Subverting STEM Academics

For John, BLUF:  Fifty years ago we were on a good path in terms of race and racism, but now we have jumped the tracks.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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First, They Came for the Biologists

The sub=headline reads:

The postmodernist left on campus is intolerant not only of opposing views, but of science itself.

By Heather Heying, a former biology professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, Datelined 2 October 2017.

Here is the start of the OpEd.

Who would have guessed that when America cleaved, the left would get the National Football League and the right would get uncontested custody of science?

The revolution on college campuses, which seeks to eradicate individuals and ideas that are considered unsavory, constitutes a hostile takeover by fringe elements on the extreme left. Last spring at the Evergreen State College, where I was a professor for 15 years, the revolution was televised—proudly and intentionally—by the radicals.  Opinions not fitting with the currently accepted dogma—that all white people are racist, that questioning policy changes aimed at achieving “equity” is itself an act of white supremacy—would not be tolerated, and those who disagreed were shouted down, hunted, assaulted, even battered.  Similar eruptions have happened all over the country.

What may not be obvious from outside academia is that this revolution is an attack on Enlightenment values: reason, inquiry and dissent.  Extremists on the left are going after science.  Why?  Because science seeks truth, and truth isn’t always convenient.

The left has long pointed to deniers of climate change and evolution to demonstrate that over here, science is a core value.  But increasingly, that’s patently not true.

A great lede by Professor Heying.  And, sadly, true.

Hat tip to my Buddy, Zyg.

Regards  —  Cliff