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Well, maybe I should walk back my comment a bit. I haven't worked in academia for a half decade or so. The topic may have become hotter than I imagined from whe

Well, maybe I should walk back my comment a bit. I haven't worked in academia for a half decade or so. The topic may have become hotter than I imagined from where it was. I don't know. And point taken about affecting communication with the public. That is sort of outside my perspective. Academia always felt super insular to me and that scope was beyond anything I ever had to deal with.

stcredzero 8y ago
Just today, another story surfaced of a professor targeted for writing a reasonable contrarian view. His office door was vandalized, and a mob assembled. (Some would call this a "protest" but given the mild pretext and the problematic implementation and its disconnection from philosophically sound principles, I would call it more of a mob.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60w0DZX5-SM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60w0DZX5-SM This sort of thing seems to surface every month or so now. The field of evolutionary biology seems to be targeted in particular. Many of the targeted professors report that many of their colleagues offer them support in private, but dare not speak up in public for fear of also being targeted -- even tenured ones. In some cases, it looks like unverifiable accusations of sexual misconduct are being weaponized for this purpose. Trigger warnings and microaggressions and the like seem to be a favorite weapon to be used against professors. During the Evergreen protests, students were marauding campus with baseball bats, looking for professor Bret Weinstein. More disturbingly, he was frozen out by most of the mainstream press, who only began covering him when their silence became deafening.
- KirinDave 8y ago
  I have 0 desire to engage in a protracted debate on Hacker News, so I will not respond to any specific aspect of this post with the traditional fisk-and-rant format. Instead, I'd like to encourage any reader who chances upon this thread subsequently to scrutinize this post carefully, because it attempts to suggest multiple equivalencies that I feel are not only inappropriate for the discussion at hand, but suggest a rather stark worldview. In particular, there was lots of press coverage on the Evergreen event and any observer can go and read a variety of perspectives on it. It's also worth noting that Evergreen was an extremely unusual style of university, and as such already had a lot of interesting customs. Suggesting that Prof. Weinstein's protesting of white people also having a venue to participate in a longstanding tradition of a black student walkout is somehow relevant to conversation about biological gender differences is chilling, because it raises the question if in this poster's mind there are relevant biological racial differences. Is this poster asking us to take a careless leap between questioning biological differences of the sexes to biological differences between races? If not, why are nearly all examples given in reference to an issue about race relations? Similarly, one can investigate the claim that conservative professors and students are unfairly targeted. The numbers there are interesting, but don't tell a convincing story. You can also investigate the implication that conservative and traditionalist students are treated unfairly is not well supported by the numbers. Finally, one need only look towards the career advancements and growing department sizes of evolutionary biology to see that they're actually doing fine. Evolutionary Psychologists are having a hard time, but they're also facing many challenges actually demonstrating consistently testable predictions (as is the larger field, as statistical expertise becomes more normalized in the field). You shouldn't trust links provided in threads like this, particularly on this website. They're often carefully selected (and I say this in a non-partisan fashion; everyone does it). You're much better off investigating these things organically.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    Suggesting that Prof. Weinstein's protesting of white people also having a venue to participate in a longstanding tradition of a black student walkout is somehow relevant to conversation about biological gender differences is chilling This is typical of this sort of namecalling and sinister association. A demonstration against racial exclusion which itself uses racial exclusion is obviously problematic. What I've seen time and time again, is that the purpose of such comments is to get as many people to "move along" and not look further. People of good conscience who are passionate about the truth need to look into these things, be forthright, and not be cowed. If tenured professors effectively no longer have freedom of speech, there is something going dramatically wrong in our society. Similarly, one can investigate the claim that conservative professors and students are unfairly targeted. The numbers there are interesting, but don't tell a convincing story The fact that tenured professors feel trepidation about speaking out should raise serious concerns in our society. The fact that the mainstream press basically buries this stuff should raise serious concern. Finally, one need only look towards the career advancements and growing department sizes of evolutionary biology to see that they're actually doing fine. Bret Weinstein focuses on evolutionary biology. You shouldn't trust links provided in threads like this, particularly on this website. They're often carefully selected (and I say this in a non-partisan fashion; everyone does it). You're much better off investigating these things organically. Sure. Please investigate this yourself, past the facade presented to us by the mainstream media. Just investigate with this fact in mind: These events are alarming if you look into them, and they are buried by the mainstream media. This is the most significant meta-level fact, and it's an alarming one to think about.
  - mancerayder 8y ago
    Suggesting that Prof. Weinstein's protesting of white people also having a venue to participate in a longstanding tradition of a black student walkout is somehow relevant to conversation about biological gender differences is chilling, because it raises the question if in this poster's mind there are relevant biological racial differences. Is this poster asking us to take a careless leap between questioning biological differences of the sexes to biological differences between races? If not, why are nearly all examples given in reference to an issue about race relations? Look, I don't know what was in the poster's mind. However, it seems the common theme you picked out (biological differences of the sexes and a dangerous leap to racial differences) is one common theme. If you hadn't said anything, I was assuming the poster's comparison here was to show that we're targeting academics with dissenting opinions. Whether that's correct or incorrect is worthy of debate, fine, but your interpretation was particularly ominous. Edit: and perhaps manipulatively so. If something is ambiguous, why not ask rather than assume? There's an unfortunate epidemic of people who know other people better than other people know themselves.

stcredzero 8y ago

Just today, another story surfaced of a professor targeted for writing a reasonable contrarian view. His office door was vandalized, and a mob assembled. (Some would call this a "protest" but given the mild pretext and the problematic implementation and its disconnection from philosophically sound principles, I would call it more of a mob.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60w0DZX5-SM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60w0DZX5-SM This sort of thing seems to surface every month or so now. The field of evolutionary biology seems to be targeted in particular. Many of the targeted professors report that many of their colleagues offer them support in private, but dare not speak up in public for fear of also being targeted -- even tenured ones. In some cases, it looks like unverifiable accusations of sexual misconduct are being weaponized for this purpose. Trigger warnings and microaggressions and the like seem to be a favorite weapon to be used against professors. During the Evergreen protests, students were marauding campus with baseball bats, looking for professor Bret Weinstein. More disturbingly, he was frozen out by most of the mainstream press, who only began covering him when their silence became deafening.

KirinDave 8y ago
I have 0 desire to engage in a protracted debate on Hacker News, so I will not respond to any specific aspect of this post with the traditional fisk-and-rant format. Instead, I'd like to encourage any reader who chances upon this thread subsequently to scrutinize this post carefully, because it attempts to suggest multiple equivalencies that I feel are not only inappropriate for the discussion at hand, but suggest a rather stark worldview. In particular, there was lots of press coverage on the Evergreen event and any observer can go and read a variety of perspectives on it. It's also worth noting that Evergreen was an extremely unusual style of university, and as such already had a lot of interesting customs. Suggesting that Prof. Weinstein's protesting of white people also having a venue to participate in a longstanding tradition of a black student walkout is somehow relevant to conversation about biological gender differences is chilling, because it raises the question if in this poster's mind there are relevant biological racial differences. Is this poster asking us to take a careless leap between questioning biological differences of the sexes to biological differences between races? If not, why are nearly all examples given in reference to an issue about race relations? Similarly, one can investigate the claim that conservative professors and students are unfairly targeted. The numbers there are interesting, but don't tell a convincing story. You can also investigate the implication that conservative and traditionalist students are treated unfairly is not well supported by the numbers. Finally, one need only look towards the career advancements and growing department sizes of evolutionary biology to see that they're actually doing fine. Evolutionary Psychologists are having a hard time, but they're also facing many challenges actually demonstrating consistently testable predictions (as is the larger field, as statistical expertise becomes more normalized in the field). You shouldn't trust links provided in threads like this, particularly on this website. They're often carefully selected (and I say this in a non-partisan fashion; everyone does it). You're much better off investigating these things organically.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Suggesting that Prof. Weinstein's protesting of white people also having a venue to participate in a longstanding tradition of a black student walkout is somehow relevant to conversation about biological gender differences is chilling This is typical of this sort of namecalling and sinister association. A demonstration against racial exclusion which itself uses racial exclusion is obviously problematic. What I've seen time and time again, is that the purpose of such comments is to get as many people to "move along" and not look further. People of good conscience who are passionate about the truth need to look into these things, be forthright, and not be cowed. If tenured professors effectively no longer have freedom of speech, there is something going dramatically wrong in our society. Similarly, one can investigate the claim that conservative professors and students are unfairly targeted. The numbers there are interesting, but don't tell a convincing story The fact that tenured professors feel trepidation about speaking out should raise serious concerns in our society. The fact that the mainstream press basically buries this stuff should raise serious concern. Finally, one need only look towards the career advancements and growing department sizes of evolutionary biology to see that they're actually doing fine. Bret Weinstein focuses on evolutionary biology. You shouldn't trust links provided in threads like this, particularly on this website. They're often carefully selected (and I say this in a non-partisan fashion; everyone does it). You're much better off investigating these things organically. Sure. Please investigate this yourself, past the facade presented to us by the mainstream media. Just investigate with this fact in mind: These events are alarming if you look into them, and they are buried by the mainstream media. This is the most significant meta-level fact, and it's an alarming one to think about.
- mancerayder 8y ago
  Suggesting that Prof. Weinstein's protesting of white people also having a venue to participate in a longstanding tradition of a black student walkout is somehow relevant to conversation about biological gender differences is chilling, because it raises the question if in this poster's mind there are relevant biological racial differences. Is this poster asking us to take a careless leap between questioning biological differences of the sexes to biological differences between races? If not, why are nearly all examples given in reference to an issue about race relations? Look, I don't know what was in the poster's mind. However, it seems the common theme you picked out (biological differences of the sexes and a dangerous leap to racial differences) is one common theme. If you hadn't said anything, I was assuming the poster's comparison here was to show that we're targeting academics with dissenting opinions. Whether that's correct or incorrect is worthy of debate, fine, but your interpretation was particularly ominous. Edit: and perhaps manipulatively so. If something is ambiguous, why not ask rather than assume? There's an unfortunate epidemic of people who know other people better than other people know themselves.