[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.

[like_any_other]

I can't find it either. What I did find was that that article may have been published by City Journal, but was written by James Lee, of the University of Minnesota, with a Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard [1].

If you still suspect he's lying, his statements are corroborated [2] by Stuart J. Ritchie (has served as a lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King's College London) [3], who directly cites a rule:

Please note that these summary data should not be used for research into the genetics of intelligence, education, social outcomes such as income, or potentially sensitive behavioral traits such as alcohol or drug addictions.

And an e-mail from NIAGADS:

…the association of genetic data with any of these parameters can be stigmatizing to the individuals or groups of individuals in a particular study. Any type of stigmatization that could be associated with genetic data is contrary to NIH policy.

He links to the page containing the rule [4], but unfortunately the page has since changed ("This dataset is temporarily unavailable"), and archive.org doesn't have an old version. So it could be that two Ph.D.'s working in the field are both lying - as you observe, sources that report things you don't like are untrustworthy.

[1] https://cla.umn.edu/about/directory/profile/leex2293

[2] https://www.sciencefictions.org/p/nih-genetics

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_J._Ritchie

[4] https://dss.niagads.org/datasets/ng00075/

[hagbard_c]

I found their policy after a very quick search on the 'net so I'll share it with those who for whatever reason can not or do not want to perform this search:

https://www.nature.com/nathumbehav/editorial-policies/ethics...

This is quite a long piece of text so I won't quote it - just read it. It does support the premise of that City Journal article in that NHB will not publish research which they deem to trespass on 'forbidden territory' regardless of the scientific validity of such research.

[dwater]

I found that page, but it is labelled as editorial guidelines and not an editorial article, which is what I was expecting to find from the previous description. From my reading then, what is being labelled here as "forbidden territory" is this:

"Non-maleficence and beneficence are two fundamental principles in research ethics requiring the maximization of benefits and minimization of potential harms. These principles form a core part of general frameworks for the ethical conduct of research across the sciences and humanities (for example, The World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki; The Belmont Report; the International Ethical Guidelines for Health-related Research Involving Humans; Ethics in Social Science and Humanities)."

Which I see as more along the lines of the Hippocratic Oath rather than totalitarian thought crime. If this self-described neophyte didn't understand the risks for harm created by his research, that's his fault and not that of the PhD programs.

[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.