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by falcrist 2512 days ago
Academia is neither monolithically leftist, nor is it activist by nature.

You have only to spend 5 minutes in a typical economics class to understand that that field favors neoliberal ideas. If you sit down and have a conversation with an actual leftist (particularly a marxist) professor, you'll hear something that nobody outside of the system seems to discuss. Marxism is very uncommon in most departments.

> Nobody is arguing with basic research.

Are you kidding me?

There are places in the US where powerful organizations and even state legislatures are actively trying to prevent schools from teaching evolution. Look at this development from two years ago: https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/316487-new-wave-of-...

At the federal level, we have congresspeople carrying snow into session so they can deny that climate change is occurring. I regularly see arguments online include discussion of how NASA and NOAA are doctoring the evidence. I wonder where they're getting THAT idea from...

So yea. People absolutely ARE arguing with basic research. Large numbers of people. Significant fractions of the population.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affilia#Grievance_Studies_affa...

From your link: Affilia: _"Journal of Women and Social Work is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal that covers social work practice(s) and feminist analysis of gender inequality."_

How is this related to science (much less basic scientific research)? Even if it WERE a scientific journal, an anecdote about being fooled by a hoax doesn't invalidate the scientific research being done today.

1 comments

I should think that attending any school of economics would give you that idea, but enter just about any faculty of the humanities or the social sciences, and the picture quickly becomes quite different.
I happened to go back to school fairly recently. I was required to take some humanities and social science classes.

I'd say there's a lot more diversity of opinion in the rest of the departments than there is in econ. I didn't get any sense of political agenda in the history department, and the sociology department seemed to be deliberately avoiding it.

I actually started university under the assumption that professors would be dogmatically pushing their agenda. I was wrong.