Dr. James Lindsay is a Mathematician who, along with friends Helen Pluckrose and Dr. Peter Boghossian noticed that there was a marked lack of rigour and scientific method in highly regarded, peer-reviewed papers published on a particular part of the Social Sciences, derogatorily referred to a Grievance Studies. To see if they were correct, they wrote a number of bogus papers with very poor scientific methods and a lot of popular buzzwords and claims of the Grievance Studies.
Surprise surprise, their papers (like how dog-owners react to male-on-female humping vs male-on-male humping in dog parks and how these reactions ‘prove’ inherent sexism in our culture) began to be published and acclaimed. I actually remember some of these papers being papers being touted in mainstream media (MSM) and rolling my eyes – and it is a sad commentary that so many people accepted them as ‘science’ because they were ‘peer-reviewed’…because none of us quite realized that the ‘peers’ doing the ‘reviewing’ were not scientists but ideologues.
When what they thought were transparently fake and somewhat satirical papers began to be cited and nominated for scientific excellence awards, the trio pulled the plug on the project and revealed what they had done.
Perhaps some of my details of the story are fuzzy by the flow of time, but the major point remains.
Since then Dr. Lindsay has taken a deep dive into the world of Grievance Studies and what were the underlying principles that let to them and their open disdain in rejecting the scientific method and instead treating purely political screeds as ‘science’. He has gone to many primary sources and slugged through them, as well as some excellent analyst like Maj. Stephen Coughlin of Unconstrained Analytics. Here is one of Stephen Coughlin’s ‘briefs’:
Winston Marshall prides himself on being a banjo player in some band, but had to quit because he liked a book written by a journalist who was seriously injured by Antifa. Now, he has a wildly successful program here he interviews the greatest thinkers of our times and helps unlock the complexity of their arguments to those of us just learning about the topic can follow with ease – but they are complex topics.
For example, in the video below, James Lindsay and Winston Marshall delve into what is wokism (best explanation so far is that it is Critical Constructionist Epistemology, where the ‘way of knowing’ is constructed on the foundation of the Critical Theory as evolved from the original Frankfurt School teachings – yes, big words – but they really explain them) and the difference between the ‘woke right’ and the ‘woke left’ as well as the different flavours of conservatism and leftism/progressivism in our current political milieu and how the second coming of Donald Trump to the Presidency disrupts how the various groups are evolving.
It is only an hour-and-a-bit long, but is is distilled information that is made comprehensible and Winston Marshall asks all the questions I would have asked for clarification when the wording got too technical.
Warning: James Lindsay – in any of his videos/podcasts/interviews will stretch your mind. But, Winston Marshall is such a skilled interviewer, he makes it enjoyable.
So, please, do enjoy this video:
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 