Part of the reason many academics won't speak out on the issue is fear.... fear of social media outrage mobs, fear of threats to themselves and their families, fear of losing the freedom to research in their chosen field, even fear of some of their ideologically captured fellow academics...
I have posted this list before, I think, but its time for a reminder.... a partial list of academics who have been targeted by outrage mobs and other academics for expressing ideas. Their consequences for speaking scientific truth have ranged from being fired, being driven out of academia, having papers retracted for no reason, deplatforming and ruination of their careers, to threats of violence and death.
Colin Wright, an evolutionary biologist.
Driven out of academia by an Twitter outrage mob for arguing in favour of a scientific truth, namely, that there are only two biological human sexes.
Dr. Kathleen Stock OBE.
Denounced and targeted as a “transphobe” by over 700 of her academic colleagues for the crime of advocating Gender Critical viewpoints, specifically that transwomen should be excluded from places like women’s locker rooms and shelters, and rape crisis centres, as well as for calling for an end to the assocation between UK universities and Stonewall.
Protesters had tried to have Professor Kathleen Stock sacked for her views on gender identity.
www.bbc.com
Professor Selina Todd, history professor at Oxford University’s St. Hilda College.
Targeted by a Twitter outrage mob who had her "no-platformed" by the Oxford International Women's Festival, at which she had been due to speak. The event's organizers told her the decision was due to pressure from trans activists. Apparently, she had the temerity to state that there is a need for women-only spaces because of past violence against women by natural born males. She had to be given security because some of those nice, cuddly, inoffensive people that a number of posters here love to support, made threats of physical violence against her.
A FEMINIST Oxford professor has been given security guards to protect her following threats from transgender activists.
www.oxfordmail.co.uk
Professor Nathaniel Hiers of the College of North Texas.
Fired for calling microaggressions
“garbage”. A lawsuit is ongoing against the College and Department Chair for violation of his rights to speech and academic freedom.
A First Amendment lawsuit filed by a former University of North Texas adjunct professor over microaggressions can continue, a federal district court judge held.
www.thefire.org
Professor Kathleen Lowery.
Removed from her position as Associate Chair for Academic Programs in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Alberta. Her crime? She expressed her disagreement with the idea that biological sex is irrelevant. She said that housing trans-identified men in women’s prisons is not fair to women prisoners and puts women at risk.
A University of Alberta associate professor says she was dismissed from an administrative role over her views that transgender identity doesn’t trump biological sex…
edmontonjournal.com
Laura Tanner, graduate student in Feminist Studies, UCSB.
Attacked by the outrage mob in an attempt to remove her from campus and teaching, because she stated the scientific and biological facts that there are only two biological sexes, and that a man can never become a woman.
The Twitter account, which features the T.A.'s photograph and name, contains hundreds of tweets and retweets espousing transphobic views.
dailynexus.com
Stephen Gliske, Neuroscientist, UMich.
Targeted for presenting a
proposing a new theory of gender dysphoria that offended some trans activists and their academic sychophants.
Help stop another censorious academic outrage mob.
www.psychologytoday.com
Linda Gottfredson, Psychology, University of Delaware
Disinvited from a conference in Sweden for presenting research showing that there are group differences in average IQ test scores and for reviewing research showing that intelligence is heritable. In fact, intelligence is indeed heritable to some extent, but apparently, saying so triggered some snowflakes in Swedish academia.
A profound discomfort with empirical findings emerging from intelligence research lies at the heart of the disinvitation.
quillette.com
Lisa Littman, MD & behavioral scientist, Brown U
Fired from a consulting position because her paper on
“Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” butthurt a few transgender activists, professionals, and academics.
A researcher found that parents claimed their teenage kids expressed transgender identification out of the blue. All hell broke loose. Science improved. Maybe.
www.psychologytoday.com
Now this is just a tiny selection of the thousands of academics who have been fired, lost positions, been forced to retract papers, and received threats of violence and death because they dared to challenge the Holy Creed of the Gender Ideology Cult. Academia is supposed to be a marketplace where ideas, no matter how controversial, are freely exchanged and debated with vigour. But it is rapidly becoming an echo chamber for trendy extremist liberal progressives, a place where any dissent must be stamped on, and those who dissent crushed along with it.
I am reminded of the words of some of the wisest people of our time - Carl Sagan, Karl Popper and George Orwell.
Carl Sagan spoke about the danger of Society trying to silence dissenting ideas. Here, he is talking about what happened to Immanuel Velikovsky when he published his book "Worlds in Collision" in 1950 for which he was pilloried by academia...
"There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong - that's perfectly alright, its the aperture to finding out what's right. Science is a self-correcting process - to be accepted, new ideas must survive the most rigorous standards of evidence and scrutiny. The worst aspect of the Velikovsky affair is not that many of his ideas were wrong, or silly, or in gross contradiction to the facts, rather the worst aspect was that some scientists attempted to suppress Velikovsky’s ideas. The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there is no place for it in the endeavor of science."
Karl Popper spoke about the dangers of an intolerant Society in something others called
"The Paradox of Intolerance"
"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.". In effect, trans radical activisists are the intolerant, and the public seem prepared to put up with their drive to silence dissent...."
And these lead perfectly into the third of the three wise men...
George Orwell, author of the seminal work, and cautionary story,
"1984".
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
"Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right."
Orwell could yet be right... he just might only have had the year wrong... There are few works of literature that are as relevant today as George Orwell's
"1984" - Margaret Atwood's
"A Handmaids Tale" is one of them!
" -- instead of recognizing that, biologically speaking at least, "male" and "female" are JUST labels for transitory reproductive abilities.
