The most extreme incursion of ideology into ecology and evolution I’ve ever seen

The paper below, which is likely paywalled if you click on the screenshot (but a pdf is still accessible here) shows how deeply my own field, organismal biology, has been infected by ideologues—deeply authoritarian ones. It’s from a once-respectable journal (Trends in Ecology & Evolution), which apparently has now drunk the Kool-Aid of “political correctness” (“wokeness,” if you will), producing an article that is so bizarre and so  off-putting, that none of the several colleagues I sent it to could finish it.

But I did, saving you the trouble. (It’s short, though, so you should read it from the pdf link if you’re an ecologist or evolutionist.) If Ibram Kendi were a biologist of this type, this is the paper he would have written, for, as you’ll see, it’s right out of the CRT playbook. It is full of distorted, overblown, or purely speculative assertions, and here are its major points:

a.) Ecology and evolution are thoroughly permeated by racism—structural racism that is deeply embedded in the way we still do science.

b.) We (here I mean “people not of color”) are all complicit in this racism, and we must constantly ponder our bigotry and persistently try to rid ourselves of it.

c.) Our curriculum is thoroughly “Eurocentric” and has to be “decolonized” for the good of all.

d.)  Ecology and evolution cannot be taught properly without continually emphasizing the racism of the fields, racism said to be a big source of inequity in STEM. We must infuse all of our courses with a strong emphasis on the history and reality of racism, showing our students how the field was and is complicit in the creation of present inequities.

I don’t know whether to critique the whole thing point by point, or let you see the problems yourself. I think I’ll try a hybrid approach.

The abstract:

Racism permeates ecology, evolution, and conservation biology (EECB). Meaningfully advancing equity, inclusion, and belonging requires an interdisciplinary antiracist pedagogical approach to educate our community in how racism shaped our field. Here, we apply this framework, highlight disparities and interdisciplinary practices across institutions globally, and emphasize that self-reflection is paramount before implementing anti-racist interventions.

The short answer to the first sentence is, “No it doesn’t.” Yes, you can find instances of bigotry in the field, as you can everywhere, but no rational biologist I know would make such an extreme and unsupported statement unless they have an ideological agenda that requires this claim.

The article starts, as do all of its ilk in science journals, by invoking George Floyd and Black Lives Matter. It then proceeds onto boilerplate Critical Race Theory:

Anti-racist pedagogies ‘teach about race and racism [to foster] critical analytical skills [and reveal] power relations behind racism and how race has been institutionalized’ [5]. Unlike inclusive pedagogy, anti-racist strategies not only involve acknowledging students’ backgrounds and perspectives but also require combating oppressive systems favoring Whiteness at the expense of minoritized students. Traditional science history teachings provide one example of how EECB perpetuates racism systemically. When EECB instructors focus primarily on foundational accomplishments of White European men (e.g., Darwin, Mendel) while ignoring why women and people of color were excluded from science and education for centuries, they reinforce that EECB, and STEM broadly, is advanced only by White European men and that women and people of color do not belong.

This pernicious form of oppression and ethnocentrism reinforces systemic racism in higher education globally, which contributes to (i) academic disparities of minoritized STEM students in the USA, UK, and Australia [6,7]; (ii) mistreatment of international postdoctoral scholars of color in Canada, Australia, and European countries [8]; and (iii) underrepresentation of Black, Latinx, Native American, and [6,7]; (ii) mistreatment of international postdoctoral scholars of color in Canada, Australia, and European countries [8]; and (iii) underrepresentation of Black, Latinx, Native American, and Asian persons broadly in EECB in the USA [2,9]. This has downstream impacts, including stereotyping international postdoctoral scholars during faculty hiring processes in the USA and UK [8] and a 1.8-fold and 1.9-fold advantage for White faculty receiving federal funding compared with Black faculty in the USA and UK, respectively [10]. Breaking these cycles requires departments and institutions to identify and counter the racism that has shaped EECB.

What do you do about this? Well, you could try teaching straight ecology and evolution, as we do at the University of Chicago, but that wouldn’t contain enough ideology to satisfy the authors, and wouldn’t make people of whiteness feel guilty enough. Plus it would, the authors claim, perpetrate racism, and fail to make us feel sufficiently guilty for being complicit in a system that, according to the authors, seems mainly constructed to oppress people.  The solution? Deeply imbue your courses with modern “progressive” antiracism, pointing out both past and present bigotry whenever possible, and also always keep in mind our own bigotry:

To promote racial awareness, EECB must be anti-racist and interdisciplinary. This means discussing racism in courses, even in those in which race is not the subject matter. . . .

We implore instructors to first reflect on their positionality with racism and identify how multiple disciplines inform the course content through anti-racism (see ‘Step one’ section). Although self-reflection is imperative, we do not imply that this is ‘one and done’ to become anti-racist. Critical self-reflection about racism requires continuous effort [5] and while there are many recommended interventions [1,2], it is a myth to be ‘fully racially aware’ before implementation. Having the vulnerability to apply interventions and learn through failure while reacting openly to feedback rather than defensively is how we move toward antiracism, and continued self-reflection helps identify defensive behaviors. This is necessary to truly couple interdisciplinary and anti-racist strategies to create a more authentic and inclusive learning experience for students and instructors.

This of course sets up race and racism as not only the major social problem to be (and presumably that can be) ameliorated through teaching college courses in ecology and evolution, but also browbeats the instructor to adopt that point of view. In this sense the article is divisive, because it trains us to ALWAYS look at and ponder race, even when teaching our courses.  I can’t help but think that scientists hectored to adopt this kind of ideology will resist it, since what most of us really want to do is teach and do research in ecology and evolution, reserving our efforts to save the world for personal time outside the classroom. Most of us don’t envision ecology and evolution as an form of ideological indoctrination: that’s not why we went into the field.  While of us are on the Left, we try to keep that out of our classes.

The authors give several examples of how traditional education is filled with racism. The most invidious, to me, is their take on Darwin:

One topic discussed the traditional history of Charles Darwin followed by the untold histories of John Edmonstone, the Black former slave who taught Darwin taxidermy, and Syms Covington, a servant who organized Darwin’s collection during the HMS Beagle expedition. Darwin’s historic accomplishments would have been impossible without Edmonstone and Covington. This offers many avenues for discussion: (i) Darwin’s development of ecological and evolutionary theories (e.g., ethnocentrism); (ii) Darwin’s privilege in traveling on the HMS Beagle; (iii) the racism, erasure, and classism behind the histories of Edmonstone and Covington; and (iv) the social constructs behind restricting dissemination of Darwin’s discoveries (i.e., those with access to education) and shaping the public’s common knowledge about Darwin but not Edmonstone and Covington (e.g., exclusion, oppression). Similar histories exist across other biology disciplines (Table 1).

While it is an interesting historical sidelight that Darwin was taught to preserve specimens in Edinburgh by a former slave, and that he took on a cabin boy as his personal assistant—Covington, who replaced a sailor appointed by Captain FitzRoy to assist Darwin—to say that Darwin’s “historic accomplishments would have been impossible without these two men” is arrant nonsense.  For one thing, had Darwin not learned taxidermy from Edmonstone, he would have learned it from someone else. Yes, Edmonstone was black, and his contribution to Darwin’s education should be pointed out, but it’s crazy to pretend that Darwin could not have written the Origin (or his many other works) without Edmonstone. (Steve Gould, for one, though that Darwin’s other work, including on barnacles, played a key role in formulating Darwin’s ideas.) As my former student Joe Cain (who helped dig out out the forgotten association between Darwin and John Edmonstone) wrote:

Accounts in the 21st century tend to exaggerate John’s importance to Darwin as distinct from the many other people in his orbit. He’s presented as “the man who taught Darwin” and the person who inspired him to look towards South America for its amazing natural history. In comparison, we must balance this with reflections on what Darwin said about other people, such as Robert Edmond Grant for inspiration while in Edinburgh (Desmond 1984); Alexander Humboldt for imagining the “entangled bank” of the South American rainforest (Wulf 2016); and Syms Covington for teaching specific technical skills in taxidermy (MacDonald 1998). The amplification of John’s role in Darwin’s work surely is an example of heritage’s impact on historical study. Likewise, seeing John only through the lens of Darwin’s seeming eminence does him a disservice. He has his own story to tell, such as in the history of taxidermists and taxidermy as a skilled trade. Likewise, Desmond and Moore (2009) point to Edinburgh in the 1820s as an important location for once-enslaved, now-emancipated men. There is much to learn.

Accounts in the 21st century also exaggerate the supposed “hidden” nature of the association between John and Darwin. To me, John’s story seems an exemplar for the “invisible technician” role so well known and long studied in history of science, technology, and medicine. In 2009 a commemorative plaque to John Edmonstone was installed near the site of his home in Edinburgh, though it was later stolen and has not been replaced. (I would like to see a replacement installed, and I’ll help raise the money to do it. I’ve asked Historic Scotland.)

Many, many people contributed to both the physical efforts and mental lucubrations that went into Darwin’s theories. For example, Edmonstone learned crucial methods of preserving skins from his former slave-holder, Charles Waterton, who could be said to have made a contribution to Darwin’s taxonomy coequal to that of Edmonstone. Waterton, whose contribution was essential, is not mentioned above. And it’s likely that had Edmonstone not set up shop to teach taxidermy in Edinburgh, Darwin would have learned it himself. After all, even after leaving Edinburgh, Darwin continued to follow the literature on taxidermy to improve his skills.

As for Covington, he was a replacement for another sailor appointed to be Darwin’s helper, but Darwin didn’t think it fair to take a regular sailor, as opposed to a cabin boy, away from the ship. Darwin would have had an assistant no matter what. Remember, he had money (his voyage was funded by his father).

This is not to denigrate the contributions of Edmonstone and Covington, for they should surely be mentioned in Darwin’s biography, and it is remarkable that a black man had a taxidermy business in 19th-century Edinburgh. The problem with this argument is that we know so little about Edmonstone’s interactions with Darwin (see Cain’s article) that we can’t even judge how much of the taxidermy Darwin used on the Beagle came from the former slave. We know more about Covington, who, is amply discussed in Darwin’s biographies.

The point is that many, many people made crucial contributions to the nexus of circumstances that evntually led to Darwin’s ideas. Another was the British ornithologist John Gould, who analyzed Darwin’s collection of birds and showed him that what Darwin thought was a sundry mixture of wrens, finches, mockingbirds, and other species really included a large group of finches. That got Darwin thinking about relatedness, island endemism, speciation, and common descent, absolutely critical for Darwin’s ideas.  Finally, even Fitzroy himself collected birds on the voyage, and donated the collection to the British Museum. I’m not sure if he did the taxidermy himself.

The point is that there were others who made contributions to Darwin’s labors at least as significant as Edmonstone’s and Covington’s, and to say that Darwin’s ideas would have been impossible without those two men is not only the height of hyperbole, but also bizarre. It is only in the service of ideology that authors can make a statement like that.

Unlike the technical contributions of Edmonstone and Covington, Darwin’s achievements, and his fame today, was due to how he worked out ideas from them: evolution and natural selection. This was largely sui generis, stemming from Darwin’s genius on top of his synthesis of data from people around the world.  I strongly suspect that he would have had those ideas without taxonomy, as the bird collections in the Galapagos played no clear role in Darwin’s thinking: they aren’t mentioned in The Origin, and he drew on many other lines of evidence in his big book.

There is also a big two-column table, with “traditional” teaching given in the first column, and the authors’ recommended “anti-racist” examples in the second. I’ll just give a couple of examples (click them to enlarge):

Henrietta Lacks (a black woman who died of cervical cancer) did not have her cells “stolen”. At the time, it was not going procedure to ask any patient if their cells could be used, and in fact the cells of several people, including Dr. Gey himself, were cultured. It turned out that Lacks’s cells were robust to tissue culture, and have been widely used (given away, not sold, though some companies made money from them). In her wonderful book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, all of this is recounted by author Rebecca Skloot (I reviewed that book very positively in 2010.)  Now we have become more enlightened and ask patients if we can use material from their bodies for research, but it’s simply impossible to claim that Lack’s cells were “stolen”, any more than any other cells were stolen. There is a lawsuit that’s been going for several years against a company that profited from using her cells (called “HeLa” cells).

Darwin is in the table, but we’ve already discussed him.

And here’s how we should revise our teaching of “environmental science”:

What is added to teaching the toxic effects of Agent Orange by saying that black soldiers were most at risk (black GIs were overrepresented among combat troops), or that the military was integrated in wartime? Only as a way to find a racial hook to environmental science, which normally wouldn’t include discussions of Agent Orange, anyway.

There is, I claim, no way that you can’t find a way work race into any topic in ecology and evolution, no matter how convoluted your investigations have to be. Here’s a convoluted one:

What this has to do with ecology and evolution baffles me.  Does it mean that every time you mention a college, you have to try to find some hook, however tenuous, to race? In this case it’s doubly removed from Harvard: Harvard trained ministers, and some of those ministers preached to indigenous people. Seriously? Do you need to say this in a course on ecology and evolution?  Does it reduce racial tension?

Finally, there is the pervasive assumption that inequities reflect ongoing and system racism, something that, when you deal with minorities, cannot automatically be assumed. Different groups can submit more grants per capita (thus getting a lower per capita funding rate, since if you get one grant it’s less likely you’ll get more), submit propsals to areas which are less likely to give grants (we know this is true for some groups), and so on. I invite you, if you wish, to scrutinize the claim below and then examine reference supporting it, as it’s part of the author’s claim that there is ongoing racism in science:

. . . . [there is] a 1.8-fold and 1.9-fold advantage for White faculty receiving federal funding compared with Black faculty in the USA and UK, respectively [10].

In general, I think that the authors have played fast and loose with the historical facts and scientific data in order to indict ecology and evolution, and I’m surprised that TREE, historically a good journal, would publish a paper in which the claims are not closely scrutinized and the data not examined to see if they actually support the authors’ claims. All I know is that TREE would never publish a critique of that paper like the one you’re reading now.

Some of  authors actually taught a seminar on this topic, and if you read the paper, you’ll see that the seminar is about ideology, not ecology and evolution, and its goal is to propagandize students with the tenets of Critical Race Theory: pervasive oppression by whites, continuing structural racism, a never-ending struggle for power, and so on. Here’s part of the “pedagogy”:

Anti-racist pedagogy: Reflecting on how our identities and privileges relate to racism: By the second seminar, students read articles about racism in STEM (see Table S1) and completed a journal reflection on how their identities and privileges relate to racism. Then we had small- and large-group discussions (instructor facilitated large-group discussion) about the readings and assignment.

And that is the problem with articles like this: they try to turn science into a vehicle for ideology and politics. The purpose of ecology and evolution courses is turned sharply away from actually teaching the subject to using it to propagandize students with a particular view of society and social justice. And, as the authors say, you can (and should) do this in every course.

This is a diversion from the purpose of science education and, what’s more, this kind of breathlessly hectoring instruction is likely to be divisive. We can see this in the way that the authors struggle to find some lesson about race in everything about ecology and evolution. People who actually want to learn the subject may be turned off by such a program, and certainly it’s not going to accomplish its purpose of bringing people together. With the relentless focus on racism, guilt, and the need for white people to constantly scrutinize their persona for bigotry and indict the field, it can lead only perpetual divisions between ethnic groups.