Category Archives: Cancel Culture

Richard Dawkins canceled at Trinity College Dublin

September 28, 2020 – 9:00 am

The University Times, the student newspaper of Trinity College Dublin, reports that an invited address by Richard Dawkins has been canceled. The rescinded invitation was initially tendered by “The Hist”, the University Historical Society, who withdrew it. Why? Because Dawkins’s past statements on Islam and sexual assault might cause “discomfort” to the students. Click on […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in college students behaving badly, freedom of expression | Comments (81)

Art exhibit “postponed” because of hooded Klan figures in paintings

September 26, 2020 – 1:00 pm

The tide of wokeism has come so far into shore that now it’s forbidden to even depict any subject that offends people, even if you’re depicting it to decry, criticize, and demonize bigotry or racism. Or, if you’re doing that, but are not of the “right” race or group to do it, you will still […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in art | Comments (41)

More college overkill: Professor suspended for using the term “chinese virus” to refer to Covid-19

September 22, 2020 – 1:15 pm

A simple in-person admonition to instructor John Ucker, who teaches mechanical and materials engineering at the University of Cincinnati, would have sufficed to correct the egregious misstep described in the title, at least egregious by the lights of “thousands of people.” But Ucker has instead been suspended for calling Covid-19 “the chinese virus”. You can […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in college students behaving badly, Colleges acting badly | Comments (63)

J. K. Rowling again demonized on bogus grounds

September 17, 2020 – 9:00 am

There is no middle ground on J. K. Rowling; you consider her either an unrepentant transphobe or a feminist who, while accepting transgendered women’s self-identification in most respects, doesn’t think that they should always be treated the same as biological women. I hold the latter point of view, as I’ve read her explanation for the […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in books, sex and gender issues, wokeness, women's rights | Comments (83)

Will Darwin be canceled?

September 16, 2020 – 10:00 am

Given the scientific and political luminaries who have fallen under the axe, it’s not beyond possibility that Charles Darwin himself may undergo a “reevaluation,” with people discovering what we already knew: Darwin, like many people of the mid-19th century, had some bigoted views of whites (i.e., Brits) as a superior race. Yet Darwin never did […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in Darwin bashing, wokeness | Comments (58)

Bill Maher, Malcolm Nance, and Andrew Sullivan on removing monuments

September 15, 2020 – 12:45 pm

Speaking of tearing down statues, here are two people, foreign policy analyst and Malcolm Nance and Andrew Sullivan, having a brief discussion about which statues should be removed today’s political climate. Nance doesn’t strictly adhere to Maher’s time limits, and digresses quite a bit, but I generally agree with both guests.

By whyevolutionistrue | Comments (40)

Another criterion for judging whether to “cancel” someone

September 15, 2020 – 11:00 am

Although I don’t spend a lot of time calling for people to be unpersoned, canceled, or have their statues toppled or namesakes changed, I do try to discern whether “cancellation” calls are justified or unwarranted. Clearly there’s no good criteria that will work all the time, so it usually comes down to a judgment call.  […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in morality, wokeness | Comments (64)

David Hume canceled

September 13, 2020 – 10:00 am

UPDATE: Over at his website, my Chicago colleague Brian Leiter, a philosopher and legal scholar, has a good take on Hume. An excerpt: What’s bizarre about the mass delusion now gripping the Anglophone world, even outside the U.S., is that no one yet knows whether George Floyd was killed because he was Black, rather than poor, marginalized, and non-cooperative (which […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in wokeness | Comments (41)

Darwin next for cancellation?

September 6, 2020 – 11:00 am

A couple of upset readers sent me links to the article below, but I don’t think it’s time to get upset quite yet. It’s not clear that the Cancel Culture will come for Darwin, though the Telegraph article below implies it. What it actually reports is that the Natural History Museum in London is assaying […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in evolution | Comments (32)

VICE tries desperately to smear Steve Pinker

September 3, 2020 – 10:15 am

The very title of this VICE Motherboard piece (click on screenshot below) is part of a multifaceted attempt to smear Steve Pinker, calling him a “free speech crusader” who nevertheless has blocked people on Twitter who connected his name with Epstein. And the smear continues in the first paragraph, implying that somehow this blocking is […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in journalists behaving badly | Comments (56)