Here Comes ‘The Journal of Controversial Ideas’
chronicle.com
chronicle.com
It’s also worth noting that several large and reputable publications have already set up subcommittees dedicated to handling controversial ideas. So the idea of a venue for controversial ideas isn’t really all that novel.
And while I’ve seen pubs get rejected from one venue or another for being controversial, I’ve never heard of a solid scientific pub getting blackballed from everything. Anything with even the slightest bit of rigour can almost certainly find a venue somewhere - there are a lot of second and third tier publications out there already without a lot to lose.
In fact, you may not realize it, but most western countries already implement eugenic policies. For instance, in my country, most fetuses which are identified as suffering from Down syndrome are aborted, and that practice is encouraged by doctors. This has led to a significant decrease in the number of people affected with that condition. You may not think of it this way, but that is a form of eugenics.
To be more detailed, genes are not single-purpose. The same gene which confers a 'strength' is almost guaranteed to also confer a 'weakness'. Often this weakness is not even evident until an environmental change occurs, at which point the species with the greatest genetic diversity will survive while the one 'optimized' for the prior conditions will die off. Belief in eugenics requires some very particular things, such as, say, physical strength being completely unrelated genetically to metabolic function - which it's not. This doesn't even account for the multitude of things which, if we were to seek to genetically 'optimize' people, we would be inadvertently optimizing or eliminating. Plainly put, eugenics is bad science and a bad idea rooted in ignorance and, most dangerously, a willingness to take shortcuts with scientific rigor that substitute intuition for actual knowledge.
Why were such ideas rejected? Is there a scientific case for rejecting them?
Science is an ongoing process, there is no central authority to reject sinful ideas which is what your comment indicates that you would like, which underlines the need for such a journal.
can you give the definition of eugenics that you're using?
Eugenics is not science whichever way you carve it up.
That seems like an interesting, but perhaps ultimately bad idea. I'm uncertain --- it's certainly interesting.
I see that a founder is Peter Singer, who has sometimes in the past suggested that it may be better for a family (financially and happiness-wise) to kill a disabled child and have another [1]. He considers this from an ethical perspective.
I can imagine it being frustrating to want to consider hard, taboo ethical quandaries from a neutral standpoint.
[1]: https://www.chronicle.com/article/Arguments-That-Harm-and/24...
Ultimately, I think the success will be determined by the fact (hypothesis?) that if you de-center the author's authority from the argument about the validity of an argument or idea, you can instead re-center to something more foundational and logical.
i.e. actually discussing the idea itself, rather than name-calling and mud-slinging as a form of discourse ("This person is a crazy Nazi / Maoist / Fascist / etc etc. - therefore how can you believe anything they say?")
Editorializing or investigation into possible motives and the like puts the discussion on something that is not as important.
This is targeted at least partly at academics that aren't that well known.
It turns out there were key errors in this paper, spotted just hours after publication, that made their conclusion (though not their novel form of measurement) unsupportable [1][2]. A couple of sources there since, as usual, the shocking headline will get a billion clicks, and the corrections maybe a dozen. But whatever, mistakes happen and that is not the point. But imagine now for a minute that this paper was instead going in the opposite direction and using a novel measurement had determined that the oceans were actually warming some 60% slower than thought, but it turns out that due to mistakes that conclusion was not supportable. Think about the backlash there and what would almost certainly end up resulting in personal attacks and suggestion of untoward motivation from the authors.
That's nasty business, but things that should just be 'science as usual' have started to become things people take deeply personal. I would feel quite uncomfortable publishing things that go against the grain on a number of topics. And this is before we get into things that ought be controversial. Increasing intellectual conservatism means such topics have gone from controversial to outright taboo.
[1] - https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/environment/sd-me-...
[2] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/11/14...
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Edit: As a perfect example of this, already in this very thread a person has stated an opposition to such journal because "I’m worried about corporate interests, ideologues, and charlatans publishing biased nonsense and making the world even more crowded with bad information without any recourse or ability to investigate what the motives behind the papers may have been." 'Seeking recourse and investigating the motives' often translates to finding the witch. Publish the 'wrong' idea and suddenly it's time to face the inquisitor. Publish the 'wrong' idea and make a mistake, and the inquisitor needn't waste his time - straight to the gallows with you.
Yes there will be ideas discussed at the quality of eugenics.
However, there may also be ideas like the earth orbiting the sun.
Example topics that should cause too much controversy for open discussion are: * The Palestinian apartheid
* How Carolyn Bryand Donham fits into the #metoo movement
* Supply side economics is the root cause of Facism
* How long should a peaceful protests be ignored before it can morally be violent?
* The United States was violently founded on "Taxation without representation". The same situation is happening now with gerrymandering and outdated Senate rules.
* Cloning is going to happen, and it is going to get weird
* AI is going to happen, and it may be scary
I am NOT opening these ideas up for discussion. What I am saying is that all these are worthy of open, thoughtful discussion. Sometimes to say they are not a thing, sometimes to change perceptions. Mostly they are going to make a lot of folks angry.
So what examples would you suggest?
The examples from the post were: * Euthanizing disabled babies * The positive side of colonization * Choosing ones race like one chooses ones own gender identity
Those also seem to have a political bent.
Also to be clear not advocating for or against any of these ideas, some of them make me VERY uncomfortable even thinking about.
Economist articles, with the exception of special reports and the farewell article by the editor in chief, are not bylined.
The reason being that the newspaper wants to speak with one voice.
In addition, and being certified and proud opinion journalism, I wouldn't exactly call TE uncontroversial.
Not having a byline is very fundamentally different than writing under pseudonym.
How would you describe the difference as fundamental? Is it of who a reader has recourse to?
Separately, TE isn't exactly provocative or brave.
I don't think you can really compare a journal, which solicits articles from third parties (even if they're controversial) with a general interest, political, economics, arts, news and lifestyle newspaper, which is published by a number of salaried editors and an editorial board hired by a single publication.
Is it of who a reader has recourse to?
The editors of The Economist are not unknown entities. Each section has its editors known by the paper, the only thing being that their articles are not bylined.
The journalists may not be known to you, but they're absolutely not anonymous and you have every recourse towards the paper and by extension towards the responsible editor.
As a matter of fact they're quite good in printing corrections or publishing letters to the editor by an offended party.
Separately, TE isn't exactly provocative or brave.
Ahem, I introduce evidence #1 [1]
In a cover story they made a forceful argument for Gay marriage.
That was in 1996.
I, for one, wouldn't exactly call that a mainstream opinion in January 1996.
As a matter of fact this is pretty much the definition for provocative and brave.
[1] https://www.economist.com/node/2515389/print?story_id=251538...
TE is a group of editors who assign to a large pool of contributors, many of whom are freelancers. Not unlike the controversy journal, which will also publish third party material without direct individual attribution.
I would argue the controversy journal allowing pseudonyms for writers is exactly the same as non-bylined articles.
Of the values of the last decade that are now held above public criticism, I doubt TE has issued a compelling challenge to any of them, discretion being the better part of valour these days.
We've solved that idea a few times on a technical level, most notably using public-key encryption.
It's likely to be the old, regurgitated fantasies from the British Empire and early 20th century eugenicists.
If the writer is anonymous, fallacious and time wasting ad hominem reasoning is prevented.