# Cancel Culture and Canceling versus consequences for actions **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 8, 2025, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancel-culture-and-canceling-versus-consequences-for-actions/1020644 "2025-07-08T22:55:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 36
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2025, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancel-culture-and-canceling-versus-consequences-for-actions/1020644/915 "2025-09-09T00:02:59Z")
My instinct about this is for whatever reason the journals got cold feet about publishing his paper and he came unglued. I guess I’d better explain my reasoning. He presents a narrative in which a large number of female researchers go after his paper, not because of the poor logic, but because it’s about a “controversial” subject. His evidence for this is unclear. He claims to be quoting these nefarious women directly, but he doesn’t provide his sources, so this all amounts to schoolyard gossip. Oh but he really wants to make this Wilkinson woman suffer for crossing him. When he submits a complaint to the university, they investigate it, find no wrongdoing, he appeals it, they investigate _again_, and again find no wrongdoing. This just makes him madder, at least until he finds another place for the paper. He later talks about writing a conciliatory email to Wilkinson and her father, and then another “strongly worded rebuttal” email to her father. This is weird as hell and no reasonable person can expect to get traction with two very different approaches to conflict in a short period of time. This is one of the reasons I think this guy is unstable. Then we get to this quote: > Upon discovering that the journal had published my paper, Professor Farb had written a furious email to Steinberger demanding that it be deleted at once. “Rivin,” he complained, “is well-known as a person with extremist views who likes to pick fights with people via inflammatory statements.” Farb’s “father-in law…a famous statistician,” he went on, had “already poked many holes in the ridiculous paper.” My paper was “politically charged” and “pseudoscience” and “a piece of crap” and, by encouraging the _NYJM_ to accept it, Rivin had “violat[ed] a scientific duty for purely political ends.” This actually undermines the argument that it’s being suppressed for political reasons, because Steinberger appears to be accusing Riven of _publishing_ it for political reasons, not on its merits but to stir the shit. Which he is apparently known to do, by the author’s own description. It sounds to me like a lot of reasonable people are sounding the alarm that this isn’t a good paper and if it gets published it’s going to be highly scrutinized as a political flashpoint and ultimately tarnish the journal’s reputation, not because of its subject matter but because of its low quality. In fact I think the author’s narrative of events undermines his own claim in many respects. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2025, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancel-culture-and-canceling-versus-consequences-for-actions/1020644/916 "2025-09-09T22:28:03Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Except that male variability is widely recognized, whether or not it’s politically incorrect. And as i mentioned above, there are a number of recognized theories that account for it. The one that i usually see is that with only one X chromosome, men are less likely to “regress towards the mean”. So? You think that means no one would object to someone publishing a paper that implies it may apply to human traits? Just last week, the Washington Post wrote an article calling the theory controversial, and highlighting that a Trump nominee had talked about it in relation to human intelligence to a group of interns. Regardless of how well accepted the theory is, it is still controversial in liberal media. And surely you will agree that researchers and journals ought to handle such topics sensitively, and avoid publishing anything which the right-wing media might ~~pounce on~~ use to claim men are naturally better at maths and science, or that affirmative action is bad? Especially when a guy has just been fired by Google for pointing out how some widely recognised scientific theories (and a few more speculative ideas) might explain their lopsided gender ratio, and suggesting they should relax efforts to ‘correct’ it. You wouldn’t want ordinary people to think he had a point. How widely recognised the theory is is really not relevant in these judgements. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > And this particular paper is bullshit. How so? As far as I can gather, the content was nowhere near the expected standard to be published in _NYJM_, but would have been fine in _The Mathematical Intelligencer_, where it was originally supposed to be published. > [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > My instinct about this is for whatever reason the journals got cold feet about publishing his paper and he came unglued. I guess I’d better explain my reasoning. He presents a narrative in which a large number of female researchers go after his paper, not because of the poor logic, but because it’s about a “controversial” subject. His evidence for this is unclear. He claims to be quoting these nefarious women directly, but he doesn’t provide his sources, so this all amounts to schoolyard gossip. “For whatever reason” - you already linked a statement from one professor saying she emailed the editor of the first journal, criticising the scientific merits of the paper and the decision to accept it for publication. I can easily believe the author lied or didn’t believe that Wilkinson hadn’t recommended reversing the decision to publish, but by far the most plausible explanation for the editor changing her mind is that multiple people in the field had done the same thing. And the idea that researchers would go after a very minor paper in a very minor publication simply for poor logic before it was even published is simply implausible. No one cares that much. Anyway, I found a bunch of documents the author put online about the incident. I don’t think he comes off well here, but it does give the sources for his claims and shows he’s not making it up: > **[Hill\_RetractionWatchAppendix\_Sep14.pdf](https://retractionwatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Hill_RetractionWatchAppendix_Sep14.pdf)** > > 4.59 MB Notable points: the editor at _The Mathematical Intelligencer_ encouraged them to include controversial material in the background for the article, including “the Larry Summers brouhaha”. I assume this was to make it more interesting to readers. Then there are a bunch of emails with people objecting to the paper, from individuals and the ones about the Women in Mathematics luncheon. They include objections based on the possible effects: > "The truth is, a lot of women (particularly young women) are insecure about whether they belong in the world of mathematics or other STEM fields, and many men (particularly young men) are overconfident in the idea that their abilities are naturally superior. Care must always be taken not to reinforce these thoughts. You and I can discuss the merits of your paper in a dispassionate manner. I can see the difference between “real evidence for VH” and the mathematical illustration of “a mechanism that might explain VH.” But a lot of others will just see someone wielding the authority of mathematics to support a very controversial, and potentially sexist, set of ideas that can be damaging to impressionable young people who are not quite sure of their own place in the world. > > So, in my opinion, you shouldn’t censor your mathematics, but there is also no need to link it to a set of controversies that you are not necessarily willing or able to explicitly address. You have no new data and no new interpretation, so you really have nothing new to add to this particular debate (by “debate” I mean the specific discussion of whether or not VH explains differences in cognitive abilities at the “top”, and whether those differences in turn explain representation differences in various professions)." And comments from the co-author who was pressured to remove his name: > A female colleague (one of the three who signed an invitation to me to speak at the Women in Math lunch at our department) …firmly stated that to move forward we must admit and fight our biases, and that believing that women have a lesser chance to succeed in mathematics at the very top end is bias. > > I also spent endless hours talking to various people (all of them, generally sympathetic to me, but not necessarily to the article). Some tried to convince me in very strong terms that I must withdraw my name to restore peace at the department and to avoid loosing whatever political capital I may still have… and also to avoid a much larger controversy after the article is published. … > > Others explained to me why the article was bad and harmful. As far as I can tell, and omitting lengthy details, there are two points. First: the article gives support to VH, and the latter can be used to justify discrimination and to support bias against women in mathematics. Second: the article may discourage young women from choosing mathematics as their career (since it predicts that they are not likely to excel in the upper percentile). Analogies with scientific racism were made by some; I am afraid, we are likely to hear more of it in the future. The theory is well accepted, but also, talking about it is controversial. @Zoobi is not the only one comparing it to ‘scientific racism’. Read it yourself and see what you think. * * * > [@Miller](#): > > My level of confidence in the guy dropped about 30% when I got to the part where he stealth bragged about being an Army Ranger. This went right over my head. Is it significant to Americans? ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2025, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancel-culture-and-canceling-versus-consequences-for-actions/1020644/917 "2025-09-09T22:40:06Z")
It’s significant that he thinks this makes him superior to other people, and that he thought mentioning it would help his case when it is in fact completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. I don’t know how it is in the UK but here there is a certain contingent of individuals in the armed forces who expect some kind of deference because of what they chose to do as a career. And I find that attitude distasteful, as do some other folks. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2025, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancel-culture-and-canceling-versus-consequences-for-actions/1020644/918 "2025-09-09T22:47:10Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I don’t know how it is in the UK but here there is a certain contingent of individuals in the armed forces who expect some kind of deference because of what they chose to do as a career. AIUI, in the UK the equivalent would be ‘I’m former SAS’. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2025, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancel-culture-and-canceling-versus-consequences-for-actions/1020644/919 "2025-09-09T23:07:15Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > It’s significant that he thinks this makes him superior to other people, and that he thought mentioning it would help his case when it is in fact completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. I don’t know how it is in the UK but here there is a certain contingent of individuals in the armed forces who expect some kind of deference because of what they chose to do as a career. And I find that attitude distasteful, as do some other folks. All of this, but also: a lot of dudes who bring up being in special forces as a way to score internet points are straight-up lying about their service records. It’s not _always_ a lie, obviously, but it so often is clearly bullshit that it tends to have the opposite of the intended effect on me: rather than making me think the writer is more trustworthy, it instead reminds me to make sure my critical thinking is fully engaged while reading. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2025, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancel-culture-and-canceling-versus-consequences-for-actions/1020644/920 "2025-09-10T00:07:32Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > Getting back to the point, absent other evidence, it sounds like the ‘vendetta’ was due to political beliefs rather than personal dislike. Based on my personal experience of debating liberals, this is extremely plausible. Nope, reading the replies from other experts, the most likely explanation is that a lot of politics were there when the paper guys pushed that weak article to the journal. So much weaker, that some pointed that this was not even a journal, it is still one, but the critics have a point. It is more like a magazine in format and it is geared to regular folks that have issues with understanding high math. The basic criticism remains, because Mathematical Intelligencer has an impact score of about **0.4** among journals. By contrast the best math journals like _Annals of Mathematics_ has an Impact Factor score of _ **5.3** _. (So, more plausible that politics was the main reason for the original trolling coming from the authors of the paper) > **[Mathematics: Journal Rankings | OOIR](https://ooir.org/journals.php?field=Mathematics&category=Mathematics&metric=jif)** > > A list of peer-reviewed journals in Mathematics, ranked by the Journal Impact Factor (2024) And as I **cited** already, the most likely history is that once again, this looks more like the usual, a vendetta from right wingers against what mainstream science is about. On Edit: The _The New York Journal of Mathematics_, the other involved journal, is not even scored there! But, other cites reports that it also has an impact score of [0.4](https://wos-journal.info/journalid/1996) ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2025, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancel-culture-and-canceling-versus-consequences-for-actions/1020644/921 "2025-09-10T00:23:14Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > How so? As far as I can gather, the content was nowhere near the expected standard to be published in _NYJM_, but would have been fine in _The Mathematical Intelligencer_, where it was originally supposed to be published. And again, you skip what the math professor said about the paper: > When applied to humans, this model is ludicrously implausible. While it is true that some males have trouble finding a mate, the idea that some huge percentage of males are simply not desirable enough (as we shall see, the paper requires this percentage to be over 50) to have a chance of reproducing bears no relation to the world as we know it. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2025, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancel-culture-and-canceling-versus-consequences-for-actions/1020644/922 "2025-09-10T01:06:46Z")
It’s a mathematical model that doesn’t actually make biological sense, and even if it did, it wouldn’t apply to humans. It was only published because it sounded controversial, and probably because the people who accepted it didn’t understand biology. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2025, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancel-culture-and-canceling-versus-consequences-for-actions/1020644/923 "2025-09-10T01:24:19Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > And again, you skip what the math professor said about the paper: > > > When applied to humans, this model is ludicrously implausible. While it is true that some males have trouble finding a mate, the idea that some huge percentage of males are simply not desirable enough (as we shall see, the paper requires this percentage to be over 50) to have a chance of reproducing bears no relation to the world as we know it. What time period is this talking about? If we are talking about evolutionary history, there is evidence that significantly more women then men made it into the gene pool: [https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/21/11/2047/1147770](https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/21/11/2047/1147770) Further, it looks like _today_, with thousands of years of normalizing monogamy under our belts, 86% of American women end up having kids compared to only 60% of men. The idea that 50% of men today cannot “find a mate”, as your source put it, is obviously untrue. Framing the argument this way makes it sound like you’re dispelling an obviously ridiculous incel talking point. But we aren’t talking about modern men finding companionship (ironically, I did just see a headline trumpeting that 60% of men under 30 are now single, but I didn’t read the article and I’m sure it’s not really tracking the same thing anyways). But we aren’t talking about men today and romantic relationships, we are talking about 300,000 years of human evolution (and 2-4 million years of hominid evolution) where societies were structured _very_ differently. Just because 60% of modern American males manage to reproduce under very favorable conditions doesn’t mean that 50% of male early sapiens did, much less Australopithecines. I’m not really informed enough to weigh in on the paper as a whole, but this particular objection seems spurious at best. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > It’s a mathematical model that doesn’t actually make biological sense, and even if it did, it wouldn’t apply to humans It wouldn’t apply _to 21st century humans in mostly/serially monogamous societies like the United States._ It probably wouldn’t apply to _most_ sedentary societies since a household with multiple spouses and their children is very expensive, so polygamy in agricultural societies tended to be reserved for the elites. But most of human evolution long predates agriculture. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2025, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancel-culture-and-canceling-versus-consequences-for-actions/1020644/924 "2025-09-10T01:29:46Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > But we aren’t talking about men today and romantic relationships, we are talking about 300,000 years of human evolution (and 2-4 million years of hominid evolution) where societies were structured _very_ differently. But, the main issue for right wingers **is to apply it to current societies** , indeed, very different than in the past. ---
**Author:** ![Zoobi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/13edae/32.png) [@Zoobi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoobi)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2025, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancel-culture-and-canceling-versus-consequences-for-actions/1020644/925 "2025-09-10T01:34:24Z")
Correct, they are looking for reasons end diversity efforts. Just like scientific racism. My bold > [@DemonTree](#): > > It’s controversial because it could explain sex differences at the top of various professions and competitive pursuits, thus implying **efforts to increase representation of women there are futile, or unfair to men.** ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2025, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancel-culture-and-canceling-versus-consequences-for-actions/1020644/926 "2025-09-10T01:43:51Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > But, the main issue for right wingers **is to apply it to current societies** Where in the paper did it say that? I thought the paper was about heritability, human evolution, and how these traits may have shown up to begin with. Not about how modern society impacts human reproduction rates. So again, the specific objection that the study couldn’t possibly be applicable because it would require more than 50% of men to not successfully reproduce is spurious, since for the vast majority of time during which human evolution occurred it probably **was** the case that human nails failed to pass on their genes more than 50% of the time. If someone wants to take that, and say “because humans evolve this way men and women should do X or Y or Z” that would be idiotic. Is that what the study did? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2025, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancel-culture-and-canceling-versus-consequences-for-actions/1020644/927 "2025-09-10T01:46:57Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > Where in the paper did it say that? That is the point, there is no controversy if applied (maybe) to the past, the disingenuous part comes from the politicians, and the author using it that way, what me and many other referred to as the “spin”. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2025, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancel-culture-and-canceling-versus-consequences-for-actions/1020644/928 "2025-09-10T01:57:02Z")
Any human male can attest that the supply of sperm exceeds demand, and must accept that this is nature’s plan. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2025, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancel-culture-and-canceling-versus-consequences-for-actions/1020644/929 "2025-09-10T01:59:40Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > That is the point, there is no controversy if applied (maybe) to the past, the disingenuous part comes from the politicians, and the author using it that way, what me and many other referred to as the “spin” But the paper is about explaining how human traits might have evolved. In the past. Earlier, the quoted criticism of the paper was: > [@GIGObuster](#): > > When applied to humans, this model is ludicrously implausible. While it is true that some males have trouble finding a mate, the idea that some huge percentage of males are simply not desirable enough (as we shall see, the paper requires this percentage to be over 50) to have a chance of reproducing bears no relation to the world as we know it. But as we discussed, for the time period during which the majority of human evolution occurred (and thus the time period that a paper about human evolution is presumably concerned with), it is in fact TRUE that more than 50% of males never managed to reproduce. Therefore, this criticism is quite vapid. If your criticism is something the paper is saying about the _future_ - for example, if the paper said “Because men and women evolved this way, we as a society should do THIS” - then what is the paper saying about this? Because I probably would _agree_ with your criticism of any prescriptive instructions based on the evolutionary study; but I haven’t seen any evidence that the paper _actually made any of those_? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2025, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancel-culture-and-canceling-versus-consequences-for-actions/1020644/930 "2025-09-10T02:29:00Z")
Oy! That is the point, the authors did politicize it when there was no need as on the paper that was not mentioned. But the narrative from the right wing is that the “conclusions are dangerous”, not if they made a better paper and sticked to the past. And the Math professors did not point at that 50% issue alone: > The fact that males inherit traits from both their fathers and their mothers doesn’t mean that each and every trait is equally realized in both sexes. > > The paper doesn’t look very deep to me, but then again it was written for the Mathematical Intelligencer, **which is — sorry — not a very deep journal.** It’s more about mathematicians than about mathematics; it has an explicit “Viewpoint column” that says “Disagreement and controversy are welcome”; it publishes poems, philosophy and politics. **What it doesn’t seem to publish (or at least not in the few issues I’ve checked) are proofs. I’m a bit surprised that NYJM took the paper, seeing that it is indeed not a strong research paper — maybe someone was trying to make a point here.** – **Darij Grinberg** who was then an Assistant Professor at Drexel University for research and math > A second reason to be sceptical of the theory is that it depends on the idea that how good one is at mathematics is a question of raw brainpower. But that is a damaging myth that puts many people off doing mathematics who could have enjoyed it and thrived at it. I have often come across students who astound me with their ability to solve problems far more quickly than I can, (not all of them male). Some of them go on to be extremely successful mathematicians, but not all. And some who seem quite ordinary go on to do extraordinary things later on. It is clear that while an unusual level of raw brainpower, whatever that might be, often helps, it is far from necessary and far from sufficient for becoming a successful mathematician: it is part of a mix that includes dedication, hard work, enthusiasm, and often a big slice of luck. And as one gains in experience, one gains in brainpower — not raw any more, but who cares whether it is hardware or software? So _even if_ it turned out that the genetic variability hypothesis was correct and could be applied to something called raw mathematical brainpower, a conclusion that would be very hard to establish convincingly (it’s certainly not enough to point out that males find it easier to visualize rotating 3D objects in their heads), that _still_ wouldn’t imply that it is pointless to try to correct the underrepresentation of women amongst the higher ranks of mathematicians. When I was a child, almost all doctors and lawyers were men, and during my lifetime I have seen that change completely. The gender imbalance amongst mathematicians has changed more slowly, but there is no reason in principle that the pace couldn’t pick up substantially. – Timothy Gowers, professor at the Collège de France ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2025, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancel-culture-and-canceling-versus-consequences-for-actions/1020644/931 "2025-09-10T02:56:01Z")
BTW, the Trump appointee that pointed at that 2018 paper, is a big biased tool. As noted, it is the toxic narrative that also has to be taken in context: > **[Trump’s pick to lead Bureau of Labor Statistics ran anonymous Twitter account...](https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/05/politics/kfile-ej-antoni-bureau-of-labor-statistics-twitter-account-vis)** > > President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics operated a since-deleted Twitter account that featured sexually degrading attacks on Kamala Harris, derogatory remarks about gay people, conspiracy theories, and crude insults... ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2025, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancel-culture-and-canceling-versus-consequences-for-actions/1020644/932 "2025-09-10T03:38:28Z")
A better, no need to register, link: > **[With new accusations, Trump’s labor statistics nominee goes from bad to worse](https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/ej-antoni-labor-statistics-trump-nominee-bls-rcna229399)** > > E.J. Antoni’s nomination was already dreadful. New reporting about his alleged social media habits makes it vastly worse. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2025, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancel-culture-and-canceling-versus-consequences-for-actions/1020644/933 "2025-09-10T04:30:46Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > the Trump appointee that pointed at that 2018 paper, is a big biased tool. They’re a Trump appointee, so I certainly wouldn’t doubt that. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > Oy! > > That is the point, the authors did politicize it when there was no need as on the paper that was not mentioned. I can’t parse this sentence. Are you saying that the original paper itself was politicized? Or the reaction to it being taken down was politicized? I haven’t been able to read the original paper, do you have a link to it? Or are we all just working off various descriptions of the original paper from the author and from people who criticized him? ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2025, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancel-culture-and-canceling-versus-consequences-for-actions/1020644/934 "2025-09-10T04:51:49Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > > [@puzzlegal](#): > > > > It’s a mathematical model that doesn’t actually make biological sense, and even if it did, it wouldn’t apply to humans > > It wouldn’t apply _to 21st century humans in mostly/serially monogamous societies like the United States._ > > It probably wouldn’t apply to _most_ sedentary societies since a household with multiple spouses and their children is very expensive, so polygamy in agricultural societies tended to be reserved for the elites. > > But most of human evolution long predates agriculture. But that only addresses the second issue. (And i doubt you are right about the fraction of human males who reproduced in pre-agricultural societies. There are some species where a few males father all the offspring. But i don’t think that describes chimps or bonobos, and it seems unlikely it describes many human societies.) It doesn’t address the really weird hypothesis. If you look at the paper, it assumes, in essence, that there’s a gene for variability. And that males are under evolutionary pressure to exhibit this gene. (Which is presumably sex-linked.) That’s not how most traits are selected. The paper just doesn’t make biological sense. It’s really a nutty paper. Take a look at it. You have to wade through a lot of glurge before you get to the meat, but the meat doesn’t make biological sense. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancel-culture-and-canceling-versus-consequences-for-actions/1020644.md?page=35) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cancel-culture-and-canceling-versus-consequences-for-actions/1020644.md?page=37)