On Twitter, there is a openly raw admission of why academia has decended into little more than intellectual tribalism, with ‘climate change’ being at the center of the issue. Dr. Matthew M. Wielicki has decided to leave the University of Alabama, citing personal reasons, as well as the clear rise of wokeness and protectionism over truth when it comes to climate science.
What follows is the collated series of tweets made by Wielicki in this thread – Anthony
Why I am leaving the University of Alabama: Some internet sleuths have discovered that I will be leaving my faculty position in the Department of Geological Sciences after this semester so I thought I should tell you why. As with most large decisions, the reasons…
…are mainly personal. COVID made me realize that we were really far from our families in CA and the travel on our elderly parents was taking a toll. The result was that our children were not seeing their grandparents very often. As a Polish immigrant I know what it’s like…
…to live far from family and I started to resent myself for choosing my career over my family’s time together. Furthermore, over the last decade or so, but especially the last few years, the obsession with universities and grant-funding institutions…
…on immutable characteristics of faculty and students and the push for equity in science above all else has dramatically changed the profession of an academic professor. The rise of illiberalism in the name of DEI is the antithesis of the principles that universities…
…were founded on. These are no longer places that embrace the freedom of exchanging ideas and will punish those that go against the narrative. Although I had worked from an early age to earn a Ph.D. and become a professor, like my father, I feel the profession…
…is no longer worthy of my efforts. Contributing to this is the earth science communities silence on the false “climate emergency” narrative. Members of the community routinely discuss the mental health effects of climate catastrophism but dare not speak out…
…lest they lose their positions and research funds. I will continue to objectively review the current state of the science and provide my expert opinions through social media and a future podcast and book (hopefully, coming soon). I appreciate all of the support I have…
…received from followers here and members within the community (who shall remain nameless). If you live in CO get ready for the Wielicki Whirlwind! Excited about this new chapter in my life. #climate #Wokeness
Just want to say thank you for the out pouring of support.
We here at WUWT may have had something to do with his awakening, and rejection of the climate cabal. Note the highlight.
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.” ― Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
It’s disappointing. Another skeptic leaves. These institutions will soon be able to say, truthfully, that ALL of their members/faculty agree with the alarmist positions. Outside voices will be ignored.
We are not winning.
The assistant professor made a choice:
Fight the power, or quietly resign
He took the easy way out
The resignation did not seem close to “extraordinary” to me
Your lack of charity is appalling. He made it quite clear that the primary reasons for leaving were personal. Everything else is merely additional weight on an already tilted scale. To suggest that he took “the easy way out” is a conclusion that comes only from your own biases.
He also made it public, and included reasons that were ideological. So I don’t give charity for that. If you don’t want to fight, then just go away quietly. We don’t need an exit speech.
Welcm to the club!
I also have left the state laboratory where I worked so that I could honestly earn my life.
I’ll give some details: when the “calculation” of the “carbon footprint” of agriculture exploitations started to enter my country; when research institutions were mandated to publish and work to achieve the percent quotas of women and other “minorities”, violating the selection by merit; when the direction and management of the institutions became dictated by political loyalties without regard of the correspondence of the background of managers with the objectives of the institutions and without regarding the opinions of peers; when financing lines of research became dependent of lobbying, of financing by private companies, of what seemed to be “important” according to PR operations in accurately selected timings and not with regard to the needs of the country for its development; etc., a very big etc.