As I’ve mentioned before, the once-great scientific journal Nature has been allocating more and more editorial space to woke activism. Among many examples is an article published last year that claimed “gender is neither binary nor fixed”. (Err, nope: “there are two sexes and that’s all there is to it,” as Richard Dawkins said recently.)
In 2020, Nature continued its recent habit of endorsing the Democratic candidate for U.S. President – in this case, Joe Biden. The journal had previously endorsed Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, as well as Hillary Clinton in 2016.
The point, incidentally, isn’t that the Republican candidate was necessarily better; it’s that scientific journals shouldn’t be in the business of endorsing political candidates. The fact that Nature is published in Britain (where the journal was founded) makes its habit of endorsing American politicians all the more bizarre and inappropriate.
To Nature’s credit, it has just published a study which found that its endorsement of Biden made ordinary Americans less likely to trust the journal’s knowledge and impartiality.
Floyd Zhang carried out an online survey where respondents were randomly assigned to one of two groups. Those in the treatment group were asked to read a short message summarising Nature’s endorsement of Biden. Those in the control group were asked to read a short message summarising the journal’s new design. Both messages described Nature as “one of the most-cited and most prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journals in the world”.
Respondents were then asked a number of questions, including “How informed are the editors of Nature?” and “How much confidence do you have in the editors of Nature to provide their unbiased opinions to the public?”
Zhang found that, among Trump supporters, those in the treatment group were much less likely to rate the editors as informed, and were much more likely to say they had no confidence in the editors to provide their unbiased opinions. Among Biden supporters, there were only small differences between the two groups.
In other words: being shown the endorsement, rather than the new design, had a negative impact on Trump supporters’ perceptions of the journal but had no corresponding positive impact on Biden supporters’ perceptions. As a consequence, the overall impact was negative. (Two colleagues and I actually predicted this result in a 2017 paper.)
It’s unclear whether Zhang’s study will convince Nature’s editors to ditch the activism and just focus on science. But its publication is surely a step in the right direction.
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This may well be true of any organisation that isn’t inherently political but which adopts a political stance; they may alienate half their customer base without gaining very much.
Sorry, don’t see the relevance?!
It never does! Really?
Distrust amongst the public!? When does that matter any more? The public just lethargicly suck it up and except it! Move on,what’s next derrrrrrr!
Ooo tar, downticker! State your case! Coward
Some ticks are treatable with medication, but some ticks can be treated with contempt.
If I don’t create it someone will!
Mankind’s oldest excuse!
Could I? Should I?
I’ve no doubt infiltration has taken place over the years. It certainly has in the institutions of the UK, by the wretched (supposed charity) Common Purpose.
The corruption of science for political purposes is rife, as Eisenhower warned in the fifties. To get an unsuspecting public onboard with something wheel out your “top scientist” to simply declare what is true. The public are very reluctant to question scientists, because they are experts, and they think “who am I to question experts such as this”? ——But, hey the used car salesman knows a lot more about cars than me but I don’t always end up buying one. I use my own judgement. When it comes to climate, covid and other politicised issues, the public need to wake up and realise that very often science has NOTHING to do with it. Very often it is “Official Science”. The science that politics uses to manipulate us.
Quite:
“Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth” – A. Einstein
“We live in an unscientific age in which almost all the buffeting of communications and television-words, books, and so on-are unscientific. As a result, there is a considerable amount of intellectual tyranny in the name of science.” – Richard Feynman in 1966
“No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literacy or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race.” – Richard Feynman
“If zombie science is not scientifically-useable – what is its function? In a nutshell, zombie science is supported because it is useful propaganda to be deployed in arenas such as political rhetoric, public administration, management, public relations, marketing and the mass media generally. It persuades, it constructs taboos, it buttresses some kind of rhetorical attempt to shape mass opinion.”
Bruce Charlton, 2008 editorial in Medical Hypotheses
http://www.mantleplumes.org/WebDocuments/Charlton2008.pdf