4 ms·

> I enthusiastically applied to various PhD programs, but was unceremoniously rejected, and upon reaching out was met with “…engaging in outdated notions of env

> I enthusiastically applied to various PhD programs, but was unceremoniously rejected, and upon reaching out was met with “…engaging in outdated notions of environmental determinism.” “…you’re playing with fire by suggesting evolved cognitive differences… ” “The political climate on our campus is highly unfavorable for these areas of research.” “…this is probably the worst time in history to be studying such topics.” “…you will likely encounter extreme difficulties in securing grants.” This is incredibly sad.

jklinger410 2y ago
Science has more than just a replication issue. One of many reasons that public trust in institutions has been almost entirely eroded.
- shadowgovt 2y ago
  Sorry, I don't follow. The man has no track record of previous research and applied to several Ph.D programs; of course he was rejected. Good on him for sticking with his hypothesis far enough to research it thoroughly, write it up, and publish it in a peer-reviewed journal, and now that he has done that work, he might start to turn heads in a Ph.D program. But otherwise, rejection from Ph.D programs after applying with an idea and no credentials is a bit like saying "Based on my new theory of radiation-proof ultra-thin materials, I applied to NASA, ESA, and JAXA for a head researcher position but was unceremoniously rejected." Of course you were, mate. You have no demonstrable history in the field. They want to see at least a working spacesuit prototype first.
  - yimby2001 2y ago
    It’s a PhD program, not a job and also you are completely ignoring the reasons he was given for his rejection
  - like_any_other 2y ago
    > The man has no track record of previous research and applied to several Ph.D programs; of course he was rejected. He was specifically told he was rejected for doing forbidden research. Sure he might have been rejected anyway even if he had been researching something else, but let's not overlook the reasons he was given.
    - shadowgovt 2y ago
      Sure, but that doesn't really modify the point. Those fields are "forbidden" (the publication of his paper demonstrates they are not; they are unpopular having generated significantly negative outcomes and no shortage of dead-ends) for a reason. "The secret to my radiation-proof space suit was interspersing microscopic mercury-selenium pellets in the fabric of the suit with quantum properties that match the wavelength of ionizing radiation at a ~" "Oh, you're using mercury. In fabric. That goes on human skin. Okay, now we really need to see a prototype. And your health trials."
      - like_any_other 2y ago
        Yes, thinking evolution affects humans is as ridiculous as putting mercury into clothes, and evolution in general has been nothing but dead ends.
        shadowgovt 2y ago
        It's not so much ridiculous as "There are ways to do it safely. History strongly suggests that the default should be to assume it's unsafe, so treat it with heightened scrutiny." There may be some specific ways in which Lamarckian genetics is correct, but given that trusting too much in it has already resulted in one crippling famine, it's fair to hit claims founded on it with a larger skepticism bat than theories based on Mendelian inheritance.
    - dwater 2y ago
      For me personally I require more evidence than a few quotes that do not appear to actually be direct quotations to accept his conclusion that the reason he was rejected was PhD programs were too "woke". It is possible, but it's also possible that he misunderstood what they were trying to tell him.
      - like_any_other 2y ago
        Here is the additional (circumstantial) evidence you requested: The leading journal Nature Human Behaviour recently made this practice official in an editorial effectively announcing that it will not publish studies that show the wrong kind of differences between human groups. [..] the National Institutes of Health now withholds access to an important database if it thinks a scientist’s research may wander into forbidden territory - https://www.city-journal.org/article/dont-even-go-there https://www.city-journal.org/article/dont-even-go-there
  - harvey9 2y ago
    If the issue is his credentials why was there so much mention of the topic of research being a problem? Your post seems disingenuous.
    - shadowgovt 2y ago
      The only source we have for the contents of those rejection letters is excerpts from the individual rejected. I don't think we can extrapolate from that data set alone.
  - jdminhbg 2y ago
    > The man has no track record of previous research and applied to several Ph.D programs Isn't the PhD program where you're supposed to generate the track record of research?
    - dekhn 2y ago
      Many people who get into PhD programs have some level of undergraduate research (typically performed in a lab, alongside grad students and a professor). When a graduate acceptance committee is evaluating applications, signals like "I have worked with a professor", "wrote an undergrad thesis", and "was coauthor and published in a peer-reviewed journal" cause applicants to be ranked more highly than peers who lack those signals.
shermantanktop 2y ago
Is it? Maybe this is just a terrible paper that reads like 19th century theories about Aryans. Those responses sound like they are pointing to a climate of intellectual repression, but...there's a reason we don't have endowed chairs in phrenology or palmistry or astral projection. And if someone proposed such a thing, the responses might not look too open-minded. As they say, it's good to be open-minded, but not so open-minded that your brain falls out.
- tredre3 2y ago
  What you're doing by comparing it to phrenology and astral projection is just reductio ad absurdum. It's not controversial that some personality traits might have genetic roots. It's also not controversial that humans who evolved in different regions have slightly different genetics. His research combines the two.
  - shadowgovt 2y ago
    But at first glance at the thesis of the research project, there's every reason to doubt the two combined would make any sense here. Among the immediate initial questions it raises is "Most East Asians don't live in subzero temperatures any more, so why do they still act that way?" One has to remember how many absolute crackpots institutions of higher learning have write in every year. Now that he's done the heavy lifting on his own, there's a paper that can be discussed, but no shame on any institution that saw a nobody in the field coming in with an idea likely to fail to hold any water that went "Yeah, we're going to invest zero resources into that." Comparison to phrenology, for an unknown quantity, isn't absurd; it's kind of the status quo for universities getting solicitations from strangers. That channel of communication is where the perpetual motion machines, time cubes, and proposals to go find the resting place of Atlantis come from.
  - baq 2y ago
    Yeah but ‘racism bad’ and even suggesting that race might have any meaningful impact on anything at all is unacceptable politically, even if obviously true or impossible to disprove.
  - 2y ago

jklinger410 2y ago

Science has more than just a replication issue. One of many reasons that public trust in institutions has been almost entirely eroded.

shadowgovt 2y ago
Sorry, I don't follow. The man has no track record of previous research and applied to several Ph.D programs; of course he was rejected. Good on him for sticking with his hypothesis far enough to research it thoroughly, write it up, and publish it in a peer-reviewed journal, and now that he has done that work, he might start to turn heads in a Ph.D program. But otherwise, rejection from Ph.D programs after applying with an idea and no credentials is a bit like saying "Based on my new theory of radiation-proof ultra-thin materials, I applied to NASA, ESA, and JAXA for a head researcher position but was unceremoniously rejected." Of course you were, mate. You have no demonstrable history in the field. They want to see at least a working spacesuit prototype first.
- yimby2001 2y ago
  It’s a PhD program, not a job and also you are completely ignoring the reasons he was given for his rejection
- like_any_other 2y ago
  > The man has no track record of previous research and applied to several Ph.D programs; of course he was rejected. He was specifically told he was rejected for doing forbidden research. Sure he might have been rejected anyway even if he had been researching something else, but let's not overlook the reasons he was given.
  - shadowgovt 2y ago
    Sure, but that doesn't really modify the point. Those fields are "forbidden" (the publication of his paper demonstrates they are not; they are unpopular having generated significantly negative outcomes and no shortage of dead-ends) for a reason. "The secret to my radiation-proof space suit was interspersing microscopic mercury-selenium pellets in the fabric of the suit with quantum properties that match the wavelength of ionizing radiation at a ~" "Oh, you're using mercury. In fabric. That goes on human skin. Okay, now we really need to see a prototype. And your health trials."
    - like_any_other 2y ago
      Yes, thinking evolution affects humans is as ridiculous as putting mercury into clothes, and evolution in general has been nothing but dead ends.
      - shadowgovt 2y ago
        It's not so much ridiculous as "There are ways to do it safely. History strongly suggests that the default should be to assume it's unsafe, so treat it with heightened scrutiny." There may be some specific ways in which Lamarckian genetics is correct, but given that trusting too much in it has already resulted in one crippling famine, it's fair to hit claims founded on it with a larger skepticism bat than theories based on Mendelian inheritance.
  - dwater 2y ago
    For me personally I require more evidence than a few quotes that do not appear to actually be direct quotations to accept his conclusion that the reason he was rejected was PhD programs were too "woke". It is possible, but it's also possible that he misunderstood what they were trying to tell him.
    - like_any_other 2y ago
      Here is the additional (circumstantial) evidence you requested: The leading journal Nature Human Behaviour recently made this practice official in an editorial effectively announcing that it will not publish studies that show the wrong kind of differences between human groups. [..] the National Institutes of Health now withholds access to an important database if it thinks a scientist’s research may wander into forbidden territory - https://www.city-journal.org/article/dont-even-go-there https://www.city-journal.org/article/dont-even-go-there
- harvey9 2y ago
  If the issue is his credentials why was there so much mention of the topic of research being a problem? Your post seems disingenuous.
  - shadowgovt 2y ago
    The only source we have for the contents of those rejection letters is excerpts from the individual rejected. I don't think we can extrapolate from that data set alone.
- jdminhbg 2y ago
  > The man has no track record of previous research and applied to several Ph.D programs Isn't the PhD program where you're supposed to generate the track record of research?
  - dekhn 2y ago
    Many people who get into PhD programs have some level of undergraduate research (typically performed in a lab, alongside grad students and a professor). When a graduate acceptance committee is evaluating applications, signals like "I have worked with a professor", "wrote an undergrad thesis", and "was coauthor and published in a peer-reviewed journal" cause applicants to be ranked more highly than peers who lack those signals.

shermantanktop 2y ago

Is it? Maybe this is just a terrible paper that reads like 19th century theories about Aryans. Those responses sound like they are pointing to a climate of intellectual repression, but...there's a reason we don't have endowed chairs in phrenology or palmistry or astral projection. And if someone proposed such a thing, the responses might not look too open-minded. As they say, it's good to be open-minded, but not so open-minded that your brain falls out.

tredre3 2y ago
What you're doing by comparing it to phrenology and astral projection is just reductio ad absurdum. It's not controversial that some personality traits might have genetic roots. It's also not controversial that humans who evolved in different regions have slightly different genetics. His research combines the two.
- shadowgovt 2y ago
  But at first glance at the thesis of the research project, there's every reason to doubt the two combined would make any sense here. Among the immediate initial questions it raises is "Most East Asians don't live in subzero temperatures any more, so why do they still act that way?" One has to remember how many absolute crackpots institutions of higher learning have write in every year. Now that he's done the heavy lifting on his own, there's a paper that can be discussed, but no shame on any institution that saw a nobody in the field coming in with an idea likely to fail to hold any water that went "Yeah, we're going to invest zero resources into that." Comparison to phrenology, for an unknown quantity, isn't absurd; it's kind of the status quo for universities getting solicitations from strangers. That channel of communication is where the perpetual motion machines, time cubes, and proposals to go find the resting place of Atlantis come from.
- baq 2y ago
  Yeah but ‘racism bad’ and even suggesting that race might have any meaningful impact on anything at all is unacceptable politically, even if obviously true or impossible to disprove.
- 2y ago