Leading journal accused of abandoning science over ‘social justice agenda’

[IwantToRetire]

A top journal publisher has been accused of abandoning science in favour of a “social justice agenda”.

Nature, which produces several leading science journals, has faced criticism over its position on equality, diversity and inclusion from leading scientists.

Prof Anna Krylov, a professor of chemistry at the University of Southern California, shared an open letter online encouraging fellow scientists to boycott Nature until it “recommits to scientific excellence”.

She said: “The Nature group has abandoned its mission in favour of advancing a social justice agenda.”

She accused it of trying to play identity politics and promote specific demographics instead of focusing on science, which is supposed to be “guided by a commitment to finding objective truth”.

The letter was backed by Prof Richard Dawkins, an expert in evolutionary biology, who said on X: “Nature used to be the world’s most prestigious science journal. Now it’s one of many accused of favouring authors because of their identity group rather than the excellence and importance of their science.”

Full article at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10/26/bbc-allows-work-from-home-if-worried-about-trans-toilet/

And at https://archive.is/q5JlX

Isn’t it? I think it particularly struck home with me because she’s of a similar age and in a related field to my own (I’m not a quantum mechanic though!). She was having to deal with soviet ideology, digging potatoes with sticks at a point where I was happily employed developing chemistry software commercially.

I don't understand how any scientist can be religious. Science is objective truths that can be proved. Religion* *is about irrationnal beliefs.

What an incredible piece of writing; her careful eloquence from not so long ago and not so far away brought tears to my eyes. Thank you so much for sharing.

Thanks @MarieDeGournay- a proper critique of the article rather than whatever the heck some of the other posts were about!
Yes…your last paragraph nails it concisely. And unfortunately it does seem that some of the journals (and academia more widely) have policies in which politics are overriding scientific validity.

as an atheistic scientist I’d tend to agree, but have to point out that in this context it’s not just supernaturalistic religions which are problematic. Soviet dogma ‘denouncing’ Pauling’s work on resonance structures as ‘bourgeois pseudoscience’ … and now we have dogmas about the reality of sex etc.

I was caught by her descriptions of authoritarian attempts to control the narrative.
Always interesting how people glean different insights. Yours is a more in depth and thorough reading I'm sure.

The difference being that Dawkins has not, as far as I’m aware, promoted his own version of social justice or politics under the guise of scientific research. He has said many controversial things, but none of them have been misrepresented as science rather than personal political commentary. Separating the two is essential.

"The difference being that Dawkins has not, as far as I’m aware, promoted his own version of social justice or politics under the guise of scientific research."

My claim was he exploited his knowledge & credentials in science to promote his own version of 'social justice' beliefs. That he hasn't used scientific research to do so is irrelevant because the context is exploiting science as a social/political propaganda tool.

Apart from his deliberate oversimplification of the reproductive system he has used biology in The God Delusion to argue that the complexity of life is not evidence for a designer, but rather the result of evolution by natural selection. He explains that natural selection is a gradual, cumulative process that creates the appearance of design without any conscious intent, much like a "blind watchmaker". Dawkins also uses biological concepts, such as memetics and the evolutionary origins of morality, to suggest that religious belief itself is a psychological by-product of adaptive strategies shaped by natural selection, rather than a divinely inspired truth.

Dawkins also strongly argues for a genetic basis of homosexuality and postulates that the gene was preserved through various social and cultural processes.

He also exploits his reputation as a world class scientist & by extension a person of rational authority to promote his other beliefs of Islamophobia & misogyny to millions of fawning men.

Good god. How did a thread about a woman calling out a science journal for abandoning scientific rigor in favor of political and social bias devolve into something about Richard Dawkins and Islamophobia? Please everyone stop taking troll bait. We all know how easy it is to poke gaping holes in their ideology and that they just come here to get their histrionics on so if you just ignore them they'll go away.

I'm glad the times and other media outlets are picking this up more signs the tides are turning. I recall similar accusations made against Scientific American which eventually led to their chief editor resigning.

Nature really has let itself down over the past few years and fatally undermined progressive credibility in the process. As a progressive, I am furious at them for being such ideologically driven idiots, and if it’s true they’ve gone down this path of broadcasting weak “evidence” and suppressing the truth because they want to justify some staff members’ decisions to trans their kids, that’s truly appalling. Heads should roll.

I had a quick read of the Telegraph article late last night. The impression I was left with was it was mostly a criticism of something akin to affirmative action. The magazine prioritising or even commissioning pieces from communities the editors would consider marginalised and under represented. That's not necessarily a bad thing if the commissioned voices knew the subject and had something useful to say about it. It seems that isn't always the case though. The other criticisms was what follows from that. Not publishing people who are from communities considered privileged. The most damning criticism, imo, is not publishing work that undermines or contradicts the pet orthodoxies of the editors.

I'm thinking Howie is hoping that he'll get commissioned. Not outside the realms of possibility considering the nonsense that's appeared under their banner. You'd think though that they must draw the line somewhere?

That's not what you said previously though, is it?

Yes…it’s all a bit ‘…oh, there’s a squirrel’.

Have any representatives of Nature commented on the criticism?

Yes - Krylov particularly takes exception to the idea she might be asked to peer review a paper because she’s a woman rather than because she’s one of the most appropriate experts in the relevant field. If journals can make an effort to find more diverse reviewers and authors who are also appropriately expert that’s great, but it’s the expertise which should always be the necessary condition.

Its similar to other criticisms of affirmative action done badly, except in the case of science there are usually more objective metrics for assessing merits vs eg politicians.

I know and have known plenty. Science has not come anywhere near answering all the questions we have, and I'm not persuaded that it ever will come anywhere near. Everyone, "religious" or not, has parts of their worldview that are not based on science and are not rational; if you doubt this, look at political stances. You may think your own political stance is rational, but it will have been formed to a large extent by your personal experiences, as will mine.

Politics and philosophy (and religion, which consists partly of philosophical thinking) are by their nature open to question. And parts of 'science' are at present highly speculative. If we took all scientific papers, and ordered them according to their degree of proof, we would find that many have little objective proof. The scientific method is powerful in part because things we thought we knew and understood can be disproven. This happens over and over again, so what we think we know now may be disproven or modified.

As far as I know nobody has EVER proven that there is a God. This has nothing to do with scientific hypothesis testing; all religions wants us to just "believe". My son is in a catholic secondary because it's the only decent secondary where we live. He is quite amazed that adults believe in the Bible but I have told him to be as respectful of them as he is to younger family members believing in Father Christmas. He knows he is free to believe whatever he wants but he's too old to believe in fairy tales.

Prove I didn't.

@MarieDeGournay - I agree, I think she was objecting to those invited to be the peers reviewing submissions to be from a more diverse background and my immediate reaction was to disagree with her.

As long as Nature (and the rest of the scientific community) is inviting fully qualified experts in their fields to review studies, I think having a broader base of people is a good thing. Other experiences and perspectives enrich our understanding ans can look at things from an angle possibly not yet considered.

However, if she's implying people are being asked when they are not as well qualified as the 'usual suspects' of older, white men, and that those 'diversity hires' are being elevated beyond their competence to peer review articles and studies, I'd want to hear her reasons for believing this.

Her other article about the cancelling of big names in scientific fields because they were awful in their personal lives or held repugnant ideas is extremely interesting and I was glad to hear her voice on this.

Pity his school doesn't seem to have taught him any more about 'the Bible' than you've learned.

70+ books of philosophy, stories, poetry, myth, legend, history, theology, produced over nearly 600 years, boiled down to 'Father Christmas and 'fairy tales'.

Your premise is incorrect.

Science is about the systematic study of observable, empirical, phenomena.

Religion is typically a combination of elements of philosophy, particularly metaphysics, ethics, even epistemology and mathematics, psychology, sociology, and sometimes historical elements, all tied up in an individual or community based praxis.

There are some intersections between them, but they are largely separate. Science itself is rooted in particular epistemology, and particular metaphysics, so it's not like it's even more fundamental.

I'm not sure that's true. A lot of his views on religion involve the claim that logical positivism is self-evident and "scientific" and therefor ought to be believed.

This kind of aa approach has a lot of scope to go wrong, I think.

If there are, say, limited women in a field, an attempt to have the few there are will mean those individuals are doing quite a lot of that kind of work. That could lead to quite other kinds of unintentional bias.

You could also see it go farther, as when, in Canada, university scientists are being told they need to hire students based on race, not who is actually the best fit for the job.

It's also the case that "widening the lens" has been used effectivly in places like the USSR to bring in partisan elements. It's nice to think it will be neutral, but I think it should be looked at with a more cynical eye.

Exactly

I'm not aware that anyone has EVER proven the non-existence of God either. Science is our best tool for answering many questions, but some questions are difficult for the scientific method to tackle, and we all come up with our own answers in the meantime. Not just "religious" people. Sensible people are aware of what they don't know certainly.

I have a worldview that is based on certain assumptions. I am aware of this; the assumptions are based partly on personal experience, and they are partly because the alternatives work less well for me. Some of my assumptions, such as the importance of physical reality over internal "identity", are easy for me to defend. Others, such as my political, religious and philosophical views, are less dogmatic.