Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
There’s been some kerfuffle about a Guardian article describing the arrival in London of a new branch of a bakery connected to Israel. And it looks pretty much like the article was, to its author Jonathan Liew, a metaphor for the war in Gaza, with the piece (because it’s the Guardian, of course) seeing the bakery as an evil Israeli colonizer of a block already harboring a Palestinian “supper club”. The outcry about this cockeyed metaphor was so loud that the Guardian decided the article needed to be changed and given a public correction.
First some background from Grok on for Gail’s bakery:
Gail’s Bakery (a UK chain with around 200 branches) has historical founding ties to Israel and indirect links through its current majority owner, which have sparked boycotts and vandalism by pro-Palestine activists. There are no direct operations, stores, or suppliers in Israel, nor any confirmed company donations to the Israeli government or military.
The business began in the 1990s as a wholesale bakery called The Bread Factory, founded by Yael “Gail” Mejia, an Israeli businesswoman (who moved to London in 1978). It supplied artisanal bread to London restaurants.
In 2003, American investor Tom Molnar (from Florida) and Israeli investor Ran Avidan (from Tel Aviv) bought half the business. The first retail Gail’s store opened in 2005 on Hampstead High Street, named after Mejia. Early team members included other Israeli bakers (e.g., creative head baker Roy Levy).
Mejia was bought out in 2011; Avidan sold his stake later. Neither remains involved. The company has proudly referenced its “Jewish roots” and heritage in interviews and branding
Notice that Jews are not vandalizing Palestinian restaurants, but nobody ever points that out.
Click below to see the original article, now archived:
Below are the quotes that caused the problem. First, the background. One branch of the chain of Gail’s bakery moved near a long-established Palestinian restaurant. (Guardian quotes are indented):
The cafe itself has existed since the 1980s, proudly blazons its Palestinian heritage, and has long attracted a small but loyal clientele. In recent years, however, a number of predators have appeared on its doorstep. Costa Coffee arrived a decade ago. Starbucks and Greggs followed soon after. Then, a few weeks ago, on the site of the former corner shop two doors down, came a new branch of the upmarket bakery, Gail’s.
Gail’s has long been feted as a purveyor of luxury baked goods and is an unmistakable barometer of local affluence. In recent years, however, as the brand has expanded to almost 200 shops across the UK, its presence has become increasingly contested. Critics accuse it of accelerating gentrification and squeezing out smaller outlets. Campaigners point out that its parent company, Bain Capital, invests heavily in military technology, including Israeli security companies. And so even though Gail’s describes itself as “a British business with no specific connections to any country or government outside the UK”, its very presence 20 metres away from a small independent Palestinian cafe feels quietly symbolic, an act of heavy-handed high-street aggression.
The night before it was due to open, Gail’s was daubed with red paint. Less than a week later, all its windows were smashed in. Slogans reading “reject corporate Zionism” and “fuck Bain Capital” were written on its walls. To date, no arrests have been made. A spokesperson for the Board of Deputies of British Jews has described it as “part of a wider trend to try to drive Jews out of wider civil society” (Gail’s was founded by an Israeli baker in the 1990s). The local branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign made it clear it had no involvement. It should scarcely require saying that Mahmoud, a mild-mannered man in his 60s, had nothing to do with it. “We compete with them legally,” he says. Mahmoud believes rivals seek to dominate the local trade, “but our cappuccino is £2.95 and theirs is £4.50. That’s how we compete.”
Here are the two the troublesome quotes. The first one is. to me, unbelievable, and by that I mean the part in bold:
Gail’s has long been feted as a purveyor of luxury baked goods and is an unmistakable barometer of local affluence. In recent years, however, as the brand has expanded to almost 200 shops across the UK, its presence has become increasingly contested. Critics accuse it of accelerating gentrification and squeezing out smaller outlets. Campaigners point out that its parent company, Bain Capital, invests heavily in military technology, including Israeli security companies. And so even though Gail’s describes itself as “a British business with no specific connections to any country or government outside the UK”, its very presence 20 metres away from a small independent Palestinian cafe feels quietly symbolic, an act of heavy-handed high-street aggression.
Only someone with an anti-Israel agenda could describe the proximity of the bakery to the Palestinian cafe as “an act of heavy-handed high-street aggression.” The bakery is a COLONIZER!
And the next part seems to imply that because Palestinians are voiceless and weak, the attack on the Jewish bakery was justifiable simply because there’s nothing else supporters of Palestine can do to express their views:
Does any of this move the dial in the occupied territories even one iota? Almost certainly not. But perhaps this is simply the nature of an increasingly disenfranchised age. Palestinian activism has arguably never been less capable of exerting a meaningful influence on global events, and so is increasingly defined by small acts of petty symbolism. A smashed window. A provocative sticker. You can’t lay a glove on the US-Israeli military-industrial complex, and you can’t get your local council to boycott Israeli goods, and you couldn’t stand with Palestine Action and the protest march on Sunday has been banned by the Metropolitan police. So some people then direct their ire at the bakery with distant links to Israeli security funding.
Not a war. Not a weapons manufacturer. Not a government contractor. A bakery that sells croissants and lattes.
The Guardian published a piece treating the existence of a GAIL’s Bakery near a Palestinian café as — and this is a direct quote from the article — 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘤𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘺-𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘵 𝘢𝘨𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯. The entire case against GAIL’s? Its parent company has worked with Israeli companies. That’s the chain of guilt. That’s the smoking gun.
Julia Hartley-Brewer — who actually worked at the Guardian and knows exactly how that newsroom operates — didn’t mince words. She called the piece 𝗯𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆, 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶-𝗦𝗲𝗺𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰 and the author a horrific human being. She’s right on both counts.
Notice what the Guardian finds worth writing about and what it doesn’t. A bakery opening near a Palestinian café? Front of the comment section. Iran executing tens of thousands of young protesters in the streets? Silence. Hamas executing Palestinians in Gaza? Nothing to say. Israeli-linked croissants twenty metres from a falafel shop? 𝗡𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗲’𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴.
Hartley-Brewer nailed the real name for this ideology: it’s not anti-Zionism. Anti-Zionism is a political position about a state.
This is a bakery. There’s no Zionism in a sourdough loaf. What’s left when you strip the political cover away is just Jew-hating — targeting businesses because of who owns them, who funded them, who they might be connected to six degrees away. The British public apparently agrees. Israeli-owned restaurants in London that were targeted by protestors now can’t get a table. GAIL’s will probably see the same bump.
Buy the brownie. Order the latte. Do it on principle.
And the original tweet with the video in which Julia Hartley-Brewer gets upset. I gatber that Hartley-Brewer, who isn’t Jewish, has no Jewish background, and is an atheist, is a well-established journalist in England and hosts an eponymous show on TalkTV and TalkRadio
𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗚𝗨𝗔𝗥𝗗𝗜𝗔𝗡 𝗝𝗨𝗦𝗧 𝗪𝗥𝗢𝗧𝗘 𝗔 𝗛𝗜𝗧 𝗣𝗜𝗘𝗖𝗘 𝗢𝗡 𝗔 𝗕𝗔𝗞𝗘𝗥𝗬
Not a war. Not a weapons manufacturer. Not a government contractor. A bakery that sells croissants and lattes.
The Guardian published a piece treating the existence of a GAIL’s Bakery near a… pic.twitter.com/P0THXpihmE
After some outcry, the Guardian “corrected” the article in both its corrections section and now at the bottom of the article. But the inflammatory title and “heavy-handed high street aggression” remain.
The correction:
Corrections and clarifications:
Gail’s bakery vandalism
An opinion piece (In my corner of London, food has become an act of defiance, 14 March, Journal, p4) included a comment contrasting pro-Palestinian activism capable of influencing global events with “small acts of petty symbolism”. This was not intended to minimise the described vandalism of a local Gail’s bakery but rather to suggest the misdirected futility of such acts; the reference has been removed from the online version to avoid misunderstanding. Also the piece referred to the arrival of Gail’s close to a small Palestinian cafe as feeling like “an act of heavy-handed high-street aggression”; to clarify, this meant to refer to concerns about its impact, as with other large chains mentioned, on independent outlets. This has been amended online.
Misdirected futility of antisemitic vandalism? My tuchas! And if the reference to Gail’s wasn’t supposted to conjure up a metaphor for the war, why is the Guardian now saying that the “heavy handed high-street agression” was only about large chains outcompeting independent businesses. Does the Guardian expect anybody with two neurons to rub together to believe these are just “clarifications”. All they’ve done is repositioned the “high street aggression bit” and removed the “petty symbolism” bit.
Here’s the current bowdlerized article, which isn’t very bowdlerized.
This whole business may seem to be a tempest in a teapot, but if it’s bad enough for the Guardian to correct because of implied antisemitism, it’s pretty bad. And this kind of anti-Israeli/anti-Jewish rhetoric is getting so common that it’s becoming normalized, so it pays to be aware of it.
Today we again have three items plus lagniappe, and I will keep on with Caturday posts for at least a month.
First, we have a four-minute video of Marvin the Cat getting a “rave bath”, whatever that is. The YouTube notes give a link and a caption:
So I asked Grok what a “rave bath for a cat” is. The AI answer:
A “rave bath” is a fun, creative bath-time setup for a cat (specifically one that actually enjoys water—rare for most cats!) where the owner turns the bathtub into a glowing “party” atmosphere.
It comes from a popular 2024 viral video by The Dodo featuring a cat named Marvin, who is obsessed with baths. His owner came up with the idea to make bath time even more exciting:
They turn down the lights in the bathroom to make it dark.
They add glow sticks (the kind you crack and shake) floating in the water for Marvin to swat, chase, and play with.
Sometimes they include a light layer of pet-safe bubble bath or bath bombs for extra splashing fun.
The result looks like a mini rave or underwater wonderland with colorful glowing lights reflecting in the tub. Marvin goes wild splashing around and clearly loves it.
The term “rave bath” stuck because of how the owner describes it in the video: “We came up with the cutest thing ever. It’s a rave bath… It’s like a Wonderland.” The video has millions of views across YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook, and people now sometimes use the phrase for any glow-stick-enhanced bath for water-loving pets.It’s basically the opposite of a normal stressful cat bath—pure pampering and play for cats like Marvin who beg for water time instead of running away from it. If your cat hates baths, this probably won’t convert them, but it’s adorable to watch! You can find the original video by searching “Woman Throws A ‘Rave Bath’ For Her Cat Who Loves Bath Time | The Dodo.” [JAC: note the disco music during the rave bath.]
This is a woman who loves her cats!
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You should all know by now that Turkey is probably the most cat-loving country in the world. I’ve seen it for myself on several visits: one of the notable aspects is the groups of cats that congregate in outdoor restaurants, with the customers occasionally feeding them. Here’s a photo I took in March, 2008 in Istanbul:
From the Facebook site Fact Fuel: we learn that some Turks erect minature ladders to keep cats dry (and note the cat houses):
Winter in parts of Turkey can blanket cities in heavy snow, leaving stray cats searching for warmth along icy streets. In response, some apartment residents have installed small, cat-sized ladders leading from the ground up to their balconies. These narrow wooden or metal pathways are carefully secured against building walls, giving outdoor cats a safe route upward instead of forcing them to remain exposed to freezing temperatures below.
Once on the balcony, many residents place insulated boxes, blankets, or small shelters where the cats can curl up and rest. The ladders act as bridges between street life and temporary refuge, especially during storms. For animals accustomed to navigating rooftops and alleyways, the climb becomes a familiar path to safety.
The gesture reflects a cultural affection for street cats that runs deep in many Turkish communities. Rather than ignoring their presence, neighbors adapt their living spaces to include them. In the quiet snowfall of winter nights, these modest ladders stand as vertical lifelines — proving that compassion can be built step by step, right alongside everyday homes.
The ladders:
And if you click on the screenshot below you’ll go to an Instagram video:
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And we return to the perennial problem described in this NYT column, which refers to a paper in the Anatomical Record by a team of Japanese authors (second secreenshot). You can access both sites by clicking on the titles (the NYT goes to an archived link). The key is the way a cat’s spine is configured.
From the NYT article:
In a paper, published last month in the journal The Anatomical Record, researchers offered a novel take on falling felines. Their evidence suggests new insights into the so-called falling cat problem, particularly that cats have a very flexible segment of their spines that allows them to correct their orientation midair.
Greg Gbur, a physicist and cat-falling expert at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte who was not involved with the paper, said the study was the first he knew of that explored “what the structure of the cat’s spine tells us about how a cat turns over while falling.” He added that the research uncovered many remarkable details about how cats maneuver while falling.
People have been curious about falling cats perhaps as long as the animals have been living with humans, but the method to their acrobatic abilities remains enigmatic. Part of the difficulty is that the anatomy of the cat has not been studied in detail, explains Yasuo Higurashi, a physiologist at Yamaguchi University in Japan and lead author of the study.
“Physicists have tried to model the behavior in relatively simple equations,” said Ruslan Belyaev, a zoologist at the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution in Moscow who was not involved in the study. But, he added, “the real cat” is anything but simple.
Modern research has split the falling cat problem into two competing models.
The first, “legs in, legs out,” suggests that cats correct their falling trajectory by first extending their hind limbs before retracting them, using a sequential twist of their upper and then lower trunk to gain the proper posture while in free fall.
The second model, “tuck and turn,” suggests that cats turn their upper and lower bodies in simultaneous juxtaposed movements.
In the new study, Dr. Higurashi and his colleagues scrutinized different segments of cat spines using donated cadavers. They also conducted dropping experiments on a pair of live cats, from about three feet up.
But wait! There’s more:
The researchers found that the feline spine was extremely flexible in the upper thoracic vertebrae, but stiffer and heavier in the lower lumbar vertebrae. The discovery matches video evidence showing the cats first turn their front legs, and then their lower legs. The results suggest the cat quickly spins its flexible upper torso to face the ground, allowing it to see so that it can correctly twist the rest of its body to match.
They measured the spinal flexion in cat cadavers whose spines had been removed, and they twisted the removed spines until they “failed”. Here’s a figure from the paper:
(from the paper): (a) Schematic diagram of the testing apparatus used to twist a spinal region until failure. The rotary table was operated manually to rotate the caudal end of the spinal region counterclockwise relative to the immobilized cranial end at a quasi-static loading rate. Torque was measured using the transducer between the table and specimen. The rotation of both the table and specimen was filmed using a digital camcorder. (b) Torque-angular displacement curves obtained for Cat A, illustrating the mechanical properties measured in this study. Torque was recorded at every 5° of angular displacement. The neutral zone (NZ) was defined as the part of the curve with minimal resistance to vertebral rotation. The lumbar spine had no NZ. Stiffness was measured as the ratio of the change in torque to the change in angular displacement in the linear part of the curve. Max, maximum torque; ROM, range of motion.
“The thoracic spine of the cat can rotate like our neck,” Dr. Higurashi said.
Experiments on the spine show the upper vertebrae can twist an astounding 360 degrees, he says, which helps cats make these correcting movements with ease. The results are consistent with the “legs in, legs out” model, but definitively determining which model is correct will take more work, Dr. Higurashi says.
The results also yielded another discovery: Cats, like many animals, appear to have a right-side bias. One of the dropped cats corrected itself by turning to the right eight out of eight times, while the other turned right six out of eight times.
Here’s a figure from the paper showing the cats being dropped (onto soft pillows, mind you). Note that in (b) the anterior part of the cat rotates faster than the rear part, This cat looks scared, with its tongue sticking out. The caption tells you what’s going on.
From the paper: (a) A representative frame sequence illustrating sequential rotation of the anterior and posterior trunk without counterrotation during air-righting. In this sequence, a cat rotates to the right. (1) The dorsal sides of both the anterior and posterior trunk are initially oriented downwards. (2) Upon release, the anterior trunk becomes oriented laterally, while the posterior trunk remains oriented downwards. (3) The anterior trunk is oriented upwards, indicating that its rotation has been completed, whereas the posterior trunk is oriented laterally. (4) The anterior and posterior trunk are both oriented upwards, indicating the completion of posterior trunk rotation. (b) Bar charts with individual data points showing the time required to complete anterior and posterior trunk rotation during air-righting for each of the two cats (Cats H and I). Error bars represent ±1 SD from the mean. The start of free fall was defined as time zero. Significant differences were assessed using paired Student’s t-tests. **p < 0.01.
If you want to see the paper, click below:
Here’s an enlightening video of how cats spin their bodies (front first) to land on their feet. It’s clearly instinctive, i.e., reflecting a behavioral-genetic program molded by natural selection:
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Lagniappe: Larry the 10 Downing Street cat has put out a video about what’s going on in his block. Most important, the Brits have decided to replace historical figures on their banknotes (they once included Darwin), with wildlife. Larry makes a strong case that he’s both wildlife and a historic figure!
Extra lagniappe: A CBS news report on the rescue of Biscuit, a stranded moggy:
And a third lagniappe item. This photo and caption arrived just half an hour ago from Robert Lang. His caption:
Yesterday I and some friends did a hike to a little-visited waterfall in the San Gabriels. At the trailhead, which is shared with some other popular trails, we met this person who was bringing his moggie along for their hike:’
James Blilie is back with some black-and-white photos from his perambulations and climbs. Jim’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them. And Jim tells us he’s recovering well from a knee replacement.
Here is another set for your consideration: Black and white landscape images from those I posted on that previously mentioned FB page for B&W images.
First up are two shots from our attempt to climb Mount McKinley (as it was named at the time) in May 1987. We did not summit (“worst May weather since 1960-something”):
Rocky outcrop in the Kahiltna Glacier, scanned Tri-X Pan
Camp on the Kahiltna Glacier with the summit in the background, scanned Tri-X Pan:
Our local mountain, Mount Adams, but from the other side, the north side, 1987. I climbed it three times, always from the north. The “standard” route is on the south side. Scanned Tri-X Pan:
Skiers in Garibaldi Provincial Park, British Columbia, 1988, scanned Kodachrome 64:
The Vietnam War Memorial, Washington, DC, January 1992, scanned Tri-X Pan
Letchworth State Park, New York, November 1992, scanned Tri-X Pan:
Elephants, Amboseli National Park, Kenya, 1991, scanned Kodachrome 64:
Bonneville Salt Flats, Nevada, June 2013:
Mount Hood, taken from our driveway, December 2023:
Kalaloch Beach, Olympic Peninsula, June 2025:
Equipment:
Current:
Olympus OM-D E-M5, micro-4/3 camera (crop factor = 2.0)
LUMIX G X Vario, 12-35MM, f/2.8 ASPH. (24mm-70mm equivalent, my walk-around lens)
LUMIX 35-100mm f/2.8 G Vario (70-200mm equivalent)
LUMIX G Vario 7-14mm f/4.0 ASPH (14-28mm equivalent)
Leica DG Vario-Elmar 100-400mm, F4.0-6.3 II ASPH., Power O.I.S. (200mm-800mm equivalent)
The scanned images:
Pentax camera bodies: LX, K-1000, ME-Super, MX
Various Pentax M-series and A-Series lenses:
20mm f/4
20mm f/2.8
50mm f/2.0
200mm f/4
Tokina ATX 80-200mm f/2.8
Welcome to CaturSaturday, March 21, 2026: shabbos for Jewish cats. it’s also the first full day of Spring, as well as National Corn Dog Day. You probably haven’t had one of these cornmeal-batter-dipped and deep-fried hot dogs on a stick, and, indeed, I’ve never had one, either. (I would be delighted to try one.) The problem is that in America you can get them only at local fairs. Wikipedia has an article on them, and I’ll give a quote and a photo. I was surprised to find that they’re made outside the U.S.A., though of course such a dubious food item have been invented only in America.
German immigrants in Texas, who were sausage-makers finding resistance to the sausages they used to make, have been credited with introducing the corn dog to the United States, though the serving stick came later. A US patent filed in 1927, granted in 1929, for a Combined Dipping, Cooking, and Article Holding Apparatus, describes corn dogs, among other fried food impaled on a stick; it reads in part:[8][9]
I have discovered that articles of food such, for instance, as wieners, boiled ham, hard boiled eggs, cheese, sliced peaches, pineapples, bananas and like fruit, and cherries, dates, figs, strawberries, etc., when impaled on sticks and dipped in batter, which includes in its ingredients a self rising flour, and then deep fried in a vegetable oil at a temperature of about 390 °F [200 °C], the resultant food product on a stick for a handle is a clean, wholesome and tasty refreshment.
A “Krusty Korn Dog” baker machine appeared in the 1926 Albert Pick-Barth wholesale catalog of hotel and restaurant supplies.[10] The “korn dogs” were baked in a corn batter and resembled ears of corn when cooked.
Wholesome? Here’s a photo: of two, one in cross-section (note the ketchup topping, which wouldn’t be available in Chicago):
*The New York Times has only negative news about the war on its front page again. Perhaps this is an objective view of the war, but I often think otherwise. At any rate, here’s their summary as of yesterday afternoon.
U.S. warplanes and attack helicopters have ramped up assaults against Iranian drones and naval vessels in an effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, American officials said, as oil prices remained high on Friday amid new attacks on energy sites in the Persian Gulf.
As the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran approached the three-week mark, American commanders have been scrambling to accelerate plans to thwart Iran’s ability to choke off the strait, the critical passageway in and out of the Persian Gulf. Iran has used a lethal combination of mines, missiles and armed drones — or the threat of using them — to all but shut down shipping through the strait, through which passes a large part of the world’s oil and natural gas.
The war cast a pall over celebrations for Eid al-Fitr, a holiday marking the end of the Ramadan fasting month, and Nowruz, the Persian New Year. Iran fired more retaliatory strikes, with several U.S. allies saying they were responding to incoming drones and missiles.
The state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corporation said a drone attack had caused fires at the Mina al-Ahmadi refinery, for the second consecutive day. Israel said it had launched targeted attacks on Tehran after Iranian missile fire set off sirens in Jerusalem and northern Israel overnight.
The sustained and wide-ranging strikes on energy sites have prompted the Trump administration to scramble for solutions. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Thursday that the United States was planning to lift sanctions on Iranian oil in an effort to shore up the global market, reversing years of U.S. measures to cripple Tehran’s economy.
President Trump said he had told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to stop attacking Iran’s energy fields. He also tried to reassure Americans on the economic impact of the war, saying on Thursday, “It will be over soon,” without explaining.
It’s clearly early days of the war, but I don’t see anything positive in the NYT when it’s reporting on what’s happening, even though we’ve destroyed much of Iran’s military capabilities already and have given them a severe setback in enriching uranium. We don’t have regime change yet, but the new hard-line government has threatened several times to kill anybody who protests (was that in a NYT headline?). Anyway, I’ll try to balance it off a bit with the next item.
*The Free Press‘s reporter on the war is Israeli journalist Amit Segal, but his war coverage doesn’t rub me the wrong way—probably because he’s sym,pathetic to Israel and, unlike the NYT, doesn’t want the U.S. and Israel to lose the war (yes, I do think that about the NYT). Segal’s latest piece is “How Trump can buy time for his Iran war.”
While military commentators focus on flight paths and interception systems, historians will likely define the current campaign against Iran in entirely different terms: the first global energy war. This is not a war over territory, but over the ability of the West—and especially the Far East—to continue functioning.
At the center of the arena are oil prices. Any spike in commodity market charts for crude oil quickly translates into drama at gas stations in the United States and Europe. Those who thought natural gas would act as a brake to prevent economic escalation have discovered the opposite: Gas is not moderating prices—it is becoming fuel that intensifies international pressure. This follows Qatar’s decision to halt liquefied natural gas production (LNG) early on in the war, a dramatic move for a country that holds a third of the world’s natural gas reserves.
For a change, the most significant pressure on the Trump administration is not coming from campus protesters, but from Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea. These three technological powers have made it clear to the Americans: If the energy market does not stabilize, the global semiconductor industry will suffer a severe blow. When chips are hit, everything is hit—from the smartphone in your pocket to the most advanced weapons systems. This is a supply chain that begins in the Persian Gulf and ends in factories in Taipei, Taiwan, and any disruption in the Hormuz Strait echoes all the way to Silicon Valley—especially as President Donald Trump has made clear that the chip war with China is the most important global issue of his presidency, and everything is judged in relation to it.
So how to buy time? Here’s Segal’s “solution”:
. . . The West is looking for insurance. Of the 12 million barrels of oil produced by Saudi Arabia and effectively stuck, 5 million already have a solution in the form of an old pipeline from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. It was built during the Iran-Iraq War and stood largely unused for decades, but it is now serving as a partial yet important solution.
. . .But the long-term strategic solution—the one that has already caused oil prices to drop sharply in contracts for two years and beyond—is the plan to double that pipeline and connect it to the ports of Haifa or Ashdod. This would be a historic shift: Saudi oil reaching the Mediterranean through an Israeli port, bypassing Iranian threats and creating a global energy security corridor. In short: The market anticipates short-term disruption, but also a long-term solution that bypasses the Hormuz bottleneck and strips Iran of its most important strategic asset.
At the end of the day, international pressure to reopen the Strait of Hormuz for oil is significantly higher than pressure regarding gas. The world can “hold out” for about a week—perhaps 10 days—of a closed strait; that is the maximum tolerance of the global economy. This is why Israel, in coordination with Trump, raised the stakes yesterday and has begun targeting Iran’s economy, signaling that blocking the strait will lead to the complete collapse of the ayatollah regime’s economic model. It is a high but calculated gamble.
If Trump reaches the end of March with oil prices stable—or even declining—a radical shift will occur across the entire region. If not, the Iranians can breathe easy.
Who will run out of oil first?
Okay, fine, but how long will it take to “double the pipeline” and “connect it to Haifa or Ashdod”? Not two weeks for sure. As for a short-term solution—the one we need now—we hear nothing. I didn’t predict that this war would become about oil, but I am not a pundit, just a country biologist. Iran is clearly cleverer than I. But you may read about the war and the oil markets at the linked article in The Economist.
Boston University President Melissa Gilliam said there was “no targeting of any particular population” when school officials removed several pride flags from public view, insisting that the university’s public signage policy is “content neutral.”
“I want to be very clear that we have unequivocal support for our LGBTQIA plus community,” Gilliam said during a town hall-style event at the George Sherman Union Thursday morning.
Gilliam took about five minutes to address the topic following an hourlong presentation by senior level administrators regarding the financial health of the institution and plans for growth.
Gilliam invoked her years working as a pediatric and adolescent gynecologist in defending the university’s support for LGBT rights.
“The experience of queer and non-conforming young people, all young people, minoritized groups, is my life’s work,” Gilliam said. “So to suggest that we as an administration do not see and value this community is frankly untrue.”
She said working in a university community, however, “means that people have lots of different ideas and the privilege of being in an academic community is you get to say what you want no matter how wrong headed it is.”
“ But you speak as an individual,” Gilliam added. “We have time, place, and manner of rules, and these are content neutral. And so we’ve decided that if you have the privilege of having a window that faces campus, you don’t get the privilege of speaking for the university.”
Gilliam’s remarks come days after several faculty members sent her a letter decryingthe removal of pride flags from several windows, including one at the Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies department.
Some professors said they received prior warning from the administration to remove their pride flags under a BU policy that prohibits any placard, banner or sign to be posted where the public could see it unless it’s in an approved location like a “Free Expression Board.”
The BU chapter of the faculty union American Association of University Professors sent a letter to Gilliam on Monday, urging a reversal of the policy. They also sent her a document listing at least a dozen examples in which they said the administration had chilled free expression around campus in the past year, including imposing discipline for actions taken by members of groups like Students for Justice in Palestine.
Here we have a clash between free expression and institutional neutrality. It’s a tough one, and even the University of Chicago’s policy is not completely clear. As far as the flags go, it depends on whether they were flying from University flagpoles. Although any rational person is in favor of gay rights, being on that side remains a moral and ideological position. An institutionally neutral university can say that it doesn’t discriminate against people based on sexual orientation, but flying Pride flags probably violates institutional neutrality. Likewise, I think Pride flags displayed in administrative offices of the University, like in the windows of a President or Dean, violates institutional neutrality. This was the policy of the University of Chicago when the dean’s office at our Divinity school had a keffiyeh on display (yes, the Div school seems pro-Palestinian to me), and it could be seen by students entering the office or looking at the window from outside. It was removed. Likewise, I’m told that a faculty member was forced to remove a sign saying “Deport Israelis” on their office door probably because it advocated discrimination against national origin/religion and thus violated the Civil Rights act. On the other hand, a faculty member can stand in the quad with a sign saying the same thing, or “Gas the Jews,” and the University would probably do nothing about it, as that is individual free expression, not an expression of institutional values.
For decades, American presidents have avoided speaking harshly about Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, eager to focus instead on deepening ties with Tokyo, which has been a steadfast ally since World War II.
Not so with President Trump.
At an otherwise congenial meeting with Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, in the Oval Office on Thursday, Mr. Trump invoked the Japanese attack on Dec. 7, 1941, which led the United States into World War II. He was responding to a question from a reporter about why Japan and other allies had received no advance notice of the U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran.
“We didn’t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise,” he said. “Who knows better about surprise than Japan, OK? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor, OK? Right?”
There was some laughter from the officials and journalists gathered in the room. “You believe in surprise, I think, much more so than us,” he added.
As Mr. Trump spoke, Ms. Takaichi widened her eyes and appeared to take a deep breath. She kept her arms crossed in her lap and did not speak.
The remark was the latest example of Mr. Trump’s penchant for tossing aside diplomatic norms.
After the end of World War II, President Harry S. Truman used the attack on Pearl Harbor to justify American efforts to remake Japanese society and to impose a pacifist Constitution. (The United States led the Allies’ occupation of Japan from 1945 until 1952.) The Constitution forced Japan to renounce war and put limits on its military, making Tokyo reliant on the United States for protection.
But during the Cold War, the United States shifted its official portrayal of the attack, describing it as a historical tragedy rather than pointing fingers at Japan. American officials were eager to keep Tokyo as an ally as communism spread in Asia, and to form security and economic pacts.
Here’s a video of the cringeworthy statement, and you can see Takaichi’s reaction. Japan is a valuable ally now, and may be even more so if (or rather, when) China goes after Taiwan. There’s no sense in alienating the country with gaffes like Trump. It’s like the old joke, “Why did Bach have so many children?” The answer is, “Because his organ had no stops.” In Trump’s case, the organ is his tongue.
*As usual on Fridays, I’ll post a few items from Nellie Bowles’s news-and-snark column at the Free Press, called this week, “TGIF: Bring them back from Palm Beach.”
→ This bakery feels a little Jewish, if you ask me: There’s a bakery chain in England called Gail’s, founded by an Israeli British woman, and later bought by Bain Capital. But it was founded by an Israeli British woman. So it is constantly protested, splattered with red paint, windows smashed and such. And still Gail’s has the gall to expand, even expanding to an area with a Palestinian-owned café. Here’s how The Guardian described that: “Even though Gail’s describes itself as ‘a British business with no specific connections to any country or government outside the UK,’ its very presence 20 meters away from a small independent Palestinian cafe feels quietly symbolic, an act of heavy-handed high-street aggression.” That’s exactly what I think when I see a pain au chocolat made by someone who once knew a Jewish person. And in related but non-bakery news, Belgium is deploying the military to protect Jewish spaces. (My bet is they don’t have enough cops willing to do it.)
→ Shoplifting for revolution: Activists across Britain staged a coordinated shoplifting spree, calling it “liberating” food from supermarkets. Take Back Power—basically the sequel to Just Stop Oil—hit Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Morrisons across three cities this past Saturday, calling it a “non-violent action to resist” billionaires hoarding wealth. Labeling cardboard boxes full of food with “these things are going to those who need them,” they gave them to food banks and members of the public. Watch one of them explain their actions here, but basically there’s an idea that holding food hostage in a store is inherently illicit. (Wait till they see the squalid living conditions of toothpaste on a CVS shelf.) It might make sense if we all agree to eat porridge except for a little shaving of chicken skin on Sundays. But how do we expect society to sustain my $27 anchovy three-pack? I’m not going to even talk about my cultured French butter. What’s your plan for me, guys? After I’ve liberated all my anchovy packs, who is gathering more?
→ NYC bond ratings in trouble: New York City’s new socialist mayor is getting kicked in the shins by credit agencies. An analysis by S&P Global Ratings said that Mamdani’s budget plan “could make it difficult to sustain budgetary balance beyond fiscal years 2026 and 2027.”
And Moody’s changed its outlook on the city’s finances from “stable” 😐 to “negative.” :/
Mamdani is trying to get tax revenue up—and fast. One of his ideas is an “overhaul” of New York State’s estate tax. Bring it to 50 percent! His recommendation is for the state to lower the exemption of $7.35 million to $750K and raise the top rate from 16 percent to 50 percent. So I need to be very clear: You cannot die in New York. Do not do it. As soon as you feel a little ache in your knees or see a few age spots on the back of your hands, you need to move out of New York immediately. Here’s Kathy Hochul this week encouraging people to stay in New York to pay taxes—and asking them to please bring their friends back from Florida.
I need people who are high-net worth to support the generous social programs that we want to have in our state. Right? Now, there are some patriotic millionaires who stepped up. Okay, cut me the checks. If you want to be supportive, but maybe the first step should be to go down to Palm Beach and see who we can bring back home because our tax base has been eroded. . . . And I would say remote work changed everything. There were people who could only work in an office in Manhattan or work in New York State and they were captives to our state. They were going to stay. We saw that that’s not the case.
In other words: Tell them it’s fun here!! I know the mayor’s wife is kinda Hamas, but seriously come back, it’s actually fun now. I would tell you if it wasn’t fun.
* You may remember that Rama Duwaji, the wife of NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani, was criticized for celebrating terrorism—in the form of “liking” social-media posts that celebrated Palestinian terrorism. Hizzoner responded (quote from the Times of Israel), and now there’s a new allegation:
“My wife is the love of my life,” Mamdani said at a press conference when asked about the social media activity, “and she’s also a private person who has held no formal position on my campaign or in my City Hall.”
Last week, another report found that Duwaji illustrated a book for a prominent anti-Zionist writer, Susan Abulhawa, who has called Jews “supremacist vampires,” supported terrorism against Israelis and made other antisemitic statements.
Inflammatory social media activity by members of Mamdani’s staff and inner circle, much of it directed at Israel, has caused repeated controversy since he launched his run for mayor last year.
There’s little doubt that Mamdami’s wife is an antisemite and promoter of anti-Israel terrorism, and I have equally little doubt that Mamdami himself is an Islamist and is also antisemitic. I also doubt whether he’ll keep his promises about childcare, public transit, and city-run grocery stores—the promises that got him elected (even Jews voted for him!). But we shall see.
At any rate, Luana sent me this tweet; noting that Duwaji closed her account (it was this month). There were also homophobic and “n-word” tweets from 2013. The second tweet below was taken from The Onion:
From Masih. It’s ineffably sad to see these young men when they were still alive, and now they’ve been hanged—simply for protesting.
Six years ago, when regime in Iran hanged wrestler Navid Afkari, I launched the United for Navid campaign alongside 50 athletes and activists. We warned the world. No action.
Now it’s happening again.
More protesters. More athletes. On death row.
Don’t say that this is antiwoke stupidity, for there is indeed a forthcoming book arguing that Shakespeare was a black woman, and a Jewish black woman!
I expect her to hold a press conference, and unequivocally denounce the Jew violence she glorified. I expect her to show shame for feeling glee at Jews being forced to dig their own graves by terrorists.
Over at The Philosopher’s Magazine, Alex Byrne (a professor at MIT who works in part on gender and sex), has written a tale of rejection that’s both amusing (in how it’s written) and depressing (in what it says).
Alex was invited to write a book review for Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, an online site that publishes only reviews of philosophy books. Because reviews are invited (sometimes after a prospective reviewer offers to write one), they are rarely if ever rejected.
But not so with Byrne. Because he wrote a critical but not nasty review of a book on gender by a trans-identified male, Alex’s contribution was rejected—without the site even giving him an explanation.
Click the screenshot below to read Alex’s sad tale. Actually, it’s not really sad because his review will be published elsewhere, and this rejection does him no profesional damage. But the way he was treated reflects yet another academic taboo like the one I discussed in the last post. In this case, the taboo involves saying anything critical about gender science or, in this case, philosophy, particularly about a book written by a trans person.
Some excerpts:
last October, I saw that Rach Cosker-Rowland’s Gender Identity: What It Is and Why It Matters had just come out with Oxford University Press. “Philosophically powerful,” “excellent, important, and timely,” and “fascinating, well-argued,” according to blurbs from well-known philosophers who work in this area. Timely, for sure. I thought reviewing Cosker-Rowland’s effort myself would be worthwhile, since I’ve written extensively on gender identity, in my 2023 bookTrouble with Gender and other places.
Many readers will be aware that the topic of sex and gender has not showcased philosophers on their best behavior. It is almost ten years since Rebecca Tuvel was dogpiled by colleagues for writing about transracialism, and—incredibly—things went downhill from there. Dissenters from mainstream thought in feminist philosophy have been subjected to name-calling, no-platforming and other extraordinarily unprofessional tactics. As a minor player in this drama, I have had OUP renege on a contracted book and an invited OUP handbook chapter on pronouns rejected. My recent involvement in the Health and Human Services review of treatment for pediatric gender dysphoria has done little for my popularity among some philosophers.
I was not hopeful, then, that an invitation to review Cosker-Rowland’s book would spontaneously arrive. But NDPR welcomes “proposals for reviews from suitably qualified reviewers” (see above), and I had reviewed three times for them before. So, I emailed the managing editor in October. I was pleasantly surprised when Kirsten Anderson wrote back to me in December, “Good news! After consulting with the board about it, we’ve decided to move forward with your review.” OUP and NDPR were keen to get the book to me—I received a hard copy from both, and OUP also sent a digital version.
By mid-January I had finished, and sent the review to Anderson with the following note:
Review attached. It’s a big and complicated book but mindful of your guidelines I tried to keep the main text as short as I could—it’s a little over 2200 words. However, the review is very critical, and (again mindful of your guidelines) I need to give reasons for the negative evaluation, so I put a lot of the supporting evidence in the lengthy endnotes.
To which she replied:
Thanks for the review and the extra explanation! Your review will now go through the standard process, starting with being vetted by a board member covering the relevant area. If the length is a problem, I’ll let the board member weigh in along with any other revision requests that may arise. Otherwise, it’ll go straight to copyediting. After that, it’ll be published.
As I said, Alex’s review was not nasty but it was critical (there’s a link below), and he found a number of simple errors that Cosker-Rowland made. Here’s one:
I kept it clean and the overall tone was well within the Overton window for philosophy book reviews, which (as noted at the beginning) is wide. Terrible arguments in philosophy are common; more remarkable was Gender Identity’s slapdash scholarship and glaring factual mistakes. Here’s one example (from the review’s lengthy endnotes):
Gender Identity would have greatly benefited from fact checking. One particularly egregious error is the allegation that “in March 2023 there was a rally outside the Victorian Parliament in Melbourne at which neo-Nazis and gender critical feminists campaigned against trans rights and held up banners proclaiming that trans women are perverts and paedophiles” (158). The two groups did not campaign together and the feminists held up no such banners. The feminists’ rally, including banners and placards, can be seen in one of Cosker-Rowland’s own citations, Keen 2023. Cosker-Rowland even manages to misdescribe the neo-Nazis: their sole banner read “Destroy Paedo Freaks” (Deeming v Pesutto 2024: para. 100); although hardly well-disposed towards transgender people, whether the neo-Nazis meant to accuse them of pedophilia is not clear (para. 114).
I documented some other obvious errors and scholarly lapses in the review—by no means all the ones I noticed. “OUP should note,” I wrote, “that quality control in this area of philosophy is not working.”
Let’s reflect on Cosker-Rowland’s claim about the Melbourne rally for a moment. As a footnote in Gender Identity confirms, she knows that the gender-critical philosopher Holly Lawford-Smith was at the event. Cosker-Rowland believes, then, that Lawford-Smith, a philosophy professor employed by Melbourne University and an OUP author, is happy to attend—indeed, speak at—a rally at which fellow-feminists joined forces with neo-Nazis, both holding grotesque banners about trans women and pedophilia. Perhaps Lawford-Smith waved one of these banners herself! No one with a minimal hold on reality would find this remotely credible. Even more astounding is how this managed to get by the OUP editor and multiple referees—it’s not buried in a footnote, but is in the main text.
He found other errors that he didn’t mention in the review but gives in this piece (you can see his entire review here, in Philosophy & Public Affairs). Here’s Byrne’s summing up given in the last two sentences of his review:
Back in the day, we knew what it was to be transsexual. Transsexuality’s contemporary descendant, being transgender, is decidedly more nebulous and deserves an explanation. Gender identity as Cosker-Rowland conceives of it is of no help, and neither is obstetrical paperwork.
Some weeks after submitting the review to Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, Byrne got a rejection that said only that the journal site was “not moving forward” with publication. No reasons were given. Alex wrote back to the editor asking if they would be so kind as to answer two questions:
1. Who was the board member who initially vetted my review? This is not blind reviewing, I take it. The board member knew who wrote the review. Seems only fair that I should know the identity of the board member. If the board member had reasonable concerns, then there should be no objection to making everything transparent.
2. What, exactly, was the reason why you have decided not to publish the review?
Well, reviewers aren’t always entitled to the names of those who vetted a review, but certainly reasons should be given for a rejection. None were, except that one board member declined to vet Alex’s piece and the other “recommended strongly that it be rejected outright.” That was the only feedback he got. Byrne isn’t moaning about this, but his essay does have a serious point about the infection of the publication process in his field by ideology:
The philosophy profession has shown itself to be an institution of fragile integrity when put to the test. One can only hope spines will eventually stiffen, and academic law and order is restored. Meantime, we cannot solely rely on the fortitude of Philosophy & Public Affairs. I suggest that the Journal of Controversial Ideas starts publishing book reviews.
My friend the Belgian philosopher Maarten Boudry is writing about what he calls, correctly, “the most dangerous idea in academia”—an idea that can get you banned or even fired if you even suggest it. It is, of course, the notion that different “races” differ on average in IQ or intelligence. It’s such a hot potato that many people think that research looking for any differences should be banned or strongly discouraged. (This, of course, is because any potential outcome save exact equality among groups is said to inevitably cause racism and bigotry.)
I’ll leave aside here the idea of what “races” are, for Luana and I explained our take in our Skeptical Inquirer paper “The Ideological Subversion of Biology.” We can use instead either the notion of “self-defined races” (the boxes one ticks on a form) or, as Luana and I wrote, human populations:
Before we handle this hot potato, we emphasize that we prefer the words ethnicity or even geographic populations to race, because the last term, due to its historical association with racism, has simply become too polarizing. Further, old racial designations such as white, black, and Asian came with the erroneous view that races are easily distinguished by a few traits, are geographically delimited, and have substantial genetic differences. In fact, the human species today comprises geographically continuous groups that have only small to modest differences in the frequencies of genetic variants, and there are groups within groups: potentially an unlimited number of “races.” Still, human populations do show genetic differences from place to place, and those small differences, summed over thousands of genes, add up to substantial and often diagnostic differences between populations.
We discuss some differences between populations and self-diagnosed “races” that are known. There are also known differences in IQ, but the taboo question is whether any of those difference reside in the genes. On this subject I, like Maarten, am agnostic, as I simply don’t know the literature well enough (and am not sufficiently interested in it) to form an opinion.
Click on the screenshot below to read Maarten’s take:
Maarten was impelled to write the piece because one of his colleagues at Ghent University, Nathan Cofnas, is in big trouble because he’s promoted the most inflammatory version of The Forbidden Question: that a substantial portion of the differences in IQ between American blacks and whites (a phenotypic difference of about 15 points) is genetic:
My guest Han van der Maas, a renowned intelligence researcher at the University of Amsterdam, explained that individual IQ differences are highly heritable, but that he does not believe in differences between ethnic groups. His statistical and methodological arguments (e.g. Simpson’s paradox) convinced me at the time. Still, he hedged his bets: future evidence might yet reveal such differences, and we should not try to cancel researchers who claim such differences are real.
Forty-five colleagues from my former philosophy department (and hundreds more in a letter to the rector) clearly think otherwise. They are urging the rector to fire Nathan Cofnas because he claims that the IQ gap between racial groups such as whites and blacks in the US—differences that are themselves well documented—have largely genetic causes, rather than environmental ones like socio-economic disadvantage or discrimination. He makes the same claim about the higher scores of East Asians and Jews (which exceed those of white Europeans, by the way). They dismiss all of this as “pseudoscience and racism.”
The question is whether Cofnas should be fired for his claim, and whether the research supposedly supporting it should be banned. I would argue that the answer to both questions is “no”, but researchers have to be very careful and sensitive in pursuing it. Maarten quotes the paper by Luana and me about this (his words indented, ours doubly indented):
Now, I perfectly understand why many people are shocked by Cofnas’s claims, and I agree that such hypotheses should be treated with utmost caution. As my friend Jerry Coyne wrote with Luana Maroja in their influential article The Ideological Subversion of Biology:
In light of the checkered history of this work, it behooves any researcher to tread lightly, for virtually any outcome save worldwide identity of populations could be used to buttress bias and bigotry.
Still, this clearly falls within the scope of academic freedom. If you are not prepared to extend academic freedom to ideas you fiercely disagree with, you do not really believe in academic freedom.
In light of calls for Cofnas’s firing, a number of people have signed an open letter defending Cofnas’s right to study this topic (or any reasonable topic); the letter is at the link below:
A statement in support of Nathan Cofnas’s Right to Academic Freedom of Expression
Two separate statements have recently been issued by members of Ghent University, in Belgium, calling on the university to rescind the appointment of Nathan Cofnas as a postdoctoral researcher. One claims that his views “violate the university’s code of ethics and are morally beneath contempt”.
We oppose this attack on academic freedom. While we are not endorsing any specific claims Cofnas has made, we believe that academics must be able to put forward controversial or provocative claims without fear of losing their employment. Of course, other academics should be free to criticise or repudiate those claims.
The statements mentioned above do not even attempt to engage with Cofnas’s empirical claims. Disagreements, whether about empirical claims, ethical principles, or the interpretation of the ethical code of a university, should be settled through free inquiry and open, civil discussion.
We commend Petra De Sutter, Rector of Ghent University, for her statement to the Belgian newspaper De Morgen, that “As a university, we have a responsibility to create space for debate, but also to ensure an environment where people feel heard and respected.”
We agree that creating space for debate is an essential element of a university, and that space for debate should not be closed unless this is a last resort to prevent a clear threat of lasting substantial harm.
Note that the letter takes no position on the data itself; it’s a letter about whether Cofnas should be granted academic freedom to do his work. As Maarten himself says, “As most of the signatories, I do not endorse Nathan Cofnas’s claims and remain agnostic on the issue.” Luana and I, along with 145 other academics, signed this letter, with some signers named above.
It’s a sign of the ideologically-infused and chilling atmosphere in biology that one has to think for even a second before agreeing with the letter. Now you might think that finding genetically-based IQ differences betwen populations might cause “a clear threat of lasting substantial harm,” but for reasons outlined in our paper, Luana and I don’t agree. There are potential upsides in such data, just as there are potential upsides in looking at interpopulation data on medical conditions (the goal is to help individuals, not to demonize one group or another). After all, we don’t even know how the data will come out.
And it’s not at all clear whether finding out that an interpopulation difference has genetic causes will lead to increased bigotry. Since genetic contributions to being gay have been found, prejudice against gays has decreased, not increased. If you reject free will and accept determinism due to genes, physics, and one’s environment, one might see genetically-based differences as “forgiving,” for you cannot be blamed for the genes you get from your parents and that reflect long evolutionary histories.
Maarten goes on to show the difference in long-distance running abilities between Ethiopians and Kenyans on one hand and the rest of the world on the other (these are population differences rather than differences between the classically-defined “races”. Though I don’t know whether there have been tests to show that these differences are genetic (potential studies could include adoption at birth, rearing in different environments, and so on), I would be willing to bet that they are. But, as Maarten says, “measuring intelligence is far more complicated than crossing a finish line.”
Boudry adds that Cofnas has sometimes been brusque in his public pronouncements about his work, but this is not uncommon among academics:
Finally, what about Nathan Cofnas’s vigorous activism alongside his academic work? It is true that Cofnas is far less measured in his Substack posts than in his academic publications on IQ. For instance, his flippant way of expressing a statistical point about the racial IQ gap in academic achievement (similar to the point above about long-distance running) seems almost deliberately incendiary:
Under a colorblind system that judged applicants only by academic qualifications, blacks would make up 0.7% of Harvard students. […] In a meritocracy, Harvard faculty would be recruited from the best of the best students, which means the number of black professors would approach 0%.
Cofnas is also very combative in his attacks on “woke ideology”, and he genuinely believes only a “hereditarian revolution” can truly dismantle it—otherwise, we’ll be stuck fighting symptoms rather than root causes:
Until we defeat the taboo on hereditarianism, our victories will always be temporary. Every time we cut off a tentacle of the DEI monster, it will grow back.
I’m not convinced, but it’s a clever argument, and I’d encourage you to check it out with an open mind.
Finally, Maarten points out one harmful side effect of demonizing people for the kind of work they do in academia:
Calling for the dismissal of anyone who even touches the third rail of ethnic differences in IQ is also strategically unwise. Such attempts often fuel the phenomenon of “red-pilling.” When academics appear determined to suppress a dangerous idea at all costs, people naturally become suspicious: What are they trying to hide? The result is a further erosion of trust in academia.
And that is not just a made-up reason. When the public perceives scientists to be espousing a political or ideological cause in their research, their view of science is eroded. Have a look at this paper showing that when the journal Nature, in a first, endorsed a political candidate (Joe Biden) for U.S. President in 2020, it reduced the public trust not just in the journal, but in scientists themselves.
Do weigh in below, and because the issue is a sensitive one, you might want to answer this poll.
Do you think that some scientific work on human population differences, including IQ, should be forbidden or discouraged?
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