SS#12 - How to be a better dissident to ensure ideological diversity in universities | Dr Lee Jussim
Channel: Saving Democracy dot ca
Date: 2020-11-13

We discuss the invisible harmful effects of ideology on scholarship and scientific research in academia, including the growing problem of scholarship suppression, left-wing extremism, how to ensure political/viewpoint diversity, the psychology of counter-revolution, how to be a better dissident, and finish with examples/evidence of signs of hope that universities can be saved from the anti-intellectual and illiberal left-leaning ideology that has infected academia and society more broadly.

Jussim’s links:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PsychRabble
Website: https://sites.rutgers.edu/lee-jussim/
PsychologyToday column: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/rabble-rouser
Papers he discussed:
Scholarship Suppression (Stevens, Jussim, & Honeycutt, 2020): https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/10/4/82/htm
A Model of Political Bias in Social Science Research (Honeycutt & Jussim, 2020): https://sites.rutgers.edu/lee-jussim/wp-content/uploads/sites/135/2020/04/Honeycutt-Jussim-2020-A-Model-of-Political-Bias-in-Social-Science-Research.pdf

Outline/topics:
00:01:55 Left-wing extremism on the rise? (network contagion research institute)
00:08:45 intellectual justification for radical extremist violence based directly on work from academia
00:10:00 Jussim paper: theoretical model of the problem of political bias in academia
00:14:30 data has been a blank canvas on which professors can paint their biases
00:15:33 open science movement has been corrupted by invisible ideological forces/biases
00:17:33 selective calls for rigor due to political/ideological biases, including example where PNAS pressured authors to retract solid anti-black police brutality finding due to political pressure
00:22:45 scholarship suppression paper: the problem is not the political mobs, but the authorities, e.g., journal editors, deans, who cave to the political mobs
00:25:18 how to ensure political/viewpoint diversity without resorting to group-based quotas (& divisive affirmative action); million dollar question, unclear how, hasn’t really yet been pulled off
00:29:55 ideological virus has spread and infected all societal institutions, and all nooks & crannies of academia, so extremely difficult to de-wokify  
00:39:45 must cultivate how to have civilized debates w/ people you disagree with, much earlier, e.g., junior high school
00:43:20 Trump’s executive order to de-wokify government, how to apply it to the education system, and how to apply it in Canada (but also possible downsides of the order)
00:55:45 Is it too late to save universities? Or should we just rebuild a new university system from scratch?
00:59:45 Signs of hope: people surviving denunciation attacks, anti-woke dissenters and silent majority joining forces
01:02:15 How to be a BETTER dissident: 
1. Survive by not getting in flame wars on Twitter, 
2. Use strategic dissenting, 
3. Share knowledge re: surviving denunciations, 
4. Form allies, collaborations, & groups to practice & showcase civilized discussions/ debates, 
5. Learn about the psychology of counter-revolution (from history), 
6. Speak up, it’s your moral obligation, but share your perspective in a respectful way, focusing on the substantive issues (avoiding ad hominem and emotionalism), 
7. Use the Socratic method, be a better listener, question opponent’s assumptions, 
8. Get out of your ideological tribal bubble/find ppl who can respectfully disagree with you!

SAVING SCIENCE SHOW INFO
Bio: Dr. LeBel is a psychologist & independent meta-scientist who has contributed to raising transparency & replication standards in academia for more than 10 years.  He has published over 30 peer-reviewed scientific articles in internationally renowned journals, including the prestigious journal Science.  He is founder & lead of Curate Science, a nonprofit global initiative to verify, ensure, and track the transparency and credibility of research. I'm motivated by (1) the ethical duty of intellectuals to report on matters of public concern & (2) the fact that properly functioning science is the best way to finding better treatments for cruel medical conditions like suicide, cancer, which have touched my family personally, & continue to afflict millions of people worldwide every year.
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