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According to a document drop publicly released on Retraction Watch, Senechal wrote to Hill and Tabachnikov, concerned about the “very real possibility that the

According to a document drop publicly released on Retraction Watch, Senechal wrote to Hill and Tabachnikov, concerned about the “very real possibility that the right-wing media may pick [the article] up and hype it internationally.” She proposed a round-table discussion be held in lieu of publishing the paper, one that never occurred. I don't understand why the people involved would care if some political group picked up the paper. The best political move for the profs in this case is to state their criticisms of the paper and move on. Stamping down on it just makes it louder. Ignoring the valid academic criticisms of the piece makes it look deliberately pushed out to the world. Just comment and move on. This feels like another academic advertisement for internet politics. The 'sexism makes politics' angle is so worn out lately.

Ma8ee 4y ago
Because you don’t want yourself or the journal your are editor for to be used as a weapon by right wing extremists (i.e. so called conservatives). Even if the research would be true and we could use the knowledge to improve society, the right wing will pick it up and use it to promote sexism and racism.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  Except that right wing trolls will pick up literally anything for their own purposes. Trying to avoid that by playing politics about scientific matters is a fool's game, it only compounds the problem further.
  - Ma8ee 4y ago
    Are you sure about that? I’m sure that you probably could find small but significant (in the statistical sense) differences of intelligence between races and genders if you tried hard enough. It would be strange otherwise. Would that knowledge make the world a better or worse place in the current political climate? What would your thoughts be about the motivation behind that research? Do you really think it would be honest, unbiased search for truth?
    - zozbot234 4y ago
      The "current political climate" around race and gender is so thoroughly screwed up that it's hard to think of any real research activity that might make it actually worse. And if you care about e.g. educational outcomes across races and/or genders (which plenty of people do, seeing as these are highly relevant to broader social goals!), the question you refer to is in fact relevant-- if only to conclusively rule out larger differences as a possible factor, and place the research spotlight on other things-- such as e.g. pervasive, systemic dysfunction within educational institutions themselves.
    - Jensson 4y ago
      Why doesn't good people fund good science where they get all these numbers for difference in intelligence etc? Currently the only sources for those numbers comes from biased people, so getting the real numbers out there should be a win and reduce racism, no? Because without those numbers people will view the difference as much bigger than they are, that is how bias works. You fight bias with real numbers and statistics, for example whenever biased people talk about criminal immigrants we point to statistics showing that immigrants aren't very criminal, I don't see why this situation is different.
      - Ma8ee 4y ago
        > You fight bias with real numbers and statistics, I really wish that was the case. Say that the research say that group A is slightly more intelligent than group B, but that the variation between each group is much larger than the small difference between the averages. The only thing that will be repeated ad nausea, and used to justify all sorts of inequality, is group A is more intelligent than group B. > for example whenever biased people talk about criminal immigrants we point to statistics showing that immigrants aren't very criminal In my country immigrants are about twice as likely as the native population to have a criminal record. A lot of that can be explained by bias among the police and courts, and by social class. What people remember is TWICE as criminal, which rapidly becomes “most of them are criminals”, not that 97% don’t have any criminal record (compared to 98.5).
        4y ago
- colechristensen 4y ago
  And thus to degrade the sense that you’re working for truth instead of just your political agenda.
  - Ma8ee 4y ago
    There’s always some kind of bias that direct your research, be conscious of it or not. Thinking that there’s any kind of pure truth seeking in any research that has social implications is utterly naive.
    - colechristensen 4y ago
      And it is ridiculous to compare unavoidable unconscious bias and pulling research papers that don’t align with your politics.
colechristensen 4y ago
There was a very real possibility that political opponents would like the result of the paper. Thus giving weight to the political opponents claims that academia has an unfair bias towards one political position and is willing to distort the truth to accommodate this bias. I really don’t want academia to be driven by politics and shit like this retraction just encourages it.

Ma8ee 4y ago

Because you don’t want yourself or the journal your are editor for to be used as a weapon by right wing extremists (i.e. so called conservatives). Even if the research would be true and we could use the knowledge to improve society, the right wing will pick it up and use it to promote sexism and racism.

zozbot234 4y ago
Except that right wing trolls will pick up literally anything for their own purposes. Trying to avoid that by playing politics about scientific matters is a fool's game, it only compounds the problem further.
- Ma8ee 4y ago
  Are you sure about that? I’m sure that you probably could find small but significant (in the statistical sense) differences of intelligence between races and genders if you tried hard enough. It would be strange otherwise. Would that knowledge make the world a better or worse place in the current political climate? What would your thoughts be about the motivation behind that research? Do you really think it would be honest, unbiased search for truth?
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    The "current political climate" around race and gender is so thoroughly screwed up that it's hard to think of any real research activity that might make it actually worse. And if you care about e.g. educational outcomes across races and/or genders (which plenty of people do, seeing as these are highly relevant to broader social goals!), the question you refer to is in fact relevant-- if only to conclusively rule out larger differences as a possible factor, and place the research spotlight on other things-- such as e.g. pervasive, systemic dysfunction within educational institutions themselves.
  - Jensson 4y ago
    Why doesn't good people fund good science where they get all these numbers for difference in intelligence etc? Currently the only sources for those numbers comes from biased people, so getting the real numbers out there should be a win and reduce racism, no? Because without those numbers people will view the difference as much bigger than they are, that is how bias works. You fight bias with real numbers and statistics, for example whenever biased people talk about criminal immigrants we point to statistics showing that immigrants aren't very criminal, I don't see why this situation is different.
    - Ma8ee 4y ago
      > You fight bias with real numbers and statistics, I really wish that was the case. Say that the research say that group A is slightly more intelligent than group B, but that the variation between each group is much larger than the small difference between the averages. The only thing that will be repeated ad nausea, and used to justify all sorts of inequality, is group A is more intelligent than group B. > for example whenever biased people talk about criminal immigrants we point to statistics showing that immigrants aren't very criminal In my country immigrants are about twice as likely as the native population to have a criminal record. A lot of that can be explained by bias among the police and courts, and by social class. What people remember is TWICE as criminal, which rapidly becomes “most of them are criminals”, not that 97% don’t have any criminal record (compared to 98.5).
      - 4y ago
colechristensen 4y ago
And thus to degrade the sense that you’re working for truth instead of just your political agenda.
- Ma8ee 4y ago
  There’s always some kind of bias that direct your research, be conscious of it or not. Thinking that there’s any kind of pure truth seeking in any research that has social implications is utterly naive.
  - colechristensen 4y ago
    And it is ridiculous to compare unavoidable unconscious bias and pulling research papers that don’t align with your politics.

colechristensen 4y ago

There was a very real possibility that political opponents would like the result of the paper. Thus giving weight to the political opponents claims that academia has an unfair bias towards one political position and is willing to distort the truth to accommodate this bias. I really don’t want academia to be driven by politics and shit like this retraction just encourages it.