Physical anthropologists, beware – the woke brigade has come for you
From the party of science-non-deniers:
The world’s largest anthropological conference with the American Anthropological Association and the Canadian Anthropology Society had hoped to answer [the question of making sex distinctions through skeletal remains] in a panel using science we’ve had since the dawn of humanity.
The event would have discussed “Sex identification whether an individual was male or female – using the skeleton is one of the most fundamental components in bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology.”
The panel was canceled, because it was thought to indicate that “sex and gender are simplistically binary, and that this is a fact with meaningful implications for the discipline.”
Well they are – in the physical and biological sense. And the distinctions are easy to make with skeletal remains, not difficult. But we can’t have that, if it hurts someone’s feelings. As one of the canceled panel members (Elizabeth Weiss, a professor at San Jose State) said:
The field has been nose-diving into an ‘off the rails’ agenda, with activists pushing for some facts to be replaced with feelings. As anthropologists have developed more precise metrics to determine the sex of the human skeleton they study in the field, the more they get attacked for knowing and being able to determine those differences.
Truth is not necessarily considered an objective goal and the victims’ narrative is more important than facts.
This is Soviet-type stuff she is describing. Science as determined by politics is not science, it is propaganda. But since post-modernists don’t believe in objective truth, it doesn’t matter to them and truth must be stamped out if it conflicts with their agenda.
That’s why it’s so very very ironic that Democrats consider themselves the pro-science party and condemn the right as anti-science.
The proper response to this complaint was not to cancel the panel, it was to say “If you can’t stand truth, you shouldn’t call yourself a scientist.” My guess, though, is that it was canceled mainly because the cost and need for security would have increased exponentially had they kept the panel on the schedule. The activists are well aware of that dynamic, too.
[Hat tip: Instapundit.]
The medical community seems to have shown the way into anti-science
Wait until they do Cultural psychology. You will witness mental gymnastics of Olympic proportions.
I was wondering when they’d get around to this.vand how soon the cowards would capitulate. Any bets on how soon Lucy isn’t an hominid? She’s still female but we’ll see how long that lasts.
These people are insane, and like many crazy people, they don’t seem to know it.
The crazies’ next target will be DNA, which can be used not only to determine the sex of unknown human remains, but also race/ethnicity and little things like gene mutations, paternity, and the identity of the perps of violent crimes. Clinical medicine as well as forensic investigation hardest hit.
Neo, the link to the article doesn’t work.
Jordan Rivers:
Thanks, fixed.
Lysenkoism totally ruined Soviet science. First, they purged the biologists and later the physicists.
What’s most unfortunate about all this is the “blank spot” it will leave in scientific research and results.
Wokeness will not continue forever, at some point reality and rationality will return; when that point will be reached cannot be predicted, but it will occur. The resultant damage from however many years of science distorted, and ruined, by Wokeness will, however, persist forever.
That is a bill that will remain unpaid through eternity.
Can we please have the name of the person who cancelled the panel? All of these travesties have active agents.
When the Marxists come for you…
Never give in.
Never apologize.
Never back down.
Not surprising…in my former small college the Anthro dept when I first arrived was evenly split between the physical anthroplogists (also an archeaologist was housed there) and the cultural anthro types. Since about 2005, there began a purge of the physical types mainly by retirement and the replacement by cultural with specialties in DEI. Much the same formula as first used successfully in the English departments. Now all the social studies departments have been taken over and the sights set on the sciences.
Following the science – political science that is.
Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity
Alan D. Sokal
Department of Physics
New York University
It is noteworthy that it doesn’t appear the canceled panel’s content (from what Weiss has described) was anything too ‘controversial’ for academic social science. This definitely wasn’t any type of Matt Walshesque provocation. The main thesis appeared to be: ‘Yes, gender is nonbinary, but sex is binary and that’s important for anthropologists for the following reasons…’ This would have been utterly uncontroversial even five years ago.
This is how Wokism (and really any leftist ideology) operates. It relentlessly pushes an increasingly narrow and increasingly absurd orthodoxy; the goal is unconditional submission. Ultimately, to be properly woke, you must believe anything and everything the proper authorities say (‘follow the science’, ‘the experts’, etc.), even if it is blatantly illogical, even if it is demonstrably harmful, even if it clearly contradicts what those authorities said last year, last week or an hour ago. Believe it, espouse it, defend it and viciously attack anyone who questions it.
2 + 2 = 5. Anyone who questions this is a hate filled racist, transphobe