Nature Has “Abandoned Science for Social Justice” Says Richard Dawkins

From THE DAILY SCEPTIC

by Will Jones

Top scientific journal Nature has “abandoned science for social justice”, Richard Dawkins has said as he backed a letter written by Chemistry Professor Anna Krylov which accused the journal of “social engineering”. The Times has more.

The criticism of Springer Nature group, which publishes the journal, was made by Anna Krylov, an American professor who has been a supporter of President Trump’s drive to stop American universities from promoting diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) in their admissions policies.

Richard Dawkins, the British evolutionary biologist, backed Krylov and said that too many journals were “favouring authors because of their identity group rather than the excellence and importance of their science”.

The Nature group has said that seeking to include a broad range of perspectives from “a wider spectrum” of researchers can create “a more informed foundation for scholarly work”.

Krylov, a Chemistry Professor at the University of Southern California (USC), said she had been invited to act as a peer-reviewer — a scientist asked to provide independent scrutiny — of a study being published in the journal Nature Communications.

In an open letter to bosses at Springer Nature, she said the topic was “within my field of expertise” and that she would “normally welcome the opportunity”, but asked if she had been contacted “because of my expertise in the subject matter or because of my reproductive organs”.

Krylov cited a pledge from Springer Nature in 2019 to “take action to improve diversity and inclusion” in their journals, asking editors to “intentionally and proactively reach out to women researchers”.

She cited guidance from the Nature Human Behaviour journal from 2022 that suggested some research should not be published if there is a risk that it “undermines the dignity or rights of specific groups”.

She also cited the use of “citation diversity statements”, where scientists can include in their studies a declaration pledging to cite research “in a manner that is equitable in terms of racial, ethnic, gender and geographical representation”.

Many research bodies have said the drive to boost diversity in academia is not born out of tokenism or political correctness. A report in 2022 by UK Research and Innovation said that ensuring scientific studies were not overwhelmingly produced by people from any one background was “essential to achieving high quality scientific outputs” and to making sure that “research findings are… relevant and address the needs of different communities”.

Krylov alleged, however, that “the Nature group has abandoned its mission in favour of advancing a social justice agenda”, accusing it of implementing “policies that have sacrificed merit in favour of identity-based criteria” and of “inject[ing] social engineering into its author guidelines and publishing process”.

Reposting Krylov’s letter on X, Dawkins said: “Nature used to be the world’s most prestigious science journals”, but claimed it was now among many who placed emphasis on the background of authors rather than only on “the excellence… of their science”.

Mario Juric, an Astronomy Professor from the University of Washington, Seattle, said he was asked in 2023 by the Nature Astronomy journal “to suggest alternate reviewers from ‘underrepresented communities’”. He declined and told the journal’s editors: “While I know your publisher’s intentions are good… mixing identity in the review process does nothing to strengthen it.”

Worth reading in full.

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AlanJ
October 29, 2025 6:10 am

the topic was “within my field of expertise” and that she would “normally welcome the opportunity”, but asked if she had been contacted “because of my expertise in the subject matter or because of my reproductive organs”.

Idiotic beyond words. Subject is within her field of expertise, in a domain she has participated in peer reviewed extensively, and suddenly she’s questioning her own relevancy as a peer reviewer? Pure right wing culture war BS. Dawkins has always been a bit of a kook, and he’s only lost the plot more and more as time goes on. It’s little wonder he’s taking up sides with the Trumpets.

Scarecrow Repair
Reply to  AlanJ
October 29, 2025 7:46 am

The lefties started this woke culture war. Are you offended that their victims strike back?

strativarius
Reply to  Scarecrow Repair
October 29, 2025 9:11 am

Poor AlanJ. He’s so consumed by his religion that he thinks any biologist who holds the scientific truth that there are two sexes is somehow “a bit of a kook“.

You can draw your own conclusions on AlanJ’s state of mind.

AlanJ
Reply to  Scarecrow Repair
October 30, 2025 6:27 am

Who is the alleged victim here?

MarkW
Reply to  AlanJ
October 30, 2025 8:39 am

Anyone who believes in thinking for themselves.

drh
Reply to  AlanJ
October 29, 2025 8:05 am

It’s not idiotic. When an organization makes it clear they are prioritizing on identity, this is a natural question to ask. I’m sure not a single day goes by when Ketanji Brown Jackson doesn’t think about the fact that she got to her position due in very large part to the fact her skin is dark and she has female reproductive organs.

Reply to  drh
October 29, 2025 8:42 am

Except, she was, as the interview showed, uncertain what a woman is.

Reply to  whsmith@wustl.edu
October 29, 2025 10:33 am

When you listen to her words, you discover she’s uncertain what logic is also.

starzmom
Reply to  Lil-Mike
October 29, 2025 3:56 pm

From that perspective you have to wonder if her primary qualification is not her legal mind, but her color and gender in equal measures. Funny that her promoters don’t like Clarence Thomas, who does have a superb legal mind, as well as dark skin.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  starzmom
October 30, 2025 6:27 am

Please do not conflate gender and sex.

Reply to  drh
October 29, 2025 9:11 pm

Biden was perfectly clear from the outset that his nomination was going to be Black and female.

How does Jackson even know she herself is female?

AlanJ
Reply to  drh
October 30, 2025 6:29 am

You believing that Jackson cannot be qualified to be a Supreme Court justice because she is a black woman says quite a bit about you as a person.

drh
Reply to  AlanJ
October 30, 2025 7:25 am

That’s not what I said. She will always question her qualifications because of what the person who nominated her said he would do. It shouldn’t matter what her race or sex is, but Joe Biden made it abundantly clear to everyone that it does.

AlanJ
Reply to  drh
October 30, 2025 8:14 am

I do not think that Jackson questions her qualifications, why do you think that? You seem to believe that she is unqualified for the position, when a quick read of her background shows that she is as qualified as any other Supreme Court justice.

Biden said that he would nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court, not that he would nominate someone regardless of their qualifications. The conclusion implied by your stated opinion is that you do not believe there could be a black woman qualified to be on the Supreme Court.

MarkW
Reply to  AlanJ
October 30, 2025 8:43 am

Too bad Biden didn’t bother finding a black woman who had qualifications. There are a lot of them out there, Jackson isn’t one of them.

Biden also pledged to nominate a black woman as his VP candidate, that was how the grossly incompetent Harris was picked.

AlanJ
Reply to  MarkW
October 30, 2025 8:50 am

What are the specific qualifications that Jackson lacks? And what are the specific qualifications for VP that Harris lacked? Again, you guys seem to think that if a black woman was picked for a role it means that someone without relevant qualifications was picked. Why do you believe that?

Reply to  AlanJ
October 30, 2025 9:24 am

1. an iq over 110
2. an iq over 100 and not being a public drunk.

While credentials are now useless in determining qualifications after 50 years of affirmative action, sane people can still use one’s eyes and ears to determine someone’s competence.

Remember, you’re arguing qualifications from the same side that told us Biden was the sharpest he’d ever been.

AlanJ
Reply to  Charles Rotter
October 30, 2025 10:14 am

Your subjective perception of their IQ is not a qualification, their qualifications are their professional credentials and background. You need to be specific about what you think is lacking in their credentials and background that is needed to be a qualified candidate for Supreme Court justice or VP. In your answer, do your best not to inadvertently disqualify most past Supreme Court justices and vice presidents.

Reply to  AlanJ
October 30, 2025 11:04 am

Their credentials are 100% falsely awarded, at every step. Kamala’s offices held were nothing but political presents given to her.

AlanJ
Reply to  Charles Rotter
October 30, 2025 12:17 pm

So the positions she was elected to were political gifts from… the people who voted for her?

Reply to  AlanJ
October 30, 2025 3:20 pm

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

AlanJ
Reply to  Charles Rotter
October 31, 2025 3:16 am

Don’t be so down on yourself, Charles.

Mr.
Reply to  AlanJ
October 30, 2025 7:46 pm

Nah.
Just from Willie Brown as return for favors rendered.

MarkW
Reply to  AlanJ
October 30, 2025 11:55 am

Professional credentials are meaningless in an era where the clearly incompetent can get jobs just because they have the right physical characteristics.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  MarkW
October 30, 2025 12:09 pm

Did we not have a cabinet secretary who wore a dress and stole women’s luggage at airports?

JViola151
Reply to  AlanJ
October 31, 2025 9:37 am

Alan, I understand your points, but I disagree that professional credentials and background alone are qualifications. I think most people have the experience of seeing people promoted over others that are better fits and more qualified(for various reason). I personally experienced this and people with advanced degrees that lacked common sense and the inability to see logical results from actions. I think you would agree that these are Important qualities for a politician.

In politics you look to see what people say and do. From some presentations and debates (although the current debate format is BS – they should have to present plans like presenting to a VC-IMO – another topic.) you get an understanding of their capacity to comprehend important topics. I think this clip of Kamla Harris is telling https://youtu.be/ACfFCaMiv2c.

Coming from a state that Cloud computing was an important part of the economy ( locally and globally important) this does not instill confidence. In general listing to her speak, a reasonable person would question her intelligence. (even if you don’t know her IQ). For me this alone disqualified her as the implications of not understand this, it’s implications like energy, and actually not being prepared for the questions are telling.

I understand Kamala did some good things when AG of California, but what do you think about this Cloud computing clip and what qualifications(actions) do you think made Harris qualified and a good pick for VP?

AlanJ
Reply to  JViola151
October 31, 2025 1:17 pm

These objections are subjective. You don’t feel like Harris was a good candidate. Your feelings are valid, but they are personal and subjective. They have nothing to do with her qualifications on paper, which is the criteria by which we can evaluate whether someone is qualified for a role they are nominated for. Nothing in Harris’s or Jackson’s professional or political careers indicates that that either was unqualified for the jobs they were given.

The claim is being made that two black women with no qualifications were given jobs purely because of their race and sex. My counter is that both women had stellar credentials and were as qualified for the positions as anyone else who has ever been nominated. None of you can articulate a substantive objection to this.

what do you think about this Cloud computing clip and what qualifications(actions) do you think made Harris qualified and a good pick for VP?

I don’t think she sounded knowledgable about cloud computing in the clip, but her point is valid, if poorly made. She has extensive public service and legal experience, served as a US senator, I don’t know what other qualifications a person should have for a VP role, do you? She and Biden won the presidency in 2020, so more than half of the voting public thought she had all requisite qualifications.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Charles Rotter
October 30, 2025 12:08 pm

Add, ability to speak coherently.

MarkW
Reply to  AlanJ
October 30, 2025 11:54 am

Intelligence for one.
Independence for another.
Ditto for Harris. The woman had trouble stringing together a coherent sentence without the help of a teleprompter.

Fascinating, we complain about 2 specific women who clearly lack the credentials to hold their current jobs, and from that you conclude we believe no black women have the credentials.

Tell me, are you being paid to make a fool of yourself? Because if you are, you should ask for a raise because of the outstanding job you are doing.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  MarkW
October 30, 2025 12:10 pm

He is racial profiling us because we advocate for merit rather than identity as qualifications.

AlanJ
Reply to  MarkW
October 30, 2025 12:27 pm

Intelligence and independence are subjective characteristics, not professional qualifications.

Fascinating, we complain about 2 specific women who clearly lack the credentials to hold their current jobs, and from that you conclude we believe no black women have the credentials.

I’m making that accusation because you are incapable of articulating what qualifications they actually lack, the only common thread is that both are black women.

Reply to  AlanJ
October 30, 2025 7:17 pm

Intelligence and independence are subjective characteristics, not professional qualifications.

Inadvertently, AnalJ reveals the credentialism common among Progressives, who put paper amplification above “subjective’ characteristics like intelligence and independence.

Reply to  Graemethecat
October 31, 2025 1:46 am

Replace “amplification” by ” qualification”.

I hate predictive text.

CampsieFellow
Reply to  AlanJ
October 30, 2025 3:14 pm

Have a look at a few football matches from England’s Premier League and observe the number of players from ethnic minority backgrounds. Far more than the ethnic minority proportion of the population. But nobody (well, very few anyway) questions their right to be playing for these teams. They have obviously got included because of merit. So people don’t object. But in other walks of life that is not necessarily so. Such as Universities. Because of DEI, sex and ethnic minority background can outweigh merit. And here’s a former First Minister of Scotland complaining about the number of white people in senior positions:

AlanJ
Reply to  CampsieFellow
October 31, 2025 3:11 am

Why do you see a person of color on a sports team and assume they are there because of merit yet see a person of color in a university or a leadership role and assume they must have been handed the role without qualification? That seems to expose a rather problematic element of your worldview.

drh
Reply to  AlanJ
October 30, 2025 11:40 am

“I do not think that Jackson questions her qualifications, why do you think that?”

Because she was told by Biden that a big part of her being nominated was because she is a black woman. All he had to do was simply keep it to himself and let her nomination stand on its own. But he couldn’t, so her qualifications will always be a question.

“Biden said that he would nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court, not that he would nominate someone regardless of their qualifications.”

Precisely the problem. If qualifications were never an issue, why bring race and sex into it?

AlanJ
Reply to  drh
October 30, 2025 12:28 pm

Because she was told by Biden that a big part of her being nominated was because she is a black woman. All he had to do was simply keep it to himself and let her nomination stand on its own. But he couldn’t, so her qualifications will always be a question. 

They are in question to you, I’m asking why do you think that Jackson questions her own qualifications, as you said she does. There is nothing in her resume that would suggest she is unqualified for the role.

Precisely the problem. If qualifications were never an issue, why bring race and sex into it?

If only qualifications were at issue, why had a black woman never been nominated to the SC before?

MarkW
Reply to  AlanJ
October 30, 2025 8:42 am

Poor little AJ, can’t refute the point, so he has to lie about what others wrote.
That isn’t even close to what drh said.

Reply to  AlanJ
October 30, 2025 7:08 pm

Clarence Thomas was nominated to the Supreme Court because he was the best candidate, NOT because he was Black.

Your race trolling has been called out. Quit while you’re behind.

AlanJ
Reply to  Graemethecat
October 31, 2025 3:14 am

So was Jackson, was she not? Again, none of you can say what qualifications she lacks.

Reply to  AlanJ
October 31, 2025 8:58 pm

AnalJ clearly doesn’t understand Set Theory.

There must be hundreds or even thousands of US judges who have her qualifications. For the Supreme Court you want the BEST candidate. By limiting the pool of candidates to only Black females Biden is highly unlikely to have found the best.

Orson Olson
Reply to  AlanJ
October 31, 2025 10:02 am

Alan, you a hopeless moronielle.

Reply to  AlanJ
October 29, 2025 8:17 am

suddenly she’s questioning her own relevancy as a peer reviewer?

You can’t even use your cognitive ability, small as it may be, to recognize that being chosen due to an immutable characteristic such as being female, is at least a micro aggression.

It is the same as saying, you aren’t capable based on merit, but you are female and we respect your perspective.

The left has invented social justice, you should realize that conservatives have a view that is just as respectable whereby merit should be the deciding factor. Social justice does not make you morally better than others. Live with it!

AlanJ
Reply to  Jim Gorman
October 30, 2025 6:32 am

Except no one was chosen because they were a woman. In Krylov’s own words, she is a highly qualified expert in this field who has participated in peer review on this same subject in the past. There is no legitimate basis for questioning why she was asked to be a reviewer. It’s all hysterical right wing culture war BS as always. Dawkins has fallen for it.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  AlanJ
October 30, 2025 7:20 am

She feels she was chosen based on her sex. Aren’t we supposed to believe all women?

AlanJ
Reply to  Jeff Alberts
October 30, 2025 8:16 am

I’ll take “disingenuous whataboutism” for 300, Alex.

MarkW
Reply to  AlanJ
October 30, 2025 8:48 am

It’s more of a humorous aside. Not that I expect you to figure out the difference.

MarkW
Reply to  Jeff Alberts
October 30, 2025 8:47 am

That standard only applies to liberal women.

MarkW
Reply to  AlanJ
October 30, 2025 8:47 am

That’s your take on it. However they did pledge to find a woman. The track record of those who put immutable characteristics as the first element in a search, is not good.
For once, in this instance, they did find a good one. Most of the time they don’t.

AlanJ
Reply to  MarkW
October 30, 2025 10:08 am

That implies you think there is a very low chance of finding a female reviewer who is competent. You comments are just exposing your fundamentally sexist viewpoint.

MarkW
Reply to  AlanJ
October 30, 2025 11:57 am

I’m beginning to feel that AJ’s inability to read what others actually wrote is a congenital condition.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  AlanJ
October 30, 2025 12:12 pm

Biden’s slate of Supreme Court candidates included only females with dark skin.

AlanJ
Reply to  Sparta Nova 4
October 31, 2025 3:13 am

Every person highly qualified for the position.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  AlanJ
October 29, 2025 8:17 am

Another bit of sophistry to intensify the flame wars.

Reply to  AlanJ
October 29, 2025 9:27 am

Why is Dawkins a kook? You don’t believe in evolution? 🙂

Ed Zuiderwijk
Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
October 29, 2025 9:54 am

No no, you got that wrong. He can say that because it is in his field of expertise, obviously.

Reply to  AlanJ
October 29, 2025 9:33 am

Maybe she wouldn’t have challenged them if they didn’t say:

The Nature group has said that seeking to include a broad range of perspectives from “a wider spectrum” of researchers can create “a more informed foundation for scholarly work”.

MarkW
Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
October 30, 2025 8:50 am

It really is odd they way those on the left actually believe that scientific facts differ depending on the what the color of your skin or what gender you are.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  MarkW
October 30, 2025 12:13 pm

Please do not conflate gender with sex.

MarkW
Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
October 30, 2025 8:50 am

It really is odd they way those on the left actually believe that scientific facts differ depending on what the color of your skin or what gender you are.

Reply to  AlanJ
October 29, 2025 1:12 pm

lost the plot more and more as time goes on”

Some people, like AlanJ, never had the plot… and never will !!

Delusional.. and no chance of any change. Prime target for TDS. !

youcantfixstupid
Reply to  AlanJ
October 29, 2025 4:27 pm

Being called a ‘kook’ by you is high praise indeed, it means he’s actually intelligent…

Tom Halla
October 29, 2025 6:25 am

Lysenko lives!!

TBeholder
Reply to  Tom Halla
October 30, 2025 9:11 am

Nah. The Great Climatening mostly relies on crude embezzling. Not nearly the same level of sleight-of-hand as feeding show cows with condensed milk.

Ron Long
October 29, 2025 7:00 am

Story Tip (related to the theme of Science becoming Political Science): “Anti-Greta” Activist flees Europe after antifa death threats; Elon Musk backs her asylum claims.” She is Naomi Seibt, from Germany, and she says to return to Germany will result in imprisonment, at least. The Net Zero crowd is aligned with antifa?

Reply to  Ron Long
October 29, 2025 7:18 am

Seen to late, sorry, but I linked a tweet about.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Krishna Gans
October 29, 2025 8:24 am

There are no tweets.

Reply to  Jeff Alberts
October 29, 2025 8:33 am

Whatever it’s called today 👍😂

October 29, 2025 7:01 am

No surprise in these quarters.

Rick C
Reply to  Pat Frank
October 29, 2025 10:34 am

Funny how they’re so concerned about identity group diversity but are completely anti thought diversity when it comes to actual scientific concerns like climate, Covid or vaccination. Do Nature publications still ban climate change skeptic papers? Do they ask any skeptics to review climate paper submissions from true believers?

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Rick C
October 30, 2025 6:29 am

Do they even allow skeptic papers from those that check the appropriate DEI boxes?

William Howard
October 29, 2025 7:12 am

does any body even know what “social justice” means – sounds like just another form of communism

J Boles
Reply to  William Howard
October 29, 2025 7:23 am

It means that the deranged leftists are in charge and everyone else is a slave, if allowed to live.

Reply to  J Boles
October 29, 2025 7:38 am

…and on top of that expected to be thankful for all this utter BS

SxyxS
Reply to  William Howard
October 29, 2025 7:53 am

If you want to install tyranny you can’t come up and say ” tyranny” –
you need to cover it in fancy words like Climate, Covid .
Communism no longer works – therefore call it social justice.

As those things don’t come when you need them,
especially not on a global scale you need to invent them into existence.

Just as communism was astroturfed into existence (literally noone knew anything about Moses Hess writings and 99% haven’t read anything from Karl Marx back then, yet unrests all over the place – nowadays called arab springs and colored revolution)
it is needed now as catalyst for a transformation.
The biggest trick here is to create the illusion that it is a grasroot movement wanted by millions and billions and that it is the will of of the people while in fact it has been an idea of very few rich men who forced it upon the rest.

And social justice sounds so much better than oligarchic technocracy.

Reply to  SxyxS
October 29, 2025 8:35 am

Isn’t citing “rich men” also indulging in identity politics?

SxyxS
Reply to  Retired_Engineer_Jim
October 29, 2025 9:15 am

Hmmm…?
Tough to answer.

Considering the low number of female billionaires, especially self-made ones
and the fact that there are no females at the very top of the globalist hierarchy
in any relevant position(quota Bimbos like Merkel,Lagarde, VD Lyen have no say)
throughout the last 100 years,
and that there is only one billionaire tranny
I may get away with this heresy as it is 99% + accurate..

KevinM
Reply to  Retired_Engineer_Jim
October 29, 2025 12:50 pm

Is “rich” an identity?
Seems different than e.g. bushy Greek eyebrows.

KevinM
Reply to  SxyxS
October 29, 2025 12:48 pm

Is Arab Spring still a relevant phrase? It sounds like a last-decade-phrase.

Reply to  KevinM
October 30, 2025 12:05 am

The more generic term is:’ colour revolutions’.Usually put forward by the west to ‘defend Democracy’ie Regime Change. Does anyone think it is a coincidence that it always takes place in countries that are not completely playing ball w US hegemony? And are often close to ‘enemy’ territory? It is well documented.
Anyway, this platform is super critical about Climate Change but many posters here seem very much pro US hegemony, whatever it takes. A strange dichotomy

MarkW
Reply to  ballynally
October 30, 2025 8:54 am

We get it. Any country that doesn’t reflexively oppose the US, is being run by the CIA.

Reply to  William Howard
October 29, 2025 7:57 am

Basically a restatement of communism that entails the (very) forced ‘leveling’ of the economy / society (redundant terms in my opinion) by a centralized authority. To paraphrase the late George Carlin, said authority will be “a big club, and you ain’t in it”.

JonasM
Reply to  William Howard
October 29, 2025 8:12 am

Ayn Rand described something called an ‘anti-concept’. Basically it means that a re-phrasing of something is intended to actually destroy it’s meaning.
So, ‘social justice’ basically means the destruction of the meaning of the word ‘justice’ by adding in a characteristic that overrides the main meaning.
Pure evil, and it works for the average person due to its sounding like it’s concerned about treating people fairly.

Reply to  JonasM
October 29, 2025 11:45 am

Indeed, look at how incredibly successfully they have changed the meaning of “climate change”.

MarkW
Reply to  JonasM
October 30, 2025 8:56 am

Logically speaking, putting the word “justice” in front of anything is the same as putting the word “not” there.

social justice = not justice
social science = not science

For that matter, putting anything in front of justice is the same
environmental justice = not justice

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  William Howard
October 29, 2025 8:19 am

It means, “You will have nothing and you will be happy.”

Reply to  William Howard
October 29, 2025 8:21 am

It means the practioners of “social justice” are morally superior to those who practice “merit based” promotion.

Reply to  William Howard
October 29, 2025 5:05 pm

Socrates struggled with defining “justice.” It sounds like the Left decided to make it more convoluted by adding another word.

MarkW
Reply to  Clyde Spencer
October 30, 2025 8:58 am

Any attempts to modify “justice” ends up making it less just.

Reply to  William Howard
October 29, 2025 9:14 pm

Social “Justice” is disguised Marxism.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Graemethecat
October 30, 2025 6:32 am

Illiberalism is more apt.

TBeholder
Reply to  William Howard
October 30, 2025 9:31 am

As a slogan, it’s much older. But of course, what Plymouth tried was naive Communism without this name attached, so…
Usage of justice as an euphemism for righteousness in general goes back to one John Rawls:

The first thing we notice about Rawls is the title of his famous book, “A Theory of Justice”. As I’ve mentioned before, this is not just hubristic, but actively Orwellian. For about the last 2500 years, the word “justice” and its various Indo-European predecessors have meant “the accurate execution of the law.” Rawls is no more interested in law than I am in dressage, and when he redefines the word “justice” to mean, effectively, “righteousness”, one notes with some dismay that he is confiscating a noun with no existing synonyms.

The Rawlsian god: cryptocalvinism in action

Which for once is quite on-topic, since Dawkins is in the same business, writ large: laundering theology from certain branches of Protestantism to circumvent separation of Church and State.
If you don’t feel some dismay yet… consider the mystery of Armenian genocide. The Armenians say those massacres happened, the Turks say they did not, but do you remember either side offering any details? No? Isn’t this unusual? Then read “The Chatham House Version And Other Middle Eastern Studies” by Elie Kedourie, specifically “Minorities” part. Count euphemisms for “an antinomian sect”, while you are at it. Explains too much, and not only about XIX century East of Mediterranean sea, does it not?

CD in Wisconsin
Reply to  Krishna Gans
October 29, 2025 10:24 am

She’s now seeking asylum in the USA.
__________________

And Germany is supposed to be a NATO ally? I believe I recall USVP JD Vance warning Europe regarding evidence of the breakdown of free speech rights in Europe (and the UK in particular) not too long ago. We in the US are not in NATO to defend nations that suppress human rights.

If they do not want us leaving NATO, then don’t give us reasons to do so.

Reply to  CD in Wisconsin
October 29, 2025 1:02 pm

Vance was so right!

Reply to  CD in Wisconsin
October 30, 2025 12:10 am

The US uses NATO to fight their ‘enemies’, support proxy wars and Regime Changes.
And then Trump pretends NATO is not run by the US, as if it’s an independent operator. Just like he is an ‘intermediate’ in a war between Russia and Ukraine.
The gall!!
Trump threatening to leave NATO is as misleading as they come..

MarkW
Reply to  ballynally
October 30, 2025 9:01 am

We get it. Like MadMani’s father is quoted as saying, “The US is the source of all evil in the world.”

October 29, 2025 7:40 am

Wake me up when Nature retracts MBH98 and its successors. Until then, it’s just another garbage journal that has been overrun by the Left.

Scarecrow Repair
Reply to  Frank from NoVA
October 29, 2025 7:56 am

I let my subscription lapse years ago. There were many many straws. I remember they kept publishing one or two articles a year on advances in climate modeling, and being gobsmacked at them discovering clouds should be factored in. Maybe mountain ranges and other topological features, there were too many silly “advances” to keep track of. But the final straw was an editorial about the US elections and gun control. From a UK science journal? The subscription was up for renewal a month or two later, and I just let it go.

KevinM
Reply to  Frank from NoVA
October 29, 2025 12:55 pm

If they retracted tomorrow, they’d lose most of their subscriber base. It’s a bad moment (has there been a good one?) to be an unemployed left-leaning science writer.

October 29, 2025 7:54 am

The journal Science has taken a sharp left as well.

Reply to  MIke McHenry
October 29, 2025 9:21 am

Scientific American was taken over by the left years ago. It’s just a glitzy liberal rag these days.

Reply to  Steve Case
October 29, 2025 9:35 am

It was great when I started reading in high school in the mid ’60s.

Reply to  Steve Case
October 29, 2025 10:06 am

Springer owns them too

Reply to  Steve Case
October 29, 2025 7:29 pm

More specifically, it was acquired by a German publishing corporation.

hdhoese
October 29, 2025 8:11 am

This is really interesting.The attempts to produce more science in evaluations of human affairs is long standing such as Lotka’s 1920 “Physical Biology.” The later and more elaborate advances (Ethology) may have started with Lorenz, Tinbergen, and von Frisch who were awarded a Nobel Prize, an exceptional and controversial event. Along came “The Selfish Gene” and “The Extended Phenotype” by Dawkins giving more emphasis on the gene structure of DNA rather than the individual. Since then there seems to have been more of a search for ‘God.’ I’m not well read or up to date on this but as a biologist who taught this it seems to be very significant for the field and a problem for Nature and their collaborating journals.

Petey Bird
October 29, 2025 8:21 am

It appears to me that most of academia abandoned science half a century ago. It is an expert opinion echo chamber. If a field of study has science in its name you can be pretty sure that it never tests its hypotheses. Peer review itself is not science and is possibly anti science.

MarkW
Reply to  Petey Bird
October 30, 2025 9:04 am

Most of academia, abandoned academics as well.

TBeholder
Reply to  Petey Bird
October 30, 2025 6:57 pm

Why half a century? Either way, if you talk large scale, like “most of academia”, may as well extend the view in time.

The academia as we all know it (because it’s all more or less reshaped in the image of Harvard, not only in USA) is corrupt. Obviously. What corrupted it? Power is known to do that, and it’s clearly a part of the picture here. So we have a simple hypothesis. Let’s see whether anyone else noticed? Yes:

When you ask experts, who claim to be performing a technical service in which individuals are interchangeable, to wield power—for example, when you exempt their advice from any independent review, or even allow them to control their own funding streams—you are basically sliding the Ring on to the collective fingers of some of the most important professions in a modern human society. […]

The progressives have transferred this invidious position—job description, Ringwraith—from ward heelers to the scholarly tradition of the West. In the process, they have irreparably corrupted the scholarly tradition of the West. And they have not gotten rid of the ward heelers. At least in 1909 there were no (supposed) scholars who were also ward heelers. I’d take ten Boss Crokers for one Rajendra Pachauri.

Judge Sotomayor: a reactionary exegesis by by Mencius Moldbug.

Sounds about right. Once the feedback loop trough power was formed, corruption have started. How else? But which Progressives have started this? When and where did that Ring of Power change hands?

So the Mugwumps believed that, by running a pipe from the limpid spring of academia to the dank sewer of American democracy, they could make the latter run clear again. What they might have considered, however, was that there was no valve in their pipe. Aiming to purify the American state, they succeeded only in corrupting the American mind.

― “A Gentle Introduction to Unqualified Reservations” by Mencius Moldbug, Chapter 6: Brother Jonathan

Mugwumps. That’s late XIX century. After that, it’s but a matter of slow, yet inevitable spread of sewage with time. The rest is down to subjective sense of smell vs. level of contamination in a given part of that body of water.

ResourceGuy
October 29, 2025 8:26 am

What else is on their grocery list? Let’s see it.

Mr.
October 29, 2025 8:29 am

All scientific research papers should be submitted anonomously.

Only after peer review acceptance should authorship and affiliations be provided.

David Spain
Reply to  Mr.
October 29, 2025 9:01 am

Double blind peer review?

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  David Spain
October 30, 2025 6:35 am

Seems like the papers are reviewed by the blind as it is now.

starzmom
Reply to  Mr.
October 29, 2025 4:01 pm

Wonder how many people would be asked to review their own papers? Nah, double blind review is probably a bad idea.

Mr.
Reply to  starzmom
October 29, 2025 5:38 pm

That’s probably what happens now 🙂

MarkW
Reply to  starzmom
October 30, 2025 9:06 am

An honest academic would return the paper and request a different reviewer.
Unfortunately there aren’t a lot of honest academics left.

On the other hand, when the identification of the author and reviewers are revealed at the end of the process, people might notice.

strativarius
October 29, 2025 8:35 am

The Century 21 paradigm.

Knowledge and reason have given way to beliefs and emotions; it isn’t what you know, it’s how you feel about it. As the people who made St.Greta an environmental star put it:

“How is it possible for you to be so easily tricked by something so simple as a story, because you are tricked? Well, it all comes down to one core thing and that is emotional investment. The more emotionally invested you are in anything in your life, the less critical and the less objectively observant you become.” — David JP Phillips, We Don’t Have Time board of directors, “The Magical Science of Storytelling”

Dawkins is right. Social justice can mean whatever you want it to for whichever identity group you have in mind.

Anyone who believes a man can go from XY to XX needs help:

Sex = hardware
Gender = Software glitch.

SxyxS
Reply to  strativarius
October 29, 2025 9:26 am

It’s actually a 20th century paradigm.
The Frankfurt School came up with their “feelings over reality” – plans ( alongside polymorphic perversion ) a 100 years ago andit was massively pushed since the hippie movement.

And all those “glitches”(gender,pronouns,safe zones) are intentional features that have been forced on society, not glitches.

strativarius
Reply to  SxyxS
October 29, 2025 9:29 am

But… it gained its power in the 21st Century.

The EU? Come on, Coudenhove-Kalergi’s Pan Europe was delayed by decades thanks to some whacko Austrian corporal…

SxyxS
Reply to  strativarius
October 29, 2025 10:20 am

I’m really surprised that out of all people, you came up with the Kalergi Plan,
( the Barbra Spectre Video may help to verify it ).

While I haven’t mentioned the EU(and therefore don’t exactly know what you are aiming at).
No EU = no Kalergi plan possible to open up borders everywhere.
No WW1/ WW2 = no league of nations = no UN.
The power was already there all over the place – otherwise feelings= feminization would have been countered by half,probably most of the countries as natural response.
(look at the carplate of the Limousine the Archduke? was shot in by Princip.
Maybe you get an idea how much of a coincidence WW1 was)

And as you talked about the Austrian Painter( Sponsored by JPM. JDR and Prescott Bush),
let me anger you by quoting someone you like.
Someone who was always 2 steps ahead,someone with the same ethnicity as Barbra Spectre (and someone who died after he released a movie about powerful people and sex rituals,just as his peer PP Passolini).

” The austrian painter was right , with almost everything he said”

Stanley Kubrick

strativarius
Reply to  SxyxS
October 29, 2025 12:47 pm

Have you not read Kalergi’s tome: Praktischer Idealismus?

https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Idealism-Kalergi-destroy-European/dp/1913057097

2hotel9
October 29, 2025 8:39 am

Kids? This happened over 30 years ago.

October 29, 2025 8:39 am

Do not forget “Science” which is not – especially in its editorializing. The EiC, thankfully, was ejected from my university.

E. Schaffer
October 29, 2025 8:46 am

Nature has become a mouth piece of the CCP. Really, they published this in 2015..

comment image

According to it, they falsely claim 49.9 / 71.3 = 0.6, or 40% less, so that chinese coal held 40% less carbon than “the IPCC thought”. With that “insight” China burning ridiculous amounts of coal is not so bad..

It is not just that chart, but the essential finding of that paper. From the abstract:

We find that total energy consumption in China was 10 per cent higher in 2000–2012 than the value reported by China’s national statistics, that emission factors for Chinese coal are on average 40 per cent lower than the default values recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

I can not really believe how 24 authors AND the peer review have all failed seeing that 49.9/71.3 = 0.7, not 0.6. This is either kindergarden level idiocy, or alternatively the message “we do not care, we make true whatever we want”..

E. Schaffer
Reply to  E. Schaffer
October 29, 2025 8:48 am

Here is the paper btw..

Liu et al 2015

Reply to  E. Schaffer
October 29, 2025 8:54 am

Consider the author list and it is entirely clear.

SxyxS
Reply to  E. Schaffer
October 29, 2025 9:20 am

China and India have almost quadrupled their coal usage since the start of this century.

Therefore you have to come up with some serious nonsense to keep the decarbonasation of the west going.

David Spain
October 29, 2025 9:05 am

The Times mis-quotes what the ‘E’ in DEI is. It is not “equality” it is “equity”. And they are not the same thing.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  David Spain
October 30, 2025 6:38 am

Thank you.

October 29, 2025 9:26 am

““research findings are… relevant and address the needs of different communities””

That’s not what science is about.

mleskovarsocalrrcom
October 29, 2025 10:17 am

“Social justice” is just another Marxist tool to fool the masses. Keeping the narrative alive will last until they are in power and that’s when everybody realizes it means equal poverty for everyone but the elites.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  mleskovarsocalrrcom
October 29, 2025 10:26 am

But “It’s got electrolytes.”

Reply to  Sparta Nova 4
October 30, 2025 9:07 am

And social justice is gluten free.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  doonman
October 30, 2025 12:17 pm

I like that. 🙂

Reply to  mleskovarsocalrrcom
October 29, 2025 12:56 pm

An updated version of “Animal Farm”.
(Except, today, the “farmer” they want to oust isn’t the bad guy.)

Bob
October 29, 2025 12:53 pm

I know little about peer review but it appears to me that if professor Krylov had agreed to peer review for Nature it would have increased the value of Nature’s peer review by orders of magnitude.

October 29, 2025 4:57 pm

… ensuring scientific studies were not overwhelmingly produced by people from any one background was ‘essential to achieving high quality scientific outputs’

Is it being suggested that people of some backgrounds are incapable of acting as the classic “disinterested observer” and their “scientific outputs” need to be balanced by those think the ‘right’ way, or that for controversial hypotheses, the majority opinion should have sway over logic and facts? It certainly looks to be the case.

I do wish that someone would explain just how different genders or ethnicities can improve on objective facts and impeccable logic. Otherwise, I might come to the conclusion that there are some people who are just looking to ‘stuff the ballot box’ so that a vote will produce a majority that agree with their unsupported opinion. Apparently those of the ‘Progressive Persuasion’ don’t understand that “consensus” and “science” don’t belong in the same sentence. That is probably because they don’t understand the Scientific Method and think that facts are discerned through voting.

TBeholder
October 30, 2025 9:02 am

Richard Dawkins

This dude again?

Nature Has “Abandoned Science for Social Justice” Says Richard Dawkins

That’s fairly obvious. Would it not be more interesting to find out for what did Richard Dawkins himself abandon it?