The other day I discussed how several anthropologists wrote a letter supporting the decision of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) and the Canadian Anthropological Society (CASCA) to cancel a panel on sex (“Let’s talk about sex, baby: why biological sex remains a necessary analytic category in anthropology”) at their annual meeting. Appaerntly they objected to…
‘Progressive’ academics all aquiver before Siouxsie Wiles decision. Graham Adams writes – Last week, the NZ Herald published a very curious article about an “unsafe workplace”. You might have expected it to be about volunteer firefighters, or police dog handlers, or perhaps even nurses at the front line of hospital emergency departments, where unruly patients […]
One of my favorite secular organizations is the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF), of which I’m a member of the “honorary board”. But even honorary boards should play an advisory role, and so I’m doing that here by calling attention to the organization’s mission creep. In previous posts, I noted that the organization, which is […]
The Atlantic‘s Conor Fridersdorf is a breath of fresh air among liberal woke media. He is in fact a liberal, but not a “progressive”, and in the new article below he reports one mathematician’s observations of how DEI has insinuated itself into academics, creating not only viewpoint homogeneity, but authoritarianism. Like my colleague Anna Krylov, […]
We have a new “progressive” mayor, Brandon Johnson, and although one of his election promises was to keep our “magnet school” system in place, he’s preparing a resolution to end it. “Magnet schools” are a form of student secondary-school tracking in which students can apply to go to any school, but the best schools, often…
There is a major controversy brewing in Canada over a proposal in the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons that schools shift from emphasizing “medical expertise” in favor of teaching “anti-racism” and social justice values.
Steve Pinker has published his remedy for Harvard’s woes in today’s Boston Globe; he outlined these to me last week over a beer, but I didn’t feel at liberty to divulge what he said he was writing about. Now I can. But the fricking Globe is completely paywalled, so I had to go to our…
Jerry Coyne writes – This article from New Zealand’s Newsroom site was written by Julie Rowland, the deputy dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Auckland as well as a geologist and the Director of the Ngā Ara Whetū | Centre for Climate, Biodiversity & Society. In other word, she’s a scientist. One key to […]
Many of the comments about the Coalition’s determination to wind back the dramatic Maorification of New Zealand of the last three years would have you believe the new government is engaged in a full-scale attack on Maori. In reality, all that is really happening is that ministers are stopping the crusade waged by the Ardern/Hipkins…
By Paul Homewood h/t Paul Kolk I’m not quite sure why this is on BBC Verify! As global leaders gather at the COP28 summit in Dubai, environmental activists around the world are still challenging climate sceptics. Young people from five countries told BBC News how they are trying to change the minds […]
Almost everyone has thought about it at least once. You’re on a plane, minding your own business when suddenly and unexpectedly, an announcement comes over your entertainment system that the pilots have been incapacitated and they are urgently looking for someone to land the plane. Would you put your hand up for this heroic task?…
This is not the only grant I know abut that requires a DEI statement, but it’s the only student grant I know that does that. I may, of course, have missed some, but these grants from the Animal Behavior society are grants for specific research projects, and it seems wrong to me to co-opt an […]
You can read Chuck Schumer’s recent op-ed in the NYT, “What American Jews fear most,“, or you can watch his 40-minute speech on the topic given in the Senate (video below). I recommend listening to the speech, of which the op-ed is a short distillation. Alternatively, read the transcript, which you can find here. Schumer […]
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. - J Robert Oppenheimer.
Recent Comments