[1]<\/a>)) then they may have a detrimental effect on research productivity. It is also important to note that these opinions paraphrase very closely a decision reached and publicized by a German court in 2007, at least according to a supporter of Hudlicky who dared express an opinion supporting his colleague.<\/p>\nThe Twitter mob trolls who objected to this opinion reacted as if what Dr. Hudlicky said was that efforts to \u201cdiversify\u201d hiring and student selection were definitively harmful, while what he truly did was only raise the possibilities that such actions could become counterproductive if they resulted in the exclusion of qualified candidates. No one can object to this opinion, reasonably\u2014unless they assume, as did Hudlicky\u2019s critics, that all claims to objectivity in hiring and selection are inextricably bound up with the systemic prejudice hypothetically characterizing all hierarchies of specialization.<\/p>\n
Under\u00a0Transference of Skills<\/u>: \u201cThe training and mentoring of new generations of professionals must be attended to by proper relationships of \u201cmasters and apprentices\u201d without dilution of standards. Hudlicky described two conditions under which the successful transfer of skills can occur: first, if the skill is not transferred within three generations, it is lost forever, and second, there must be \u201can unconditional submission of the apprentice to his\/her master.\u201d This applies not only in the sciences but also in art, music, and martial arts\u2026. Submission to one\u2019s mentor is rarely attainable today. Many students are unwilling to submit to any level of hard work demanded by professors. The university does not support professors in this endeavor as it views students as financial assets and hence protects them from any undue hardships that may be demanded by the \u201cmasters.\u201d This situation, coupled with the fact that professors have less and less time to mentor students in the laboratory, cannot provide for a productive transfer of skills, especially the maintenance of standards and integrity of research.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is an additional 170 words\/4000, and paraphrases an opinion most famously put forward by Michael Polanyi, a Hungarian-English polymath of genius level, who made contributions to chemistry, philosophy and economics, and who delineated the importance of \u201ctacit knowledge\u201d (that is, knowledge that was acted out but not necessarily articulated) in the transmission of specialized technical ability across the generations. Hudlicky was therefore criticized and pilloried by individuals on Twitter who appeared to know nothing of M. Polanyi\u2019s work on tacit knowledge (for whom such ignorance was perhaps justifiable) but also by the editor of\u00a0Angewandte<\/em>, for whom such ignorance (voluntary or otherwise) was most certainly not. Acquisition of this knowledge required precisely the unfreedom recommended by Hudlicky\u2014followed, of course (with the acquisition of the aptly named Master\u2019s degree) by autonomy in thought and action that was increased beyond what it would have been capable of achieving without the devoted apprenticeship in question. Such a process can only be undertaken by a pupil capable of regarding his or her teacher as a true mentor, and by a mentor bent on producing a pupil more capable than him or herself, after an intensive period of training. None of that, according to Hudlicky (and this is not obviously an unreasonable hypothesis in this day of age) is possible in the university as it is currently constituted, even in the departments that still teach hard sciences. Not only is it not possible, he implies, but it is no longer posited even as an acceptable possibility. In a properly functioning institute of training, however, it might be argued that disciplined and contractually-mediated temporary subjugation to higher authority is eminently desirable, despite the limited sacrifice of casual autonomy that might require, if the person or persons to whom the subjugation is made are true experts. It is the willingness to undertake this apprenticeship, as well as the capability of superseding it, that makes up the master in \u201cMaster\u2019s degree\u201d\u2014a designation that I notice Brock still grants, despite potentially colonial overtones at least as damning as those that characterized Hudlicky\u2019s writing (if we are going to go down that absurd route).<\/p>\nThat is the sum total of Hudlicky\u2019s academic crimes. He has faced severe retaliation on no less than seven separate fronts for his hypothetically unforgivable thoughts\u2014the two we have already discussed, and five more, including, third, the cancelation of an entire issue of the journal Synthesis<\/em> (published by Thieme), which was to be dedicated to his 70th<\/sup> birthday and for which invitations had already been sent to more than forty prominent scientists; fourth, the elimination of any mention of his work in yet another journal, Highlights in Chemistry<\/em>; fifth, a statement by the Norwegian Chemical Society (not as of yet made public) hypothetically critiquing his ongoing collaborations with three Norwegian researchers; and sixth, his transformation into whipping boy by his own faithless professional colleagues at the administrative level at Brock University. Dr. Greg Finn, Provost and VP Academic at that institution, saw nothing wrong with stabbing one of his university\u2019s most esteemed scientists in the back at the first sign of trouble. The provost wrote a painfully cringing apologetic \u201copen letter to the public,\u201d claiming, of course, that Hudlicky\u2019s opinions, if in the least controversial, were in no possible manner representative of Brock University as a whole, and essentially hanging that institution\u2019s hypothetically valued top chemist out to dry. Finn states that Hudlicky\u2019s article \u201c\u2026contains descriptions of the graduate supervisor-graduate student relationship that connote disrespect and subservience. These statements could be alarming to students and others who have the reasonable expectation of respectful and supportive mentorship\u2026. [The statements in this paper] do not reflect the principles of inclusivity, diversity and equity included in the University\u2019s mission, vision and values as approved by our Senate and Board of Trustees.\u201d Only an individual accustomed to dining on very thin gruel or simply spoiled meat would find any nourishment in statements with such content and of that quality.<\/p>\nAn admirable university, secure in its worth, would have determined very quickly that one Dr. Hudlicky was, conservatively, worth a hundred Dr. Finn\u2019s, and acted accordingly. But research prowess is no longer as important as willingness to mouth the appalling commonplaces of political correctness in the hallowed corridors of academe. And what that essentially means is that resentful and underqualified pretenders to the role of useful intellectual can now exercise the upper hand in apparent scientific worthiness, so far as it has been reduced to a simple political power game. And the list of consequences for Dr. Hudlicky I have outlined so far does not by any means exhaust the description of his punishment. He is (was (?)) apparently a scientist of sufficient merit, as his Canada Research Chair should have clearly and decisively indicated, to have had an entire upcoming issue of\u00a0another journal, Synthesis, <\/em>devoted to a retrospective of his work, complete with invited commentary\u2014and now the existence of that tribute has become highly doubtful.<\/p>\nThree other events worth of note that came to my attention over the last two weeks, when I have been communicating with academics concerned with this sequence of happenings, drive these points home. A highly cited professor of physics, who I cannot name, at a university I cannot name either (suffice it to say that the former has garnered 100+ publications and 7000+ citations in a highly technical field) had his standard Canadian Federal grant application rejected because (or so the reviewers claimed) he had not sufficiently detailed his plans to ensure diversity, inclusivity and equity (DIE) practices while conducting his scientific inquiry. It is now standard practice for university hiring boards to insist that their faculty job applicants submit a DIE plan with their curriculum vitae\u2014a terribly dangerous occurrence of its own. I believe that the fundamental reason such plans are required, particularly of those who practice in the so-called \u201chard\u201d STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) is so that those who could not hope to assess the quality of research endeavours in those specialties as a consequence of their own ability or prowess, can be made into judges by enforcing the adoption of standards of attitude and behavior that have nothing to do with the fields in question. I am no arithmetical genius, for example, myself. It is almost certain that a Master\u2019s degree, to say nothing of a Ph.D. or professorship in mathematics, would have been beyond me, even in my younger years, when such talent is most likely to manifest itself. I would never dream of attempting to review a grant application in a specialized subfield of chemistry, engineering or physics\u2014even of biology, which is nearer my bailiwick. But if it became possible to adopt the position of judge because of my colleagues\u2019 attitude toward student selection and staffing, then\u2014presto! Those who are applying for such funding are no longer painfully more intelligent than me. They are merely and reprehensibly in error in their basic political opinions. There is nothing but victory in that for me, in precise proportion to my degree of resentment for my unfortunate and rather incurable stupidity.<\/p>\n
Consider, in addition, the current landing page for the Department of Physics at McGill University. It is difficult to provide a purely objective analysis of the significance of the different elements of this page, at least concerning their relative size or prominence (and, therefore, their implicit importance), because there is wide variation in resolution of the various screens that users may employ to access it. Suffice it to say, however, that at a resolution of 2048 by 1536, which is higher than average (and therefore allows more of the available visual content to be presented to the viewer simultaneously) the second-most visually evident active link is the \u201cMcGill Physics Community Statement Against Racism\u201d\u2014and, if this is not sufficient proof of the upstanding moral quality of that \u201ccommunity\u201d there is also an active link to an \u201cEquity Diversity and Inclusion\u201d page in the center of the main menu bar of the page.<\/p>\n
It does not seem merely picayune to note (1) that the proper role of such a page is to convey information pertaining to physics to those who might be applying to that department at McGill and not about the political or sociological attitudes of its faculty, administrators and students. It is also perhaps not out of place (2) to voice a certain skepticism with regard to the timing of this oh-so-very-properly-moral statement and note that if it required the unfortunate death of one George Floyd to motivate its appearance it is either inexcusably opportunistic or a classic case of closing the barn door once the cattle had already made their disappearance. To make it even clearer, if that is necessary: if the McGill physics community is so unrepentantly racist that it required someone\u2019s death to draw its existence to the surface, a mere banner statement is by no means sufficient atonement. If it is not racist to that notable extreme, then mere humility might have led to the conclusion that now was not the appropriate time to trumpet the assumption of moral superiority necessary to formulate the anti-racist and pro-diversity claims that are being made, front and center, regardless of the fact that this page exists to provide information about physics and not sociology at the august institution of McGill University.<\/p>\n
I would also like to point out, just for the sake of completeness, that the two rather egregious moral errors in page construction do not constitute the entire universe of deception characterizing the page. It is apparent that the McGill Physics Department has decided that live classes of the classic sort are unlikely to take place in the fall of 2020 and is now offering its students (who are certainly being regarded as far stupider than most of the physics majors I have met) the opportunity to \u201cimplement modern, evidence-based teaching techniques & technologies\u201d and the \u201cunprecedented chance for students to shape their own education, and how science is taught at McGill.\u201d Clearly, what might appear to the uneducated observer as somewhat of a catastrophe for new undergraduate attendees at McGill (that is, the impossibility of attending live university classes) is actually\u2014as those in the know clearly realize\u2014a new and special opportunity for them to be educated in an even finer manner than those who were unfortunate enough to embark upon their education before the blessing of the COVID-19 virus. I mention this only to point out that virtually nothing presented as content on this departmental page, political or not, has escaped the spirit of deception that is arguably its central and most appalling feature, whether it is political (as in the case of objection 1 and 2) and designed to signal a particular brand of ideological morality, or a consequence of third-rate marketing tactics (objection 3), which are more simply characterized as lies.<\/p>\n
And, in case you are not convinced by the stories I just told, which do lack somewhat for detail, because of the current necessity for confidentiality, consider this: a group of three professors at Concordia were awarded a New Frontiers in Research Grant (announced in late 2019) aimed at\u00a0 \u201cengaging Indigenous understanding and involving Indigenous communities in the co-creation of knowledge, the project aims to decolonize contemporary physics research and attract Indigenous students.\u201d The head researcher, one Dr. Tanja Tajmel, \u201cquestioned the colonial assumptions made in the way Western science evaluates light and what it considers knowledge.\u201d Dr. Louellyn White, associate professor in First Peoples Studies, added that \u201cIndigenous ways of knowing have been suppressed and marginalized throughout academic history and we are finally gaining momentum in elevating Indigenous knowledges as equally valid to Western science\u2026 If we, as an institution, do not embody the Territorial Acknowledgement by recognizing and affirming the expertise of our Elders as Knowledge Keepers, the acknowledgement becomes nothing but empty platitudes.\u201d Dr. Ingo Salzmann, the last of the three principal investigators to whom the funds were awarded, says, \u201c\u201cThe culture of physics certainly changes with diverse people involved,\u201d he argues. \u201cTherefore, decolonizing science involves challenging the underlying hierarchies.\u201d<\/p>\n
The refusal of the research grant application specifically requesting funding for what must now apparently be regarded as \u201ccolonialized (or colonized (?) physics\u201d and the success of the application that had the magical mention of \u201cindigenous knowledge\u201d should alert those who know of both and who are attending to the increasing politicization of the university that the STEM fields comprise the next frontier for the politically correct. Qualified and expert researchers in such fields are already in great danger of being pushed aside by politically correct activists who will happily and self-righteously displace them by merely refusing to admit to the existence of anything approximating an objective truth against which claims to competence might be assessed. The rest of us will pay in the longer run, when we no longer have the will or the capacity to make use of the rare talents that make people highly competent and productive as scientists, technological innovators, engineers or mathematicians.<\/p>\n
We might also note that the politically-correct micro-tyrants beating the drum for diversity, inclusivity and equity are pursuing two goals which exist in logical contradiction to one another. Those who occupy a field like physics can only be racists if the fundamental claims to transcendental or ontological truth of that discipline are accepted: if physics describes the world, in a manner that is objectively true, then it is possible for whatever group that currently holds positions of power in that discipline to be prejudiced, perhaps by sex or race, and exclude qualified individuals who differ unacceptably along those dimensions to suffer unfair exclusion. But to make this case requires acceptance of the idea of the universality of the truth being pursued. Alternatively, there are multiple valuable forms of physics, shall we say, indicating that multicultural approaches are required\u2014but the absence of those multiple forms are not so much racist as opportunistic or even merely isolated from the larger world (as each individual group can only be expected to pursue its values in an environment where there is no objective truth, but only group values). Which is it? The answer is quite simple: either, or both\u2014depending on where the largest degree of guilt can be attributed. Convenient as this might be, it is not a good long-term solution to the problem: the internal contradictions inherent in such claims will results in within-group deterioration of solidarity in very short order. If classic physics is nothing but Eurocentric power-maneuvering, who cares if non-Caucasians are excluded? They are perfectly free to pursue their own power-centered physics. If there is an objective reality to that physics, then it is possible, at least in principle, to use objective tests of competence to rank-order candidates, and the problem of potential discrimination vanishes, at least to the degree that is possible.<\/p>\n
I have suspected for years that the STEM fields posed the most dangerous threat possible to the unopposed dominance of politically correct sociological idiocy over the entirety of the university environment, basing their claim to validity on recognition of something approximating a universally accessible objective reality. That claim is too powerful to go unchallenged in today\u2019s climate of moral self-flagellating among those, particularly common in the ranks of university administrators, who want all the advantages of the power high-ranking hierarchical positions provide, but none of the hypothetical moral baggage that are part and parcel of the prejudicial and patriarchal structure that gave rise to those positions. The proper solution? Continual apology for the sins of others who occupy equivalent or superior positions, conjoined with a willingness to damage the reputation of those miscreants, and to force them into an apologetic stance\u2014or even to apologize for their own unearned privilege, as long as that does not result in any true sacrifice of power, income or authority. This is particular evident, in the stories I have related, in the case of the Brock University Provost.<\/p>\n
The George Floyd incident has emboldened those who are shamelessly using crooked faux-moral means to stake a moral claim in the so-called patriarchal structure that makes up the academic world. They are certainly able and willing to use the unfortunate death of an individual who had enough of the attributes of a systemically oppressed person to serve as poster boy for the self-serving political claims that are now being made on his behalf. This tendency, unchecked, poses a direct danger to the integrity of precisely those STEM fields that have so far remained essentially immune to the embarrassments and blandishments of the politically correct movement. But, make no mistake about it, scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians: your famous immunity to political concerns will not protect you against what is coming fast over the next five or so years: wake up, pay attention, or perish, along with your legacy. Whatever you might offer the broader culture in terms of general value will be swept aside with little caution by those who regard the very axioms of your field as intolerable truly because of the difficulty in comprehending them and considered publicly as unacceptably exclusionary, unitary and unconcerned with sociological \u201crealities.\u201d<\/p>\n
[1]<\/a>\u00a0Williams, W. & Ceci, W.J. (2015). National hiring experiments reveal 2:1 faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track.\u00a0Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 112,<\/u>\u00a05360-5365.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So many messages of the type alluded to by the title of this article crossed my desk in the last fortnight that I found myself in the rare position of having too much content to easily record and communicate with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,57],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39829"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39829"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44715,"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39829\/revisions\/44715"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}