For several years a group of us have been working on a paper on censorship in the sciences, and it’s finally come out in the Journal of Controversial Ideas (go here to access all the papers ever published). This “heterodox” journal founded in November 2018 by moral philosophers Francesca Minerva, Jeff McMahan, and Peter Singer. It’s peer-reviewed and open access, but believe me, the reviews are every bit as stringent as those for a science “journal of noncontroversial ideas.”
At any rate, our paper came out, but I didn’t realize that it was part of a special issue on censorship in the sciences until Heterodox at USC posted an announcement. Here’s part of it:
A special issue of the Journal of Controversial Ideas published today explores the serious problem of censorship plaguing the sciences, from the classroom to the research lab to scientific journals. The special issue contains 9 peer-reviewed papers including:
● From Worriers to Warriors: The Cultural Rise of Women by Cory Clark, Executive Director of the Adversarial Project at the University of Pennsylvania
● Fire the Censors! It’s the Only Way to Restore Free Inquiry by Robert Maranto, 21st Century Chair in Leadership at the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas
● Silencing Science at MIT: MIT Shows that Cancel Culture Causes Self-Censorship at STEM Universities by Wayne Stargardt, President of the MIT Free Speech Alliance
● With Friends Like These: On the Role of Presupposition in Pseudo-Defenses of Free Speech on Campus by Mike Veber, Associate Professor of Philosophy at East Carolina University
The collection expands upon subjects discussed at the Censorship in the Sciences conference held at the University of Southern California in January 2025. Over 100 academics gathered for three days to discuss what constitutes censorship, how this problem impacts scientific research and teaching, and how to combat its spread.
The collection also includes an introduction highlighting the themes discussed at the conference.
Contrary to the popular belief that censorship emanates mostly from authoritarian governments or religious mandates, this conference and follow-up publications, including this special issue, revealed that self-censorship and censorship attempts led by academics against their peers form the majority of “cancellations” occurring within the academy today.
Moreover, such censoring of science originates largely from the progressive left. This is unsurprising, given that the academy is now overwhelmingly dominated by faculty who self-identify as liberal or progressive.
Such intra-academic censorship is a serious problem, as the introduction to the special issue makes clear: “Academic jobs and promotions require letters of recommendation from colleagues. Grants necessitate approval from other academics, as do publications. Thus, control over the careers of scientists from within academia influences what subjects are researched and what scientific information is disseminated. In short, it is academics who are the gatekeepers of knowledge production and dissemination. They have the means to block publication, funding, and even employment of their peers.”
You can peruse the contents, and choose which papers you want to read, if any, by clicking on the screenshot below. You can get our paper, which puts present instances of censorship in historical context (including censorship in Soviet Russia), by clicking below.
And the abstract:
The 20th century witnessed unimaginable atrocities perpetrated in the name of ideologies that stifled dissent in favour of political narratives, with numerous examples of resulting long-term societal harm. Despite clear historical precedents, calls to deal with dissent through censorship have risen dramatically. Most alarmingly, politically motivated censorship has risen in the academic community, where pluralism is most needed to seek truth and generate knowledge. Recent calls for censorship have come under the name of “consequences culture”, a culture structured around the inclusion of those sharing a particular narrative while imposing adverse consequences on those who dissent. Here, we place “consequences culture” in the historical context of totalitarian societies, focusing on the fate suffered by academics in those societies. We support our arguments with extensive references, many of which are not widely known in the West. We invite the broader scientific community to consider yet again what are timeless subjects: the importance of freely exchanging views and ideas; the freedom to do so without fear of intimidation; the folly of undermining such exchanges with distortions; and the peril of attempting to eliminate exchanges by purging published documents from the official record. We conclude with suggestions on where to go from here.
It’s a cry in the wilderness. . . ,.
Yours is a good piece. Rogue editors—those who use their positions of power to promote biased political or social narratives—seem to pose a serious risk to honest and open debate. Maybe editorial boards should exercise more authority in the review process and institute periodic reviews of how well the journal(s) in their charge adhere to standards of editorial conduct. We’ve not yet degraded to the level of Nazi- or Soviet-era censorship, but journal editors can and should be held to account. Scientific American comes to mind as an example where an editor was eventually relieved of her position. It took way too long, but it got done in the end.
I’ve just started the article on “Censorship of Essential Debate on Gender Medicine Research”: https://journalofcontroversialideas.org/article/5/2/298
Looking forward to reading our host’s paper.
It’s a cry in the wilderness. . . , I’m not so sure, the message seems to (s-l-o-w-l-y) be getting out there.
Do any of these papers address censorship in climate science? For more than twenty years, I have heard skeptics of climate extremism called “climate deniers.”
Is there censorship of contrarian claims in climate science? Honestly, I don’t know if there is. But meanwhile climate change is very real, and the evidence is very strong that it’s specifically caused by burning of fossil fuels coupled with release of other greenhouse gasses thru melting polar ice and permafrost.
Apparently there’s a school of thought that agrees it’s real but thinks we shouldn’t worry it about so much:
Bill Gates Has Finally Admitted That Climate Doomerism Is a Mistake
https://www.thefp.com/p/bill-gates-has-finally-admitted-that-climate-doomerism-mistake
I highly recommend the 30-minute conference presentation I linked to below.
There is no paper on censorship of climate science in the special issue; however, there was a talk on the subject at the conference (of which the special issue is the proceedings). You can view the talk here. It is on the Day 1 video, starting at about 6:16:10.
Sounds like an interesting issue. Thanks for the introduction.
This article in the Journal of Controversial Ideas is a refreshingly honest assessment of where we are in the world of “gender” thought and medicine today, and rightly assigns the blame where a lot of it belongs, with the academic journals and medical institutions where “treatment guidelines” are being drawn from.
Finally, these institutions are called out and named for their complicity with the corruption of evidence that has resulted in actual harm to real people.
Well done, J. Cohn.
Such a valuable contribution! Congratulations.