The anti-science views of third-wave feminists

Because of its connections with postmodernism, third-wave feminism has sometimes shown a disturbing trend of doing down science. That, of course, is because postmodernism rejects objective truth, valuing feelings and “lived experience” over science, which it sees as not only un-objective, but as a tool and embodiment of the patriarchy. This attitude was, of course, […]

Evergreen State and postmodernism

Over at Quillette, which is really the go-to place fostering progressive Liberalism and criticizing Authoritarian Leftism, Michael Aaron has a new piece on the Evergreen State College affair called “Evergreen State and the battle for modernity.” It’s a good read, and deals more with the forces behind the fracas than the messy details of campus […]

The latest on Evergreen State College and the demonization of Bret Weinstein

The fracas at The Evergreen State College (TESC), which I think has permanently ruined its reputation, continues to gain traction in the mainstream media, though most left-wing venues have resolutely ignored the story. (Exceptions are the Washington Post and the New York Times.) I still think this is some kind of turning point that will hurt […]

Hoax or not a hoax? New paper on how “Intersectional quantum feminisms” fight the oppression of Newtonian physics

Okay, here’s a paper that appeared recently in The Minnesota Review, published out of Duke University. Is it a hoax or not a hoax? I’ll show the title (click on screenshot to go to the paper; the full reference and free link os at bottom), and then give some excerpts.  First, I read this paper […]

Is this paper a hoax or not a hoax? You be the judge!

Okay, here’s a 2006 paper from the International Journal of Evidence Based Healthcare that calls for a questioning of the need for evidence. The journal is from Wiley, a reputable publisher, but have a look at the paper (click on screenshot to go to it): A few excerpts: From the abstract: Background Drawing on the […]

Calvin and Hobbes and Cultural Studies

There’s been lots of pushback against Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay’s “conceptual penis” paper hoax, in which they submitted a meaningless (but ideologically correct) paper to the journal Cogent Social Sciences, where it was published. The main defenses are that the journal was a “pay to publish” open-access journal, and that one hoax by itself […]

A humanities scholar rebuts criticisms of the “conceptual penis” paper

“At a time when superstitions, obscurantism and nationalist and religious fanaticism are spreading in many parts of the world – including the ‘developed’ West – it is irresponsible, to say the least, to treat with such casualness what has historically been the principal defense against these follies, namely a rational vision of the world… [F]or […]

A new academic hoax: a bogus paper on “the conceptual penis” gets published in a “high quality peer-reviewed” social science journal

It’s been 21 years since physicist Alan Sokal submitted a bogus paper to a special “Science Wars” issue of the cultural studies journal Social Text. His paper, “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity“, maintained that quantum gravity was a social construct, using many bizarre quotes from postmodern scholars to make its case. Almost immediately […]

A reader defends the otherization and gender-shaming of squirrels

A reader who identifies himself as Bradley Levinson sent a comment about my article “More academic madness: Published feminist analysis of squirrel diets and reproduction shows that squirrels, like marginalized human groups, are otherized, gendered, and fat-shamed, ” which analyzed a truly ludicrous piece of feminist “scholarship” published in the journal Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal […]

More academic madness: Published feminist analysis of squirrel diets and reproduction shows that squirrels, like marginalized human groups, are otherized, gendered, and fat-shamed

I’ve written about dumb papers connecting Halloween pumpkins and Pilates with racism, and about how “feminist glaciology” could expel patriarchy from geology, but the paper I’m about to highlight takes the cake. First, two preliminary comments: 1.) I have never been so ashamed to be an academic, and 2.) This paper is the kind of “scholarship” that is making […]