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posted by takyon on Friday November 23 2018, @11:59PM   Printer-friendly
from the journal-of-stupid-ideas-no-one-wants-to-take-responsibility-for dept.

The Journal of Controversial Ideas is already, well, controversial. Here's a founder's defense.

News broke last week that philosophers Jeff McMahan, Peter Singer, and Francesca Minerva are planning to start a publication called the Journal of Controversial Ideas, an interdisciplinary academic outlet where scholars will be allowed to present arguments and findings pseudonymously, without fear of damaging their reputation.

Almost immediately, the journal was cast as another volley in the wars over free speech and political correctness on college campuses. Critics mocked it as an attempt by white, privileged academics (while Minerva is a postdoc, Singer and McMahan are both among the most prominent applied ethicists in philosophy) to smuggle reactionary and bigoted views that academics would not feel comfortable airing under their own names. Not helping matters was McMahan's declaration to a reporter that he would be open to publishing an article defending eugenics, if its arguments were of sufficient quality.

"Essentially, it is a safe space, one where authors do not have to deal with feedback or criticism from those at the sharp end of their 'controversial' ideas," Nesrine Malik warned of the journal in a Guardian column. "It is publishing without the responsibility that comes along with that."


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday November 24 2018, @02:19AM (3 children)

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Saturday November 24 2018, @02:19AM (#765774) Journal

    A new journal should be started. Same anonymous authors, but without any formal peer review.

    What are the criteria for inclusion then? Or do they publish anything they receive, even spam? Who decides? If there are no standards (or very minimal ones), why is this different from a public internet forum then?

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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @02:32AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @02:32AM (#765776)

    You can screen out bot spam and irrelevant submissions without deep knowledge of the fields. Troll and hoax papers can be addressed by user comments if they survive the screening process. It's different from other public forums because other forums aren't meant to collect science papers. You don't look for science papers in a video gaming forum, you look for them in a place meant for science papers.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @05:39AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @05:39AM (#765814)

      soylent journals for preprints (with comments always turned on for the lulz)

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @05:53AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @05:53AM (#765820)

      Free forums to post such scientific content already exist on the internet. Again, why do we need another -- what makes it different, and why call it a "journal"?