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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 fo

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
  your interpretation was particularly ominous This is the typical strategy. Bret Weinstein, who is Jewish and who made a potentially career-risking stand for civil rights many years back was castigated as a "sellout" and even as a "white supremacist." The truth is, that Bret Weinstein is, as far as I know, a progressive. I was a lifelong Democratic party voter. I'm non-white. I've advocated for awareness of racism and bigotry since before there was a world wide web. If you try to tell a mob that using the word "oriental" doesn't warrant a rural middle school teacher losing her job, and suggest she's a human being who should be given the benefit of the doubt and try talking to her instead, this is enough to get you called a "white supremacist." And that is just one example among many for me, personally. The fringe Far Left has hijacked the agenda of the political left as a whole, and is using these ominous authoritarian name-calling and scare tactics to silence dissent. On campus and in the street, this has even manifested as assault and violence -- on behalf of the left. Something is very wrong there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bz0oxIZ3xIg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bz0oxIZ3xIg We people of good conscience who have seen it need to start speaking up and calling this out. For those of you for whom this is new, then just try an experiment. Ask some reasonable but hard questions. Push boundaries, but only in an intellectual sense. See what reaction you get. See if you recognize the spoor of authoritarianism.
belorn 8y ago
> any observer can go and read a variety of perspectives on it Never heard of the controversy and the link went to a low quality video blog, which was also rather loud, so I did what you suggested and went and checked other sources since I wanted to know what the evergreen + Weinstein controversy was all about. "Once a year, Evergreen State University (located just outside of Seattle), allows the students of colour to take a day of absence, so that their importance and contribution is felt at the University. Bret Weinstein, as a progressive, was and has been on board for this for a long time. A year ago, they flipped the logic. Rather than telling people of colour to stay away for the day, they told white people that they are not welcome on campus for a day. Absence wasn’t compulsory, but highly recommended." Those two paragraph tells me everything I need to know. stcredzero is commenting on the political climate in academia. Not a comment about racial differences, nor race relations, but about the politics in academia. If this was gender politics it would look like this: Experiment 1: A day that allows women and only women to take day of absence from daycare, so that their importance and contribution is felt. Experiment 2: A day that declare that men are not welcome at daycare. Could anyone imagine either of those experiment going well? Imagine for completeness if we also did the same for a male dominated profession. I could not even imagine such social experiment getting a pass of approval from an ethical board, and I can't find any reference that evergreen requested one.
- KirinDave 8y ago
  > "Once a year, Evergreen State University (located just outside of Seattle), allows the students of colour to take a day of absence, so that their importance and contribution is felt at the University. Bret Weinstein, as a progressive, was and has been on board for this for a long time. There is a jarring and confusing change in character between the paragraph above and below this comment. You went from a "this is optional" clause to a "you should stay away." Your narration injected this, and did so clumsily. Is this because you're citing two sources? > A year ago, they flipped the logic. Rather than telling people of colour to stay away for the day, they told white people that they are not welcome on campus for a day. Absence wasn’t compulsory, but highly recommended." Firstly: nothing about this practice was compulsory and nothing about this practice was universal. Professors knew about the original walkout tradition and scheduled around it, but that was the extent of it. Not all students who were people of color participated. They were not "told to stay away." Nor were white students told to "stay away." What actually happened was some white people asked how they could participate, and so a group of students set up a separate group of workshops. This was very small scale, but the folks involved liked it. So the next year, it was proposed that there was a possible track for this to be supported by the school. It was not a "not welcome" declaration, it was a proposal to change a tradition. Brett Weinstein took exception to it. What followed subsequently was a series of predictable escalations by the usual extremist subjects, with non-students from alt-right groups showing up in "support" and antifa showing up to "counter" them. Because Evergreen is essentially a small non-traditional state university, they were just not prepared for this scale of action and national attention. Even with this, these were nothing like the Berkeley demonstrations. Injuries were limited, property damage was low, and actually all groups were moderated by the student body. The attempt to tie this to "suppression" of Weinstein's academic work is absurd, because nothing about any of this relates to that body of work. He took a political and ethical position completely unrelated to his work and then got involved in a controversy about it. Being a scientist with political opinions doesn't mean your political opinions are necessarily right or immune to scrutiny. If he wants to stick to science, he should have (and could have) done that. He didn't like an optional white walkout day that was done in solidarity with PoC, and he said so, and that had consequences.

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
your interpretation was particularly ominous This is the typical strategy. Bret Weinstein, who is Jewish and who made a potentially career-risking stand for civil rights many years back was castigated as a "sellout" and even as a "white supremacist." The truth is, that Bret Weinstein is, as far as I know, a progressive. I was a lifelong Democratic party voter. I'm non-white. I've advocated for awareness of racism and bigotry since before there was a world wide web. If you try to tell a mob that using the word "oriental" doesn't warrant a rural middle school teacher losing her job, and suggest she's a human being who should be given the benefit of the doubt and try talking to her instead, this is enough to get you called a "white supremacist." And that is just one example among many for me, personally. The fringe Far Left has hijacked the agenda of the political left as a whole, and is using these ominous authoritarian name-calling and scare tactics to silence dissent. On campus and in the street, this has even manifested as assault and violence -- on behalf of the left. Something is very wrong there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bz0oxIZ3xIg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bz0oxIZ3xIg We people of good conscience who have seen it need to start speaking up and calling this out. For those of you for whom this is new, then just try an experiment. Ask some reasonable but hard questions. Push boundaries, but only in an intellectual sense. See what reaction you get. See if you recognize the spoor of authoritarianism.

belorn 8y ago

> any observer can go and read a variety of perspectives on it Never heard of the controversy and the link went to a low quality video blog, which was also rather loud, so I did what you suggested and went and checked other sources since I wanted to know what the evergreen + Weinstein controversy was all about. "Once a year, Evergreen State University (located just outside of Seattle), allows the students of colour to take a day of absence, so that their importance and contribution is felt at the University. Bret Weinstein, as a progressive, was and has been on board for this for a long time. A year ago, they flipped the logic. Rather than telling people of colour to stay away for the day, they told white people that they are not welcome on campus for a day. Absence wasn’t compulsory, but highly recommended." Those two paragraph tells me everything I need to know. stcredzero is commenting on the political climate in academia. Not a comment about racial differences, nor race relations, but about the politics in academia. If this was gender politics it would look like this: Experiment 1: A day that allows women and only women to take day of absence from daycare, so that their importance and contribution is felt. Experiment 2: A day that declare that men are not welcome at daycare. Could anyone imagine either of those experiment going well? Imagine for completeness if we also did the same for a male dominated profession. I could not even imagine such social experiment getting a pass of approval from an ethical board, and I can't find any reference that evergreen requested one.

KirinDave 8y ago
> "Once a year, Evergreen State University (located just outside of Seattle), allows the students of colour to take a day of absence, so that their importance and contribution is felt at the University. Bret Weinstein, as a progressive, was and has been on board for this for a long time. There is a jarring and confusing change in character between the paragraph above and below this comment. You went from a "this is optional" clause to a "you should stay away." Your narration injected this, and did so clumsily. Is this because you're citing two sources? > A year ago, they flipped the logic. Rather than telling people of colour to stay away for the day, they told white people that they are not welcome on campus for a day. Absence wasn’t compulsory, but highly recommended." Firstly: nothing about this practice was compulsory and nothing about this practice was universal. Professors knew about the original walkout tradition and scheduled around it, but that was the extent of it. Not all students who were people of color participated. They were not "told to stay away." Nor were white students told to "stay away." What actually happened was some white people asked how they could participate, and so a group of students set up a separate group of workshops. This was very small scale, but the folks involved liked it. So the next year, it was proposed that there was a possible track for this to be supported by the school. It was not a "not welcome" declaration, it was a proposal to change a tradition. Brett Weinstein took exception to it. What followed subsequently was a series of predictable escalations by the usual extremist subjects, with non-students from alt-right groups showing up in "support" and antifa showing up to "counter" them. Because Evergreen is essentially a small non-traditional state university, they were just not prepared for this scale of action and national attention. Even with this, these were nothing like the Berkeley demonstrations. Injuries were limited, property damage was low, and actually all groups were moderated by the student body. The attempt to tie this to "suppression" of Weinstein's academic work is absurd, because nothing about any of this relates to that body of work. He took a political and ethical position completely unrelated to his work and then got involved in a controversy about it. Being a scientist with political opinions doesn't mean your political opinions are necessarily right or immune to scrutiny. If he wants to stick to science, he should have (and could have) done that. He didn't like an optional white walkout day that was done in solidarity with PoC, and he said so, and that had consequences.