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+--- Thread: Annual evolution meeting raises some questions: More emphasis on Woke than science? (/thread-12236.html)
Annual evolution meeting raises some questions: More emphasis on Woke than science? - C C - May 13, 2022
The annual evolution meeting raises some questions
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2022/05/12/the-annual-evolution-meeting-raises-some-questions/
INTRO (Jerry Coyne): The annual “Evolution Meeting” is taking place next month in Cleveland, and each year it gets woker: there is less emphasis on science and more on “harm”, “safety” and the oppression narrative. This year the meeting is a tripartite gathering of members from three evolution-related societies: the American Society of Naturalists, the Society for the Study of Evolution, and the Society of Systematic Biologists. You can see the website here, and try perusing it a bit. What you won’t see is the names of prizes that have been dropped because the famous scientists once being honored were found to be flawed.
Call me an old grouch, but in my view the organizers are consciously turning societies devoted to the promotion of science into organizations devoted to the promotion of social change. Yes, organizations should not discriminate against any class of people so long as they’re qualified to give talks or attend meetings, but it’s another thing entirely for a meeting to promote equity on the grounds that science is structurally racist. In fact, I think scientific societies should remain politically neutral while obeying any anti-discrimination laws. Effecting social change should be the purview of individual members of societies, as different members have different views (I know a lot of people who object to the fulminating wokeness of evolution societies.)
Whlle perusing the long list of diversity initiatives (14 of them), guaranteed to bring people together by separating them, I found this one:
Latines In Evolution Mixer
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/image-1.png
Latines? What happened to “Latinx”, itself created to avoid gendering an ethnic group as well as not to offend LGBTQ Latinxes? Recall that “Latinx” was itself a term imposed on several (and diverse) ethnic groups by largely woke white people trying to demonstrate their compassion and virtue. Most members of the Latina(o) community spurn the term:
Despite its increasingly frequent use, a Gallup poll claims only 5% of Hispanic Americans prefer the term “Latinx.” In contrast, 37% preferred the usage of “Latino,” and 57% preferred “Hispanic.”
Aren’t we supposed to call a group what they want to be called? So why not “Hispanic”? And where the deuce did “Latine” come from? The Tulane Hullabaloo explains... (MORE - details)
Biological science rejects the sex binary, and that’s good for humanity
https://www.sapiens.org/biology/biological-science-rejects-the-sex-binary-and-thats-good-for-humanity/
More woke spin-doctoring of science? Perhaps with an underlying appeal to nature fallacy?