[nostromo]

> I enthusiastically applied to various PhD programs, but was unceremoniously rejected, and upon reaching out was met with “…engaging in outdated notions of environmental determinism.” “…you’re playing with fire by suggesting evolved cognitive differences… ” “The political climate on our campus is highly unfavorable for these areas of research.” “…this is probably the worst time in history to be studying such topics.” “…you will likely encounter extreme difficulties in securing grants.”

This is incredibly sad.

[jklinger410]

Science has more than just a replication issue. One of many reasons that public trust in institutions has been almost entirely eroded.

[shadowgovt]

Sorry, I don't follow. The man has no track record of previous research and applied to several Ph.D programs; of course he was rejected.

Good on him for sticking with his hypothesis far enough to research it thoroughly, write it up, and publish it in a peer-reviewed journal, and now that he has done that work, he might start to turn heads in a Ph.D program. But otherwise, rejection from Ph.D programs after applying with an idea and no credentials is a bit like saying "Based on my new theory of radiation-proof ultra-thin materials, I applied to NASA, ESA, and JAXA for a head researcher position but was unceremoniously rejected." Of course you were, mate. You have no demonstrable history in the field. They want to see at least a working spacesuit prototype first.

[like_any_other]

> The man has no track record of previous research and applied to several Ph.D programs; of course he was rejected.

He was specifically told he was rejected for doing forbidden research. Sure he might have been rejected anyway even if he had been researching something else, but let's not overlook the reasons he was given.

[rawgabbit]

Or it could be they found his hypothesis completely without merit.

Although I found his paper interesting, he handwaved Confucianism away as the explanation for East Asian personality traits.

No matter the origins of Confucianism, it was the Chinese state religion for almost two thousand years and heavily influenced Korea, Japan, Vietnam etc.

[shadowgovt]

Sure, but that doesn't really modify the point. Those fields are "forbidden" (the publication of his paper demonstrates they are not; they are unpopular having generated significantly negative outcomes and no shortage of dead-ends) for a reason.

"The secret to my radiation-proof space suit was interspersing microscopic mercury-selenium pellets in the fabric of the suit with quantum properties that match the wavelength of ionizing radiation at a ~"

"Oh, you're using mercury. In fabric. That goes on human skin. Okay, now we really need to see a prototype. And your health trials."

[like_any_other]

Yes, thinking evolution affects humans is as ridiculous as putting mercury into clothes, and evolution in general has been nothing but dead ends.

[shadowgovt]

It's not so much ridiculous as "There are ways to do it safely. History strongly suggests that the default should be to assume it's unsafe, so treat it with heightened scrutiny."

There may be some specific ways in which Lamarckian genetics is correct, but given that trusting too much in it has already resulted in one crippling famine, it's fair to hit claims founded on it with a larger skepticism bat than theories based on Mendelian inheritance.

[yongjik]

> He was specifically told he was rejected for doing forbidden research.

Or, that's what he told us. Also, I've done my PhD and I don't think I've ever seen a graduate program telling a candidate why they were rejected. It is always the standard "There are more qualified candidates than we can accommodate and we could not accept everyone, I hope you understand."

...which makes me a little bit suspicious about the whole tale.

[dwater]

For me personally I require more evidence than a few quotes that do not appear to actually be direct quotations to accept his conclusion that the reason he was rejected was PhD programs were too "woke". It is possible, but it's also possible that he misunderstood what they were trying to tell him.

[like_any_other]

Here is the additional (circumstantial) evidence you requested:

The leading journal Nature Human Behaviour recently made this practice official in an editorial effectively announcing that it will not publish studies that show the wrong kind of differences between human groups. [..] the National Institutes of Health now withholds access to an important database if it thinks a scientist’s research may wander into forbidden territory - https://www.city-journal.org/article/dont-even-go-there

[dwater]

I can't find a publicly available copy of the Nature Human Behavior editorial. If you can share it I'd be happy to read it and form an opinion on it. I personally won't take City Journal's opinions at face value.

[jdminhbg]

> The man has no track record of previous research and applied to several Ph.D programs

Isn't the PhD program where you're supposed to generate the track record of research?

[dekhn]

Many people who get into PhD programs have some level of undergraduate research (typically performed in a lab, alongside grad students and a professor). When a graduate acceptance committee is evaluating applications, signals like "I have worked with a professor", "wrote an undergrad thesis", and "was coauthor and published in a peer-reviewed journal" cause applicants to be ranked more highly than peers who lack those signals.

[yimby2001]

It’s a PhD program, not a job and also you are completely ignoring the reasons he was given for his rejection

[harvey9]

If the issue is his credentials why was there so much mention of the topic of research being a problem? Your post seems disingenuous.

[shadowgovt]

The only source we have for the contents of those rejection letters is excerpts from the individual rejected.

I don't think we can extrapolate from that data set alone.

[shermantanktop]

Is it? Maybe this is just a terrible paper that reads like 19th century theories about Aryans. Those responses sound like they are pointing to a climate of intellectual repression, but...there's a reason we don't have endowed chairs in phrenology or palmistry or astral projection. And if someone proposed such a thing, the responses might not look too open-minded.

As they say, it's good to be open-minded, but not so open-minded that your brain falls out.

[tredre3]

What you're doing by comparing it to phrenology and astral projection is just reductio ad absurdum.

It's not controversial that some personality traits might have genetic roots. It's also not controversial that humans who evolved in different regions have slightly different genetics.

His research combines the two.

[shadowgovt]

But at first glance at the thesis of the research project, there's every reason to doubt the two combined would make any sense here. Among the immediate initial questions it raises is "Most East Asians don't live in subzero temperatures any more, so why do they still act that way?"

One has to remember how many absolute crackpots institutions of higher learning have write in every year. Now that he's done the heavy lifting on his own, there's a paper that can be discussed, but no shame on any institution that saw a nobody in the field coming in with an idea likely to fail to hold any water that went "Yeah, we're going to invest zero resources into that."

Comparison to phrenology, for an unknown quantity, isn't absurd; it's kind of the status quo for universities getting solicitations from strangers. That channel of communication is where the perpetual motion machines, time cubes, and proposals to go find the resting place of Atlantis come from.

[baq]

Yeah but ‘racism bad’ and even suggesting that race might have any meaningful impact on anything at all is unacceptable politically, even if obviously true or impossible to disprove.

[shermantanktop]

He's setting up a choice between the content of his paper vs. intellection repression. And I'm choosing not to take the bait. It's possible that he is experiencing intellectual repression AND his paper is not great.

[like_any_other]

It's not really a 'climate', but official policy that that area of research is off-limits, to the point that tax-funded genetic datasets are withheld if it is suspected one is doing said research: https://www.city-journal.org/article/dont-even-go-there