This is an actual scientist here:
Last year, Jackson was hired by the University of Manchester as chair in sustainable geoscience. He was excited: “Manchester, as a city and an institution, meant so much to me because I’d spent so much time there,” he says. But he quickly began to feel a lack of support from many colleagues. A month into his job, Jackson was quoted in a BBC news story about the disproportionately low representation of Black people in UK science. He stated that UK-funded science is “definitely institutionally racist” and that senior white scientists do not recognize the ways in which racial biases permeate their institutions.
Four days later, he got an e-mail from the university’s vice-president, Martin Schröder, who said he did not think the university was institutionally racist and that such language was counterproductive. The e-mail included a link to an opinion article calling institutional racism an ill-defined, unhelpful concept. Schröder copied the e-mail to several high-level colleagues.
“I was very angry and upset by the e-mail,” says Jackson, who asserts that his public comments were not directed at the university. He saw the e-mail as an attempt to malign him and his views.
Hoping for support, Jackson forwarded it to his department head and close colleague, volcanologist Mike Burton — but he was disappointed by the response. During a follow-up conversation, Jackson says he got the sense that Burton viewed people at the university as too intelligent and liberal-minded to be racist.
This is the evidence – he left the job as a result of this, left – that British academia is institutionally racist. Because someone disagrees when it is asserted that British academia is institutionally racist.
Sheesh.
White people in science be like: “check out my cool new theory of quantum gravity you guise! xD xD xD”
Black people in science: “gravity is racist. >:-(“
Wtf is sustainable geoscience???
Hooray, it’s another form of Worstall’s Law! And a whole new chapter in your book: measuring racism without taking into account all the things that the institution is already doing to reduce racism.
We see this frequently in the U.S., where they’ll increasingly refer to the 1960s (or even 1619) to avoid talking about all the effort that has already been made.
Science is generally white because science, in its purest sense, doesn’t pay very well. People doing particle physics at CERN or driving probes for NASA make sod all money.
But when you’re talking about jobs that are somewhat science related but pay well, like medicine, pharmacy or being a software whore for the man, there’s lots of non-white people doing it.
Same with actors. The reason there’s a growing number of black people doing it isn’t actually much about racism, it’s that there are now affluent black people who can afford to support their kids doing these things. The black actors who win Oscars are not from the ghetto, they were raised in upper middle class families.
BoM4 – yarp, but Bell Curve distributions and whatnot too. Only so much you can do with a (let’s be generous) 120 IQ.
That’s not enough intellectual horsepower to trouble the legacies of Roger Penrose, Freeman Dyson or Richard Feynman, but it’s enough to cargo cult the appearance of knowledge, by learning the bullshit bingo buzzwords necessary to get safely embedded in the bureaucracy of academia or the media.
A mature and level-headed response by the University of Manchester.
Oxford, Cambridge and pretty much every American institution should look on and feel deeply ashamed.
– “check out my cool new theory of quantum gravity you guise! xD xD xD”
Is that an Hawaiian shirt? Oh my god right now.
Scott Adams (Dilbert geezer) pointed out that if you’re black (sorry, Black), well-educated, well-presented and without a criminal record, you are basically minted. Corporations, govt depts, etc, will be falling over themselves to fill their diversity quotas with anyone half decent, and you’ll receive preferential opportunities at the expense of equal or better qualified whites (or asians).
If there aren’t many blacks in science it’s cos the don’t wanna / cannae.
I’ve met Jackson, and the man is a complete and utter Twat.
Geoscientist? Is he fuck. He’s just another race grifter.
You can’t go through life without meeting a few people who melt down when you disagree with them. It doesn’t even have to be much of a disagreement. Them simply becoming aware that you hold opposing views without being vocal about it can do it. Let them melt down. Shrug.
If you believe in the Blank Slate, i.e that everybody on Earth has exactly the same potential intelligence and capabilities as everybody else, the only explanation for the failure of Black people to thrive MUST be Racism. Anyone who denies this does so only because they are Racist. QED.
When “sustainable” preceeds any science, it stops being science.
Simply because at that point Politics and Narrative becomes more important than actual Fact.
Therefore mr. Jackson is not a scientist, however much he styles himself thus.
He who plays the race card is in the wrong. It’s a pretty good rule of thumb.
Tim’s quote of the Nature article is remarkably racist. It calls blacks Black but whites are only white.
@ Boganboy
“Black” does not mean black – it means anyonewho self-identifies as “Black”. Some “white”* South Africans with a sun-tan (let alone WAGS) are darker in hue than some “Blacks”
* without the suntan they’d be pink
Classic BLM manoeuvre. Denial=affirmation of guilt.
I do enjoy the unintended consequence though;
“ You’re stupid!”
“No I’m not!”
Thanks john 77. Since I’m Black, I’m obviously owed lots and lots and lots of money. A few trillion’ll do as a start.
What is the position of a “vice-president” at the University of Manchester? Is he (or she) a Big Cheese like the vice-chancellor, or just some flunkey? How many of them are there?
He is a Big Cheese, Dean of the Faculty of Science and Engineering, and a Chemist by specialty. I do wonder though why they imported the term ‘Vice-President’ from the US since there is already a well-established academic hierarchy in the UK. Perhaps USian businessmen who they tap for funds feel more comfortable with Vice-Presidents rather than Vice-Chancellors because they can fit that position into a known hierarchy of their own.
Sure. Racist. Whatever.
But what actually is sustainable geoscience. Honestly. I give up! Groucho must be turning in his grave.