Invitation to Protest The Illiberal Takeover of Psychology
Protest Letter Now Open to Anyone
YOU are now invited to protest the Association for Psychological Science (APS) caving to a an illiberal1 academic outrage mob by summarily ousting the editor of one of its major journals (Perspectives on Psychological Science, aka PoPS) in the face of spurious charges of racism and editorial malfeasance. YOU — i.e., anyone, academic, librarian, flight attendants, cashiers, students, full time homemakers — are invited to protest this by signing the open letter.
The letter is reprinted below, but you can find it here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PRWqi065dj4CNCFLxozlbehBP5QID-5AE3HIHF8tlWk/edit?usp=sharing
You can sign it here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdf-s5mEv51FmfFNUwLyBUjr96a86CF6zjV_yeocwFD4RZZlQ/viewform
Why Sign?
To register your protest against rule of academia by illiberal outrage mobs
To register your protest against craven leaders who surrender due process to appease outrage mobs
Because this is an easy thing you can do to say, “This sort of illiberalism — rejection of due process and endorsement of censorship — is unacceptable anywhere.”
If not you, who? If not now, when?
Because you care about liberal democratic norms of open debate and discussion, due process, and open intellectual inquiry.
Because you wish to condemn demonization and censorship as modes of academic and scientific discourse.
Because you wish to say to the would-be Modern Book Burners, “this is not acceptable” (the mob called for removal of 5 papers that had been duly accepted by PoPS on the basis of editorial malfeasance that was never demonstrated and/or on the basis of allegations of racism that were entirely concocted and easily debunked).
To protest, and resist, the rise of these illiberal trends writ large. Yes, this is a relatively small conflict caught up in a rising tide of illiberalism throughout the U.S. (such as described here, here, here or here). But authoritarianism writ large can and has been felled by acts of assertive liberalism writ small.
Gory Details Here:
Deconstructing APS’s Inadequate Explanations for Firing Fiedler
I have a slew of essays on various aspects of this, including one on my racist mule, morally outraged in the best sense resignation letters (from APS and the PoPS editorial board) by Joachim Krueger, the full set of five papers denounced as racist (“Forbidden Perspectives”) and more (browse Unsafe Science and you can’t miss it).
OPEN LETTER
Board of Directors, and the
President and President-Elect of the Association of Psychological Science
Profs. Alison Gopnik and Wendy Wood,
Dear Alison and Wendy,
We are writing to express our deep concern about your decision to summarily dismiss Klaus Fiedler as editor of PoPS. Having considered all the evidence available to us, we feel that the Association’s actions were unfair, unjustified and a complete denial of due process and the kind objectivity and rationality that one can reasonably expect from a scientific association.
Editors should always have a great deal of latitude in selecting reviewers and deciding how to deal with a manuscript. Fiedler’s actions suggest that he hoped to get an informed discussion going on the pages of PoPS on a vitally important topic – the forceful political infusion of ideological positions into what should be an objective and rational science.
As far as the evidence is available, Fiedler has not done anything to justify his instant dismissal. The reviewers he selected were chosen based on merit and their proven expertise. The fact that they were all critical of Roberts' ideologically driven research in no way indicates bias. They all offered detailed and reasonable justifications for their assessments.
Roberts' suggestion that their status as 'senior white males' had anything to do with their critical assessment of his work is itself racist. Racial status should play no role in selecting reviewers as Roberts implies, nor are editors obliged to seek more favorable reviews to balance the unfavorable ones.
The APS in almost instantly terminating Fiedler acted in a reprehensible way that is not fitting for a scientific association. Your action represents a complete betrayal of fundamental principles of fairness, due process and objectivity, as the German Psychological Association also stated. Members have not been consulted, the process was not open and transparent, and Fiedler was not given adequate opportunity to explain his actions.
Even more worrying is that hundreds of our colleagues signed a petition demanding Fiedler's dismissal, without having the benefit of hearing his explanation. We should all be profoundly concerned by this serious violation of fundamental academic principles by our own scientific association.
We request that you revisit this issue, give Fiedler equal chance to explain his actions, and publish both sides of the case so that all members of APS can have access to the relevant facts and make up their mind accordingly. In particular, those who rushed to judgment without full information should have an opportunity to reconsider their position. We look forward to your urgent response.
A prior version of the same letter, restricted to academics, phds, and scientists, has already been sent, and if you signed that letter, no need to sign this one.
** To add your name to the signatories list click here.
Signatories of prior letter:
Prof. R.I.M. Dunbar, University of Oxford, UK
Prof. Mario Mikulincer, Reichman University, Israel
Professor Catherine Salmon , University of Redlands
Prof. Joachim Krueger, Brown University, USA
Prof. Geoffrey Miller, University of New Mexico, APS Fellow
Prof. Jonathan Haidt, NYU-Stern School of Business
Prof. Pamela Paresky, Johns Hopkins University
Prof. Roy Baumeister, University of Queensland
Prof. Joseph Forgas, Psychology, UNSW, Sydney
Prof. Brad Bushman, Ohio State University
Sally Satel MD, Yale University School of Medicine
Prof. Lee Jussim, Rutgers University
Prof. Yair Amichai-Hamburger, Reichman University
Prof. Peter Swan, University of New South Wales, Sydney
Prof. Nira Lieberman, University of Tel Aviv
Prof. Gun Semin, Utrecht University
Prof. Keith Stanovich, University of Toronto
Prof. Dr. W. Stroebe, University of Groningen
Prof. Michael Mills, Loyola Marymount University
Prof. George Paxinos, NEURA, Australia
Prof. Steven Pinker, Harvard University
Prof. Bernhard Hommel, University of Dresden
Prof. Paula J. Stanovich, Portland State University
Prof. Gilad Hirschberger, Reichman University
Prof. Patrizia Catellani, Catholic University of Milan
Prof. Yavor Paunov, Royal institute of Technology, Stockholm
Prof. Csaba Pleh, Central European University, Vienna
Prof. Mark van Vugt, Free University of Amsterdam
Prof. Steve Stewart-Williams, University of Nottingham Malaysia
Prof. George Marcus, Williams College, USA
Prof. Joel Cooper, Princeton University
Prof. Ken Sheldon, University of Missouri, USA
Prof. Anna Krylov, University of Southern California
Prof. Doug Kenrick, Arizona State University
Bill Frezza, MIT Free Speech Alliance
Prof. Bob Maranto
Prof. Marco Del Giudice, University of New Mexico, USA
Prof. J. Michael Bailey, Northwestern University
Prof. Joseph H. Manson, University of California, Los Angeles
Prof. James West, Vanderbilt University
Prof. Chris C. Martin, Oglethorpe University, USA
Prof. Jessica Hehman, University of Redlands
Prof. Andreas Bikfalvi, University of Bordeaux, France
Prof. Dorian Abbot, The University of Chicago
Prof. Robert Knapp, Reed College
Prof. David Kane, Harvard University
Prof. David Mandel, York University
Dr. Eddie Waldrep, Dept. Veterans affairs
Dr. Jane Fisher, University of Nevada, Reno
Dr. Colin Wright, Manhattan Institute
Dr. Carl Beuke, New Zealand
Prof. Ed Gehringer, North Carolina State university
Prof. Glenn Geher, State University of New York
Prof. Rebecca Shiner, Colgate University
Prof. Delroy Paulhus, University of British Columbia
Prof. John Paul Chou, Rutgers University
Prof. Zach Goldberg, Georgia State University
Prof. Rob Sica, Prof. David Potts, Colorado State University
Prof. David Potts, City College of San Francisco
Prof. Richard Lowery, University of Texas, Austin
Prof. David Donaldson, Ottawa University
Prof. Julie Fitness, Macquarie University
Prof. David C Geary, University of Missouri
Prof. Sadredin C. Moosavi, Rochester Community Technical College
C. Alan Reber, California Southern University
Dr. Samantha Malone
Prof. Robert Kay, University of British Columbia
Prof. Alex Bertrams, University of Bern
Prof. Luana Maroja, Williams College
Dr. Nathan Honeycutt, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
Prof. David Morgan, Spalding university
Dr. Samuel Rosenthal, Optave Diagnostics
Dr. Penny Adrian, Trauma Service
Dr. Frank Scavelli, University of East Anglia
Prof. Christopher Ferguson, Stetson University
Prof. Daniel Lakens, Eindhoven University
Prof. David Bertoli, University of Georgia
Dr. David Smith, American College of Education
Prof. John Staddon, Duke University
Prof. Darrell Worthy, Texas a &M University
Prof. Matt Osborne, Austin Peay state University
Prof. Gad Saad, Concordia university
Prof. James Thompson, University College London
Prof. Axel Meyer, University of Konstanz
Prof. David Morgan, Spalding University
Dr. J Metz, SNIA
Prof. Chris Ellis, Bucknell University
Prof. Matthew J Grawitch, Saint Louis University
Dr. Nathaniel Bork, Rutgers University
Prof. Karl-Markus Mueller, Furtwangen University
Dr. Robert Lynch, Penn State University
Prof. Joseph Cesario, Michigan State University
Dr. Florian Ploeckl, University of Adelaide
Prof. Holger Mitterer, University of Malta
Dr. Bill Frezza, MIT Free Speech Alliance
Prof. Gregory Connor, Maynooth University
Dr. Leif Rasmussen, Northwestern University
Prof. Markus Buehner, LMU Munich
Prof. Jacob L Mackey, Occidental College
Prof. Charles Negy, University of Central Florida
Prof. Randy Wayne, Cornell university
Prof. Eric Kaufmann, Birkbeck College, University of London
Prof. Scott Yenor, Boise State University
Prof. Eric Rasmusen, Indiana University
Prof. Harald Uhlig, University of Chicago
Prof. Barry Smith, University at Buffalo
Prof. Richard Sparks, Mt. St. Joseph university
Prof. Gisela Muller-Plath, Technische Universitaet Berlin
Dr. Peter Hayes, Durham University
Nicholas Schappaugh, Georgia State University
Prof. Maxim Olchanyi, University of Massachusetts
Prof. Chris Rhoads, University of Connecticut
Smriti Mehta, UC Berkeley
Michael Lewis, University of Houston
Prof. Bradley Campbell, California State University, LA
Dr. Rachel Hartman, UNC Chapel Hill
Dr. Timur Sevincer, Leuphana University Luneburg
Mackenzie Moreno, DePaul University
Prof. Robert Gunn, College of the Desert
Prof. Coel Hellier, Keele University
Dr. Ruud Custers, Utrecht University
Prof. Thomas Mueller-Gronbach, University of Passau, Germany
Prof. Henk Aarts, Utrecht University
Prof. Laszlo Majtenyi, University of Miskolc
Prof. Thomas Huddle, UAB Heersink School of Medicine
Prof. Barry Smith, University of Buffalo
Prof. Ginger Katz
Prof. Steven Miller, Williams College
Prof. Charles Trzcinka, Indiana University
Prof. Mark Ramseyer, Harvard Law School
Dr. Kirsty Miller, Lecturer
Prof. Elizabeth Weiss, San Jose State University
Prof. Joseph H. Manson, University of California, Los Angeles
Charles Trzcinka, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University
Dr Carole Sherwood, Clinical Psychologist
Kristine Danowski, MEd, MS, PhD(c), Retired
Nurit Haspel, Professor of Computer Science, UMass Boston.
Liberalism is characterized by protection of individual rights, including free speech, academic freedom, free association, open discourse and due process. Of course, there is much more than that, but this is a footnote to explain the key things I mean when using it here, not a general discourse on liberalism. The mob was illiberal in their advocacy for firing Fiedler without a hearing (rejection of due processes and procedural justice) and for censorship (i.e., their open letter called for “unaccepting” the papers he had previously accepted despite the absence of identification of any violations of rules or ethics in accepting those papers). One of those was mine.
Done.