Back in 2017, James Lindsay, along with Peter Boghossian and Helen Pluckrose, submitted several bogus academic papers to a number of academic journals to test a theory that the historic scholarship that had long undergirded these journals had waned significantly.
They wrote their hoax articles in such a way as to conform to popular leftist views, yet with some of the most nonsensical claims. And they specifically targeted what they saw as one of the most academically suspect fields: gender studies.
If their hoax articles were published, it would establish that conformity to a leftist ideology, rather than rigorous academic pursuit of truth, was what led the journals to publish their work.
Maybe another way to put it was that these academic journals were rife with confirmation bias. And that bias is anything that purports to uphold the Marxist-rooted ideology of Critical Theory, which is responsible for the whole diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) paradigm.
Sadly, this academic woke contagion isn’t confined to the field of so-called soft sciences like gender studies. It has also infected the hard sciences as well, and the scholarly journals that represent them.
Indeed, the goal of these Marxist crusaders is to infiltrate and then take over all the prestigious institutions and use them as a guise of scholarly authority to promulgate their odious and destructive ideology.
The casualty is, of course, the actual scientific endeavors that seek the truth.
A recent example of this corruption comes via the prestigious journal Nature.
A former member of Springer Nature’s editorial board, Dr. Greg Marchand, was removed from the board after he questioned the journal’s hiring of Asiyah Franklin, PhD, as lead editor. Marchand observed that Franklin, who is a black woman, had no experience or credentials to justify her hiring. Importantly, she had never published a single research paper. She received her PhD from an online institution, and her thesis, which she wrote to receive her diploma, was on — wait for it — racism, not childbirth or pregnancy. She was hired to be the lead editor for Springer Nature’s journal “Pregnancy and Childbirth.”
Marchand is no slouch; he’s an obstetrician and teaches at a medical school. He has also pioneered a number of surgical techniques.
His question as to how such an apparently unqualified individual got the job of “lead editor” was legitimate — that is, if Nature wanted to maintain its reputation as a leading science journal.
However, as Marchand discovered, his objection to Franklin because she was a DEI hire got him booted from the editorial board. As he wrote in a social media post, “It’s true — I’ve been canceled! @BioMedCentral just kicked me off their editorial board for pointing out their newly hired ‘Lead Editor’ is a DEI figure that’s NEVER PUBLISHED A PAPER — and received her Phd from an internet school last year!”
So much for high academic standards and trustworthy scholarship. Springer Nature perfectly exemplifies the problem that has become widespread across academia: ideology over truth.
It is clear that Springer Nature’s objective is not to spread scientific knowledge and truth, but rather to further the science-destroying ideology of Critical Theory. Is it any wonder so many have lost their trust in the West’s elite institutions?
