Science, nominally the most prestigious scientific journal in the world, is at it again. In November, it published an editorial by Agustin Fuentes titled ‘Scientists as political advocates’. The gist is that scientists and scientific institutions need to be even more political than they already are.
Back in 2023, Fuentes wrote an editorial that claimed “being woke is just doing good 21st-century science”. And in 2021, he wrote one that described Charles Darwin as “an English man with injurious and unfounded prejudices”. Indeed, the prolific Fuentes has penned no less than eight editorials for Science over the last four years – suggesting that the editors like what he’s selling.
Returning to ‘Scientists as political advocates’, Fuentes begins by warning readers that science is “under attack”. Does he mean that it’s under attack from woke ideologues trying to bend science into a tool for promoting ‘diversity’? Or that it’s under attack from public health officials trying to shut down discussion over the harms of pandemic policies? Of course not. He means that it’s under attack from his political opponents.
Almost all the examples Fuentes gives involve accusations that some person or organisation on the political right is attacking science. He isn’t worried about attempts to redefine basic biological concepts like ‘sex’ or scientists being made the subjects of censorious petitions for opposing mask mandates. This isn’t to say that Fuentes’ examples don’t qualify as attacks – just that his presentation is so obviously one-sided and tendentious.
In the next paragraph, Fuentes manages to derive the conclusion that “science in many societies is political and always has been” by quoting a recent statement on “scientific responsibility” from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which incidentally publishes Science. I’m not convinced. Sure, scientists should act responsibly, just like everyone else. But this doesn’t mean that science as an institution is or should be political.
People like myself who oppose the politicisation of science aren’t saying that scientists should be free to act irresponsibly, or that they should be indifferent to “the interest of humanity” (Fuentes’ words) in their role as private citizens. We’re saying that science itself should be kept separate from politics, as prescribed by the four Mertonian norms:
- Scientists must be judged on impersonal criteria. (No firing people for ‘racism’.)
- They must share their data and results with one another. (No preventing access to datasets.)
- They must seek to advance knowledge, not pursue personal or political goals. (No requiring people to promote ‘diversity’.)
- And they must remain detached from the subject matter of their research. (No promoting feel-good dogmas.)
In the next paragraph, Fuentes reaffirms his woke credentials, complaining that “attacks are often especially intense when the scientists are also women, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color), queer, or from other marginalized groups”. What he’s basically saying is that attacks on white male scientists are the least intense, which is more or less the opposite of the truth. Attacks on white male scientists tend to be the most intense precisely because such individuals rank lowest in the woke’s victimhood hierarchy. Have any black female scientists been the subject of a censorious petition signed by hundreds of their colleagues?
Fuentes proceeds to criticise the “idea that scientists must maintain an air of neutrality”, which, he claims, is “ethically problematic and practically detrimental” in the face of an “anti-science onslaught”. He seems to believe the only reason people aren’t on board with his political agenda is that too many scientists are laying low because they’re hung up on this whole neutrality thing. But scientists in many fields aren’t keeping quiet: they’re engaging in precisely the kind of activism that Fuentes wants. And in doing so, they’re contributing to the loss of public trust in science.
Fuentes’ call for super-charging the politicisation of science somehow isn’t very compelling. Traditional scientific values like neutrality and impartiality – they’re worth hanging on to.
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Fuentes is a contemporary advocate for neo-Lysekoism, and would have been at home in Stalin’s Russia. And this points to the real problem of politicised science for society: that science becomes not an aid to truth-finding, but an aid to maintaining non-democratic political power.
The former editor of ‘Scientific American’ – not Scientific and anti-American — resigned after Drumpf won in Nov. This clown wrote an editorial before Nov that if you were ‘smart’ and ‘scientific’ you would vote for that corrupt, dirty knees, brain dead drunken idiot Kamalalalarama.
Scientism.
As you said they are true fascists and communists – using scientism to sell their totalitarianism.
A female Professor of Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Southern California, an expatriate from the old Soviet Union, begs to differ from the Editor of Science…
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/29AF22D23835C74AECDA7964E55812CF/S1062798723000327a.pdf/critical-social-justice-subverts-scientific-publishing.pdf
“…The politicization of science – the infusion of ideology into the scientific enterprise – threatens the ability of science to serve humanity. Today, the greatest such threat comes from a set of ideological viewpoints collectively referred to as Critical Social Justice (CSJ). This contribution describes how CSJ has detrimentally affected scientific publishing by means of social engineering, censorship, and the suppression of scholarship.”
Further into the article the American Chemical Society “Inclusivity Style Guide” gets dismantled and Britain’s Royal Society of Chemistry gets a blast of the hair dryer. Wonderful stuff, Prof.
Thanks for this article. I had hoped that STEM would be immune to New Dark Age anti-intellectualism, misandry, and anti-whitsm. But apparently not.
I have come across Agustin Fuentes before. I am not impressed. He appears to rate Critical Social Justice as more important than the pursuit of neutral Science.
Which is a shame as Science is self correcting but Critical Social Justice is a scam open to exploitation by grifters.
Further comment not really necessary, but an obnoxious individual this Fuentes is.
The total opposite of Feynman, Newton, Galileo, Socrates.
Horrendous nightmare.
Interesting firsthand account of the effects of the toxic woke mind virus from an insider here. This is in response to a clinician posting about the dire NHS. It really is crazy and shameful because it seems like whatever the sector, things are fine prior and people are in posts presumably based on merit then this whole DEI nonsense hits and it all goes to sh*t;
”I work in the Pharmaceutical industry, director level, it’s the EXACT same.
We hold endless sessions, modules, courses, presentations on all things diversity (except anything relative to being white or western culture)
Recently they made 5000 people redundant, many amazing and talented people, but they retained every single person who is involved in DE&I. Not a single one last their job.
You CANNOT be considered for promotion unless you’ve participated in a minimum number of DE&I projects.
I had a job opportunity withdrawn from me because I was outspoken about their policies.
We recently published the DEI data, in just 4 years, they’ve gone from 50/50 male female to 65/35 female to male.
They’ve reduced white male headcount from 45% down to 27%.
Management teams have been reprimanded, missed bonus, disciplined for failing to “implement” diversity quotas, despite the illegality of it.
Some of the DE&I policies directly affect study design too, but the outcome takes a few years to trickle through. Looking at preliminary data, shareholders are got to be shitting themselves big time.
The things they’ve done are completely criminal, seriously, the contempt white people are shown at work is absolutely disgusting.
But at least when the ship sinks, it will have rainbow flags on the lifeboats.
I have 4 years of receipts, when the time comes, when legal proceedings start against the corporations, I’ll be handing it over.”
https://x.com/darkskepticuk/status/1878146435390357624
The post he was responding to was this one. I just didn’t want to go off on another tangent about the Pakistani rape gangs or there’ll be no stopping me, but this gives some context. Another nail in the NHS coffin, highlighting their endless failings;
”I’m a qualified clinician working in the NHS in one of the infamous northern Rape Gang towns.
Being a psychological service, we come into contact with victims of these gangs extremely frequently, and have done for decades. Their stories are truly horrifying.
Like most NHS services, the one I work for has a particular talent for running ‘awareness’ initiatives. Posters are put up, whole service emails are sent, presentations are given, meetings are had.
LGBTQ+ awareness, Black History Month, International Women’s Day, Refugee Week, Race Equality Week, Ramadan (used as a springboard for ‘Islam awareness’)… we have all of those and more. Every. Single. Year.
We also have one off initiatives that respond to current events. For example, in response to the death of George Floyd.
We even had emails sent around, and group meetings held, in response to the recent Southport murders, though these were exclusively about the ‘fear members of the BAME community must be feeling’.
Given the fact we work in an area swamped in the organised mass rape of young, vulnerable British girls, and that we routinely work with these girls, you’d expect an initiative to be created in response to this issues, wouldn’t you?
NOTHING. Absolutely nothing.
Not even a single email.
It is never spoken about. It is never addressed. And if someone does mention it in passing, they are looked at as if they are speaking Latin.
If nothing else, you’d expect there to be a clinical need for conversations to be taking place, you know, considering we provide care to many of the victims. But no. Apparently not.
We are woefully unprepared to work with these girls because no one’s willing to address the problem head on.
Maybe I’m stupid or have lost my mind. God knows it’s starting to feel like I have. I’m just utterly appalled at the lack of willingness on the part of professionals to pull their bloody heads out of the sand and face up to what’s laid before us.
Decades on and they still can’t seem to do it. Yet they wonder why faith in them, and a good majority of other public service, is collapsing.
Repulsive, wilful blindness.
If you read this, please RT it. People like myself have no other way to publicise such disgraces due to the institutional gagging of anyone and everyone who dares to challenge our respective establishments.”
https://x.com/backtoburke/status/1878104744641634347
Listen, I’m sure your comment is extremely interesting but it’s far too long.
Comments like this just clog up the Comments system and render it unreadable.
Can I please ask DS to limit Comments to say 140 chrs.
Commenters can of course link to their own blogs or substacks for those readers interested in hearing more.
These massive Comments are starting to get on my tits big time and I’m sure I’m not alone.
Tbf it’s only a couple of folk that do it, fortunately.
Cheers.
I appreciate that Mogwai’s comment is long, but it makes its point in a way that a shorter comment would not. And DS is not exactly flooded with comments. So I’d rather keep long comments.
Thanks Jeff.
Well it was two men posting about their personal experiences at work, as you can see, so I just cut and pasted them, as I tend to do. I’m not forcing anyone to read it.
So only five comments present at the time I posted mine but you still feel it necessary to have a whinge. Wow
Well it seems Jeff and Art didn’t find it “unreadable” so I guess you can speak for yourself. People whinge about “Off-topic” posts, they whine about the content of my posts then they moan about the length of said posts… As I can’t seem to win and have always had zero interest in being a ‘people-pleaser’, I guess I’ll just have to continue getting on your moobs then, won’t I?? Cope.
Seconded
You are on the wrong site. If you do not appreciate lengthy posts and the time and effort that members put in when making such posts just ignore them.
One other point – manners cost nothing and your lack of speaks volumes, in fact…well I don’t need to finish with your words but I am sure you can fill the gap.
PS. I have deliberately kept my response brief given your limited attention span.
Thank you, I appreciate your consideration!
Thank you for these two instructive links to postings on X. The first link is close to home for me (albeit over 10 years ago). The second link shows how schizoid institutions have become – obsessive at plugging an agenda, yet blind to an evil staring the institution in the face.
I lead a sheltered life and in return can only offer the England & Wales Cricket Board’s monthly “Raising the Game Bulletin,” circulated by the ECB’s DIE Officer…
https://ecb-comms.co.uk/cr/AQjKjAQQp4qCBxiXi6zdBbiG90qCBoSwTtsT8mUdINGq0eUPsned9Jgumtp0kUqF
…Another captured institution. I somehow doubt the majority of players who turn out in club cricket on weekend afternoons and weekday evenings throughout the season can relate to much of what comes down from cricket’s HQ. I certainly couldn’t when I was on the receiving end of it as a club cricket volunteer organiser.
I’m starting to compile a list of ‘trigger words’ and definitely “inclusive” is on there, along with “diversity” and “multiculturalism”.
Many thanks for the link to the ECB “newsletter.”
Does the ECB ever mention the game of cricket in its newsletters or is it just a means of spewing woke BS?
(The link is not intended for readers of comics.)
Nope. Willow hitting leather never features.
And better not get myself started on how the ECB Club Liaison Officer acts as Home Office attack dog to obstruct young Aussies applying for a visa to play club cricket in England for the summer.
Rubber dinghy thingy a more direct option.
Thank you.
What a sad state of affairs. Cricket, one of the finest games the English gave to the world and now being wholly undermined by woke bullshittery.
I’m old enough to have played club cricket a few years after “Big G” (Sir Garfield Sobers) had played as pro for a local club.
Witness this interview with the great man as testament to the spirit of cricket in a bygone age (sound starts after 15 seconds):
https://www.macearchive.org/films/midlands-news-21041964-garfield-sobers-joins-norton-cricket-club
Back then, we young local cricketers were in awe of one of the two most talented men ever to play the game (along with Bradman). Genius orders of magnitude beyond the Gaussian distribution.
If memory serves right, all that club batsmen who survived him longer than a few balls could recall was a pair of athletic shoulders swivelling through the run up and the ball more often than not hissing into the keeper’s gloves.
Wonderful recollections. Thanks
Many thanks for these Mogs. Much appreciated.
Just a thought… why would some people join a Sceptics opinion site if they would prefer to have their comments restricted?
No, it’s lost on me too.
Thanks Mogs.
What a sad indictment of our medical services. I won’t comment further at this point for fear of upsetting those with short attention spans.
We need less science by committee and more science by maverick individuals as in the past when we were making big strides forward and we can name those who did it.
This highlights the dangers of AI. For example the Authoritarian Establisment insists that the science on climate change is settled on it all being caused by human use of fossill fuels adding CO2 to our atmosphere. Where in fact this is rubbish science proved to be inaccurate by many competent scientists rather than home schooled young girls lauded on the world stage for their stupid ideas ecouraged by scientifically incompetent politicians (eg AL Gore). The problem would be that asking AI for the cause of climate change would give the wrong answer approved by the Establishment and there will be many other wrong answers and AI would just improve their credibility and harm scientific truth. There may be some uses for AI, but I hope it doesn’t stop intelligent people from doing their own research to establish the truth.