A related anecdote: I have a family member with granulomatosis with polyangiitis, abbreviated GPA, but usually called Wegner’s after the scientist that did most

A related anecdote: I have a family member with granulomatosis with polyangiitis, abbreviated GPA, but usually called Wegner’s after the scientist that did most of the research on the disease. Several years ago, someone pointed out that not only was Wegner a Nazi, a lot of his research was conducted on captive Jews. There was a push to start calling the disease GPA exclusively, but to this day most physicians call it Wegner’s. The inertia of the existing name and the fact that most of the world benefited from his research while only the Jews were harmed seems to be enough to keep his name in use. Similarly, while established terms like “noosing” a lizard may be tangentially related to racism, I don’t think there’s enough will among scientists to change the term. Just because one person is offended doesn’t mean the term is bad. If the way you catch a lizard is by slipping a loop of string around its neck then it’s noosing. If you throw the loop of string and catch the lizard at a distance then it should be called lassoing. But don’t use less correct terms just because of a perceived (but non-existent) slight. My own field of statistics has struggled with this, as noted in the article. The general way of thinking is to accept that there were some great statisticians in the past that had wacky ideas. My own dissertation rests on work that Ronald Fisher did. I’m fine with taking down a stained glass window of Fisher but I am also comfortable talking about Fisher’s information matrix.