Fight Racist Pseudoscience

Jul 1

Jul 1 Fight Racist Pseudoscience

Guiton Lab

Takeaways from “Teaching and Rooting Out Racist Pseudoscience”

Moderator: Pascale Guiton, Ph.D. (Santa Clara University)

Participants:

Minymoh Anelone, B.S. (Microsoft)

Ira Blader, Ph.D. (University of New York at Buffalo)

Andrew Carlos, MLIS (Santa Clara University)

Kristina L. Cockle, Ph.D. (IBS-CONICET)

Rayven-Nikkita Collins, student (Boston University)

James Murray, Ph.D. (CSU East Bay)

Charles Roseman, Ph.D. (Oregon State University)

Christelle Sabatier, Ph.D. (Santa Clara University)

Charifa Sidi, Student (Georgia State University)

Daniel Weissman, Ph.D. (Emory University)

The discussion held virtually on 6/7/2022 was inspired by this article. We aimed to identify practical solutions that can be implemented to help address the issue of race pseudoscience in academia and society at large. The resilience of race science in academia and society is not only misleading the general public but also detrimental to science. What was once fringe is again becoming mainstream, respectable findings. We need to address the scientific facts presented in these racist pseudoscientific articles/ideas/theories in the classrooms and communicate clearly their lack of scientific foundations to change the public perception of race science. This work will require all scientists to step up, be trained in science communication, and fiercely combat those amongst us who are peddling misinformation while pretending to use tools in various fields, including neuroscience, genetics, evolutionary biology, etc. We hope that our colleagues will help us in this effort by implementing the few ideas we identified below.

Preparing the next generation
1. Introduce science as a creative human activity (e.g. genetic determinism to demonstrate this idea).
2. Collaborate with colleagues in the humanities to create a more comprehensive science curriculum in which the history of science and the impact of racist pseudoscience on society are integral to degree completion.
3. Develop courses on rhetoric to allow students to communicate science clearly and accurately in a manner more effective than that of racist scientists.
4. Design science classrooms around socio-scientific issues.
5. Be more intentional in the incorporation of examples into lecture materials by choosing more impactful ones (e.g. talking about AIDS in the context of a hidden pandemic in the US, introducing women’s perspectives on scientific issues).
6. Teach critical thinking (e.g.use the racist pseudoscientific or mainstream papers based on race science to help students deconstruct methodology, methods, limitations of findings, the objectives/questions, the history of this line of research, and who it aims to serve -i.e. questioning the idea that the white male is the great standard of objectivity in science).
7. Guide students to be avid consumers of science regardless of their desires to become scientists.
8. Give power back to students to ask questions and consistently reinforce critical thinking skills.
9. Decentralize white supremacy, even while addressing it.

Stepping up to racist pseudoscientific ideas
1. Take responsibility as scientists to push back.
2. Require evidence from race scientists; bring them to task in the arena where science is rigorous
3. Revise the structural systems that promote the practice and dissemination of racist pseudoscience
  1. Hold mainstream, especially “high impact factor” journals, accountable for publications/overselling of misleading race science articles
  2. Identify the misuse of scientific methods and tools by calling for more rigorous peer reviews
  3. Expose research funded by agencies/sources with pseudoscientific attitudes
  4. Censure intellectual dishonesty
4. Design and support projects going after theoretical and conceptual practices of white supremacists.
5. Train scientists in rhetoric to address these issues when communicating with non-scientists.
6. Form scientific unions.