Sep
9
“In all my years in academia, I have never once seen a comparable reaction from a journal within days of publishing a paper that the journal already had subjected to peer review, accepted and published. One can only assume that the response was in large measure due to the intense lobbying the journal received, and the threat — whether stated or unstated — that more social-media backlash would rain down upon PLOS ONE if action were not taken.” — Jeffrey S. Flier, professor and former dean of Harvard Medical School, writing at Quillette
Scientific censorship.
Most in the scientific community don’t like to admit it, let alone talk about it, but it does happen. It’s not supposed to be the way science works, though. Intriguing new theories and research in support of them — especially potential breakthroughs — are supposed to be encouraged and the results published for others to become informed and perhaps conduct related research of their own. Follow the evidence, etc. But, when the evidence points contrary to certain sacred cows, those who publish or support it can get in a lot of trouble.
Dr. Lisa Littman
Take the recent case of Dr. Lisa Littman, a physician-researcher in the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences at Brown University. Littman published a paper in PLOS ONE last month, which the university proudly announced with a press release. But, there was a huge outcry from people whose cause celebre was (to a limited degree) threatened by the paper’s findings. They accused Littman of bias and unsound methodology. Within short order, PLOS ONE announced “a postpublication investigation of the study’s methodology and analysis, saying ‘This is not about suppressing academic freedom or scientific research. This is about the scientific content itself — whether there is anything that needs to be looked into or corrected.'” Meanwhile, Brown removed the press release from its website and issued an open statement that the university acted “in light of questions raised about research design and data collection related to the study.” Perhaps worst of all, Brown (where Littman also teaches) not only caved to demands for censorship but has distanced itself from Littman, not offering her any support while her professional competence and integrity are questioned.
What was the topic of Littman’s research, you ask?
Transgenderism. Specifically, she surveyed parents of transgender youths who described their children suddenly experiencing unease with the gender they were assigned at birth — a condition Littman calls “rapid onset gender dysphoria” (ROGD).
“The most explosive of Littman’s findings may be that among the young people reported on — 83% of whom were designated female at birth — more than one-third had friendship groups in which 50% or more of the youths began to identify as transgender in a similar time frame. This, she writes, was more than 70 times the expected prevalence of transgender identity in young adults, which she reports is 0.7%. Littman hypothesizes that “social contagion” may be a key driver of the purportedly rapid onset dysphoria. To trans activists, such a suggestion risks both stigmatizing and further isolating transgender young people from their peers and from the resources that could support them.”
Here is some more from the press release (archived here):
“Additionally, 62 percent of parents reported their teen or young adult had one or more diagnoses of a psychiatric disorder or neurodevelopmental disability before the onset of gender dysphoria. Forty-eight percent reported that their child had experienced a traumatic or stressful event prior to the onset of their gender dysphoria, including being bullied, sexually assaulted or having their parents get divorced.
This suggests that the drive to transition expressed by these teens and young adults could be a harmful coping mechanism like drugs, alcohol or cutting, Littman said. With harmful coping mechanisms, certain behaviors are used to avoid feeling negative emotions in the short term, but they do not solve the underlying problems and they often cause additional problems, she noted.
Littman added that more research is needed to determine the prevalence of rapid-onset gender dysphoria, whether adolescent-onset gender dysphoria and rapid-onset gender dysphoria are temporary or likely to be long term, and how [] best to support individuals with rapid-onset gender dysphoria and their families.”
Doesn’t sound anti-transgender to me.
Brown University’s School of Public Health
Back to the matter of censorship. Is it really censorship, since the paper itself has not been removed from the PLOS ONE website? According to Slate‘s Alex Barasch,
“All Brown and PLOS One have promised is a more rigorous review of the study design, which clearly warrants one; far from being censored, the paper remains fully accessible on the journal’s website. In other words, the scientific process is moving forward as usual.”
Fair point? Maybe, maybe not. But, something still stinks about what was said and done, all as a result of socio-political pressure by activists who have no trouble denying science if it contradicts their chosen agenda. In the aforementioned open statement, in addition to questions raised about Littman’s methodology, Bess Marcus, dean of Brown’s School of Public Health, said that they “heard from Brown community members expressing concerns that the conclusions of the study could be used to discredit efforts to support transgender youth and invalidate the perspectives of members of the transgender community.” So, now science is supposed to bow before the feelings and opinions of minority groups? Should peer review now give way to protected-groups-and-their-supporters review?
Of course, Marcus’ statement also said “We would have done this regardless of the topic of the article.” and “[W]e stand by academic freedom, and will not do anything to thwart this (or any) faculty member’s research.” Really?
As David Klinghoffer noted in his article:
“If not one of outright censorship, this [is] a story of suppressing and intimidating a researcher who violated an implicit speech code…..
You don’t have to take Littman’s paper down to “censor” or perhaps more accurately, “censure” her. Is her “methodology” sound? The paper’s peer reviewers clearly thought that it was. If they were wrong, let those who know better criticize and debate the merit of her work. That’s scholarship for you.
But that is not what happened here. Littman has been served a very potent warning, potentially a “devastating” one, that when she is challenged by a mob, her university will not support her. It will panic and back right down, insinuating that she is at fault when there is no indication she actually is. Other researchers would be fools not to take serious note and to adjust their own work and thought accordingly.”
Two takeaways from this incident: 1) censorship does indeed exist within the scientific community; 2) fear of the LGBT community/activists exists even there. Given the dominance of secularism in the science community and in academia (or, at the very least, among leadership), though, perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised.
P.S. Criticism both pro and con Littman’s work and the censorship against it can be found in the online Science article. The Evolution News article by Klinghoffer contains interesting commentary, as well as reminders of similar incidents where anti-ID pressure was exercised by Darwinists in the scientific establishment.
