Thread – STEM Education Succumbs to the Left

1. I have repeatedly posted about the adverse effects of Robert Conquest’s second law of politics on American cultural and political institutions.
2. Conquest’s second law: Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.
https://www.isegoria.net/2008/07/robert-conquests-three-laws-of-politics/
3. The list of organizations infiltrated and perverted by the Left is long: the legacy media, Hollywood, philanthropic foundations, the Boy Scouts, the Catholic Church in America, the FBI, DoJ, State Dept, IRS, Dept of Labor, PBS, and on and on. All serve the Left/ #Dementiacrats!
4. Controlling all of Academia has long been an objective of the Left. The social sciences were captured long ago (we see the results of that in the BLM/Antifa street protests these days). But what about Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) disciplines?
5. Surely scientists and science teachers/professors have been able to resist the lunacy of the Left? After all, as one example, the laws of thermodynamics are immutable and should be able to dispel any cockamamie theories centered around the “Green New Deal,” right?
6. Well, not so fast. The cancel culture and the Left have their hooks into STEM education these days, too:
6A. In their public pronouncements, prestigious journals have not only professed their unqualified support for activists seeking to highlight the pervasiveness of racism in our society.
6B. They also have delivered fervent shows of contrition in regard to (usually unspecified) sins they’ve committed in the past and their “complicity” in racism more generally.
6C. The prestigious journal Nature, for instance, issued a dramatically worded statement to the effect that it would be joining a movement to “ #ShutDownSTEM #ShutDownAcademia #Strike4BlackLives, an initiative of STEM academics and organizations ….
6D. … pausing their standard activities to focus on actions to eliminate anti-Black racism.” It also published an editorial confessing to accomplice status in regard to wide a range of crimes.
6E. [I]n recent years, political arguments surrounding the lack of diversity in education have become more intense and rhetorically ambitious. Many advocates now have turned against the very idea of objective meritocratic standards in education.
6F. Some accuse entire academic disciplines of being inherently racist. The way to remedy this injustice, some therefore argue, is to explicitly politicize science so as to reveal it as a culturally biased enterprise.
6G. [T]his political project is often referred to as the “decolonization of the university,” and operates under the institutional umbrella of EDI (Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion).
6H. In his classic account of the university’s capitulation to the politics of resentment, Allan Bloom, commenting on the 1969 takeover of a student-union building by militants at Cornell University, remarked that, at the darkest hour, ….
6I. … the humanities and social sciences were left fending for themselves while natural scientists, confident that their disciplines existed safely beyond the political fray, silently watched their colleagues get kowtowed into submission ….
6J. … by student activists revolting against what they perceived to be a racist canon. “The community of scholars,” Bloom bitterly reminisced, “proved to be no community. There was no solidarity in defence of the pursuit of truth.”
6K. If the same scene played out in 2020, it seems more likely the scientists would indeed express solidarity—with the students.
6L. Recall that numerous public health experts, propelled into Twitter rhapsodies by ideological trends, have just encouraged massive public gatherings in the midst of a pandemic.
6M. The goal, one epidemiologist said, was “to change the narrative that those protesting [police brutality] were ‘unsafe’ and ‘putting people at risk.'”
6N. The public might be forgiven for finding this sudden change in “narrative” disconcerting on the part of a scientific establishment that, only days previously, had warned us of catastrophic consequences should social distancing measures be relaxed.
7. The article provides shocking details about the damage done to STEM in universities and to practical STEM by the Left. THIS is why I have zero confidence in ANYONE or any profession in general wearing a “white coat”:
7A. Scientists, Technologists, Engineers, Mathematicians – and the myriad of associated politicized fields, including Medical Science and Climate Science.
8. If they’re concerned about the low number of women and minorities in their ranks and are doing something overt to change the percentages as described in the article – and every STEM field *IS* – other than by merit, then they are risible fools worthy of scorn and derision.
9. They are also undermining STEM at its foundation and, ultimately, our Nation. THIS is why I’m a COVID skeptic. We have seen the ChiCom virus politicized to the max by government “scientists” over the past few months.
10. Dr.Fauxi’s almost-daily flipflopping is insufferable and has nothing to do with “science.” It has everything to do with scaremongering and control, as noted here:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/08/bad_medicine_on_hcq_faucis_waterloo.html
12. STEM education has succumbed to Conquest’s second law of politics. Oh, be sure to read the comments from STEM professionals at the end of that Quillette article, too. They will resonate with you bigly. ///The end.
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