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The latest manifestation of the conservative targetting of academia is the Professor Watchlist, created by the "activist organization" Turning Point USA, founded by rising star Charlie Kirk. It's stated purpose is to "watch" professors "who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom"
Of course, this is not new. David Horowitz has written a book called The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America . HeterodoxAcademy.org has rational articles discussing the liberal slant to modern college campuses. Nicholas Kristoff writes an interesting piece on the same topic. However, with the election of President Trump, the stakes may have been raised. A professor in California has gone incognitio after criticizing Trump in the classroom and receiving death threats.
But more important is how the attempt to blacklist liberal academics has actually backfired. George Yancy [not the George Yancey from the Kristoff piece above] published a response, "I Am a Dangerous Professor" in the New York Times, and since then it seems to have become de rigueur for all academics to get their name on the Professor Watchlist in order to cement their tenure. An entire hashtag on Twitter has taken form: #trollprofwatchlist! People have taken to mocking the list by suggesting candidates such as Thomas Jefferson, Gandhi, and Jesus, not to mention Socrates, who obviously belongs.
Charlie Kirk may not be dangerous, but he did start this list. I am watching him now.
[Editor note - This story was substantially rewritten for balance. As always, the original submission is available at the link below.]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:24PM
Yes, the overwhelming majority [people-press.org] of "actual scientists" (using whatever filter you feel like applying to make it "real" enough) doing real research are also incredibly left leaning.
You can continue to imagine a world where you're not completely full of shit, but... there's no factual basis for your beliefs.
And I'm glad you could show off how whiningly anti-intellectual you are is with your unprovoked hatred of an uncommon art class almost no one actually takes. Raise your hand if you think user Runaway1956 could assemble a wicker basket if sat in a room full of straw and sticks, and a whole day of free time. I sure don't.
"PEOPLE SHOULDN'T STUDY ART" screams the dimwitted boomer robot, "IT SERVES NO LOGICAL FUNCTION" beep boop. Go fuck your self, you complete moron.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:48PM
"Raise your hand if you think user Runaway1956 could assemble a wicker basket if sat in a room full of straw and sticks, and a whole day of free time. I sure don't."
How sad. My basket wouldn't be of the same quality as people who make them all the time - but I could produce a basket good enough to carry eggs in. If you want to carry grain, like wheat, you'll have to give a couple practice runs. WIcker baskets aren't complicated, after all.
Studying art? Hey, that's fine - study all you want. Just don't try to tell us that art is science.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:12PM
Who the fuck mods this shit insightful?
No, you goddamn manchild, I'm not a fucking artist, I do the same programming work you delusionally think makes you good at science.
"You think X has value? You must be X" is the most childish thing that only conservatives ever do. It's like the idiots who think I'm a woman because I'm a feminist, it's so intellectually vacant and unthinking I cannot imagine how you function in life.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:35PM
"You think X has value? You must be X" is the most childish thing that only conservatives ever do.
Let's look at the money quote again.
Studying art? Hey, that's fine - study all you want. Just don't try to tell us that art is science.
Runaway doesn't assume that you're an artist, much less assume that you're an artist because you sort of defended art.
If only straw man building was the most childish thing the new puritans do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:59PM
Ah, the foul odor of ad hominem - a pile of fecal matter on the floor. Perhaps you have lost yours, ikanreed? Here, have it back, along with a downmod!
(Score: 4, Informative) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @11:54PM
Yay, babies first misapplication of a logical fallacy. You win the prize. The prize is smug condescension.
An ad hominenem, you dimwitted vagrant, is to deduce, from the qualitative or quantitative nature of the person making an argument, the factual validity of that argument. You utterly childish buffoon.
To inject asides, whether due or not, about how their argument reflects on their character, is not, in fact fallacious, and, indeed, you backwards bugbear from nowhere, if such a statement is follows from preceding statements, it's literally the opposite of fallacious: logically valid. You trifling thespian playing a logician
Is it okay to condemn Runaway1956 as a manchild for being dismissive of art and intellectualism that he doesn't personally consider valid for reasons, that are, at best, specious? It's definetly impolite, but I'd argue pretty due for being such a piece of shit.
Is it an ad hominem? No, stop learning cargo cult argumentation from the internet. Learn the details, you mugginly sapfool
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 20 2016, @11:37PM
I just don't understand the hatred. I've not badmouthed art. I've simply established that art and science are not the same thing. I have a prized painting. A woman in Corea, Maine painted it. It's of her granddaughter, showing off her new easter hat. The painting focuses on the straw hat, and only the lower half of the girl's face is visible. Jo wanted to give me a painting, and she pointed to dozens of paintings, told me to take the one I liked best. All of them were nice, all of them were attractive in one way or another. Sea scenes, beach scenes, meadows, children at play, downtown busy work, all sorts of subjects. That one painting, of her granddaughter, caught my eye. A demure little girl, tipping her head down, so that you could see the artwork in her new straw hat. To me, that was art, and I asked for that painting, ahead of other, more elaborate art. Art is good. But, Jo wasn't a scientist. Art is not science.
Oh my - I hope I haven't shocked anyone with the fact that I have met real artists in my life.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday December 21 2016, @12:06AM
You're right, inasmuch as I was putting you into a box that I should have known didn't really describe you based on what you said.
On the other hand, you're sneering disdain for non-STEM teachers was... pretty much out of left field and I still feel like everything I said about you came from a fair and reasoned place given that context.
You listed an arbitrary field of study, something that's not studied at college at all, and a minor elective art classes as the sole home for left-leaning thought in universities in a tone that implied your contempt(as if STEM was the only thing worthy of study and capable of real insight), and now, you're understandably hurt that I think so strongly that attitude reflects a certain class of anti-intellectualism.
So I know I'm supposed to act like it was okay to call you a manchild for you views, because defending what I've already said to the death is how internet arguments are supposed to work, and I know I went too far in impugning your character so directly. Sorry.
But dude, you were saying you think studying art is okay, when you pretty clearly implied you didn't think it isn't. That's not a contradiction I think you should let slide in your own belief system. Think about why you think, that of all people, only some arbitrary subset of scientists should be allowed political viewpoints informed by their expertise. And how that ties into the factually incorrect assumptions you made about the beliefs of those scientists. I think you've got some serious anti-intellectualism mixed into that.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 21 2016, @12:30AM
The problem is, the left is claiming that xx% of scientists are left wing, democrat, blah blah blah - and then they want to rewrite the definitions of science.
Of course those scientists who are getting grants from the US/UN/UK/other sources are going to speak out in favor of global warming theories. But then, every technician associated with that scientist's research and labs is promoted to scientist as well. Well, of course they all agree with the professor - publicly at least.
Professor watch list. We should have had a professor watch list decades ago. And we should have been watching the colleges and universities themselves. As evidence, I point to the surplus of "college educated" people who can't find a job today. People with degrees in black history, woman's history, and various almost useless degrees. Our liberal leaning colleges are failing us.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday December 21 2016, @02:26AM
Come on man, I linked my Pew study way back at the beginning. There's no definition fiddlyness at all. Research scientists are left leaning. In every field.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday December 21 2016, @04:34AM
I have two things to add here :- science begets multiculturalism and anti-establishment, and republicans are puritanical pro-christian anti-immigrant. And this has been so for so long that scientists have become democrat leaning. The use of word 'left' to describe liberal is an age old tactic of politics. Not to mention that there are multiple points of disagreement between different scientists who all call themselves liberal which such surveys purposefully reflect.
Second thing is that scientists in other countries don't reflect the same zeitgeist as american/european academia.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @07:59PM
My dad could have done it. He got his PhD in microbiology.
He's super-conservative, though not a Bible thumper: wants more nukes, attended tea party events, thinks Obama is the worst post-WWII president, owns 15 guns, hates abortion, opposes same-sex marriage, wants lower taxes, wants welfare gone, supported Goldwater for president, liked Nixon, wants active searching for illegal aliens and fast deportation, opposes affirmative action, avoided living in or downwind of places that the USSR might nuke, stocked up on disaster food, stayed with one wife, owned houses, good credit score, does preventative car maintenance, etc.
He went into the food industry. This fits a conservative: It's steady work. It's productive. The pay is reliable. There is no screwing around with post-doctoral busywork, in poverty, hoping that just maybe a professor position might open up. There is no gambling on tenure. You just take a job and get paid to do useful stuff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:55PM
Not so fast.
The vast majority of social scientists are left-leaning. Arts professors and their fellows, likewise.
Professional courses do not follow the same pattern. If you want to find a libertarian, or a conservative globalist, or an evangelical christian? Your best bet is to poke around the back alleys of engineering, legal or medical departments.
And the one discipline with the widest, most balanced range? Economics.
But please, do go on patting yourself on the back about how smart people are totally in agreement about how to run society. It makes it easy to find brainwashed droids.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @07:02PM
Please do continue to share your hypothetical anecdotes with me when the link I shared was quite explicit about the kinds of science (and engineering) studied by the surveyed people. Smart people don't become conservatives for the most part, and when they do, I've noticed(*gasp*, I'm able to use unsubstantiated anecdotes too) a strong tendency for that conservatism to be tempered with respect to their own area of expertise.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:55PM
Yes, the overwhelming majority of "actual scientists" (using whatever filter you feel like applying to make it "real" enough) doing real research are also incredibly left leaning.
Let's apply the filter of petroleum and chemical engineers. Burn.
This ideological bias can be completely explained by self-interest. It doesn't take a PhD to figure out which side your bread is buttered on.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:50PM
Uh, still no when it comes to the people doing actual research, but feel free to say "Burn". Turns out when you have a useful science PhD, you're typically a rare commodity that you don't feel compelled to follow the implied ideology of your employers. Research engineering is still 51% liberal to 20% conservative.
Your beliefs are based on non-reality. There's no science field dominated by right-leaning researchers. None. If you isolated your population down to Liberty University, you'd get a right-leaning group.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 20 2016, @07:59PM
Turns out when you have a useful science PhD, you're typically a rare commodity that you don't feel compelled to follow the implied ideology of your employers.
It's just a curious coincidence that they have the ideology that happens to benefit them the most?
Research engineering is still 51% liberal to 20% conservative.
Where did that come from? The Pew survey didn't cover that group.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:14PM
Its telling that you interpret their beliefs as directly related to their "bread butter". A very typical conservative approach, self centered and ignorant.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:03PM
Its telling that you interpret their beliefs as directly related to their "bread butter".
It's true.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @04:16AM
Uh huh sure buddy. You really are in some little universe to yourself. I don't doubt that it does happen, just like you shouldn't doubt that the same thing happens with private industry scientists. Except that the private industry scientists are under an even bigger "bread and butter" conflict of interest. Boss says make it read favorably, scientist obliges by stretching his scientific integrity to personal limits.
I 100% disagree that a relevant majority of scientists are under such influence, and the primary negative influence comes from the industries themselves.
But seeing your general post history I'd wager your pro-industry and against government funded research. The problem is industry has a financial motive for research to have favorable outcomes for their products / activities. The democratic party has nothing to gain from pro-climate change research, aside from your theory that they are some evil cabal making people afraid of pollution so that some oil barons have to jump through regulation hoops and do things the "hard" way.
Your theory just doesn't make sense, except as a false flag type argument to keep the conversation away from the real problem with current scientific research. Industry funded research is basically propaganda which confuses the less scientifically literate.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 21 2016, @09:05AM
But seeing your general post history I'd wager your pro-industry and against government funded research. The problem is industry has a financial motive for research to have favorable outcomes for their products / activities.
That's why in a nutshell. Industry needs research that is productive. Government doesn't give a shit as long as the checks get signed by the right people. And what's the better approach for the would-be researcher of dubious competence and diligence? They know how to sign checks so they're going to swing that way. Having to spend a good portion of their working day with grant application theater is just a cost of doing business.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @10:56PM
That's why in a nutshell. Industry needs research that is productive
Even if it is fake research; in fact, especially when it is fake research! This is what happens when you define knowledge in terms of revenue. If they are so rich, why aren't they smart?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 22 2016, @02:20AM
If they are so rich, why aren't they smart?
That goes for everything else too. If they're so rich, why do they need anyone to clean the toilets?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @11:14PM
Your beliefs are based on non-reality. There's no science field dominated by right-leaning researchers.
Not quite true! Almost all of the professors of "White Studies" are right-wing nut-jobs. And then there is the David Duke Endowed Chair for the Study of European American Supremacy at the Ku Klux Klan Institute of Post-factual Studies.