"Nature" will change its science to combat systemic racism
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01312-4
Since the labs publish in Nature and Nature family journals this will have some kind of impact.
Racism in science is endemic because the systems that produce and teach scientific knowledge have, for centuries, misrepresented, marginalized and mistreated people of colour and under-represented communities. The research system has justified racism — and, too often, scientists in positions of power have benefited from it. That system includes the organization of research: how it is funded, published and evaluated
Ending systemic racism will therefore require those in the system, including Nature, to collectively acknowledge and study these facts, and to ask: how and why did this happen? We need to thoroughly understand the root causes, even as we seek energetically to remedy the ongoing damage. Some have already started down this road. Projects at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and the University of Glasgow, UK, have investigated these institutions’ past ties to the slave trade and how they prospered from it, helping to build a more accurate and complete account of science history.
Too often, conventional metrics — citations, publication, profits — reward those in positions of power, rather than helping to shift the balance of power.
Hmm, sounds good I cannot imagine anything going wrong with this.
Maybe we might be better off when China takes over the world.
Comments
Is this what people mean by "The Big Lie"?
How many threads on systemic racism must we have to endure here? How many mind-numbing examples of subverting the pillars of science and engineering with elements of targeted bigotry must be posted before we cry "enough". These attempts by a troll to disrupt work flows with his repeated attempts at laying a guilt trip on Caucasians have lost any merit belonging here.
Assuming that the story about Nature is true and not some pile of steaming manure written by our intrepid purveyor of racial hatred, you may as well abandon submission of scientific articles to that journal or any other publication that adopts a similar policy. Science cannot be contaminated by interjection of racism, sexism, or any other form of bigotry in place of pure research, analysis, and conclusion.
Now let's move on. There's real work to do.
"Assuming that the story about Nature is true "
Below is the link to the story directly from Nature, so yes it is true. The quotes are taken from the article.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01312-4
As someone who admired Martin Luther King I am appalled. We are no longer judging by merit or character but by the color of skin. We may just as well throw MLK's DC mall speech in the trash, another victim of Cancel culture.
And what about the papers? With articles now being viewed through the diffraction grating of the submittor's race there no longer a guarantee that merit decides whether a paper gets published.
We've thrown the baby out with the bath water. Nature, in adopting these new policies, has destroyed it's status as a credible source of factual unbiased news and articles. Instead it will be the publisher of token researchers, whose findings matter less than their genetic background.
I for one reject this change. My papers can find other publications, including online journals. Science demands merit.
Nature also intends to publish more articles on racism. One has to wonder through are only certain types of articles with certain conclusions going to be published?
For example Prof. Roland Fryer from Harvard published a study on police shootings and found that blacks are less likely to receive lethal force in interactions with police than whites.
According to Quoctrung Bui and Amanda Cox in The New York Times, in the cities Fryer and his team examined, law enforcement officials “were more likely to fire their weapons without having first been attacked when the suspects were white.” Also, Fryer found that black and white civilians in these types of situations were equally likely to have a weapon on them."https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-the-data-say-about-police-11592845959
The paper was from 2017. Prof Fryer who by the is black was then canceled 2019, suspended without pay for two years, had his lab permanently shut down and will not be allowed to have students, effectively ending his professorship.
I would guess it would be impossible for anyone to even try a to publish a paper using real data showing that some of the common narratives are not true. If such a paper got through Nature wold be boycotted the professor fired and the University would have its grants cut off.