Political Correctness in Academia
Posted on | December 21, 2005
During a bout of quasi-insomnia last night I ran across an article on the Gay News Blog about how the American Psychological Association has come under fir for getting political and ignoring science. Now while I question the source of these criticisms, anti-homosexuality organizations like the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), I do have to agree with the concerns.A while back I read an essay by J. Phillipe Rushton entitled The New Enemies of Evolutionary Science which was published in March of 1998. Rushton, a psychologist at the University of Western Ontario who specializes in altruism, ethnic variations, and evolutionary psychology, recalls how he presented research findings at symposium held by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) on racial differences that were more than a little controversial back in 1989. The result was an uproar over the topic and a series of personal attacks against Dr. Rushton portraying him as a racist, that he promoted hatred, and that he should be fired from his faculty position.
While the article is written from his perspective and may neglect mentioning attempts to counter the data he presented with newer data contradicting it, it does seem that people took more to attacking the messenger than attacking the message. Rushton’s theme throughout the essay was that when it comes to controversy, science does seem to take the politically correct “safe” route and tries not to rock the boat. The problem with that route sometimes is that that data is there even if we do not want to see it or disagree with it. Instead of attacking the researcher who obtained the data, what needs to happen is replication of the experimental methodology and look for problems. There are a whole host of validity/reliability issues that researches have to take into consideration with each design and it is possible that one could be missed. There is also a cascading failure of sorts that is possible. One of my professors mentions a series of papers that were published which all relied on an earlier paper that was later proven to be incorrect which can thus negate the results of papers citing it for support. There could also be a weak or biased sample as well which presents problems when it comes to extrapolating the results onto the general population. For example you are not going to get an accurate sampling of multicultural views of Caucasian people if you only survey members of the Klu Klux Klan or other white supremacist groups. If these problems are not located then the data must stand for the moment whether we like it or not.
Science is supposed to be objective. It is to be free of things like religion and political correctness. It is supposed to give us the answers instead of just answers we want to hear.
Blog Links:
External Links:
- LifeSite
- National Association for the Reseach and Therapy of Homosexuality
- The New Enemies of Evolutionary Science
Comments
2 Responses to “Political Correctness in Academia”
Leave a Reply
Translator
Recent Comments
- Matt G on Senator Ted Stevens Found Guilty
- The Angry Fag on Log Cabin Republicans Bleat on Mark Buse Outting
- queerunity on Log Cabin Republicans Bleat on Mark Buse Outting
- banshiii on Plant Caught in Fight Between Muslims and Non-Muslims over Break Times
- The Angry Fag on Porn Star Kurt Wild Fired from Subway
December 26th, 2005 @ 6:22 pm
Being lazy, I got this short bio of Rushton which pretty fairly summarizes his views http://www.ferris.edu/isar/archives/mehler/InGenes/homepage.htm
“J. PHILLIPE RUSHTON At the University of Western Ontario in Canada, psychology professor J. Phillipe Rushton, who has benefited from more than $441,000 in Pioneer Fund awards from 1981-1992, argues that behavioral differences among blacks, whites, and Asians are the result of evolutionary variations in their reproductive strategies. Blacks are at one extreme, Rushton claims, because they produce large numbers of offspring but offer them little care; at the other extreme are Asians, who have fewer children but indulge them; whites lie somewhere in between (paper presented at the Symposium on Evolutionary Theory, Economics, and Political Science, AAAS Annual Meeting, Jan. 19, 1989). Blacks, according to Rushton, have larger genitals, making them more promiscuous, and smaller brains, making them less intelligent than whites and Asians. Using 60 different measures, Rushton ranks the races along an evolutionary scale with blacks at the bottom and Asians at the top.
Despite Rushton’s controversial race theories, he has been embraced by the scientific mainstream, having been elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American, British, and Canadian Psychological Associations (NOTE BY POSTER NancyP: ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS HAVE A DEGREE AND PAY THE FEE TO JOIN THESE ORGANIZATIONS, WHICH ARE TRADE ORGANIZATIONS AND NOT HONORARY ORGANIZATIONS). He has published six books and nearly 150 articles, one of which appeared in the October 1986 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, under the sponsorship of Academy member E. O. Wilson.”
NancyP again: Rushton is an old-style eugenicist of the sort common in 1920 USA and Third Reich Germany. Note the claim of correlation of large genitals with promiscuity in the black population. This trope has a long history - an unfortunate Khoisan (”bushmen”) woman, Sara Baartman (aka “Hottentot Venus”) was told that she could see the world and get rich by travelling to Europe in the early 1800s, only to find out that she was the main attraction as a sideshow freak, with her enlarged labia on display. Shades of woman-trafficking today!
NancyP
December 26th, 2005 @ 6:28 pm
Attacking Rushton does nothing. That is why I used him as an example because he is such an easy target for attack. Attack his *data*.