This is more in the category of science publishing continuing its descent into disrepute. Retraction not applicable since these "
fashionable nonsense" editorials and opines paraded by various science publications were never legit science material to begin with.
If you've suspected occasionally that the "soft sciences" (social sciences slash psychological sciences and the gamut of human-focused disciplines) are sometimes little more than an apologetics apparatus[1] for justifying the philosophical (ethical) and political treatises outputted by humanities scholars (which become Bible-like quotes and mottos of activists years or decades later), then you will probably want to save these links.
DISPLACED FOOTNOTE: [1] But here dabbling in "motivated research" rather than the motivated reasoning [arguments] usually attributed to such defenders of a religion or political ideology.
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Scientific American goes defensive; tries to pretend that every social justice screed is a “science story”
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2022...ery-social-justice-screed-is-a-science-story/
INTRO (
Jerry Coyne): The old saying goes that “all science is political”, a saying that is true only if you stretch the meaning of either “science” or “political”. I’m baffled, for instance, to understand how my work on the genetics of hybrid sterility in
Drosophila is political. But don’t worry: the ideologues will find a way to make it so. “You’re doing your work in the milieu of a culture,” they’ll babble, “and decisions about what to fund and publish are explicitly political.” Blah blah blah.
But this trope has just been taken up by the editors of
Scientific American, which, as you know, has gone “progressive leftist” (aka “woke”) over the last couple of years. I’ve called them out on this a number of times (see all my posts
here)—not only for littering a science magazine with politics that are irrelevant to the magazine’s original mission, but also for doing so in a silly way...
Several people have gone after the magazine for its transformation into an arm of wokeness. Besides me,
they include Michael Shermer, who wrote over 200 columns for the magazine, but was given a pink slip because he was deemed ideologically impure (see
his video on the issue here).
Now, apparently stung by the criticism, the editors of the magazine have written an editorial explaining their wokeness. The title below tells the tale. Every story, they claim, is a science story, including stories about social justice. (What they should have said is that “every social justice story is a science story.”) Either way, their defensiveness doesn’t address the fact that people read the magazine largely or entirely for the science, and can get social justice rants in a gazillion other places. And in response to the criticism of both inappropriateness and scientific accuracy, they promulgate still more scientific inaccuracy and then blame the criticism on—yes, you got it—”wealthy white men”... (
MORE - details)
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Here's a smidgen from the Stuart Ritchie article that Coyne refers to in his update.
Science is political - and that's a bad thing
https://stuartritchie.substack.com/p/science-is-political
People who say “science is political” usually aren’t just stating facts - they’re trying to push something on you. Don’t let them.
EXCERPTS: . . . Indeed, this phrase—“Science and Politics are Inseparable”—was the title of a
Nature editorial in 2020, and it’s not hard to find other examples in popular-science publications:
* Science Has Always Been Inseparable From Politics (
Scientific American)
* News Flash: Science Has Always Been Political (
American Scientist)
* Science Is Political (Chemistry World)
* Yes, Science Is Political (
Scientific American)
What does “science is political” mean? Here’s a (non-exhaustive) list of what people might mean when they say “science is political”: [See the article for that list.]
[...] There’s no argument from me about any of those points. These are all absolutely true. I wrote a whole book about how biases, some of them political, can dramatically affect research in all sorts of ways. But these are just factual statements - and I don’t think the people who always tell you that “science is political” are just idly chatting sociology-of-science for the fun of it. They want to make one of two points... (
MORE - missing details)
See the article for the elaboration on those two points, along with the rest:
1. The argument from inevitability
2. The activist’s argument
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As an additional item not featured in the Coyne blog piece above, here's a recent climate change diatribe where the authors literally appeal to the Marxist pseudoscience offshoot "
cultural hegemony", as if this conspiracy obsessed precursor/contributor to anti-Western postmodernist drivel was a valid component of science.
A technologically advanced society is choosing to destroy itself. It’s both fascinating and horrifying
https://theconversation.com/a-techn...th-fascinating-and-horrifying-to-watch-192939
Just because pop-marketed CRT fads and various amen! shouts of "privilege" are stylish affectations among the young crusader set is no excuse for careless failure to obscure what this stuff is intellectually descended from. We should never directly address items like "hegemony" or Gramsci by name. For Pete's sake, the relabeling of old inspirations and ultimate goals is part of Leftism Tactics 101.
Note that climate change is indeed a real threat, but when even some of its proponents blatantly assimilate it into or affiliate it with left-wing agenda, then little wonder it has been met with skepticism over the years.
IOW, these publications overtly advertising (out of pride?) that science is globally political (the topic above) isn't doing humanity a favor. Even if it may be locally/contingently true with respect to certain administrators of institutions (their policies) and a bevy of scientists themselves (particularly their work in the "human sciences"). This in contrast to the naïve, idealized conceptions of science being marvelously impartial, unbiased (a vision sublimely, abstractly removed from the dirty world we concretely, particularly abide in).
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