Yes, when I was going to school one of my teachers said political correctness is the new facism. And with the actions that people are taking now with the destruction of statues in the US by erasing history. And with the resignation of this great man. I realise that that teacher was completely right in his depiction of what political correctness has turned into, cancel culture.
You can't just look at the end result of a socially proscribed action or crime, the motive is important. Examine this: why do we sanction research fraud? Because we want to discourage people from abusing the process to gain a personal advantage, like having an academic title that confers material wealth and social status without putting the corresponding work in. Having fake magisters in our midst dilutes the value of real magisters and undermines the concept of trust in our society as a whole.
Was that Boghossian's plan? No, he did not do that to advance the career. He did it to expose the anti-scientific ideology through the journals of the illiberal elements of culture, which in my view is a positive idea.
I understand the argument that disrupting an institution to make a point is a bad thing, c.f. <http://enwp.org/WP:POINT>. I assume he came to the conclusion that mere speech would not achieve the same result and risked a small harm to prevent a greater harm.
And you are completely against that... So these are the inevitable rules of mankind so he has to go too?
Well, look at that, questioning mass surveillance and releasing inside information so the public can judge it for themselves would actually be something worth fighting for...
How is it possible to submit fraudulent research in bogus fields? Just like you can't build a stable home on quicksand it is not possible to do valid research in fields based on false premise like the various 'grievance studies' fields. It would be the same for e.g. flat earth studies or astrology studies, to name a few more bogus fields.
The field isn't bogus just because you don't like it.
I'm a mathematician by training, and if you're going to dismiss an entire field just because Boghossian managed to get some obviously-fake papers published, I'm afraid you'll have to dismiss mine as well due to, for example, things like this : https://thatsmathematics.com/blog/archives/102
(As an aside, I don't know if Eldredge sought IRB approval for this, but he absolutely should have and if he hadn't it's probably not too late for Northern Colorado to investigate).
Mathematics is not a bogus field, that does not mean it is not possible to submit bogus papers to mathematics journals nor does it suggest that it isn't possible to create bogus derivatives of mathematics - the recent rumblings around mathematics being related to 'whiteness', 'white or European supremacy' or 'racism' [1,2] and the related desire to create a 'new mathematics' based on 'indigenous ways of knowing' would create such a derivative [3].
True there. By example, all germans of a certain generation paid a price after Hitler's crimes, unjustly or not.
Racism and other injustices in the system have been perpetrated for centuries. When the tide turns, there is a blanket application of outrage on everyone, regardless of involvement.
There was a time when any act by a colored person was subject to abuse by authorities (and indirectly by a silent majority). The blacks couldn't do a thing right - if they weren't being a slave, under that system. The same yardstick is being applied now on the other side - blindly. I am not for one moment saying revenge is OK or anything is justified.. its just the nature of mobs.
We had an (orderly) mob rule (masquerading as the rule of law) over blacks then, and we have a kind of a mob rule now (the beginnings of ..) . Its too much to ask a mob to analyze.
