Oct 28, 2021 07:46 PM
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2021/10/2...ge-london/
EXCERPTS (Jerry Coyne): Over at Western Washington University (WWU) in Bellingham, WA, 19th-century biologist Thomas Henry Huxley is poised for cancellation in December, for the administration has contemplated (and will surely enact) changing the name of its well known Huxley College of the Environment, listed as one of the Unversity’s “notable degree programs“.
In an ill-conceived, erroneous, and poorly written critique of Huxley as a racist, a document on the website of the President of WWU made the case to rename the college. (A better case for renaming was that Huxley really didn’t have anything to do with WWU, but if the name’s there, presumably there was a reason—possibly to honor the man.)
The case for cancelling Huxley is weak, and vanishes when you take into account the good he did. Later in his life he was an abolitionist, reformer of education, and a lecturer on science to working people, as well as a crack scientist. You can read my pieces pieces on Huxley and WWU here, here, here and especially here, which links to Nick Matzke’s terrific defense of Huxley and critique of WWU’s shameful and ignorant cancellation.
Now I’ve learned, from Titania via reader Coel, that a place that was closer to Thomas Henry Huxley—Imperial College London—is also poised to cancel him, according to the Times and Torygraph (articles below tweet).
[...] Huxley is part of a group of biologists who, according to an investigation by Imperial’s “independent history group”, should have buildings, rooms, statues, and academic positions named after them cancelled and renamed. Not only T. H. Huxley has his head on the chopping block, but also W. D. Hamilton, Ronald Fisher, and J. B. S. Haldane, three of the finest evolutionary biologists of the last century.
[...] Huxley was a vocal slave abolitionist, but the Imperial report said his paper, Emancipation – Black and White, “espouses a racial hierarchy of intelligence” which helped feed ideas around eugenics, which “falls far short of Imperial’s modern values”.
Yes, anybody who falls short of Imperial’s modern values (do they accept all the tenets of Black Lives Matter?) must be removed forthwith and their memory effaced. And remember, British ideas on eugenics went nowhere: the UK never practiced eugenics.
There are others to be expunged... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS (Jerry Coyne): Over at Western Washington University (WWU) in Bellingham, WA, 19th-century biologist Thomas Henry Huxley is poised for cancellation in December, for the administration has contemplated (and will surely enact) changing the name of its well known Huxley College of the Environment, listed as one of the Unversity’s “notable degree programs“.
In an ill-conceived, erroneous, and poorly written critique of Huxley as a racist, a document on the website of the President of WWU made the case to rename the college. (A better case for renaming was that Huxley really didn’t have anything to do with WWU, but if the name’s there, presumably there was a reason—possibly to honor the man.)
The case for cancelling Huxley is weak, and vanishes when you take into account the good he did. Later in his life he was an abolitionist, reformer of education, and a lecturer on science to working people, as well as a crack scientist. You can read my pieces pieces on Huxley and WWU here, here, here and especially here, which links to Nick Matzke’s terrific defense of Huxley and critique of WWU’s shameful and ignorant cancellation.
Now I’ve learned, from Titania via reader Coel, that a place that was closer to Thomas Henry Huxley—Imperial College London—is also poised to cancel him, according to the Times and Torygraph (articles below tweet).
[...] Huxley is part of a group of biologists who, according to an investigation by Imperial’s “independent history group”, should have buildings, rooms, statues, and academic positions named after them cancelled and renamed. Not only T. H. Huxley has his head on the chopping block, but also W. D. Hamilton, Ronald Fisher, and J. B. S. Haldane, three of the finest evolutionary biologists of the last century.
[...] Huxley was a vocal slave abolitionist, but the Imperial report said his paper, Emancipation – Black and White, “espouses a racial hierarchy of intelligence” which helped feed ideas around eugenics, which “falls far short of Imperial’s modern values”.
Yes, anybody who falls short of Imperial’s modern values (do they accept all the tenets of Black Lives Matter?) must be removed forthwith and their memory effaced. And remember, British ideas on eugenics went nowhere: the UK never practiced eugenics.
There are others to be expunged... (MORE - missing details)
