the winter in Canada is because of global warming. When I suggested that this was maybe not a great position to take, I was severely reprimanded. Because the entire goal is to get public attention, not to make any sense or be reliable at all.
Tying our fortunes to people like Thunberg and Thorp is a bad idea. And we are starting to see the fruits of this.
One thing to consider in the gutting and eventually reconstruction of academia is a tool that the DEI proponents provided to us. DEI supports believe it is appropriate to discriminate against others in hiring/funding/admission based on race, gender, and political ideology. As such, any self identified DEI proponent is subject to that same process and should be immediately fired/defunded/expelled to make room for those that were excluded in the name of DEI. It's called living your values rather than imposing the consequences of your values on others.
Yes, but our FIRE and Heterodox ideology is no better. We all advocate for pretend-Academic Freedom that is a sacred Heterodox-STEM orthodoxy. We team up with DEI and AAUP to uphold the free expression of disinformation (lies) on campus, no matter the harm to our civilization. Until we redefine our mission, Heterodox, FIRE, AAUP, DEI deserve the same ax. But we hope that the likes of us, united in our opposition to DEI etc. will restore science..... the pursuit and iterative inquiry of objective truth...but we need to begin to do so...
Not sure this makes sense. FIRE and Heterodox Academy may both suffer from some of the same elitism that permeates academia as one sees in the AAUP and DEI proponents...but they are worlds apart in actually favoring free speech and academic freedom. They are NOT all of the same caliber or even on the same page in terms of being part of the problem.
"We care deeply about higher education and our respective disciplines."
Apparently, the folks running universities do not. They care about their Woke Religion. As far as our disciplines go, do any in the social sciences and humanities remain academic? My social science field has been annihilated, turned into grievance complaints and activism. The same is true with all of social sciences and humanities subjects. They engage in propaganda rather than education. Do they deserve tax payers' money? Or even to exist?
The teaching is critical, but so is the research. It should be searching for the truth and exploring reality, not trying to prove the "truth" of intersectional victimhood.
It's shocking (not?) that Holden Thorp is still the editor of Science. During the covid era, his editorial pages fully covered for the government-led pandemic measures and their architects while castigating dissenters as nitwits (why criticize the government when it gives out lucrative grants?). The same goes for the pandemic origins. The pages were also full of well-off scientists whining about how hard it was that they were asked to teach in person twice a week, and generally complaining although hardly anybody experienced a salary interruption or substantial job insecurity. I'm not in AAAS but don't the members have a problem with Thorp? If not then we're a long way away from coming out of this bubble.
Tanya, You do realize that Donald Trump appointed Fauci to his post? You are aware that Trump backed Fauci 100% and did not ask him to step down? And Donald Trump pushed the COVID vaccines through in record time? My observation is that I think political games were played to ensure that the vaccines did not get released before the election as part of the strategy to kneecap Trump's 2020 run. I am one of those who created one of the 200 odd COVID vaccines that did not get funded for a $1.5 billion production run by Wall Street. I had some visibility into what was going on at FDA then.
I am also one of those who was vocal about the terrible effect of lockdowns on the working class. But, let's also remember why Fauci (who did not understand pandemic management) had to be appointed. The Trump administration in 2018 "cleaned house" at CDC and got rid of the pandemic response group. This was like firing all the officers who had actually fought in war just before WW3. This Trump administration is allowing a much worse slash-and-burn operation to take place at CDC now.
I fault Fauci for not realizing he should decline and tell Trump that he should use Osterholm or someone similar. Fauci could also have researched who the pandemic response group people were that had been fired and told Trump to bring them back. Thorp was also ignorant of pandemic management. But hindsight is 2020, and widespread anti-vax views from the online "mommy wars" were prevalent in that time. Those anti-vax views got the editorial that I co-wrote with an economist and others axed by the "healthdesk editor" at "The Economist". The Economist has a childish mean-girl there who throws tantrums. This editorial could have changed the conversation.
Those lockdown steps made sense in an ideal world, but the effect was that working class people had their livelihoods destroyed, while white collar workers had an improvement in their lives and lost nothing. That this could happen, and barely be noticed by media is quite an outrage. I ascribe that outrage to the fact that journalists were part of the group that had better lives as a result. I also ascribe it to the overweening narcissism of GenX, Y, and Z. Boomers to some extent also. I also ascribe it to the breakdown of journalism itself.
If one can judge by what appears on X (formerly Twitter), plenty of people are very annoyed with Thorp. He preaches a lot and is sort of obnoxious and full of himself. And he pretends to be ultra-woke, but then lectures everyone who is not a white male as somehow being inadequate compared to him. This is in spite of his scandal-ridden disastrous career that has not produced much of anything of value, as near as I can tell. And he even sports a name that is redolent of upper class old money white privilege. It is almost humorous, it is so ridiculous.
I know those who hired him and keep him in power, personally. I have contemplated reaching out to plead for his annihilation or replacement. However, I have other fish to fry and this sort of contre temps might just be a distraction. I figure Thorp is basically destroying what is left of his tattered reputation anyway, so why should I bother to hurry his demise?
Very well said. Sadly...we are at the point where the plagues are both just and moral and there is too late to prevent them. The academic community has demonstrated it is unfit for the privileges it holds and the resources that society has given it. While not every academic is at fault...too few of those not at fault choose to look the other way. The warning of Pastor Niemoller was not heeded...and now there is no one left to speak for them. So be it. Rest in assurance though...that all those academically trained conservatives who were pushed out of academia are still here....with damaged careers and lives more than prepared to take over a restructured academia from the ashes of the old.
I agree with all of this; I remember seeing that J Chem Ed paper at the time and it was just an embarrassment. I agree even though the present moment is bringing pain and may end up costing me my job when the RIF proposals come through. I work for a federal science agency and Friday we got an email that a whole bunch of publisher contracts had been cancelled immediately and that we no longer have access to their journals. It included AAAS, AMA, ASM, The Royal Society, and parts of several for-profits (Elsevier, Taylor and Francis). The list made no sense from the standpoint of either prestige or cost. The only thing we could figure was government (DOGE) is striking those who are standing firm on the DEI stuff versus those that aren't. Pure speculation of course, I don't know what internal discussions are happening, but I know that there was a kerfuffle over the last week that ACS had taken down all their inclusion statements for reworking and it was noticeable that ACS wasn't included on the gone list.
It is terrible that politics might be coming after the universities, scientific societies, and publishers, but frankly they invited it by allowing all the nonsense identity politics in the first place, so I'm not going cry about it too much. On the list of things the administration has done (there has truly been some stupid stuff behind the scenes), I'm ok with it although I'm likely going to be pissed off with the hoops I have to go through to get access to new articles from journals, assuming I have a job at the end of this.
I think you missed the biggest anti-science atrocity of academia - Trans Kids.
The Trans Kids train is absolutely anti-science, anti-psychiatry, and is a flat out lie. What is done to kids is not "sex change" because that cannot be done. Who spoke out against it?
The science documents academic and scientific misconduct by the original Dutch Protocol scientists. Among other things, they removed a child who died from their study after the fact. Every attempt to duplicate its results failed [1].
Science says suicide rises by more than an order of magnitude [2,3]. The trans-activists claim that "kids are dying" is worse than fiction, it is homicidal fiction.
After 40 years of psychiatric evaluation, the effectiveness of transition surgery and hormones on adults was judged to be not effective as treatment for dysphoria [4]. Walt Heyer links to and discusses gender psychiatry.
The Cass review found trans evidence lacking [5]. Nations in Europe shut down their programs. (No profit motive among other things.)
The WPATH files opened a window into something far more sinister. WPATH documents that a professor who is author of porn about sadist-torture and castration of children was recruited to write the standards for WPATH, which put itself forward as a medical standards body [6]. These stories weren't just about castrating children unable to fight back, it was about breaking them and reveling in their deaths. What this means is that the constituency for putting forward this material was and is sadist pedophiles. Such sadism does not just seek physical pain, but psychological dominance and manipulation.
Together this paints a picture of a pedophilic sexual torture cult seeking victims, aided by useful idiots, taking over an academic body that is supine and gutless.
1. Biggs, M. (2022). The Dutch Protocol for Juvenile Transsexuals: Origins and Evidence. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 49(4), 348–368. https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623X.2022.2121238
2. Dhejne C, Lichtenstein P, Boman M, Johansson AL, Långström N, Landén M. (2011) Long-term follow-up of transsexual persons undergoing sex reassignment surgery: cohort study in Sweden. PLoS One. 2011 Feb 22;6(2):e16885. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0016885
3. Straub, J. J., Paul, K. K., Bothwell, L. G., Deshazo, S. J., Golovko, G., Miller, M. S., & Jehle, D. V. (2024). Risk of Suicide and Self-Harm Following Gender-Affirmation Surgery. Cureus, 16(4), e57472. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.57472
The impact on scientific funding is finally making our intellectual leaders (such as Tomasi) feel a bit of the hurt; though they still champion our fake mission of "Free the Inquiry" and "Viewpoint Diversity" "no matter how much the hurt" in the real world; no matter the real world outcomes: no matter the dismantling of science, education, and Western values of democracy and human rights. Thank you to all who gathered the background evidence. But it is time to self inquire, refocus, and work to define, debate and implement the solution: restore the pursuit of validated truth and scholarly discourse in education. It is time to turn our back to the campus battleground and focus on the classroom. Open the classroom to fact check and critical evaluation of content. This can be easily done.. and it is good enough for our students.
Yes, "we saw a dragon (or perhaps the plagues) approaching" but Heterodox, FIRE, and AAUP joined forces to prioritize "free expression (regardless of content and truth)," undefined-, pretend-Academic Freedom, and the First Amendment ON CAMPUS. We explicitly refused to demand responsibility, accountability, fact check and debate (which we called censorship), and we defended the spread of disinformation (lies) on campus. We engendered rather then abated DEI. But the moment of truth came on October 7.
So let's ask: what if Tomasi, Heterodox and FIRE had advocated evidence based debate and fact check, regarding the history and the status of democracy, human rights in the Middle East. What if they advocated for the return of the hostages, cessation of rocket launching into Israel, freedom of speech and religion in Gaza, on October 7? What if the students and faculty rallied for our ideals of democracy and human rights? How much suffering would have been prevented? Look at Syria: the defeat of Hezbollah and Iranian power in Syria by Israel resulted in freedom for Syrians. The prompt dissolution of Hamas would have likewise freed the people of Gaza.
However, since October 7, Heterodox Viewpoint diversity meant blinding obsession with one selective viewpoint: the right to express lies about Israel; the deliberate exclusion of the ideology of Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Al-Shabab, the Taliban (and other Islamic militants); exclusion of the ongoing horrors in Iran, Yemen, Syria, Darfur, Afghanistan, etc. FIRE actually pursued unrelenting (and still ongoing) legal defense of hateful lies. Let's face it: it would be much simpler to focus on evidence based truth on campus... and could have prevented the dismantling 21st century outcomes in the USA.
Yes, let's restore the pursuit of truth and scholarly discourse on campus. Let's preach evidence based pursuit of consensus and conflict resolution, rather than endorse the ongoing pandora box of infinite viewpoint diversity on campus.
Sad but true... The biblical analogy is 100% spot on. Academia has brought these plagues on itself -- and there is still no reckoning, no self-reflection, no indication of the willingness to change. Instead, universities are renaming DEI while academics are "marching for science," vandalizing Teslas, and protesting against the measures against antisemitism on campuses. Why noone was marching when funding agencies demanded DEI loyalty oaths as a precondition for funding? Why noone was marching when scientific papers were retracted in response to twitter mobs? Why noone was marching when merit-based hiring was replaced by DEI? We've got what we deserve.
Very good. I think the majority of university graduates from pre-2000 (who didn't go into academia) are pretty disgusted by what is going on. I certainly am. Reform is seriously needed, as you say, the current attempts at redress in the US in 2025 have zero to do with Trump per se, and everything to do with the corruption of the institutions and what was to become the inevitable societal and political backlash.
Thank you. I'm in the Humanities, and I'm sadly certain that our colleagues will neither reexamine their beliefs nor realize the benefits of viewpoint diversity.
Council for Exception Children (CEC) Board of Directors issued a statement reaffirming their commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Accessibility. They are not giving it up.
The various professional boards, academic associations, and granting agencies are as fanatically woke leftist as the universities, and equally need to be cleaned out.
Yes, but our FIRE and Heterodox ideology is no better. We all advocate for pretend-Academic Freedom that is a sacred Heterodox-STEM orthodoxy. We team up with DEI and AAUP to uphold the free expression of disinformation (lies) on campus, no matter the harm to our civilization. Until we redefine our mission, Heterodox, FIRE, AAUP, DEI deserve the same ax. But we hope that the likes of us, united in our opposition to DEI etc. and our commitment to scientific methods, will restore science..... the pursuit and iterative inquiry of objective truth...but we need to begin to do so...
When I describe this left-leaning bias, repeatedly I am told that this is because conservatives are stupid, and therefore are not drawn to intellectual pursuits.
This is complete nonsense. But I dare not argue with these fools.They hold all the power, at the moment.
Thank you. That the federal debt is close to being completely out of control is a real thing. One way or another, spending was going to be decreased. It was either going to be intentional, or it was going to happen via disaster (default). Academia made itself a big target for cuts by being so narrowly leftist. I am one of those people who self-censors, not because I'm particularly conservative, but because even middle-ground points of view are rejected. I got tired of being involved in conversations with people who are adamantly religious in their belief that their views are the only "right" ones. Despite being so-called scholars, they are incapable of even taking an alternate idea and actually examining it. Other views--and the people who hold them--are beneath contempt. I've found it extremely odd that the very same people who honor my accomplishments as a scientist think that my middle-ground political views are evidence that I am a moron. I am more optimistic than most that good scientific research will experience only a pause, though. The reason is, Trump and, especially Musk, recognize the value of good science; this will eventually sort itself out, and once the non-science programs are expunged, I am confident that organizations like the NSF will go back to funding pure science.
If they are incapable of entertaining and examining opposing views then they are not scholars at all.
For god's sake. The debt is NOT a problem. Simple exercise.
- You start a new country on Mars called ParMars. For this you need to define a currency, the Parrishbuck.
- How do you create Parrishbucks? There are none in existence.
- You must spend them into existence, purchasing things from the private sector. How do you do that?
- You borrow Parrishbucks from your central bank you create. We'll call that the ParMars Reserve Bank. You set your interest rate to whatever you like. (Central bank interest rates have been as low as -0.5% in recent years.) And your nation of ParMars owes its own bank for the Parrishbucks borrowed to spend with.
- Now you spend the Parrishbucks into existence. Those enter the private sector. Voila! The private sector has money! And, because businesses have money coming in from government contracts, the employees and the secondary businesses like grocery stores they patronize can get loans from private sector banks. Each of those loans further expands the money supply.
- Now you can tax. Taxation removes money from the private sector. The government must spend that money back into the private sector, or the private sector's money equity decreases.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://cdn.mises.org/AA1946_VIII_1_2.pdf
- It will always be the case that the core money, the positive equity in the private sector is equal to the deficit in the public sector.
Elon is possessed of a grave error. Like most people, he hasn't thought it through. He thinks that money just magically appears in the private sector. He thinks that the deficit is destroying money the private sector needs and that cutting that deficit will make MORE magical money available. This is utterly ridiculous.
What matters is not the presence of the deficit. The deficit is required. What matters, as with any loan are two things:
1. What is it being spent on? Is that spending positive ROI or not? Overall, the system needs to produce real value that is greater than the cost of the loan.
2. What is the interest rate? Since the interest rate paid to the central bank is 100% voluntary, this interest rate is a choice. A nation can choose to hit itself over the head with a brick every day if it wants to. But this is not a law of nature, it is choice.
Impressive work with citations!
Thank you! It takes me a while to put one of these together because I try to gather the citations. My posts for HxSTEM tend to be data compendiums.
Incredible article.
I am reminded of this article a couple of years ago on Heterodox STEM:
My debate with Holden Thorp. UNC, Feb 8, 2022 online.
https://hxstem.substack.com/p/my-debate-with-holden-thorp-unc-feb
I am supposed to write an article examining this debate from the current perspective. I have been somewhat remiss in fulfilling this promise. But I have not forgotten it.
Holden Thorp is the current executive editor of Science Magazine. And Thorp has maintained that scientists MUST weigh in and choose political sides on various issues. The author of the Heterodox STEM article above, Professor Luana Maroja, disagreed. I agree with Professor Maroja. Once we choose sides, we are subject to all kinds of crazy vagaries of the political process. We should be disinterested, just producing reliable research.
Thorp has a somewhat checkered history, having been fired at least once for academic fraud, apparently. I first became aware of him about a decade ago, when he wrote a letter to the editor of Science at the time, demanding that we MUST lower our standards in STEM to get "more butts in seats". Thorpe claimed we must make STEM as easy as possible to get more students into our discipline, at all costs.
That did not sit well with me at the time, and it does not sit well with me now. Lowering standards is at best a short term fix, but it inevitably harms our long term reputation with the public. Just as taking sides in political fights does. And now, these chickens are coming home to roost, it would seem.
I am also reminded of that climate science activist, Greta Thunberg, who in the last couple of months has stopped all protests and activity on the climate front in favor of advocating anti-Semitism instead. Reportedly, when Thunberg was questioned about missing recent conferences on climate, Thunberg said, "Climate is not important any longer". This from someone who repeatedly claimed that the world was about to end because of climate change. Thunberg also protested for windmills, and then against windmills. And when asked about climate change solutions, says she has no idea what to do. She just wants to protest. About anything at all, apparently.
A close associate, envying the attention that Thunberg was garnering, even appeared in the international media proclaiming, with no scientific justification whatsoever, that the ONLY reason that there is snow and ice in the winter in Canada is because of global warming. When I suggested that this was maybe not a great position to take, I was severely reprimanded. Because the entire goal is to get public attention, not to make any sense or be reliable at all.
Tying our fortunes to people like Thunberg and Thorp is a bad idea. And we are starting to see the fruits of this.
One thing to consider in the gutting and eventually reconstruction of academia is a tool that the DEI proponents provided to us. DEI supports believe it is appropriate to discriminate against others in hiring/funding/admission based on race, gender, and political ideology. As such, any self identified DEI proponent is subject to that same process and should be immediately fired/defunded/expelled to make room for those that were excluded in the name of DEI. It's called living your values rather than imposing the consequences of your values on others.
Yes, but our FIRE and Heterodox ideology is no better. We all advocate for pretend-Academic Freedom that is a sacred Heterodox-STEM orthodoxy. We team up with DEI and AAUP to uphold the free expression of disinformation (lies) on campus, no matter the harm to our civilization. Until we redefine our mission, Heterodox, FIRE, AAUP, DEI deserve the same ax. But we hope that the likes of us, united in our opposition to DEI etc. will restore science..... the pursuit and iterative inquiry of objective truth...but we need to begin to do so...
Not sure this makes sense. FIRE and Heterodox Academy may both suffer from some of the same elitism that permeates academia as one sees in the AAUP and DEI proponents...but they are worlds apart in actually favoring free speech and academic freedom. They are NOT all of the same caliber or even on the same page in terms of being part of the problem.
"We care deeply about higher education and our respective disciplines."
Apparently, the folks running universities do not. They care about their Woke Religion. As far as our disciplines go, do any in the social sciences and humanities remain academic? My social science field has been annihilated, turned into grievance complaints and activism. The same is true with all of social sciences and humanities subjects. They engage in propaganda rather than education. Do they deserve tax payers' money? Or even to exist?
yes, what is taught in the classroom by faculty is what matters.
The teaching is critical, but so is the research. It should be searching for the truth and exploring reality, not trying to prove the "truth" of intersectional victimhood.
It's shocking (not?) that Holden Thorp is still the editor of Science. During the covid era, his editorial pages fully covered for the government-led pandemic measures and their architects while castigating dissenters as nitwits (why criticize the government when it gives out lucrative grants?). The same goes for the pandemic origins. The pages were also full of well-off scientists whining about how hard it was that they were asked to teach in person twice a week, and generally complaining although hardly anybody experienced a salary interruption or substantial job insecurity. I'm not in AAAS but don't the members have a problem with Thorp? If not then we're a long way away from coming out of this bubble.
Tanya, You do realize that Donald Trump appointed Fauci to his post? You are aware that Trump backed Fauci 100% and did not ask him to step down? And Donald Trump pushed the COVID vaccines through in record time? My observation is that I think political games were played to ensure that the vaccines did not get released before the election as part of the strategy to kneecap Trump's 2020 run. I am one of those who created one of the 200 odd COVID vaccines that did not get funded for a $1.5 billion production run by Wall Street. I had some visibility into what was going on at FDA then.
I am also one of those who was vocal about the terrible effect of lockdowns on the working class. But, let's also remember why Fauci (who did not understand pandemic management) had to be appointed. The Trump administration in 2018 "cleaned house" at CDC and got rid of the pandemic response group. This was like firing all the officers who had actually fought in war just before WW3. This Trump administration is allowing a much worse slash-and-burn operation to take place at CDC now.
I fault Fauci for not realizing he should decline and tell Trump that he should use Osterholm or someone similar. Fauci could also have researched who the pandemic response group people were that had been fired and told Trump to bring them back. Thorp was also ignorant of pandemic management. But hindsight is 2020, and widespread anti-vax views from the online "mommy wars" were prevalent in that time. Those anti-vax views got the editorial that I co-wrote with an economist and others axed by the "healthdesk editor" at "The Economist". The Economist has a childish mean-girl there who throws tantrums. This editorial could have changed the conversation.
Those lockdown steps made sense in an ideal world, but the effect was that working class people had their livelihoods destroyed, while white collar workers had an improvement in their lives and lost nothing. That this could happen, and barely be noticed by media is quite an outrage. I ascribe that outrage to the fact that journalists were part of the group that had better lives as a result. I also ascribe it to the overweening narcissism of GenX, Y, and Z. Boomers to some extent also. I also ascribe it to the breakdown of journalism itself.
Thanks for your perspective.
If one can judge by what appears on X (formerly Twitter), plenty of people are very annoyed with Thorp. He preaches a lot and is sort of obnoxious and full of himself. And he pretends to be ultra-woke, but then lectures everyone who is not a white male as somehow being inadequate compared to him. This is in spite of his scandal-ridden disastrous career that has not produced much of anything of value, as near as I can tell. And he even sports a name that is redolent of upper class old money white privilege. It is almost humorous, it is so ridiculous.
I know those who hired him and keep him in power, personally. I have contemplated reaching out to plead for his annihilation or replacement. However, I have other fish to fry and this sort of contre temps might just be a distraction. I figure Thorp is basically destroying what is left of his tattered reputation anyway, so why should I bother to hurry his demise?
Very well said. Sadly...we are at the point where the plagues are both just and moral and there is too late to prevent them. The academic community has demonstrated it is unfit for the privileges it holds and the resources that society has given it. While not every academic is at fault...too few of those not at fault choose to look the other way. The warning of Pastor Niemoller was not heeded...and now there is no one left to speak for them. So be it. Rest in assurance though...that all those academically trained conservatives who were pushed out of academia are still here....with damaged careers and lives more than prepared to take over a restructured academia from the ashes of the old.
I agree with all of this; I remember seeing that J Chem Ed paper at the time and it was just an embarrassment. I agree even though the present moment is bringing pain and may end up costing me my job when the RIF proposals come through. I work for a federal science agency and Friday we got an email that a whole bunch of publisher contracts had been cancelled immediately and that we no longer have access to their journals. It included AAAS, AMA, ASM, The Royal Society, and parts of several for-profits (Elsevier, Taylor and Francis). The list made no sense from the standpoint of either prestige or cost. The only thing we could figure was government (DOGE) is striking those who are standing firm on the DEI stuff versus those that aren't. Pure speculation of course, I don't know what internal discussions are happening, but I know that there was a kerfuffle over the last week that ACS had taken down all their inclusion statements for reworking and it was noticeable that ACS wasn't included on the gone list.
It is terrible that politics might be coming after the universities, scientific societies, and publishers, but frankly they invited it by allowing all the nonsense identity politics in the first place, so I'm not going cry about it too much. On the list of things the administration has done (there has truly been some stupid stuff behind the scenes), I'm ok with it although I'm likely going to be pissed off with the hoops I have to go through to get access to new articles from journals, assuming I have a job at the end of this.
I think you missed the biggest anti-science atrocity of academia - Trans Kids.
The Trans Kids train is absolutely anti-science, anti-psychiatry, and is a flat out lie. What is done to kids is not "sex change" because that cannot be done. Who spoke out against it?
The science documents academic and scientific misconduct by the original Dutch Protocol scientists. Among other things, they removed a child who died from their study after the fact. Every attempt to duplicate its results failed [1].
Science says suicide rises by more than an order of magnitude [2,3]. The trans-activists claim that "kids are dying" is worse than fiction, it is homicidal fiction.
After 40 years of psychiatric evaluation, the effectiveness of transition surgery and hormones on adults was judged to be not effective as treatment for dysphoria [4]. Walt Heyer links to and discusses gender psychiatry.
The Cass review found trans evidence lacking [5]. Nations in Europe shut down their programs. (No profit motive among other things.)
The WPATH files opened a window into something far more sinister. WPATH documents that a professor who is author of porn about sadist-torture and castration of children was recruited to write the standards for WPATH, which put itself forward as a medical standards body [6]. These stories weren't just about castrating children unable to fight back, it was about breaking them and reveling in their deaths. What this means is that the constituency for putting forward this material was and is sadist pedophiles. Such sadism does not just seek physical pain, but psychological dominance and manipulation.
Together this paints a picture of a pedophilic sexual torture cult seeking victims, aided by useful idiots, taking over an academic body that is supine and gutless.
1. Biggs, M. (2022). The Dutch Protocol for Juvenile Transsexuals: Origins and Evidence. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 49(4), 348–368. https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623X.2022.2121238
2. Dhejne C, Lichtenstein P, Boman M, Johansson AL, Långström N, Landén M. (2011) Long-term follow-up of transsexual persons undergoing sex reassignment surgery: cohort study in Sweden. PLoS One. 2011 Feb 22;6(2):e16885. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0016885
3. Straub, J. J., Paul, K. K., Bothwell, L. G., Deshazo, S. J., Golovko, G., Miller, M. S., & Jehle, D. V. (2024). Risk of Suicide and Self-Harm Following Gender-Affirmation Surgery. Cureus, 16(4), e57472. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.57472
4. Heyer, W. (2016) 50 Years of Sex Changes, Mental Disorders, and Too Many Suicides https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2016/02/16376/
5. Cass, H. Independent review of gender identity services for children and young people. https://cass.independent-review.uk/
6. Hughes, M. (2024) The WPATH Files https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/wpath-files
The impact on scientific funding is finally making our intellectual leaders (such as Tomasi) feel a bit of the hurt; though they still champion our fake mission of "Free the Inquiry" and "Viewpoint Diversity" "no matter how much the hurt" in the real world; no matter the real world outcomes: no matter the dismantling of science, education, and Western values of democracy and human rights. Thank you to all who gathered the background evidence. But it is time to self inquire, refocus, and work to define, debate and implement the solution: restore the pursuit of validated truth and scholarly discourse in education. It is time to turn our back to the campus battleground and focus on the classroom. Open the classroom to fact check and critical evaluation of content. This can be easily done.. and it is good enough for our students.
Yes, "we saw a dragon (or perhaps the plagues) approaching" but Heterodox, FIRE, and AAUP joined forces to prioritize "free expression (regardless of content and truth)," undefined-, pretend-Academic Freedom, and the First Amendment ON CAMPUS. We explicitly refused to demand responsibility, accountability, fact check and debate (which we called censorship), and we defended the spread of disinformation (lies) on campus. We engendered rather then abated DEI. But the moment of truth came on October 7.
So let's ask: what if Tomasi, Heterodox and FIRE had advocated evidence based debate and fact check, regarding the history and the status of democracy, human rights in the Middle East. What if they advocated for the return of the hostages, cessation of rocket launching into Israel, freedom of speech and religion in Gaza, on October 7? What if the students and faculty rallied for our ideals of democracy and human rights? How much suffering would have been prevented? Look at Syria: the defeat of Hezbollah and Iranian power in Syria by Israel resulted in freedom for Syrians. The prompt dissolution of Hamas would have likewise freed the people of Gaza.
However, since October 7, Heterodox Viewpoint diversity meant blinding obsession with one selective viewpoint: the right to express lies about Israel; the deliberate exclusion of the ideology of Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Al-Shabab, the Taliban (and other Islamic militants); exclusion of the ongoing horrors in Iran, Yemen, Syria, Darfur, Afghanistan, etc. FIRE actually pursued unrelenting (and still ongoing) legal defense of hateful lies. Let's face it: it would be much simpler to focus on evidence based truth on campus... and could have prevented the dismantling 21st century outcomes in the USA.
Yes, let's restore the pursuit of truth and scholarly discourse on campus. Let's preach evidence based pursuit of consensus and conflict resolution, rather than endorse the ongoing pandora box of infinite viewpoint diversity on campus.
1) https://hxstem.substack.com/p/appeal-to-redefine-academic-freedom
2) https://weareall.com/pedagogical-malpractice/
3) https://weareall.com/education/