Recently, a funny (and simultaneously scary) success in exposing the nuttiness of far left academic journals came to light, now referred to as the “Grievance Studies hoax”.

 Over the past 12 months, three scholars—James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose, and Peter Boghossian—wrote 20 fake papers using fashionable jargon to argue for ridiculous conclusions, and tried to get them placed in high-profile journals in fields including gender studies, queer studies, and fat studies. Their success rate was remarkable: By the time they took their experiment public late on Tuesday, seven of their articles had been accepted for publication by ostensibly serious peer-reviewed journals. Seven more were still going through various stages of the review process. Only six had been rejected. (source: The Atlantic).

The process of reviewing these papers was  drawn-out and meticulous, spanning over many months for each one; as their authors detailed on Joe Rogan’s podcast, the already ludicrous propositions were made even crazier by the social justice ideologues posing as genuine intellectuals. They also mentioned the quiet appreciation received from people in academia, who didn’t dare speak on this matter publicly.

Among the ideas put forth to these so-called academics were the following:

  • Rape culture can be studied by observing the reaction of dog owners to dogs humping in a park;
  • Transphobia could be cured by having straight men shove objects up their backsides;
  • Whiteness should be eradicated (two papers used language taken directly out of Mein Kampf, replacing “Jews” with “white people”). One was rejected on the grounds that it had been written from the perspective of a white lesbian, who was taking too much credit for the anti-white ideas and attitudes and thus was trying to paint herself as a “good white”.
  • Entertainment satirising social justice activism is illegitimate.

We can therefore see that the loony tunes at Everyday Feminism aren’t merely fantasising while high on crack; their ideas have authoritative backing from that lot.

Reactions have been mixed, oddly enough. This wasn’t some five-minute Steven Crowder prank; it was a long process, submitting to all needed rigours. No one forced these people to place their “stamp” of approval on ludicrous ideas.

To follow up on this, it’s useful to see how media outlets have covered this story (which should be widely circulated but according to Google search results is receiving backlash).

Vox sides with the Grievance Studies “academics”, by the looks of it.

 

“God this is dumb,” Harvard political scientist Matt Blackwell tweeted, referring to part of the Pluckrose et al. write-up. “It’s an amazing self-own that these people didn’t even engage in a scientific process.”

Both sides have a bit of a point, though I think the critics get the best of it.

The hoaxers are right that there are problems in identity studies, and that one of those problems is political bias. But their experiment is not convincing evidence that these problems are necessarily worse or more fundamental than those that affect other fields, including ones that seem more “scientific” like psychology or economics.

It’s perplexing that anyone would defend this nonsense. The fact that they “didn’t even engage in a scientific process” didn’t stop the papers from passing through the various stages of reviewing before being published. Where these bright minds hypnotised into approving the nonsense and even making it worse?

Moreover; this isn’t just political bias; it’s insanity .

The New York Times refers to the three people behind this as “hoaxers”, shifting the onus onto them, instead of focusing  on what the academics have approved out of their own free will.

Forget about the word “retracted” written all over those pages. Why were they published in the first place?

They were retracted when the news came out that they were part of a social experiment of sorts; otherwise they would still be in good standing at this very moment. The only reason they were retracted was the story breaking out; no one had an issue with the papers beforehand.

The defence around the issue revolves around flawed data and the editors being misled, seeking to turn them into no more than robots with no ethics or responsibility for the influence of what they publish on readers. If certain jargon is used and rigours of study appear to be in place, one could argue for just about anything, no matter how detached from reality or common sense.

Responses by the editors of the publishing journals

Ann Garry, a co-editor of Hypatia, which had accepted one of the hoax papers (“When the Joke’s on You”, purporting to be a feminist critique of hoaxes) but had not published it yet, said she was “deeply disappointed” by the hoax. Garry told the New York Times that “Referees put in a great deal of time and effort to write meaningful reviews, and the idea that individuals would submit fraudulent academic material violates many ethical and academic norms”.[1] Nicholas Mazza, the editor of the Journal of Poetry Therapy, said, “Although a valuable point was learned regarding the authenticity of articles/authors, it should be noted that the authors of the ‘study’ clearly engaged in flawed and unethical research”.[1]

Source: Wikipedia

Their inability to discern “fraudulent academic material” on the grounds that it’s bat-shit crazy only reveals their lack of standards; it’s not a justification by any means.

The time they wasted might well have been spent revising other such nonsense written in earnest; they are incapable of telling the difference anyway.