Thursday, May 13, 2021

Vox Popoli: Canceling biology

Richard Dawkins certainly never saw this coming. I warned him, and everyone, that post-Christianity is not compatible with science, indeed, that Christianity was not only necessary for scientody, but is arguably necessary for a functional scientistry as well. Now we're learning that even the history of science is being canceled:

A university has been slammed by academics for putting Charles Darwin on a list of 'racist' scientists as part of a guide to 'decolonise' its biology curriculum. 

Sheffield University has created a handbook for students and lecturers in its science department to help 'tackle racial injustice' by 'reflecting on the whiteness and Eurocentrism of our science'.

As part of the guide, the department created a list of 11 'problematic' scientific figures - including Darwin - whose views 'influenced the type of research they carried out and how they interpreted their data'. 

An explanation next to the 19th century naturalist's name says that Darwin 'believed that his theory of natural selection justified the view that the white race was superior to others'.

With the exception of James Watson, the list of problematic scientific figures reads like a who's who of atheist heroes. Atheists have falsely claimed that science and Christianity are incompatible for decades, but what they've learned in just three short years is that it is science and social justice which are totally incapable of coexisting.

Ronald Fisher

Known for: Pioneered the application of statistical procedures to the design of scientific experiments. He was a Professor in the Eugenics department at University College London.

Sheffield's view: He believed that races differed 'in their innate capacity for intellectual and emotional development'.

One of his works, The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, 'endorses colonialism, white supremacy, and eugenics and discusses his belief in the higher and lower genetic value of people according to their race'.

Carl Linnaeus

Known for: Formalising the modern system of naming organisms

Sheffield's view: He applied his system of classification to position human races, with white Europeans at the top, and black, indigenous, and other people of colour groups gradually descending his hierarchy.

James Watson 

Known for: Proposing the double helix structure of the DNA molecule with Francis Crick

Sheffield's view: The 93-year-old has previously made outwardly racist public comments about the innate inequality of people from different races, particularly with regards to intelligence.

Thomas Henry Huxley 

Known for: Supporting Darwin's Theory of Evolution, and proposing connections between development of organisms and their evolutionary histories.

Sheffield's view: Huxley's belief that 'no rational man, cognizant of the facts, believes, that the average negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the average white man' was used as justification for segregation. 

Francis Galton

Known for: Coining the term 'eugenics', he was the first to apply statistical methods to the study of human differences.

Sheffield's view: He was obsessed with a eugenic 'utopia' in which the genetic elite were encouraged to breed, segregated from the sterilised underclass. It has been said that his work 'invented racism'.

Karl Pearson

Known for: Pioneering work in mathematical statistics and creating a methodology to identify correlations.

Sheffield's view: He believed strongly in racial segregation and that races other than his own were inferior. 

Alfred Russell Wallace

Known for: Co-developing the theory of natural selection and evolution with Charles Darwin, something Darwin is most often credited for.

Sheffield's view: He carried out all of his field observations in a colonial environment. In a similar concept to the 'Wallace line' separating biological realms, he drew a boundary line between what he classified as different ethnic groups in the colonial Dutch East Indies.

Henry Walter Bates

Known for: Expeditions of the Amazon rainforests where his studies led him to propose the idea of mimicry in unrelated animal species. 

Sheffield's view: Like Darwin and other explorers, he travelled and collected specimens from colonial South America and was a proponent of colonialism in the Amazon.

Julian Huxley

Known for: Supporting the theory of natural selection, he also worked for the Zoological Society of London and was the first director of UNESCO. His brother was the writer Aldous Huxley.

Sheffield's view: He was a prominent figure in British Eugenics Society and believed that the lower classes were genetically inferior and should be prevented from reproducing and even sterilised.

JBS Haldane

Known for: Introducing the 'primordial soup theory', which became the foundation for the concept of the chemical origin of life.

Sheffield's view: He published a book in 1924 describing the use of in vitro fertilisation for eugenics purposes. 


 http://voxday.blogspot.com/2021/05/canceling-biology.html