Not really. But something which is already bad can still get worse.
Your politics and beliefs will shape the research questions and hypothesis you are asking.
Please define worse. I think it was worse in the past (and can give you examples if you really want to read them), there was a lot of sexist and racist work done under the term "Science." I don't see that much work like that anymore ...
Yes, maybe some fringe gender science folks are overstressing sth. but come on, I don't see a problem in that (compared to how people misunderstood Darwin in the past ...).
But the question is: Should it be like that? Should we encourage or discourage that?
> (and can give you examples if you really want to read them)
Sure, I'd appreciate it. Especially if the articles/books covering them were not published in the recent years. I've read "Betrayers of the Truth" [1], so I know about the Piltdown Man [2] (which was apparently used to "prove" that earliest men were British), or that Cyril Burt [3] had most probably falsified data in his studies on heritability of IQ. Sometimes these exposés are themselves a tad biased though.
> some fringe gender science
It's not just social sciences, although they are much more affected. See the charts in the article linked in my original comment, for example.
And, IMO, it's not just a fringe part of gender studies. Its departments are essentially ideological think-tanks of the worst kind, with very little objective research being done by them.
> I don't see that much work like that anymore
But I'm sure you also know that there are certain things which are probably true, but almost no one would ever dare (or could) publish any kind of new evidence supporting them in the current climate.
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betrayers_of_the_Truth
You didn't define worse ... For me the most obvious examples where science went wrong is probably eugenics and other Supremacist beliefs. People completely misrepresented Darwin. A lot of people died based on these misrepresentations.
What cannot be published today? I mean Journals like Mankind Quaterly still exist ... you find still a lot of horrendous, bad science and racist work out there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mankind_Quarterly
It's harder to publish papers like that in Nature or Science (as the Scientific Consensus moved away from a flawed view), yet I would argue that's a good thing.
edit: typos
The current homogeneous politicization of science certainly isn't inevitable, as there are periods of rapid scientific progress in the past when this situation did not exist.
> People completely misrepresented Darwin.
I think that's overly intellectualizing things. Ethnic conflict and genocide probably don't have much to do with people's understanding of science, as there are still ethnic strifes around word, even though discussion of many genetic differences among populations is now generally frowned upon in academia. [1] And there has been ethnic conflicts everywhere since the dawn of time, since way before modern science, Darwin, or the contemporary history of eugenics.
> What cannot be published today?
Things like arguments made in "The Bell Curve" [2], or even "The Blank Slate" [3]? You can't really make those kinds of arguments without getting in trouble.
> I mean Journals like Mankind Quaterly still exist
I'd never heard of that journal before, but with an impact factor of 0.194 [4], it's probably safe to say that it has no influence whatsoever on science in general. (perhaps appropriately, as you say, I have no idea about the quality of papers it publishes) I'm sure many personal blogs are more influential.
But do you think you could conceivably publish a paper in Nature which cites something from that journal in a noncritical way? The barrier isn't due to low quality or the authors being ideologues, as there are papers cited in Nature with both of those defects.
[1]: E.g. https://noahcarl.substack.com/p/theyre-coming-for-behaviour-...
[2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve
[3]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate
[4] https://academic-accelerator.com/Impact-of-Journal/Mankind-Q...
It's interesting you bring up Blank Slate and the Bell Curve. The first I agree with the second I find horribly flawed.
For [1] who are "They" in "They are coming for behaviour genetics"? Nobody in their right mind in the Sciences refutes that our genes and biology are the underpinning of our behavior and that these change in terms of populations .
I'm friends with way too woke Social Science majors and they have a copy of the "Blank Slate" on their book shelf (signed by Pinker) agreeing with this. Even Science and Nature do: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1075989
Can you find a biologist or behavior scientist who publishes in Nature/Science and believes in the blank slate (that genetics don't matter only education does)? I really doubt it, that would be absurd.
The problem is with the population, I doubt that the population can correspond to anything vaguely resembling a race concept. Here the Scientific establishment disagrees with the Bell Curve and for a good reason (as Melanin does not tell you much about other genes and our identical ancestors point is not so far out ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identical_ancestors_point ).
To the Bell Curve, it cites over 5 articles from the Mankind Quartely, the Journal you found so influence-less (non from higher impact journals). It also refers a lot to work from Arthur Jensen, he published a paper in the 60s about that differences IQ tests between black and whites might be because of genetics. In the 80s it was found out that the Pioneer Fund subsidized the work (grants for the works were more than a millon dollar). At the time of the writing there was no evidence to support Jensen's work. The authors knew that Jensen did scientific misconduct (with taking the money), yet didn't care ... There are more stories (also in terms of statistics) about the Bell Curve like that ... Bad Science, don't even need to address the flawed arguments ... If you cannot work on decent scientific methodology you are screwed. If you then complain that you are silenced or not taken seriously, you don't get any sympathy from me.
If there is an intelligence gene, where is it? Plomin (the professor whose book got critized in a Nature Review [1]) hasn't found it even though he put a LOT of effort in it. Shouldn't we call him out on that if he claims stuff that's not there (like the Nature review did)? Or should we just ignore it because we still believe in stuff that was published in the 1960 in Mankind Quaterly?
> But do you think you could conceivably publish a paper in Nature which cites something from that journal in a noncritical way?
No, because that journal has shown since the 1960 that it peddles racist pseudo science ... Yet, your statement that you cannot publish this stuff anymore is just not true. It becomes irrelevant because it's wrong (not because there's a secrete elite that does not want to talk about it).
I imagine it would be difficult getting a paper published that shows otherwise since diversity, equity, and inclusion have seemingly become tantamount to unquestionable religious dogma.
For example, you have the Biden administration publishing this blatantly contradictory guidance:
> The scientific integrity principles and best practices identified in the report aim to ensure that science is conducted, managed, communicated, and used in ways that preserve its accuracy and objectivity and protect it from suppression, manipulation, and inappropriate influence—including political interference.
>
> […]
>
> Scientific integrity policies should be modernized to address important, emergent issues of our time. They must advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility
https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2022/01/11/whit...
Then you have Nature with this “ethics guidance” that seem to suggest it would be considered unethical to publish a study that challenges the present narrative of diversity, equity, and inclusion:
> Academic content that […] promotes privileged, exclusionary perspectives raises ethics concerns that may require revisions or supersede the value of publication.
> Science has for too long been complicit in perpetuating structural inequalities and discrimination in society. With this guidance, we take a step towards countering this.
> Consideration of risks and benefits (above and beyond any institutional ethics review) underlies the editorial process of all forms of scholarly communication in our publications. Editors consider harms that might result from the publication of a piece of scholarly communication, may seek external guidance on such potential risks of harm as part of the editorial process, and in cases of substantial risk of harm that outweighs any potential benefits, may decline publication (or correct, retract, remove or otherwise amend already published content).
> Regardless of content type (research, review or opinion) and, for research, regardless of whether a research project was reviewed and approved by appropriate ethics specialists, editors may raise with the authors concerns regarding potentially sexist, misogynistic, and/or anti-LGBTQ+ assumptions, implications or speech in their submission; engage external ethics experts to provide input on such issues as part of the peer review process; or request modifications to (or correct or otherwise amend post-publication), and in severe cases refuse publication of (or retract post-publication) sexist, misogynistic, and/or anti-LGBTQ+ content
So you want people to continue publish racist, misogynistic etc. assumptions and implications? Want to understand what your goal is here.
I learned in my methodology class, if you didn't do a controlled experiment it's not possible to claim causation (that didn't stop people in the sciences to put out the wildest claims ... for example in genetics it would be pretty unethical to do a controlled experiment).
My point: in the past it was worse in terms of scientific integrity, racism, sexism (e.g. 60s versus now) etc. Seeing also the progression of the sciences. Show the opposite if you can.
There were scientific trials on poor and black people in the US without informed consent, because they were seen as lesser ... there were horrendous crimes against humanity done in the name of science. I think today it's better, yet you seem to disagree :)
"racist, misogynistic etc. assumptions and implications" is very broad and vague and I don't trust that my understanding of what qualifies as such is the same as that of the editors. My concern is that legitimate science will be suppressed in the name of "diversity, equity, and inclusion".
> There were scientific trials on poor and black people in the US without informed consent, because they were seen as lesser ... there were horrendous crimes against humanity done in the name of science. I think today it's better, yet you seem to disagree :)
I agree that performing trials on people without informed consent is unacceptable and should be prevented. Your attempt to conflate legitimate studies that may challenge the narrative of "diversity, equity, and inclusion" with inhumane trials performed without informed consent is fallacious.
> My concern is that legitimate science will be suppressed in the name of "diversity, equity, and inclusion".
Ok, valid concern. I am concerned that scientific publications due to bad generalizations support racist ideology as they did in the past. I can show you that racist stuff is still published in academic journals (see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mankind\_Quarterly ). Can you show me where legitimate papers with decent studies (and decent methodology) are suppressed and not published? There are a lot of people screaming "We are silenced by the establishment." However, if you look at their work, it's often flawed and horribly wrong (in terms of methodology). Like I pointed out about the Bell Curve in another thread.
I read the Nature editor notes, as "be careful with your assumptions as we cannot explore and know some causation as controlled experiments in those fields would be unethical." especially highlighting the problems from the past (oh man... there are so many horrible sexist and racist papers published).