Hi new followers, I do a lot of thinking about science and about what scientists claim is outside our purview.

Personally I don't subscribe to the idea that we can use our own comfort as a heuristic by which we cherrypick which data we choose to use in making conclusions.

Personally I don't support the idea that advanced formal academic training can make us (a) more objective and (b) servants and perpetrators of social good...

...if our behavior don't include using our analytical training to speak truth to the public, even when it indicts us.

I believe a lot of things, which you can find in my pinned thread, but perhaps foremost among them is that the data can tell us the truth if we are brave enough to let them.

That means we have a duty to form conclusions ~about uncomfortable social issues~ as well as our work.

If we want to continue to sell ourselves and our work as a social good, and academic training as laterally transferable, we have to laterally use our training on behalf of social good, not just in ways we can use to obtain grants...

...but everywhere else as well.

There is no objectivity when it comes to social issues: there is our personal positionality and whether we choose to acknowledge it.

That's an ethical choice, and it's one every individual is free to make for themself.

So you will find that I talk about things on here that are not my research area.

I think you'll find that whenever I'm being serious, I am speaking about data.

Maybe not data I gathered.

Maybe not data in a formal dataset.

But data.

I welcome challenges based on data.

I welcome rigorous discussion.

I especially welcome consistency--so if you hope to comment on the appropriateness of my tone, for example, I recommend considering the appropriateness of your own communication choices.

Now that I have this size a following, I rarely quote tweet rudeness.

At the same time, my followers are generally a group of passionately kind educators of various stripes, so they're unlikely to dogpile you unkindly unless you appear to be in bad faith to many of us.

If any of this bothers you, you do not need to follow me.

You can even block me.

But it seemed like it was time for a reminder that on this account's mentions we are whole entire people and as such we will not pretend to set ourselves above positionality or prejudice.

This is apropos of this thread, which is about an incredibly important issue, even if my thread itself isn't perhaps all that fantastic. https://twitter.com/cricketcrocker/status/1250217191741538306?s=20