NYT gets so much mileage out of “researchers say” and “experts say” yet they never cite anyone
Immediately following this paragraph is a quote from a researcher:
> “If you’re a young man with no prospects hanging out on 4chan, you’re definitely on some Discords and probably some pretty dark Discords,” said Dale Beran, a lecturer at Morgan State University and the author of “It Came from Something Awful: How a Toxic Troll Army Accidentally Memed Donald Trump into Office.”
Researcher, perhaps, but seems to not be what his credentials or college role is about.
https://www.morgan.edu/screenwriting-and-animation/faculty-a...
Is he really considered an expert to you, solely because of the publishing of a book? Here it is by the way: https://www.amazon.com/Go-Programming-John-P-Baugh/dp/145363...
I know that's not necessarily your view, but this is the standard we are working with
I was on a meetup, where 4 scrum master "experts" were doing some presentation and they gave out their book. It was around 100 pages with very big font :) written by 4 people. So basically 4 bad essays of 25 page each.
But hey, they could then tell to HR that they (co)wrote a book on agile methodologies. Also they (co)hosted lectures for meetup attendees.
The more interesting part, is that this wasnt even the worst book about agile / scrum that I have read...
In the US (which this person is).
In most of the rest of the English-speaking world, the majority of full-time academics are "lecturers" (or even "senior lecturers"), expected to do both teaching and research, and a PhD is usually required (but exceptions have occasionally been made). An "adjunct/visiting/associate/guest lecturer" is a different thing, that's generally a part-time or even honorary position, and there are no expectations about research output.
Part of this is because Americans inflated the title of professor to the point of making almost every full-time/permanent academic one, whereas in the UK and Commonwealth professor was reserved for the most senior rung of academics, with associate professor for those part-way there. (For most fields–medicine has a lot more professors, but clinical professor is generally a giveaway they spend the majority of their time treating patients, and teaching and research is a side-gig.)
Although–I wonder if everyone in the US uses the terminology in the same way. It is not unheard of for some university out there to just do something weird which others don't. Not saying that's true in this person's case, but not impossible.
This is the same in the US. Tenure-track starts with assistant professor. Associate professor is when you first get tenure. Finally after having tenure for 5-7 years you can become full professor.
It is different in the US. In the US, someone who just finished their PhD and wants an academic career will look for an “assistant professor” entry level academic job. Whereas, in the UK/Commonwealth, the entry level academic job is a “lecturer”-which is equivalent to US “assistant professor”. In the UK system, the first promotion is not to “associate professor”, it is to “senior lecturer”. Then a senior lecturer looks to get promoted to “associate professor”-which is actually a more senior/exclusive title than US “associate professor”. So this is my point-the US calls junior academics “assistant/associate professor”, whereas traditionally in the UK/Commonwealth they aren’t a type of “professor”, they are a type of “lecturer”. An “associate professor” in the UK/Commonwealth is roughly equivalent to a full professor in the US, so a UK/Commonwealth full professorship is (in itself) more prestigious than a US one-a UK/Commonwealth full professor is more like a “distinguished professor” in the US
Furthermore, it’s not unheard of in UK/Commonwealth system for people to get stuck at the senior lecturer level and never get promoted to associate professor-a person who retires as a senior lecturer hasn’t reached the heights of academia, but they haven’t been a failure. By contrast, the US hands out senior academic titles much more easily, which makes the a failure to reach them look like much more of a career failure.
As always there are exceptions: a small number of UK/Commonwealth universities have been adopting US-style academic titles (such as “assistant professor”), and Canada has always been far more US-influenced than the rest of the Commonwealth
Generally it's failure to get tenure (or failure to get on the tenure track) that's considered a failed academic career. Many professors might stop at the associate level and not go on to full professor, but they don't care because they have tenure.
The UK abolished academic tenure in 1988. So nowadays nobody gets tenure in the UK.
In the 21st century, “tenure” is primarily a North American concept (US and Canada), the rest of the English-speaking world doesn’t have it
The main point of tenure in the US is once you’ve got it, you now can’t be fired without reasonable cause. In many other countries, that’s not a special perk for academics, it is a standard aspect of employment law for all non-temporary employees - making the whole idea of “tenure” rather meaningless
We can move the goal post and now debate the person's credentials, but we can do that because we know their name.
As for the lecturer mentioned in the parent comment, I'm not sure you can draw any conclusions about whether they research or not from their title without looking into how things work at their institution/department, but at least in my experience people with the title "lecturer" tend to actually engage with students a lot more, so I wouldn't be surprised if they spoke with the journalist with the intention of sharing their own first-hand observations rather than from a research perspective.
"The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose." — James Baldwin.
African Proverb
CNN and reddit arguably did more than 4chan to get trump elected. They couldn't shut up about him and they have way more reach than 4chan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_coverage_of_the_2016_Uni...
It's beside the point, but does anybody actually see social studies and the like as "science" anymore when people in them get bullied and silenced and have their careers destroyed if they think or say the wrong thing? When things that go against left-wing beliefs don't get published? When an overwhelming majority of them are on the same political spectrum? After the grievance studies affair? I see it more as a propaganda machinery and after all if you tortute the data long enough, it will confess. I basically just ignore their research whenever I see this sort of stuff.
"How much of the recent rise in transgenderism can be attributed to people being more accepting vs how much is peer pressure"
Such a study won't see the light of the day any time soon. Yet, I wouldn't classify it as bad faith, as kids/teens are VERY impressionable. (And then there's the whole detrans thing)
Would you classify it as bad faith?
Social studies aren't out to find truth. They're out to confirm their beliefs, basically working to justify their own jobs.
[We have the data](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1909367116), being trans is identifiable as early as 2-3yo, from the moment gender differences in behavior become apparent, long before any capacity to comprehend and adhere to complex expectations of boogeyman "transtrender parents".
You want to be treated as arguing in good faith, but fail to research the subject, propose questions that assume the conclusion, bring up vague anecdotes contrary to the statistics you're unwilling to consider, and disregard the fact that transgender children suffer from lack of treatment just as hard as wrongly treated cisgender children.
This isn't what the GP is arguing, did you reply to the wrong thing?
You quoted their question:
> Another one is the question, whether gender dysphoria results from mental illness, or the other way around.
The study you provided - whilst interesting - doesn't answer it or even attempt to answer in its purpose.
The study shows 3-12 year olds who are "socially transitioned and live in families that that affirmed their child’s current gender identity through a social transition" have a strong affinity towards their gender, just as non trans children who have their families affirmation of their gender do.
It seems odd to me you're arguing bad faith when it seems you're acting that way by misdirectly and providing studies irrelevant to the point as evidence of the GPs lack of research.
It's not so much that discordant views get silenced, it's that everyone is aware that in the current climate, almost anything can - and WILL - be used to fuel discrimination. Such a study being approved alone would be taken as proof that "even the left finally admits transgenderism is hurting children" by a LOT of people. Even the way you titled the hypothetical study is de facto begging the question.
I mean yeah, these things should be studied. But it's not as though we have no science. E.g. detransition- we know it's uncommon, and mostly due to external circumstances, not regret. In light of this, is proposing to study specifically whether kids are getting pressured into transition(instead of "factors leading to transition"), in disregard of the fact that we already know most benefit from and don't regret it, "bad faith"? Yeah. Kinda.
The science very much so supports the rationale and safety of transition, but everyone and their dog has that one anecdote, that one outlier news story that convincingly prove how dangerous giving people agency over their gender is, that one "but what about the kids!" concern.
And then, when the hotpot they ve been steering for a generation boils over, its all clutching pearls and "how could this happen".