Noah Carl Releases 'Devastating Point-by-Point Rebuttal of The Charges Levelled Against Him'

Chris Menahan
InformationLiberation

Social scientist Noah Carl, who was sacked last week by the University of Cambridge and stripped of his fellowship for conducting research deemed "problematic," on Tuesday released a "devastating point-by-point rebuttal ... of the charged levelled against him by the radical left."

Birkbeck University professor Eric Kaufmann shared Carl's rebuttal on Twitter, writing: "A devastating point-by-point rebuttal by Noah Carl of the charges levelled against him by the radical left, whose smear campaign is strong on religious fervour and guilt-by-association, but weak on logic and evidence."  

 As to his firing, Carl said he'll "address that question in due course" but for moment he's "still receiving legal advice."

Here's some highlights from Carl's extensive statement:

Last December, 586 academics signed an open letter accusing you of “racist pseudoscience”. That many academics can’t all be wrong, can they?

Given that the open letter demonstrated a basic lack of understanding of the relevant science, it would seem that 586 academics can indeed all be wrong. For example, as Jeff McMahan pointed out in his comments for the first Quillette Editorial:

One passage in the open letter demands that the various institutions cited "issue a public statement dissociating themselves from research that seeks to establish correlations between race, genes, intelligence and criminality in order to explain one by the other." This seems to imply that it is illegitimate to seek to explain any one of the four characteristics by reference to any one of the others, and thus that no aspect of intelligence can be explained by an individual's genes. I would not trust the competence of anyone who endorses a claim that has that implication to judge the work of a candidate for a research fellowship.

And Professor McMahan is absolutely correct: the signatories of the open letter were calling for St Edmund's College to "issue a public statement dissociating themselves" from research backed by overwhelming scientific evidence. In fact, the contribution of genes to variation in human intelligence has been widely accepted by psychologists since at least 1996, when the report 'Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns' was published by the American Psychological Association (APA). This report, co-authored by Professor Ulric Neisser and his colleagues in the aftermath of The Bell Curve debate, concluded that "a sizable part of the variation in intelligence test scores is associated with genetic differences among individuals". Evidence for a genetic contribution to variation in human intelligence has only strengthened since the publication of the APA report.

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Student slated to attend Western Michigan University beheaded in Saudi Arabia

David Jesse
Detroit Free Press
via sott.net

A Saudi Arabian man who was arrested as a teenager as he was getting ready to fly to America to begin his studies at Western Michigan University was beheaded by the government Tuesday, according to a report from an official press agency.

Mujtaba al-Sweikat was 17 when he was detained at King Fahd International Airport in 2012. Earlier that year, Al-Sweikat allegedly attended a pro-democracy rally in the midst of the Arab Spring, which led to his arrest. He was intending to visit Western Michigan, where he had been accepted as a student, the university confirmed to the Free Press in 2017.

More than 35 people, including al-Sweikat, were listed on a release from the Saudi Press Agency, announcing the killings.

Sweikat was charged with armed disobedience against the king, as well as attacking, shooting and injuring security forces, civilians and passersby. He was also accused of destroying public property, causing chaos and disrupting the peace, by participating in a terrorist cell, to make and deliver Molotov cocktails.      

During his time in custody, Sweikat was severely beaten all over his body, including the soles of his feet, and convicted on the basis of a confession extracted through torture, according to Reprieve, an international human rights group that has offices in New York and London and operates with partners around the world.

After his arrest, he was not allowed to contact anybody for three days, and his family were not allowed to visit him for three months, during which time he was kept in solitary confinement, according to Reprieve.

Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn, expressed her concern over the killing.

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See also: UK slams Saudi beheadings, but arms sales for Riyadh's Yemen war still go on

Cambridge University rescinds Jordan Peterson invitation

Comment: The world is going utterly insane. 

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The Guardian

Cambridge University has rescinded its offer of a visiting fellowship to Jordan Peterson, the self-styled “professor against political correctness”, after a backlash from faculty and students.

Peterson, a psychology professor from Toronto who has courted controversy for his views on transgender rights, gender and race, announced on Monday via his YouTube channel that he was joining Cambridge for two months.

“In October I am going to Cambridge University in the UK for two months and I will be a visiting fellow there at the divinity school and should give me the opportunity to talk to religious experts of all types for a couple of months, as well as students,” he said. “It’s a thrill for someone academically minded ... to be invited there, to sit in and participate for a few months.”

The University of Cambridge said Peterson requested to be a visiting fellow and was initially granted the opportunity, but after further review it decided to take back the offer.

“[Cambridge] is an inclusive environment and we expect all our staff and visitors to uphold our principles. There is no place here for anyone who cannot,” a spokesperson for the university said.

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Australian Universities ban sarcasm as 'form of violence'

Dan Lyman
News Wars

Government launches probe into campus censorship

Australian universities have begun banning sarcasm by deeming it a "form of violence," according to a watchdog group.

Gideon Rozner, director of policy at the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), a think tank "dedicated to preserving and strengthening the foundations of economic and political freedom," praised the Australian government's announcement that it is launching a probe into the suppression of free speech on campuses across the country. Rozner explained to Sky News Australia the findings of a recent study conducted by IPA, which rated more than 80 percent of Australian universities as "hostile to free speech," while only one school earned a "green" rating for being supportive of free expression. "At Federation University, 'bullying' in their code is 'hurting somebody's feelings,'" Rozner said, citing examples found in select university's conduct codes. "At La Trobe, bullying includes 'unintentional offense or emotional injury' - because as Dennis Miller says, we've raised a generation of emotional hemophiliacs."

"Here's the kicker: several Australian universities ban 'sarcasm' because it's a form of violence."

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Liberal prof compares ideological opponents to flat-Earthers

Toni Airaksinen
Campus Reform

• A Seattle University professor claimed in a recent interview that debating whether "unconscious bias" deters women from entering STEM fields is like "debating if the Earth is flat."
• Responding to an article by Professor Stuart Reges, who argues that the evidence does not support that premise, Ruchika Tulshyan fretted that reading the article would itself make life harder for female STEM students.

Seattle University professor recently worried that women in STEM may feel bad after reading an article on innate sex differences, which she later claimed do not exist. 

The remark is the latest salvo from the academic community after University of Washington Professor Stuart Reges argued in Quillette that innate sex differences can help explain why women are less likely to study computer science.  

"Progressive ideology is so predominant on campus these days that faculty like Tulshyan are not used to being challenged."    

 

The professor, Ruchika Tulshyan, was responding to Reges’ claim that evidence supporting the “unconscious bias” hypothesis as the key explanation for the lack of women in STEM is “unraveling more day by day.”

Of the unconscious bias hypothesis, Reges said “I don’t think there’s strong scientific evidence [to support it anymore],” though he did note that the explanation is convenient because it “fits a nice political narrative that we live in an oppressive society.” 

Countering Reges, Tulshyan claimed that there is “a very, very strong body of evidence” affirming the role of unconscious bias in deterring women from entering STEM fields, though she would not cite any studies when reached by Campus Reform.

“I mean, it is extremely, extremely difficult, to argue against the evidence…I feel like we’re debating whether the earth is flat at this point,” Tulshyan told GeekWire during a recent podcast interview.

Further, she claimed that innate sex differences do not exist, saying that there are “fundamental differences between men and women in the way that they’ve been conditioned, not in the way that they’ve been hardwired.”  

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Dark Ages: Scientists Are Being Purged From Universities for Doing Science

Watts Up With That?
Heather Heying, The Wall Street Journal

The postmodernist left on campus is intolerant not only of opposing views, but of science itself.

Who would have guessed that when America cleaved, the left would get the National Football League and the right would get uncontested custody of science?

The revolution on college campuses, which seeks to eradicate individuals and ideas that are considered unsavory, constitutes a hostile takeover by fringe elements on the extreme left. Last spring at the Evergreen State College, where I was a professor for 15 years, the revolution was televised—proudly and intentionally—by the radicals. Opinions not fitting with the currently accepted dogma—that all white people are racist, that questioning policy changes aimed at achieving “equity” is itself an act of white supremacy—would not be tolerated, and those who disagreed were shouted down, hunted, assaulted, even battered. 

Similar eruptions have happened all over the country.

What may not be obvious from outside academia is that this revolution is an attack on Enlightenment values: reason, inquiry and dissent. Extremists on the left are going after science. Why? Because science seeks truth, and truth isn’t always convenient.

The left has long pointed to deniers of climate change and evolution to demonstrate that over here, science is a core value. But increasingly, that’s patently not true.

The battle on our campuses—and ever more, in K-12 schools, in cubicles and in meetings, and on the streets—is being framed as a battle for equity, but that’s a false front. True, there are real grievances. Gaps between populations exist, for historical and modern reasons that are neither honorable nor acceptable, and they must be addressed. But what is going on at institutions across the country is—yes—a culture war between science and postmodernism. The extreme left has embraced a facile fiction.

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Through the Looking Glass at Concordia University

Terry Newman
Quillette

It was in a class called Representations of Minorities in Documentary Film, the last elective I needed to receive my BA at Concordia University in Montreal, that I first realized something was very wrong. The class had just watched Sound and Fury, a 2000 Oscar-nominated documentary about deaf culture. The film follows a 6-year-old deaf girl named Heather and her family (several members of whom also are deaf) as they go back and forth on the issue of cochlear implants, a then-new technology that allows some deaf people to hear.

Heather wants cochlear implants so she can talk to people and hear lions. Her mother, too, opts for the implants. But when she discovers the implant will not be as effective for her, she changes her mind, and, without consulting her daughter, decrees that neither of them will be undergoing the procedure.

After the film ended, our professor asked students for their thoughts. When called on, I said that parents should try to make their children’s lives easier. If I remember my words correctly, I added: “They shouldn’t hold their children back from something that will help them grow.”

“You just feel that way because you’re white, cisgendered, abled, and privileged,” came the snarl from somewhere below. I looked down a few aisles to the front of the dark screening room. I saw the back of a mostly shaved head, with a lock of hair tied on top. I had never seen the back of this head before. And I never saw the front of it either, because the responder didn’t bother to look at me.

You don’t know me, I thought. What gives you the right to comment on who I am? My inner monologue started racing in my privileged Cape Breton accent. Ya, I’m right some privileged, b’y. I was abandoned by my mother, y’arse! I never knew my father. I grew up under a staircase, like Harry Potter. My hand shot up so I could respond. The professor ignored it. I kept it up and locked eyes with him, agitated. He looked away. The last few minutes of the class rolled on, with others talking about things I can’t even remember. The attack on my identity just hung there over the space, unchallenged, floating, settling into the upholstery of the chairs. Then the class was dismissed.

I walked out of the screening room feeling kind of shell-shocked. What was I to take from this? What were the other students to take from this? That the attack on my character warranted no rebuttal? That my race, my gender, and my sexual identity had all disqualified me from participating? The lesson seemed clear. My status as a mother of two young girls—unimportant. My opinions—unwanted. I learned the lesson so well that I did not again participate in that class for the rest of the semester.

My experience in that undergraduate film class was just a taste, an appetizer if you will, for the full-fledged graduate feast I was to consume at Concordia once my undergrad was finished. 

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Make no mistake, we are living under a diversity dictatorship

Zoe Strimpel
The Telegraph

When a Cambridge don of Indian heritage announced last week that she would no longer teach for a certain college in protest at “racist profiling and aggression” by the college porters, some onlookers – including yours truly – recoiled.

Among other things, the don was enraged and felt racially insulted that the porters had insisted on calling her “Madam”, as they do all women, rather than “Doctor”, as she’d demanded.

To certain friends and I, however, it seemed highly likely that the porters’ surliness was less racism and more a natural response to an obnoxious, arrogant and imperious member of the intellectual elite telling them what to do.

But these days, that sort of argument counts for nothing – worse, it could get you sacked, exiled, barred, no-platformed, bullied or worse. Those who cry repression and oppression – racism, sexism, transphobism – have become judge, jury and executioner.

–– ADVERTISEMENT ––

We’ve seen countless times in the past year or so how anyone accused of an outrage against identity will immediately pay the price, from classicist Mary Beard accused of racism and mauled on Twitter as a result, to Germaine Greer, ceaselessly attacked for her unorthodox views on transsexual women and #MeToo.

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Students may need counseling after 'required' diversity training

Celine Ryan
campusreform.org

Minnesota State University will have counselors standing by to comfort “student leaders” who have an “emotional response” after being required to attend a new diversity training.

MSU announced Wednesday that it is rolling out two new diversity trainings this fall, saying it is "expected" that faculty supervisors will "make this training required for student leaders."

Minnesota State University will have counselors standing by to comfort “student leaders” who have an “emotional response” after being required to attend a new diversity training.

MSU announced Wednesday that two new 90-minute workshops on social justice and diversity are being implemented for “student leaders" this fall, noting that staff/faculty supervisors are expected to “make this training required.”

While the announcement does not provide a comprehensive definition of what constitutes a student leader, it does state that "examples of student leaders/workers include: Student Athlete Advisory Committee, Office Assistants, Resident Assistants, Student Orientation Counselors, etc."

The announcement itself does not explicitly state that the workshops will be mandatory, saying only that “we encourage faculty and staff to send their student leaders and student workers to both training sessions.”

A supplementary document provided within the announcement, however, states that staff and faculty supervisors are "expected" to "make this training required for student leaders and stress the importance," as well as “encourage student interaction during the trainings” and "require students to complete pre- and post-training surveys." 

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Princeton course will teach students to 'read queerly'

Comment: This is plain ridiculous.

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 "Being mean to boys is fun and a second-wave feminist duty."

Campus Reform
 

Princeton University is offering a course next semester that aims to teach students to "read queerly" by examining "the ways in which desire, gender, and sexuality are queerly told."

The "Queer Literatures" course will explore several texts, including a memoir whose author asserts that "Being mean to boys is fun and a second-wave feminist duty."

Princeton University is offering a new course this fall that will teach students about the "theory, narrative, and aesthetics" of "queer literatures."

According to the official course description posted on the school's website, students will "both read from various trajectories of queer literature and engage what it means to read queerly" as part of the “Queer Literatures: Theory, Narrative, and Aesthetics” course.

"We will consider the historical etymology of the term queer and think through its affiliate terms and acronyms: lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans," the description continues. "We will investigate how discourses of power and institutions of normativity have come up against queer bodies, narratives, and politic—and how such encounters are historically situated."

The university goes on to explain that the throughout the course, students will be urged to "pay close attention to the ways in which desire, gender, and sexuality are queerly told."

The upcoming class is cross-listed in the Department of English, the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies, and the Program in American Studies, and will feature readings by several authors and poets, including Eli Claire, Michel Foucault, James Baldwin, and others. 

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Prof blames mathematics for 'global disparities in wealth'

Toni Airaksinen
campusreform.org

• In a chapter for a new textbook, University of Exeter professor Paul Ernest warns that mathematics education can cause "collateral damage" to society by training students in "ethics-free thought."
• He even argues that since money involves mathematics, math is "implicated in the global disparities of wealth" because math students are taught to value "detached" and "calculative" reasoning.

professor at the University of Exeter claims in a new textbook that learning mathematics can cause “collateral damage” to society by training students in "ethics-free thought."

“The Ethics of Mathematics: Is Mathematics Harmful” was written by University of Exeter Professor Paul Ernest, and published as a chapter in a 2018 textbook he edited called The Philosophy of Mathematics Education Today.

Despite the myriad benefits math offers to society—such as increased scientific knowledge and improved healthcare, allowing us to live longer and happier lives—Ernest warns of three ways mathematics education causes “collateral damage” to society.

First, Ernest asserts that “the nature of pure of mathematics itself leads to styles of thinking that can be damaging when applied beyond mathematics to social and human issues,” since math facilitates “detached” and “calculative” reasoning.

“Reasoning without meanings provides a training in ethics-free thought,” he writes, fretting that this “masculine” paradigm “valorises rules, abstraction, objectification, impersonality, unfeelingness, dispassionate reason, and analysis.”

Second, he argues that the “applications of mathematics in society can be deleterious to our humanity unless very carefully monitored and checked,” worrying particularly about how math facilitates transactions of money and finance.

“Money and thus mathematics is the tool for the distribution of wealth,” he states. “It can therefore be argued that as the key underpinning conceptual tool mathematics is implicated in the global disparities in wealth.”

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Feminist scholars defend female professor accused of sexual misconduct because victims should only believed if they are women

Tom Ciccotta
Breitbart

Feminist scholars are defending a female professor who is facing a Title IX investigation over alleged sexual misconduct in a reversal of their normal approach of believing victims.

Avital Ronell, a professor of German and comparative literature at New York University, is currently facing a Title IX investigation over alleged sexual misconduct. Astonishingly, feminist professors around the country are arguing that the investigation is unfair.

In a letter addressed to New York University's president that was signed by influential feminists Judith Butler and Slavoj Žižek, the investigation into Ronell's alleged misconduct is essentially referred to as a witch hunt. They claim that the accuser has waged a "malicious campaign" against Ronell.

We have all seen her relationship with students, and some of us know the individual who has waged this malicious campaign against her. We wish to communicate first in the clearest terms our profound an enduring admiration for Professor Ronell whose mentorship of students has been no less than remarkable over many years. We deplore the damage that this legal proceeding causes her, and seek to register in clear terms our objection to any judgment against her. We hold that the allegations against her do not constitute actual evidence, but rather support the view that malicious intention has animated and sustained this legal nightmare.

The group of academics who signed the letter doesn't claim to have any reason to dispute the facts behind the allegation against Ronell. However, they claim that terminating Ronell would be an "injustice."

If she were to be terminated or relieved of her duties, the injustice would be widely recognized and opposed. The ensuing loss for the humanities, for New York University, and for intellectual life during these times would be no less than enormous and would rightly invite widespread and intense public scrutiny. We ask that you approach this material with a clear understanding of the long history of her thoughtful and successive mentorship, the singular brilliance of this intellectual, the international reputation she has rightly earned as a stellar scholar in her field, her enduring commitments to the university, and the illuminated world she has brought to your campus where colleagues and students thrive in her company and under her guidance.

It's important to note that these scholars are the architects behind most of the major women's movements in America today. These are the same movements that advocate for "always believing victims" of sexual assault. It seems, however, that they can not consistently apply the principles they espouse when the person on the receiving end is a colleague that they feel has been wrongfully accused of misconduct.

Princeton group aims to make men ‘tremendously vulnerable’

Campus Reform

Princeton University offers a bi-weekly discussion group on "healthy masculinity" that aims to make men "tremendously vulnerable" in order to get them to "dismantle the institutional privilege that men enjoy."

According to Princeton's website, stereotypically masculine behaviors like "being the breadwinner" and "not showing weakness" are among the harmful aspects of the "guy code."

Princeton University officials are encouraging male students to join a bi-weekly discussion group that aims to make them “tremendously vulnerable.”

Led by licensed psychologist Jean Semelfort, The Men’s Allied Voices for a Respectful & Inclusive Community (MAVRIC) Project recruits male-identified students to help them resist “traditional gender norms” and cultivate a more “healthy masculinity."

"We can’t dismantle the institutional privilege that men enjoy if we’re not willing to ask hard questions of ourselves about the privilege we’ve been granted in our own lives."    Tweet This

“We as men can unpack our own internalized ideas about what it means to be a man,” writes Carl Adair, the Princeton English professor who runs the blog for the MAVRIC Project, who also asserts that “We can’t dismantle the institutional privilege that men enjoy if we’re not willing to ask hard questions of ourselves about the privilege we’ve been granted in our own lives.”

“We’re asking ourselves to be tremendously vulnerable—which runs against the grain of everything men are taught,” he adds.

School officials said that the project has been active since 2013, but only within the past two years has it established an online presence. Now, in addition to the discussion group, the project maintains an active Facebook page, a reflection blog, and hosts invited speakers. 

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Colorado Students Earn Credit for ‘Unmasking Whiteness’

campusreform.org

The University of Colorado-Colorado Springs is awarding three academic credits exclusively to white students who attend a conference dedicated to “white privilege.” 

The “Unmasking Whiteness” conference will convene students and educators from across the United States this July in North Hollywood, California to explore “how being white shapes our lives” and “discover our role as white people in struggle for social justice.” 

Only open to self-identifying white people, the four-day conference is co-organized by Shelly Tochluk, a professor at Mount Saint Mary’s University (MSMU) in Los Angeles, and is offered by the nonprofit AWARE-LA (Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere). 

The recently-released conference brochure explains that attendees will learn about topics including “white privilege,” “guilt and shame,” “what it means to be white in today’s society,” and the “economic benefits” of whiteness. 

“U.S. society does not usually ask white people to explore how race affects our lives,” the brochure states. “When we honestly grapple with this question we become able to recognize the various ways we receive social and economic benefits based on being seen as part of the white group.” 

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Why the War on Men Is Hurting Everyone

Daisy Luther
The Organic Prepper

These days, it appears that being a man means you’re crazy. You’re a rapist waiting for a woman to rape. You’re a misogynist, just looking for a woman to oppress. You’re a brute, looking for a woman to punch in the face. You are violent, domineering, and angry.

At least according to the University of Texas at Austin.

They’ve rolled out a program called MasculinUT that treats men as though they are violent rapists just waiting for a woman on whom to force themselves. And, you know, slap around a little, because apparently, that is what men do. The project praises a poster of a black man with a flower crown, but mourns that masculinity “should go further than that.”

This makes me curious about what “further than that” would look like. Curious in a morbid, car accident on the side of the road kind of way, where you want to see it but you don’t want to see it all at the same time.

Outrage about the mental health aspect

 

The program is a project of the Counseling and Mental Health Center, and many media outlets immediately objected to this, stating that they were treating traditional masculinity as though it was a mental health issue. American Thinker and PJ Media both voiced their outrage.

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The Perilous State of the University: Jonathan Haidt & Jordan B Peterson

Comment: If you haven't managed to catch this conversation between Peterson and Haidt, this one's essential viewing. 

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