The British Medical Journal is accused of rejecting research from top academics over their belief that sex is biological and unchangeable. The Mail has the story.
One researcher had his paper rejected because he was “opinionated” and had tweeted in support of author J.K. Rowling’s gender-critical views.
The other’s research was taken offline by BMJ staff who accused him of being “transphobic” based on a student paper article about him. Both academics saw the discussions in BMJ staff emails after making Freedom of Information requests.
Dr. Michael Biggs, an Oxford University sociologist, was blacklisted over a paper saying the official number of transgender people in the U.K. – 262,000 – is unreliable because of a confusingly-worded census question.
He said a number of people who don’t speak English as a first language had answered “no” to: “Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?”
BMJ staff emails claimed Dr. Biggs’s piece “portrays trans individuals as uneducated and implies they weren’t able to understand the question on the census”. …
Dr. John Armstrong, a mathematician at King’s College London, submitted a paper to BMJ Open on findings that institutions with higher ‘Athena Swan’ ratings – an award given for promoting gender equality – had fewer women in senior roles.
After it was rejected, he found a member of staff had told a colleague his social media account had “coloured our impression of the manuscript”. …
Dr. Armstrong said: “If a journal censors findings because they don’t like the results or the author, it has abandoned science.”
Worth reading in full.
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I would observe that they are doing precious little to support the Farmers, perhaps they
just retain an old name but no longer really see that as their core business, they are keener I think to sell insurance and other financial packages to all and sundry. It might be worth looking at who they have big insurance contracts etc with, that might provide a clue as to who they really serve.
I think you’re barking up the wrong tree here. There’s no formal connection between NFU Mutual and the National Farmers Union, although (as helpfully explained by ChatGPT) “NFU Mutual and the NFU collaborate on farming-related issues, and many NFU members choose to insure with NFU Mutual”.
Given the lukewarm NFU support for the grass-roots farmers’ protests, what’s the betting that a UK equivalent of DOGE would discover interesting funding streams coming from Big Farmer?
I expect it’ll be same as organisations like the CBI that receive all kinds of overpriced government favours (consultancies, training contracts etc.) as long as they toe the party-line. After a while, the easy availability of such income streams lessens the significance of the subscription income from their actual members and, as the author described, encourages them to become self-serving.
In the CBI’s case, it got to the point where the senior management ended up going rogue and the whole organisation had to be rebuilt as a shadow of its former self. Perhaps the NFU is due to go the same way?
Let’s bloody hope so.
Thank you, David Craig. Shades of Ofgem, Ofcom and Ofwat – silly me, thinking once upon a time these lumbering, parasitic quangocracies must have been set up in the interest of consumer protection…
…Whereas nowadays morphed into self-serving organs of gov.uk, operated for gov.uk, by gov.uk, to keep gov.uk’s ripped-off citizens in line.
Better not get myself started (again) on that 25% increase in water bill that slithered through our letter flap the other day. Improvements in health… Environmental quality… Climate change… Blah, blah, blah, explains an accompanying letter from “Mike, Customer Services”, headed, “Creating a stronger, greener and healthier North West.”
Plans “independently assessed and aproved by our regulator,” Mike also reassures.
No mention of Oftwat remonstrating with United Utilities and gov.uk, on behalf of bill-paying consumers. Too busy walking the dog, picking up the kids and rattling off vacuous word salads from home.
Thanks Mike, thanks Oftwats. Off with their heads, their overblown billpayer-funded salaries and their word salads. Get rid.
I resigned a couple of years ago as I got fed up with them parroting the government line on global warming and doing FA to stop net zero impacting farmers
How many more of these useless self-serving organisations have we got?
RSPB – which has had absolutely nothing to say on the subject of the bird mincers.
RSPCC – which has had FA to say about the Pakistani Rape Gangs.
British Heart Foundation – wholly supportive of every bit of madness pushed by government throughout the Scamdemic and particularly masks for those suffering from heart disease and which I challenged them on. And they still push the C1984 “vaccines.”
There are of course scores of others. A massive Trump style decimation is required although decimation alone might be too sparing.
NFU – Next to Fucking Useless.
I wonder what James Rebanks thinks of the NFU.
I own a smallholding but no longer farm it, too much form filling and bureaucracy. Last year I asked NFU for a buildings and contents insurance quote.The NFU have an office in my local town and at least 2 staff. Their quote was over five times more that using a price comparison site and the office rarely has anyone in it other than the staff.that seem to have nothing to do.
Your analysis of the servers and self servers is brilliantly simple yet incredibly accurate. Thank you for the clarity of your arguments and your article.
Is the nfu a bit like our usaid? Unaccountable. Well you can see what is happening to the usaid. It is being extinguished, by the new sheriff in town. So, if those running the nfu would like to keep their jobs perhaps they may want to show some accountability, for starters. Our farmers and the country’s taxpayers deserve this at a minimum.