
Hundreds petition to retract paper they call “unscholarly, overtly racist” - Ice_cream_suit
https://retractionwatch.com/2020/07/27/hundreds-petition-to-retract-paper-they-call-unscholarly-overtly-racist-and-full-of-racially-violent-narratives/#more-120123
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ecliptic_pole
I read it: it is a real paper, professionally written in an staid tone.
Therefore, even if the premise is entirely wrong, even if you disagree with
every single word, there is no reason for it to be "retracted".

Instead of signing petitions full of buzzwords and posting solitary anecdotes
on Twitter, opponents of the paper should write a rebuttal and refute the
author's claims.

~~~
qtplatypus
So what if the tone is good. The arguments that he made are not supported by
the evidence.

~~~
ecliptic_pole
I agree that the arguments he made are not supported by evidence, but this is
our judgment of his paper, not a reason to retract it and prevent other people
from reading it.

The fact that the paper is written in a scholarly tone is obviously relevant.
If it was spam or "junk mail", or some sort of violent sermon or political
philippic, then of course there is no reason for it to stay online. But it's
not. It's obviously a real, genuine academic paper.

~~~
qtplatypus
Looking for errors in the paper is exactly what peer review and retraction is
for. Even if it mimics the form of an academic paper it doesn’t progress the
debate if all it is using is already discredited or unsupported. As other
commentators have pointed out the cites that he uses are way out of date and
this isn’t advancing the field.

It serves no ones to repetitively rebut the same mistakes over and over again.
While at the same time such papers lend false credibility to damaging ideas.

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cwhiz
If your scientific paper doesn’t adhere to what the mob believes, you must
retract. This is America!

It’s funny that “people of color” has been altered to remove Asians. I guess
Asians have achieved too much success in racist America? I wonder how they did
it? Maybe this paper can shed some light. I better read it quickly, before the
mob gets their way.

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samizdis
Poverty and Culture,

Lawrence M. Mead

Journal: Society

Abstract:

[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12115-020-00496-1](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12115-020-00496-1)

~~~
nkurz
Full article:
[http://www.mediafire.com/file/hqdt6fmwcttrb8x/Mead2020_Artic...](http://www.mediafire.com/file/hqdt6fmwcttrb8x/Mead2020_Article_PovertyAndCulture.pdf/file)

------
nabla9
>This article is drawn from his Burdens of Freedom: Cultural Difference and
American Power (Encounter Books, 2019)

[https://www.amazon.com/Burdens-Freedom-Cultural-
Difference-A...](https://www.amazon.com/Burdens-Freedom-Cultural-Difference-
American/dp/1641770406)

.... The United States is an individualist society where most people seek to
realize personal goals and values out in the world. This unusual, inner-driven
culture was the chief reason why first Europe, then Britain, and finally
America came to lead the world. But today, our deepest problems derive from
groups and nations that reflect the more passive, deferential temperament of
the non-West. The long-term poor and many immigrants have difficulties
assimilating in America mainly because they are less inner-driven than the
norm. Abroad, the United States faces challenges from Asia, which is
collective-minded, and also from many poorly-governed countries in the
developing world. The chief threat to American leadership is no longer foreign
rivals like China but the decay of individualism within our own society.

Burdens of Freedom Lawrence M. Mead Fall 2016
[https://nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/burdens-
of-f...](https://nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/burdens-of-freedom)

------
gverrilla
established social sciences have very little credit overall. barely science,
after all.

------
aaron695
If I was Russian disinformation I'd be plowing out a lot of petitions like
these.

They would have some credibility if they occasionally attacked something truly
ridiculous like String Theory, but it's easier to paint the bike shed that no
one would ever have used.

------
nabla9
Let's turn the discussion from race to institutional geriatrics.

 _Lawrence Mead_ (the author) is 77 years old (few years too old to be
considered as a boomer)

 _Jonathan Imber_ (Editor-in-Chief ‘Society’ Journal) seems to be 71. (His CV
says "London School of Economics and Political Science, 1972-73" and he was
the Class of 1949 Professor in Ethics).

Just by looking at the references in his article it's clear that Mead is not
kept up with the field since late 90s. It's blast from the past.

As populations age, people in scientific institutions and publications age as
well. Unlike many other professions, academics can stay active and hang into
important positions semi-retired until their 80's. There is nothing wrong with
that in individual level, but if they keep occupying an overly large portion
of important positions in science it becomes a bottleneck that sustains old
outdated viewpoints.

It seems that Lawrence Mead's work was criticized and debated in the 80s and
90s and it was laid to rest. Instead of asking for a retraction, scholars
should look deeply into the relevance of the journals, universities, and how
up to date people in their positions are. It's perfectly understandable that
organizations filled with people who started their careers in the 70s don't
have BIPOC among them.

~~~
thinkingemote
Yesterday on hacker news there was a post about ageism in tech. I suppose
ageists have a point and we on HN are in the wrong /s

~~~
nabla9
This is not about ageism.

Old academics are valuable but having people in high positions who have not
contributed meaningfully for decades is not acceptable.

People should step down when they can't keep up. Repeating arguments from
20-30 years ago without anything new is disgrace.

