Galileo's middle finger
"An investigation of some of the most contentious debates of our time, Galileo's Middle Finger describes Alice Dreger's experiences on the front lines of scientific controversy, where for two decades she has worked as an advocate for victims of unethical research while also defending the right of scientists to pursue challenging research into human identities. Dreger's own attempts to reconcile academic freedom with the pursuit of justice grew out of her research into the treatment of people born intersex (formerly called hermaphrodites). The shocking history of surgical mutilation and ethical abuses conducted in the name of "normalizing" intersex children moved her to become a patient rights' activist. By bringing evidence to physicians and the public, she helped change the medical system. But even as she worked to correct these injustices, Dreger began to witness how some fellow liberal activists, motivated by identity politics, were employing lies and personal attacks to silence scientists whose data revealed inconvenient truths. Troubled, she traveled around the country digging up sources and interviewing the targets of these politically motivated campaigns. Among the subjects she covers in the book are the anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon, falsely accused in a bestselling book of committing genocide against a South American tribe; the psychologist Michael Bailey, accused of abusing transgender women; and the evolutionary biologist E. O.
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What Hacker News says
- Related: People wonder why English has so many weird spellings. It's a complicated answer. The Vikings seem to show up way too often (grin). One of the reasons, though, is that several hundred years ago we all thought that Latin was the bees knees. The Greeks and Romans were the model. So took words that were perfectly-well phonetically-spelled and "fixed" them, returning them to some kind of bastardized form that was "better".
For some words it didn't work -- people went back to the old ways. But for some it did.
This chaotic priggish churning in society is not new, as pg points out. I love how language, manners, idioms, and cultures interact. It can be a force for good. It can also be extremely destructive, usually in tiny ways and over centuries.
While I love these intricacies, I also always fall back on the definition of manners I was taught early on: good manners is how you act around people with poor manners. Add complexity as desired on top of that. The form of communication and behavior can never replace the actual meaning and effects of it. (There's a wonderful scene in "The Wire" where they only use the f-word. Would have worked just as well for their job to have used the n-word. 100 years ago, the n-word would have been fine and the f-word beyond the pale. Draw your lessons from that.)
ADD: I always try to be polite and abide whatever traditions are in place in any social group. One thing I've noticed, though: the more people express their politics, their priggishness, their wokeness, etc -- the crappier they seem to be in their jobs. I don't know why. Perhaps it's because this is such as easy social crutch to lean on and gain social advantage that it becomes kind of a "communications drug". Scratch a loud prude or moralizer, you find a dullard or slacker. Conversely, people who produce usable advances in mankind tend to be jerks. I suspect this relationship has held up over centuries. cf Socrates and the Sophists, etc. (A good book among many along these lines is "Galileo's Middle Finger")
- Please define “woman”.
This is not sarcasm. What you’ve generally been taught about the binariness of these terms is an oversimplification to say the least, and wrong. Read Galileo’s Middle Finger as an excellent primer.
- > Some people that are loudly ignorant, especially those that defend their ignorance vigorously, face consequences in professional settings.
Sort of like Galileo did?
Sometimes the societal norms of what is considered "ignorant" are wrong.
If you haven't come across it, I would highly recommend the book Galileo's Middle Finger. It was written by a lefty who started her career as an activist fighting for the humane treatment of intersex people (a marginalized group). But later in her career she discovered lots of people who were accused of being ignorant had actually been unfairly smeared by people whose accusations didn't stand up to scrutiny.
- I suggest you pick up and read "Galileo's Middle Finger" [1] by Alice Dreger. In short it points to hypocrisy when dogma and science collide. When your worldview is shattered by actual science and how we can be better people by not politicizing science only when convenient.
NYMag had a decent review too. [2]
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Galileos-Middle-Finger-Heretics-Activ...
[2] http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/12/when-liberals-attack-so...
- That's a very convenient and self-congratulatory view of things. Science denialism happens on both the left and the right.
The book Galileo's Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and One Scholar's Search for Justice, by Alice Dreger gives a good survey of the terrain.
- The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis of Her Samoan Research was challenged by academics too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Mead#Criticism_by_Der...
i.e.
In her 2015 book Galileo's Middle Finger, Alice Dreger argues that Freeman's accusations were unfounded and misleading. A detailed review of the controversy by Paul Shankman, published by the University of Wisconsin Press in 2009, supports the contention that Mead's research was essentially correct and concludes that Freeman cherry-picked his data and misrepresented both Mead and Samoan culture
