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2023-12-30 Science & Technology
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The path of self-denial. How tolerance is corroding science
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Alexander Khramov
[REGNUM] American atheist philosopher Daniel Dennett once likened evolutionism to a “universal acid” that corrodes all traditional ideas about the world. Oh, if only he knew that the West would soon be flooded with a much more poisonous and corrosive acid, compared to which Darwin’s good old theory is just kefir for children. This hellish liquid of lethal destructive power was brewed in their retorts by left-wing intellectuals and activists: neo-Marxists, feminists, adherents of “critical theory” and post-colonialism.
| A brew originally cooked up in the propaganda mills of the Soviet Union, but please do go on, Mr. Khramov. |
They developed a plan for a total restructuring of the entire society in the interests of minorities and “oppressed” groups - everything that could hurt, offend and infringe on them must be thrown off the ship of modernity. Wokeism - the name of this acid ideology - seeps into all pores of Western civilization, splitting all its foundations: religion, cultural canon (why do they teach Homer in universities, let's study African songs instead), family, marriage and even basic ideas about human biology (a man, say the vocalists, can become a woman, and a woman can become a man). Even old-style skeptics like atheist Richard Dawkins, who had already been “cancelled” for critical statements about transgender people, howled at this “universal acid.”
Continued from Page 4
It is not surprising that wokeism is gradually penetrating science, dismantling the standards of rationality in favor of misunderstood ideals of tolerance and “diversity.”
| Lysenkoism, here we come! |
In major Western journals, before submitting an article, they now ask about the gender and race of the authors (probably, without this it is no longer possible to assess the scientific content of the research conducted). And in the last two or three years, a discussion has developed in Western academic circles about revising the principles of biological nomenclature - this is the name of the system of naming species adopted in science.
Since the time of Carl Linnaeus, scientists have assigned each species a Latin name consisting of two parts, one of which denotes the genus and the other the species. To avoid confusion in the names of species, genera and other taxa, the scientific community developed strict rules governing their use back in the 19th century. They are set out in two international codes - the Code of Zoological Nomenclature (which regulates the scientific names of animals) and the Code of Nomenclature of Algae, Fungi and Plants.
These two codes constitute a kind of fundamental law to which all professional biologists must obey. The main purpose of codes is the stability of nomenclature, so that the names of taxa are changed as rarely as possible and only for compelling reasons. Therefore, codes are built on the principle of priority - the first published scientific name of a species must be assigned to it. Otherwise, if everyone can rename species as they please, then soon there will be nothing left of biological nomenclature: the same species will appear in the scientific literature under different names.
So, if the name of a species is dissonant or given in honor of a not very good person, it still cannot be changed. For example, in 1927, the Libyan wood-boring butterfly was named in honor of Mussolini - Hypopta mussolinii, and in 1937 one species of cave beetles was named in honor of Hitler - Anophthalmus hitleri, but both of these names are still considered valid. No one has the right to arbitrarily change them to some others - scientists value the stability of biological nomenclature so highly.
And it was this holy of holies of biological science that the Wokeists decided to encroach on.
Before approaching scientific names, minority advocates began their attack with the common names of animals and plants. They exist in parallel with scientific nomenclature and are not regulated by codes. If Latin names are universal, then each country has its own folk names. So, in England the magpie is called magpie, in Germany - elster, and for scientists it is Pica pica.
And so American ornithologists are concerned with bringing the popular names of birds into line with the ideas of tolerance and inclusiveness. Thus, they have already managed to rename the duck, known in America as old squaw, to long-tailed duck - the former name allegedly insulted the Indians. And after the death of George Floyd at the hands of the police, the American Ornithological Society also renamed McCown's longspur to the thick-billed longspur, since this bird was named after naturalist and general John McCown, who fought in the American Civil War during the American Civil War. on the side of the southerners.
In total, at least 80 species of American birds are planned to be renamed. And the Entomological Society of America a year ago renamed the gypsy moth, a pest butterfly called the gypsy moth in the United States, into the spongy moth so as not to offend the gypsies.
These politically correct games practically do not affect the interests of science - no matter what the child enjoys, as they say. But adherents of wokeism do not want to stop there and now demand a revision of scientific names.
Indeed, in the scientific literature, the thick-billed longspur, even after changing its everyday name, continues to appear as Rhynchophanes mccownii, thereby perpetuating the memory of the Confederate army general. What a blatant disrespect for the victims of the slave owners! And the Latin name Lasius niger (the black garden ant is hidden under it) sounds completely outrageous - imagine what it’s like for black entomologists to constantly come across the N-word in scientific articles.
| They aren’t actually — the one they object to is spelt with two Gs. But the error is not Mr. Khramov’s. |
And one of the species of Arabian gazelles is called Gazella marica - just think, what disrespect for sexual minorities, because in Spanish the word “marica” is an offensive name for homosexuals.
Another example: the shrub Protea caffra grows in South Africa, and its name also smacks of racism. After all, the Arabs contemptuously called the Negroid population of Africa kaffirs (kafr is a derivative of the Arabic “kafir”, incorrect). It is estimated that in addition to the mentioned shrub, the specific name caffra is borne by about 150 more species of African plants. The specific names niger and marica are also very common. It sounds like an absurd joke, but the voice players seriously demand that they all be changed so that they do not inadvertently hurt anyone’s feelings.
Several years ago, BLM activists in South Africa and Britain achieved the demolition of monuments to Cecil Rhodes, a prominent figure in British colonialism. Now the public campaign “Rhodes Must Fall” has been launched in the field of biological nomenclature. Wokeists are demanding the renaming of all species whose name comes from Rhodes' surname. For example, on this basis they proposed renaming the fossil human species Homo rhodesiensis.
Questions have also arisen about other Latin names associated with the colonial past. Thus, one of the first in line for renaming was the genus of flowering plants Hibbertia, named after the English politician and philanthropist George Hibbert - he did a lot for the development of botany, but, alas, was a slave owner and resisted the abolition of slavery. Some activists have gone even further and argue that all species names given in honor of specific people (no matter how bad or good they were by modern standards) should be replaced.
According to them, there is a clear bias in such names towards white men from the upper classes, while taxa were named after women and natives much less often. Other radicals want to extend the principle of priority to native names that preceded scientific ones. For example, the New Zealand pine Prumnopitys taxifolia was called matai by the Maori people long before the arrival of European naturalists, so let scientists rename it in the Maori way, thereby making their contribution to the fight against the legacy of colonialism.
Such ideas are voiced not only by freaks on social networks; they are already being widely discussed in serious scientific journals. Instead of doing scientific work, left-leaning university professors prefer to earn points by fighting for “justice.” Passions have flared up in earnest: within the framework of the International Association for Plant Taxonomy, voiceists are demanding the creation of a special committee to combat offensive and unacceptable names. The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) managed to speak out against the renaming, which is why it received a barrage of criticism.
Opponents from the activist camp point out that the ICZN does not have the right to make verdicts on such a sensitive topic as the fight against racism, because it does not have a single scientist from the African continent. In response, opponents of the changes began collecting signatures from scientists from all over the world under an appeal in defense of the stability of biological nomenclature. Russian science did not stand aside either: at the end of the past year, the scientific council of the Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences adopted a resolution against the revision of species names for reasons of political correctness.
It would seem that on a universal human scale all these discussions about species names are a storm in a teacup. But they serve as a clear example of the destructive impact of the wokeist ideology, which is corroding the foundations of the West from top to bottom. It’s not just science that is being “decolonized”: in order to atone for the crimes of colonialism, Western countries have opened their doors to migrants from Africa and the Middle East.
Trying to overcome white exceptionalism, the West took the path of self-denial.
| Except it isn’t “white” exceptionalism, but Enlightenment exceptionalism, which did indeed originate in Europe but is available to those born to any race or culture who are willing to submit to the rigours of the philosophy. |
It is highly symbolic that while the principles of biological nomenclature are being questioned, the birthplace of its founder Carl Linnaeus, Sweden, has come out on top in Europe for street murders and crimes using firearms. These are two manifestations of the same process of slow suicide of the Western world, reveling in the acidic poison of tolerance.
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