A piece in the UK Spectator says,
A senior editor of Nature, one of the leading academic journals, refused to consider it for review because she regards scientific research into the personalities of the long-term unemployed as ‘unethical’, and a sociology professor whom the publishers had asked to peer-review the book refused to do so on the grounds that any book linking benefit dependency to personality must be nonsense because personality is a ‘capitalist construct’.
Pointer from Tyler Cowen. The controversial book argues that welfare claimants have personalities that make them difficult to employ. It’s fine if you prefer the oppressor-oppressed narrative to the civilization-barbarism narrative. But instead of shutting the other side down, you should be standing up for their rights to make their case.
That is pure stupidity before it is political. Why would it be unethical (as opposed to the unethical position of letting your bias determine editorial decisions in a scientific paper)? That said (or even worse) there are thousands of great papers rejected by Nature, so why not lie? And personality is a brain construcr, not a capitalist one. If there is the definitive paper debunking brain structuralism, I’d love to see it.
Interestingly, Nature doesn’t seem to have a problem with scientific research into personalities when it shows that…
There are thousands if ways to not get into Nature. I wish I was an economist so I could claim rejection wad politically motivated.
Yes, all of those university psychology professors researching personalty are of course famous for their right wing capitalist views…
The irony is if you believe it, then unemployment would be a disability. Are you sure they are ready for that?
Party of “science”.
The reality-based community.
Yeah, Science should be the liberal rag and Nature should be the conservative screed.
“True but unethical,” is the new “fake but accurate.”
Nature takes the same position regarding research that doesn’t support the official global warming narrative. Which is why you shouldn’t believe a single word you read in Nature.
Then again, what mainstream science publication isn’t utterly corrupted by leftist groupthink?
Politics is about crushing and silencing opposing views at all costs, especially the good ones, without creating much of a backlash.
Expecting noble saintly behavior from the elite prestige science journals seems naive. Those venues public the world’s most amazing science progress, and that is rightfully admired, but there’s a wildly politicized part of that process too.
Dear Professor of Sociology: While it may be true that personality is a capitalist construct, it is definitely true that the welfare state is.