Feb 26, 2024 07:17 AM
https://skepticalinquirer.org/2024/02/de...tarianism/
EXCERPTS: Developing countries such as Bangladesh, India, the Philippines, and other nations where rice is a principal staple of poor children’s diets suffer from a particular type of malnutrition. A diet largely consisting of a few bowls of rice per day will result in a vitamin A deficiency. This exceptionally dangerous condition is responsible for a million deaths annually—mostly of children—and another half million cases of blindness—again, mostly in kids.
[...] To the rescue came a scientific breakthrough called golden rice, a genetically modified organism (GMO). ... Sadly, as many of you reading this already know, golden rice, which was to be distributed for free with no profit motive from the researchers, was stymied by anti-GMO “Frankenfood” hysteria.
[...] Most of the objections made against golden rice had to do with safety and efficacy. Although overblown in this case, in general these are legitimate concerns. But there was one particularly galling and noxious objection that had nothing to do with whether golden rice lived up to its billing: the idea that GMOs are inherently racist and colonialist because they are the product of “Western science.”
[...] A piece in Scientific American magazine about biotech crops stated bluntly: “At its base, GM [genetically modified] crops are rooted in a colonial-capitalist model of agriculture based on theft of Indigenous land and on exploiting farmers’ and food workers’ labor, women’s bodies, Indigenous knowledge and the web of life itself”. Frankly, I don’t think the child who can see thanks to golden rice really cares where GM crops are “rooted.”
[...] Similarly, in a piece titled “Decolonizing the GMO Debate” in The Counter, engineering studies professor Benjamin Cohen of Lafayette College wrote, “The GMO proponents’ technocratic version of reform is colonial in its reliance upon and perpetuation of the logic of conquest. It puts nature in the position of an ‘Other,’ a separate sphere to be fixed or improved not just by humans but by Western, market-oriented humans”.
Are we really going to interrogate the source of every scientific advance and reject those derived from anyone with too little melanin, too much testosterone, too much first-world education, and too much private funding? That’s definitely not a world I’d want to inhabit. But increasingly dogmatic social justice/identitarian considerations are leaching into science in a way that is hampering progress in the field.
Perhaps the worst example is happening in New Zealand, where the government decided that public school students in science classes should be taught that ... the Maori “ways of knowing,” are equivalent to Western science. These indigenous traditions and beliefs are steeped in mythology, god-beliefs, and superstition. It’s as if the United States started requiring that creationism be taught alongside the theory of evolution as equivalent explanations for life’s diversity...
Identitarianism, a term once reserved for far-right ideology, is now charging into STEM publishing from the far left in a way certain to obscure scientific merit by making it seem as though one’s background and demographics unduly influence scientific outcomes. These “positionality statements” are now being encouraged by some science journals. So rather than simply report on their data and findings, authors of papers submitted for publication are being urged to list their race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and disabilities or advantages.
[...] Some courageous scientists are starting to push back on all this, rightly worried that merit is suffering under all this identitarian baggage...
There are many other ways scientific merit is under attack due to social justice dogmatism and identitarianism, including forcing scholars to write muster-passing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) statements before being considered for university postings...
[...] We are individuals, not a collection of demographics and immutable characteristics. ... This capture of science by the ideology of the moment is a dangerous trend. It is not only bad for science, it is bad for society: divisive, anti-meritocratic, and causing scientists to self-censor and conform their findings to predetermined social justice demands... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: Developing countries such as Bangladesh, India, the Philippines, and other nations where rice is a principal staple of poor children’s diets suffer from a particular type of malnutrition. A diet largely consisting of a few bowls of rice per day will result in a vitamin A deficiency. This exceptionally dangerous condition is responsible for a million deaths annually—mostly of children—and another half million cases of blindness—again, mostly in kids.
[...] To the rescue came a scientific breakthrough called golden rice, a genetically modified organism (GMO). ... Sadly, as many of you reading this already know, golden rice, which was to be distributed for free with no profit motive from the researchers, was stymied by anti-GMO “Frankenfood” hysteria.
[...] Most of the objections made against golden rice had to do with safety and efficacy. Although overblown in this case, in general these are legitimate concerns. But there was one particularly galling and noxious objection that had nothing to do with whether golden rice lived up to its billing: the idea that GMOs are inherently racist and colonialist because they are the product of “Western science.”
[...] A piece in Scientific American magazine about biotech crops stated bluntly: “At its base, GM [genetically modified] crops are rooted in a colonial-capitalist model of agriculture based on theft of Indigenous land and on exploiting farmers’ and food workers’ labor, women’s bodies, Indigenous knowledge and the web of life itself”. Frankly, I don’t think the child who can see thanks to golden rice really cares where GM crops are “rooted.”
[...] Similarly, in a piece titled “Decolonizing the GMO Debate” in The Counter, engineering studies professor Benjamin Cohen of Lafayette College wrote, “The GMO proponents’ technocratic version of reform is colonial in its reliance upon and perpetuation of the logic of conquest. It puts nature in the position of an ‘Other,’ a separate sphere to be fixed or improved not just by humans but by Western, market-oriented humans”.
Are we really going to interrogate the source of every scientific advance and reject those derived from anyone with too little melanin, too much testosterone, too much first-world education, and too much private funding? That’s definitely not a world I’d want to inhabit. But increasingly dogmatic social justice/identitarian considerations are leaching into science in a way that is hampering progress in the field.
Perhaps the worst example is happening in New Zealand, where the government decided that public school students in science classes should be taught that ... the Maori “ways of knowing,” are equivalent to Western science. These indigenous traditions and beliefs are steeped in mythology, god-beliefs, and superstition. It’s as if the United States started requiring that creationism be taught alongside the theory of evolution as equivalent explanations for life’s diversity...
Identitarianism, a term once reserved for far-right ideology, is now charging into STEM publishing from the far left in a way certain to obscure scientific merit by making it seem as though one’s background and demographics unduly influence scientific outcomes. These “positionality statements” are now being encouraged by some science journals. So rather than simply report on their data and findings, authors of papers submitted for publication are being urged to list their race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and disabilities or advantages.
[...] Some courageous scientists are starting to push back on all this, rightly worried that merit is suffering under all this identitarian baggage...
There are many other ways scientific merit is under attack due to social justice dogmatism and identitarianism, including forcing scholars to write muster-passing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) statements before being considered for university postings...
[...] We are individuals, not a collection of demographics and immutable characteristics. ... This capture of science by the ideology of the moment is a dangerous trend. It is not only bad for science, it is bad for society: divisive, anti-meritocratic, and causing scientists to self-censor and conform their findings to predetermined social justice demands... (MORE - missing details)