The IDW and friends and what awful people they are

Great Youtube video The “Skeptics” Are Crashing Out HARD from Genetically Modified Skeptic, which talks about the Laurence Krauss grifterpalooza book The War on Science and many of the people I've talked about on this blog, including Jordan Peterson, Peter Boghossian, Sabine Hossenfelder, Laurence Krauss, Carole Hooven, Jerry Coyne, Richard Dawkins, Human Diversity Foundation and OF COURSE Pinker.

The War on Science - thirty-nine infamous reactionary grifters, racists and transphobes edited by creepy Lawrence Krauss

It looks like the usual reactionary grifters, racists and transphobes have been collected under one cover,  in a book called The War On Science ~ Thirty-Nine Renowned Scientists and Scholars Speak Out About Current Threats to Free Speech and Open Inquiry and the Scientific Process.

Just in time to help celebrate the Trump administration's war on trans people, women and non-white people. 

People on Bluesky have published the table of contents and most of the contributors have been discussed on this blog. 

This gang of goons is not at all embarrassed to be grouped with ultra-racist crank Amy Wax.

And of course Steve Pinker is in there.

Let's review who's who in the world of politically-motivated pseudoscience wankery:

Dorian Abbot is advisor at the Bari Weiss grift known as the University of Austin (UATX); author at the far-right City Journal; participant in Peter Thiel's CPAC for racists.

John Armstrong is a right-wing reactionary who likes to retweet racist Toby Young.

Peter Boghossian - a clown associated with the University of Austin, memorably portrayed in New Inquiry last year: 

"Peter sat next to me on the bus. He was fired up. He was delivering opening remarks later that night, plus we’d begun talking about a subject that interested him: exercise. “It’s indispensable for an intellectual,” he told me. “You should be exercising. Do you?”
I’d recently started going to the gym, I said. He looked doubtful.
“You gotta get into jiu-jitsu, man. I’m telling you.” Peter did jiu-jitsu. It’d changed his life. He spun around in his seat, scanned the rest of the bus, then whipped back to laser his eyes on me. “I could murder everybody on this bus and nobody could stop me. It’s a superpower.”

Boghossian attacked me for the thought-crime of being a nobody yet daring to publicly criticize celebrity intellectual Steven Pinker.

Maarten Boudry - Quillette author in league with Jerry Coyne

Alex Byrne is an anti-trans activist and married to Carole Hooven.

Nicholas Christakis supported racist Razib Khan's attack on a Scientific American author who dared to discuss - justifiably - E. O. Wilson's racism. 

Roger Cohen from what I can tell is known for being married to Amy Wax.

Jerry Coyne is best known for once being a respected scientist then turning into a right-wing political operative, appearing at Peter Thiel's CPAC for racists and defending white nationalist Bo Winegard. That defense is probably the piece included in this book, since Coyne co-authored it with Luana Maroja and they are listed together in the table of contents. Coyne is most recently known for writing an op-ed claiming trans women are delusional and inclined to sexual assault.

Richard Dawkins is another once-respected scientist who descended into evolutionary psychology crankery and reactionary politics, causing people to ask "what happened to Richard Dawkins?" Well known for promoting a bonkers conspiracy theory that a child was a fiendish bomb maker, in the embarrassing "Clock Boy" incident. 

Janice Fiamengo was a member of the far-right misogynist "men's rights" organization the Honey Badgers

Niall Ferguson is a right-wing reactionary political operative think tank creature, who tried to pull a political op on a college student and got caught - which did not hurt his reputation on the far-right. Appeared at Peter Thiel's CPAC for racists.

Karleen Gribble is an anti-trans activist and ally of Carole Hooven

Solveig Lucia Gold appears to be notable only for being married to Joshua T. Katz

Moti Gorin is an anti-trans activist

Carole Hooven is a fan of the viciously anti-transgender "Gender War Cards" and a promoter of garbage evolutionary psychology theories and bullshit explanations for the reactions against Lawrence Summers' "women are losers" speech given by Summers when he was president of Harvard.

Geoff Horsman considers ultra-racist Amy Wax to be a "brave truth-seeker."

Joshua T. Katz is known for student-diddling. Self-declared friend of racist ghoul Amy Wax. On the payroll of the American Enterprise Institute.  Participated in Peter Thiel's CPAC for racists.

Sergiu Klainerman is a right-wing reactionary and Trump supporter.

Anna Krylov is a reactionary crackpot who couldn't reason her way out of a paper bag. I wrote of her logical incoherence in depth a few years ago. An organizer of Peter Thiel's CPAC for racists.

Luana Maroja appears to be an undistiguished academic who expressed her support for white nationalist Bo Winegard along with Jerry Coyne. Participated in Peter Thiel's CPAC for racists.

Christian D. Ott - according to Buzzfeed, 

"Christian Ott, a young astrophysics professor at the California Institute of Technology, fell in love with one of his graduate students and then fired her because of his feelings, according to a recent university investigation. Twenty-one months of intimate online chats, obtained by BuzzFeed News, confirm that he confessed his actions to another female graduate student." 

Ott unsuccessfully sued for defamation two scientists who protested his hiring.

Bruce Pardy is a rightwing reactionary who claims  '“Socialized healthcare” is medical communism."'

Jordan Peterson - what hasn't been said about rightwing crank Jordan Peterson?

Steven Pinker - ugh - I've written so much about Pinker, but if I had to sum him up, I'd say he's a dissembler who claims to be opposed to racism while promoting the careers of a seemingly endless parade of hardcore racists from Steve Sailer to Richard Hanania.

Richard Redding is a right-winger associated with the Federalist Society

Arthur Rousseau appears to be related to Lauren Schwartz.

Gad Saad is a rightwing evolutionary psychology clown, Trump apologist and climate change denier. Appeared at Peter Thiel's CPAC for racists.
 

Sally Satel is on the payroll of the far-right American Enterprise Institute. Ally of Pinker, Hooven and Lee Jussim.

Lauren H. Schwartz is this anti-trans activist, who is apparently related to Arthur W. Rousseau, since she has also gone by the name Lauren Rousseau.

Alan Sokal became famous for going after the low-hanging fruit of postmodernism, then he allied with the far-right.

Alessandro Strumia is a misogynist hereditarian physicist. Like any standard sociobiologist, he basically believes that everything in contemporary society is the result of evolution - in particular, women evolving to be losers in everything from science to producing wine.

Judith Suissa is an anti-trans activist, co-author with Alice Sullivan

Alice Sullivan is an anti-trans activist, co-author with Judith Suissa

Jay Tanzman is a "freelance statistician" whose claim to fame seems to be that he's the boyfriend of Anna Krylov

Abigail Thompson  - this is the first time I'm hearing about Abigail Thompson, but it looks like she's in deep with Peter Thiel's Stanford-based gang of racists and right-wing political operatives. Thompson gave a talk for the Stanford Business School "Stanford Classical Liberalism Seminar." The term "classical liberal" which Thompson used in her protest against DEI statements almost always indicates a libertarian who wants to seem less conservative. The right-wing racist rag Quillette (alleged to have been funded by Peter Thiel) is a big booster of "classical liberalism." The Stanford Classical Liberalism Seminar is directly connected to Peter Thiel's CPAC for racists (aka "Academic Freedom conference") and the Seminar hosts run the political gamut from libertarian to right-wing racist extremist. 

Speakers for the Stanford Classical Liberalism Seminar include racist Cory Clark, racist Nathan Cofnas, racist Victor Hansen, "Catholic epidemiologist" Tyler VanderWeele, James Orr, another hard-core religionist, Quillette contributor Glenn Loury, Bruce Pardy, rightwing reactionary, Mia Hughes an anti-trans activist who works for University of Austin grifter and pro-nuke politician Michael Shellenberger's Environmental Progress, David Neumark a fellow at the conservative Stanford unit the Hoover Institution, Cato racist Ilya Shapiro, Charles Calomaris, a right-winger and at one time a University of Austin grifter, Jordan Lasker a eugenicist and racist (aka "hereditarian"), Roger Pielke, climate change denier, and Justin Huang, an assistant professor of marketing at Michigan State University who believes that "Trump has a public mandate to dramatically reshape the federal government."

At one Stanford Classical Liberalism Seminar, run by Daniel Diermeier, you can see Amy Wax is one of the attendees. 

Amy Wax is notorious for her racist statements. She gave a full-throated endorsement of race pseudoscience at Peter Thiel's CPAC for racists.

Elizabeth Weiss was the third wife of the race pseudoscience gang's favorite "scientist" whose career was aided and abetted by E. O. Wilson, Jean-Philippe Rushton. Weiss appeared at Peter Thiel's CPAC for racists.

Frances Widdowson is an author at racist Quillette, who hates Black Lives Matter. She participated in Peter Thiel's CPAC for racists.

And Lawrence Krauss is the third person in this collection to be accused of using his position in academia to engage in sexual acts with or harassment against his students. In his case:

BuzzFeed News has learned that the incident with Hensley is one of many wide-ranging allegations of Krauss’s inappropriate behavior over the last decade — including groping women, ogling and making sexist jokes to undergrads, and telling an employee at Arizona State University, where he is a tenured professor, that he was going to buy her birth control so she didn’t inconvenience him with maternity leave. In response to complaints, two institutions — Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario — have quietly restricted him from their campuses. Our reporting is based on official university documents, emails, and interviews with more than 50 people.

Here is a photo of Jeffrey Epstein, Lawrence Krauss and Steven Pinker.

A peek inside techno-fascist clown college - The New Inquiry profiles the University of Austin

I laughed and laughed at the pretentious yet oafish, resentment-driven nitwits at the university funded by fascists and techno-fascists, described in the New Inquiry's article An American Education: Notes from UATX.

But at least it contains confirmation that the "Intellectual Dark Web" has always been about techno-fascism and a "natural aristocracy." Techno-fascists Joe Lonsdale and Marc Andreessen are featured:

For all of UATX’s supposed concern about “the culture,” the soul, the ethic of America, what at last constituted its core was this limitless faith in the goodness of the free market and entrepreneurship, of accumulating capital by endlessly making new products. Integral to this faith was a conviction about who merited such wealth and the political power that accompanied it. This who came into focus toward the close of the entrepreneurs’ talk. “There’s something very scary in our society—where this idea of a natural aristocracy,” Lonsdale said at the end, “has like really fallen out of favor.” Here it was, for a flash unconcealed by euphemism: “a natural aristocracy.”

At some level, Lonsdale—who displays the verbal intelligence of an 18-year old fratboy and who, moments later, would declare that when founding a company “you want whatever unfair advantages you can get”—doesn’t care about “natural” ability. What the author of tweets claiming “average black culture” is “broken” cares about is justifying existing economic and racial inequality and those, like himself and Andreessen, who reap massive rewards from it.

By the way, Andreessen and Lonsdale are not unlikely to reap some financial rewards from their very participation in UATX. Consider it. Andreessen and Lonsdale champion AI at UATX. Two weeks later, Bari Weiss publishes an article by Andreessen in The Free Press, “AI Will Save the World.” Wait another week or so. UATX then uploads a video recording of the Andreessen-Lonsdale talk, titling it, “Will AI Save the World?” Lonsdale posts the same video to his YouTube channel, where it gets almost 45k views, and tweets a clip from it, which gets over 700k. The upshot: a billionaire and a millionaire whose VC firms have a tremendous financial stake in AI get to widely broadcast the value of their securities. In the grand scheme of business strategy, this chain of events may be minor, but it represents just one of the many channels through which UATX’s founders and friends reinforce their wealth and influence.

But Peter Boghossian was there to provide laughs:

It happened to be Father’s Day, so when Peter (Boghossian), in between lauding UATX’s rigorous admission standards, mentioned a son, I wished him a happy one.

“Oh thanks,” he said. “I got jack and shit.” Muzak dribbled out of the hotel sound system.

“Shuttle’s here!” Loren Rotner, Assistant Chief Academic Officer, soon said, looking up from his phone. We all stood.

Peter sat next to me on the bus. He was fired up. He was delivering opening remarks later that night, plus we’d begun talking about a subject that interested him: exercise. “It’s indispensable for an intellectual,” he told me. “You should be exercising. Do you?”

I’d recently started going to the gym, I said. He looked doubtful.

“You gotta get into jiu-jitsu, man. I’m telling you.” Peter did jiu-jitsu. It’d changed his life. He spun around in his seat, scanned the rest of the bus, then whipped back to laser his eyes on me. “I could murder everybody on this bus and nobody could stop me. It’s a superpower.” I thought this over.

It should be noted that Boghossian is pushing 60. What an absolutely pathetic loser he-man wanna-be. 

Boghossian shows up a little later...

Pano Kanelos, president, stood up. It was time for the opening remarks. Our chatter lulled, and he began to speak in gentle, benevolent tones. He told us that we weren’t starting a university; we were a university. This is what a university looks like: people coming together for conversations, much like the ones we’d been having over our complimentary chicken dinners. “Dia-logue,” he said. “From the Greek, logos.” Two rational beings, engaged in rational discourse. He smiled. We smiled. And with little further ado, he introduced Peter, whom the other students had not yet had the good fortune of meeting. Peter, Pano told us, was “kicking butt in the righteous name of freedom.”

Peter springs to the center of the room. The air pressure changes. A buzz, a hum, a current about us. He brims with a frenzied energy. Something is happening. He is going to give us a taste of what’s to come, he says. This is the kind of intellectual activity we’re going to experience at UATX. We’re going to grapple with big issues. We’re going to be daring, fearless, undaunted. We’re going, he says, to do something called “Street Epistemology.”

What is Street Epistemology? He’ll demonstrate. It’s one of two things he does, the other being jiu-jitsu. “I don’t have a life,” he says. “I talk to strangers and I wrestle strangers.” But before we can do Street Epistemology, Peter needs to think of some questions.

He turns his back to the audience, hunches slightly and strides, stroking his chin. He is Rodin’s thinker set in manic motion; he is a relentless logician in his study at midnight; he is a frantically philosophical gremlin … —BAM! He wheels around and stalks forward and slings his index finger out toward a student, demands of him whether climate change is real?! and how certain is he?! and why?!—BOP! He points at another student, asks whether gender is a social construct, whether trans women are women?! He cites Socrates and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. He staggers and weaves: as a boxer dances, so Peter lectures. He is the professor you never had; he is a squall of raw intellect; he is Robin Williams in the Dead Poets Society, but ripped. He is putting a gun to the head of your most precious assumptions.

Oh man, if you created a character like that in a play, nobody would buy it.

Seth Dillon, the sociopath who funds the psychopath Chaya Raichik of LibsofTikTok was perfectly described:

Up next, Mr. Seth Dillon, CEO of The Babylon Bee, or “the Onion for evangelicals,” as New Yorker writer Kalefa Sanneh has nicely put it. (They have headlines like, “Man Caught Drinking Bud Light Insists He’s Not Gay.”) Dillon spoke about “Canceling Comedy” the evening of the second day. Scoffing at opposition to “punching down” in comedy, he raised his eyebrows and leered and smirked. He demonstrated an impressive command of alliteration: “Nothing,” he said, “undercuts lunacy and lies like laughter.” He licked Mr. Elon Musk’s boots, exclaiming that “the world’s richest man took matters into his own hands,” bought Twitter, “and declared comedy legal again.” In his beard and suit, he was a spectacular manchild.

It's so hard to decide who is more repulsive, Dillon or Boghossian. But wait, here comes Rob Henderson and Richard Hanania!

Unlike most of the previous speakers, he was not alone on stage but sat facing UATX professor Rob Henderson. This gave some unsuspecting students the impression that the two might argue. Perhaps Henderson and Hanania disagreed about something. Perhaps the “constructive debate” advertised by UATX’s website was imminent. As if conscious of this expectation, Henderson put on a funny little voice and asked Hanania if he could define the word “woke,” cleverly saying, “I think being woke just means you’re a good person.…” Hanania obliged Henderson, providing his personal genealogy of the term, before launching into a frantic invective against Affirmative Action and DEI. Following some warped line of thought whose only logic was that of racism, Hanania burst out that he’d “rather punish people for something they have no control over—the color of their skin” than because “their parents run around smoking crack!”

Other obnoxious freaks who get shout-outs include Katie Roiphe, Thomas Chatterton Williams, Jordan Peterson, Dorian "I hate feminism!" Abbot, and the queen bee of sleazy, sugar-daddy-handout hypocrisy herself, Bari Weiss.

Oh and does "liberal" Steven Pinker still subscribe to Richard Hanania on Twitter/X?

You bet he does.

The media finally discovers that Christopher Rufo is part of the race pseudoscience gang - Rufo defends himself using members of the race pseudoscience gang

Christopher Rufo: racist ghoul
and enormous asshole.
----------------------------------------------

I mean, Rufo is part of the Republican-Trump establishment which automatically means racism.

I've been tracking Rufo since at least 2020 because of his association with the race pseudoscience network.

But good work finally catching up, The Guardian.

The rightwing activist Christopher Rufo has links to a self-styled “sociobiology magazine” that is focused on the supposed relationships between race, intelligence and criminality, and which experts have characterized as an outlet for scientific racism.

At the time of reporting, Aporia was one of 19 Substack newsletters Rufo links to in the “recommended” section on his own newsletter, which according to Substack has more than 50,000 subscribers. Rufo also appeared on Aporia’s podcast, which has published flattering interviews with proponents of scientific racism and eugenics.

Rufo, a close ally of Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, and one of America’s most prominent activists fighting so-called “wokeism”, has repeatedly described his goal as “colorblind equality”, but his links to Aporia raises questions about Rufo’s proximity to extremists.

I'm unfortunately not surprised that the article failed to mention that Richard Haier, "mainstream" scientist is also a member of the Aporia gang.

UPDATE - you just cannot parody these right-wing racist ghouls. Rufo defends himself against charges of being too cozy with race pseudoscience by getting his dear friends, two prominent members of the race pseudoscience network, Claire Lehmann and Peter Boghossian (also Harlan Crow's sugar baby) to speak up for him. 

What a pack of assholes.

UPDATE UPDATE - Jonathan Katz weighs in on this latest example of right-wing racist extremism at Substack.

A third citation for Pinkerite

Still a nobody, but I guess it's something.
----------------------------------------------------------

A few years ago right-wing ghoul Peter Boghossian, one of Harlan Crow's sugar babies, complained that I, a nobody with only two citations, had the audacity to write blog posts criticizing celebrity intellectual Steven Pinker.

I just discovered my article Steven Pinker's right-wing, alt-right and hereditarian connections has been cited by a paper called Intellectual dark web, alt-lite and alt-right: Are they really that different? a multi-perspective analysis of the textual content produced by contrarians - just published this month.

I'm sure it's not enough for Boghossian, but then again Peter Boghossian is a right-wing political operative funded by one of the men who corrupted Clarence Thomas, so does anybody care what he thinks?

I really have to update that Steven Pinker paper though. I've found out so much more about Pinker and the race pseudoscience network in the almost five years since I published in 2019, plus there are a few typos, including worst of all, in J. Philippe Rushton's name. 

Rushton is one of the founding fathers, along with E. O. Wilson, of contemporary race pseudoscience.

The INTERNATIONAL League of Race Pseudoscience Ghouls, Evolutionary Psychology Goons and Rightwing Grifters publishes a Westminster Declaration

A tweet from Michael Shermer in
supporter of racist extremist
J. Philippe Rushton - I think
Shermer is a fair representative of 
the reactionaries and race
pseudoscience promoters 
who signed this 
Westminster Declaration
But racist Toby Young would also
be a good choice.
===========================

Hot on the heels of the most recent right-wing declaration of their right to promote race pseudoscience and reactionary politics without pushback (a "scholarly" paper,) comes a DECLARATION for the right to promote race pseudoscience and reactionary politics - including anti-trans hatred, climate change denial and Covid conspiracies - without pushback.

Apparently this has been out for like a month but I'm only finding out about it now.

Anyway, let's review this INTERNATIONAL list of utterly shameless race pseudoscience ghouls, evolutionary psychology goons and rightwing grifters. Some of the same people who published the paper also signed this declaration. 

This list includes former far-leftists who are now stooges of the right.

The rightwing is basically addicted to this kind of declaration ever since the Harper's Letter - no wait - ever since racist Linda Gottfredson published a defense of The Bell Curve. 

Signing these papers and declarations is how the Right performs virtue-signaling.

I mean, I guess I shouldn't be surprised, as the list is international, but I really didn't expect to see so many Putin supporters and apologists.

You know Steven Pinker is going to be here - I'd bet he had some role in organizing both the paper and the declaration:

1. Matt Taibbi, Journalist, USA - reactionary grifter - went down the path to rightwingdom after his behavior with Russian women and women correspondents became better-known - Taibbi is absolute psychopathic misogynist filth, based on that Washington Post article, and once that became well-known he apparently had nowhere else to go except to the far right, where they absolutely love psychopathic misogynist filth.  His buddy Mark Ames appears to have been even worse, if you can believe it, bragging about statutory rape with a 15-year old and bragging about how he induced his pregnant Russian girlfriend to get an abortion by threatening to kill her. Both men claimed it was all just "satire" and complete fiction. I wouldn't be surprised if the Republicans tried to recruit either Taibbi or Ames as candidate for president in 2028.
2. Michael Shellenberger, Public, USA - Koch employee, climate change denier, failed candidate for governor of California
3. Jonathan Haidt, Social Psychologist, NYU, USA - race pseudoscience promoter
4. John McWhorter, Linguist, Columbia, Author, USA - long time Koch employee - also signed the paper
5. Steven Pinker, Psychologist, Harvard, USA - of course of course of course
6. Julian Assange, Editor, Founder of Wikileaks, Australia - rightwing stooge
7. Tim Robbins, Actor, Filmmaker, USA - stooge of the Right - apparently turning into Bob Roberts
8. Nadine Strossen, Professor of Law, NYLS, USA - supporter of race pseudoscience
9. Glenn Loury, Economist, USA - Koch employee - also signed the paper
10. Richard Dawkins, Biologist, UK - creepy old reactionary - get off his lawn you hippies!
11. John Cleese, Comedian, Acrobat, UK - creepy old reactionary - get off his lawn you hippies!
12. Slavoj Žižek, Philosopher, Author, Slovenia - anti-trans reactionary
13. Jeffrey Sachs, Columbia University, US - dictator apologist
14. Oliver Stone, Filmmaker, USA - conspiracy theory promoter
15. Edward Snowden, Whistleblower, USA - bullshit - he's a traitor to the USA and he's a Russian now
16. Greg Lukianoff, President and CEO Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, USA - Koch employee via FIRE
17. Stella Assange, Campaigner, UK - wife of Julian Assange
18. Glenn Greenwald, Journalist, USA - reactionary grifter, Trump apologist
19. Claire Fox, Founder of the Academy of Ideas, UK - "cancel culture" hysteric
20. Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, Psychologist, Author, Canada - infamous crackpot
21. Bari Weiss, Journalist, USA - the odious rightwing grifter, Supreme Court corrupter Harlan Crow is her sugar daddy
22. Walter Kirn, Author, USA - ally of Matt Taibbi
23. Peter Hitchens, Author, Journalist, UK - far-right ghoul
24. Niall Ferguson, Historian, Stanford, UK - far-right ghoul
25. Matt Ridley, Journalist, Author, UK - rightwing ghoul
26. Melissa Chen, Journalist, Spectator, Singapore/USA - one of the creepiest of the rightwing grifters - likes to display herself for Peter Boghossian- speaking of whom...
27. Peter Boghossian, Philosopher, Founding Faculty Fellow, University of Austin, USA - a rightwing creep - mad at me for being a nobody yet daring to criticize celebrity intellectual Steven Pinker
28. Yanis Varoufakis, Economist, Greece - the far-right's idea of a leftist
29. Michael Shermer, Science Writer, USA - racist who thinks infamous racist J. Philippe Rushton was right about Black people and Pinker's personal friend
30. Alan Sokal, Professor of Mathematics, UCL, UK - idiot stooge of the right
31. Sunetra Gupta, Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology, Oxford, UK - rightwing idiot who signed the Koch-connected Great Barrington Declaration
32. Jay Bhattacharya, Professor, Stanford, USA - another Great Barrington idiot
33. Martin Kulldorff, Professor of Medicine (on leave), Harvard, USA - another Great Barrington idiot
34. Aaron Kheiriaty, Psychiatrist, Author, USA - rightwing idiot
35. Chris Hedges, Journalist, Author, USA - one of those leftists whose mission is to help Republicans win elections
36. Lee Fang, Independent Journalist, USA - ally of reactionary stooge Glenn Greenwald
37. Alex Gutentag, Journalist, USA - reactionary stooge - COVID hysteric
38. Iain McGilchrist, Psychiatrist, Philosopher, UK - right-winger, purveyor of woo
39. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Human Rights Activist, Author, Netherlands - rightwinger, born-again Christian
40. Konstantin Kisin, Author, UK - Putinbot and right-wing extremist - but I repeat myself. Also a Barbie-phobic misogynist asshole. He needs to be sent back to Russia, toot sweet.
41. Leighton Woodhouse, Public, USA - ally of Shellenberger
42. Andrew Lowenthal, liber-net, Australia - stooge of the right, ally of Matt Taibbi
43. Aaron Mate, Journalist, USA - Putin sympathizer - appears to be Canadian not American
44. Izabella Kaminska, Journalist, The Blind Spot, UK - right-winger, supporter of crackpot RFK Jr.
45. Nina Power, Writer, UK - right-winger
46. Kmele Foster, Journalist, Media Entrepreneur, USA - rightwing grifter, loves Ayn Rand
47. Toby Young, Journalist, Free Speech Union, UK - infamous racist, former Quillette staffer, comedian Stewart Lee mocked him in the Guardian
48. Winston Marshall, Journalist, The Spectator, UK - right-winger
49. Jacob Siegel, Tablet, USA/Israel - rightwing stooge
50. Ulrike Guerot, Founder of European Democracy Lab, Germany - Putinbot
51. Heather E. Heying, Evolutionary Biologist, USA - evolutionary psychologist trying to trade on the good reputation of evolutionary biology - rightwing grifter - lately spending her time drumming up anti-trans hysteria
52. Bret Weinstein, Evolutionary Biologist, USA - ask Bret and Heather about Game Theory! They became infamous for promoting ivermectin as a treatment for Covid
53. Martina Pastorelli, Independent Journalist, Italy - rightwing Catholic
54. Leandro Narloch, Independent Journalist, Brazil - anti-trans reactionary
55. Ana Henkel, Independent Journalist, Brazil - anti-trans
56. Mia Ashton, Journalist, Canada - anti-trans, right-wing extremist
57. Micha Narberhaus, The Protopia Lab, Spain/Germany - Putinbot, ally of Konstantin Kisin
58. Alex Sheridan, Free Speech Ireland - Trump supporter
59. Ben Scallan, Gript Media, Ireland - right-winger
60. Thomas Fazi, Independent Journalist, Italy - right-winger pretending to be of the left
61. Jean F. Queralt, Technologist, Founder @ The IO Foundation, Malaysia/Spain - far-right goon
62. Phil Shaw, Campaigner, Operation People, New Zealand - apparent supporter of conspiracy kooks
63. Jeremy Hildreth, Independent, UK - marketing ghoul, former associate of Koch-infused CATO Institute
64. Craig Snider, Independent, USA - Koch ally
65. Eve Kay, TV Producer, UK - rightwing COVID hysteric
66. Helen Joyce, Journalist, UK - anti-trans fanatic
67. Dietrich Brüggemann, Filmmaker, Germany - stooge of the Right
68. Adam B. Coleman, Founder of Wrong Speak Publishing, USA - rightwing grifter 
69. Helen Pluckrose, Author, UK - rightwing grifter
70. Michael Nayna, Filmmaker, Australia - right-winger ally of racist Eric Kaufmann
71. Paul Rossi, Educator, Vertex Partnership Academics, USA -rightwing anti-"woke" idiot
72. Juan Carlos Girauta, Politician, Spain - "hard-right"
73. Andrew Neish, KC, UK - right-winger, likes to retweet Fox News and Nigel Farage
74. Steven Berkoff, Actor, Playright (sic), UK - hideous old misogynist
75. Patrick Hughes, Artist, UK - this guy, I guess - racist Nicholas Wade is a fan
76. Adam Creighton, Journalist, Australia - anti-"woke" hysteric
77. Julia Hartley-Brewer, Journalist, UK - rightwing embarrassment to the UK
78. Robert Cibis, Filmmaker, Germany - conspiracy promoter
79. Piers Robinson, Organization for Propaganda Studies, UK - far-right ghoul, ally of Shellenberger and Taibbi
80. Dirk Pohlmann, Journalist, Germany - "The Journalist Sebastian Leber referred to Pohlmann in the Tagesspiegel in April 2022 as a "conspiracy ideologue" who had conspired jointly in the secret action "Leberschaden" (liver damage) with the "who's who of the German "swashbuckler scene" (German: Schwurblerszene)," especially blogger Robert Cibis."
81. Mathias Bröckers, Author, Journalist, Germany - conspiracy kook
82. Kira Phillips, Documentary Filmmaker, UK
83. Diane Atkinson, Historian, Biographer, UK
84. Eric Kaufmann, Professor of Politics, Birkbeck, University of Buckingham, Canada - extreme right-winger and racist
85. Laura Dodsworth, Journalist and Author, UK - Covid kook
86. Nellie Bowles, Journalist, USA - Bari Weiss' wife - rightwing reactionary grifter - one-time (and possibly still?) fan of psychotic stochastic terrorist Libs of TikTok
87. Andrew Tettenborn, Professor of Law, Swansea University, UK - right-winger, member of the Koch-connected Heterodox Academy
88. Julius Grower, Fellow, St. Hugh’s College, UK - anti-trans crusader
89. Nick Dixon, Comedian, UK - right-winger, "comedian"
90. Dominic Frisby, Comedian, UK - right-wing, libertarian Bitcoin bro and "comedian"
91. James Orr, Associate Professor, University of Cambridge, UK - rightwing extremist
92. Brendan O’Neill, Journalist, spiked, UK - Koch employee "Marxist libertarian" LOL
93. Jan Jekielek, Journalist, Canada - rightwing ghoul, likes to repost James "your mom" Lindsay on Twitter
94. Andrew Roberts, Historian, UK - far right
95. Robert Tombs, Historian, UK - right-winger
96. Ben Schwarz, Journalist, USA - right-winger, former national editor of the Steve Sailer-publishing, founded-by-racists The American Conservative
97. Xavier Azalbert, Investigative Scientific Journalist, France - promoter of anti-vaccine kook Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
98. Doug Stokes, International Relations Professor, University of Exeter, UK - far-right
99. James Allan, Professor of Law, University of Queensland, UK - far-right CPAC ghoul
100. David McGrogan, Professor of Law, Northumbria University, UK - rightwing Covid hysteric
101. Jacob Mchangama, Author, Denmark - right-winger, member of the racist Quillette gang
102. Nigel Biggar, Chairman, Free Speech Union, UK - rightwing, ant-woke, transphobic religionist
103. David Goodhart, Journalist, Author, UK - right-winger, reposts Putinbot Kosnstantin Kisin on Twitter
104. Catherine Austin Fitts, The Solari Report, Netherlands - Republican idiot
105. Matt Goodwin, Politics Professor, University of Kent, UK - rightwing ghoul
106. Alan Miller, Together Association, UK - anti-vax kook
107. Catherine Liu, Cultural Theorist, Author, USA - "leftist" idiot
108. Stefan Millius, Journalist, Switzerland - everything about him I could find is written in German. But based on the previous 100+ signers of the declaration, I'm going to take a wild guess that he's a right-winger
109. Philip Hamburger, Professor of Law, Columbia, USA - PragerU freak
110. Andrew Doyle, Author and journalist, UK - rightwing grifter - idiot Jerry Coyne loves him
111. Rueben Kirkham, Co-Director, Free Speech Union of Australia, Australia -  Free Speech Union a far-right organization founded by racist Toby Young and run by members of the far-right including white supremacist Douglas Murray - "related" to Heterodox Academy - so probably Koch-funded
112. Jeffrey Tucker, Author, USA - libertarian Bitcoin idiot
113. Sarah Gon, Director, Free Speech Union, South Africa - Free Speech Union a far-right organization founded by racist Toby Young and run by members of the far-right including white supremacist Douglas Murray - "related" to Heterodox Academy - so probably Koch-funded - Gon looks like an old-school pro-Apartheid racist to me
114. Dara Macdonald, Co-Director, Free Speech Union, Australia - Free Speech Union a far-right organization founded by racist Toby Young and run by members of the far-right including white supremacist Douglas Murray - "related" to Heterodox Academy - so probably Koch-funded - Macdonald appears to be a far-right ghoul
115. Jonathan Ayling, Chief Executive, Free Speech Union, New Zealand -  Free Speech Union a far-right organization founded by racist Toby Young and run by members of the far-right including white supremacist Douglas Murray - "related" to Heterodox Academy - so probably Koch-funded
116. David Zweig, Journalist, Author, USA - rightwing idiot
117. Juan Soto Ivars, Author, Spain -  everything about him I could find is written in Spanish. But based on the previous 100+ signers of the declaration, I'm going to take a wild guess that he's a right-winger
118. Colin Wright, Evolutionary Biologist, USA - evolutionary psychologist, anti-trans fanatic, ally of far-right freak Christopher Rufo, disgraced researcher
119. Gad Saad, Professor, Evolutionary Behavioral Scientist, Author, Canada - evolutionary psychologist, rightwing oaf, attendee of Peter Thiel's CPAC for racists
120. Robert W. Malone, MD, MS, USA - anti-vax kook
121. Jill Glasspool-Malone, PhD., USA - anti-vax kook (see link for Robert W. Malone)
122. Jordi Pigem, Philosopher, Author, Spain - appears to be a Covid hysteric
123. Holly Lawford-Smith, Associate Professor in Political Philosophy, University of Melbourne, Australia - rightwing anti-trans idiot, contributor to racist Quillette
124. Michele Santoro, Journalist, TV Host, Presenter, Italy - stooge of the Right
125. Dr. James Smith, Podcaster, Literature Scholar, RHUL, UK - stooge of the Right
126. Francis Foster, Comedian, UK - rightwing "comedian" and ally of Putinbot Konstantin Kisin - Kisin sure has a lot of friends on this list
127. Coleman Hughes, Writer, Podcaster, USA - rightwing grifter, Quillette author
128. Marco Bassani, Political Theorist, Historian, Milan University, Italy -  everything about him I could find is written in Italian. But based on the previous 100+ signers of the declaration, I'm going to take a wild guess that he's a right-winger
129. Isabella Loiodice, Professor of Comparative Public Law, University of Bari, Italy - almost  everything about her I could find is written in Italian. But based on the previous 100+ signers of the declaration, I'm going to take a wild guess that she's a right-winger
130. Luca Ricolfi, Professor, Sociologist, Turin University, Italy - everything about him I could find is written in Italian. But based on the previous 100+ signers of the declaration, I'm going to take a wild guess that he's a right-winger
131. Marcello Foa, Journalist, Former President of Rai, Italy - no surprise here: "Marcello Foa, a Eurosceptic journalist who has often shared stories proved to be fake..."
132. Andrea Zhok, Philosopher, University of Milan, Italy - too much Italian
133. Paolo Cesaretti, Professor of Byzantine Civilization, University of Bergamo, Italy
134. Alberto Contri, Mass Media Expert, Italy - anti-vax kook
135. Carlo Lottieri, Philosopher, University of Verona, Italy - libertarian idiot
136. Alessandro Di Battista, Political Activist, Writer, Italy - Putinbot: "Di Battista declared that "for the world peace, thankfully we have Putin". On 22 February 2022, Di Battista declared "Russia is not invading Ukraine" and "that Putin wants everything but a war"."
137. Paola Mastrocola, Writer, Italy
138. Carlo Freccero, Television Author, Media Expert, Italy
139. Giorgio Bianchi, Independent Journalist, Italy - appears to be a Putinbot
140. Nello Preterossi, Professor, University of Salerno, Scientific Director of the Italian Institute for Philosophical Studies, Italy  - everything about him I could find is written in Italian. But based on the previous 100+ signers of the declaration, I'm going to take a wild guess that he's a right-winger
141. Efrat Fenigson, Journalist, Podcaster, Israel - anti-vax kook
142. Eli Vieira, Journalist, Genetic Biologist, Brazil - right-winger, idiot
143. Stephen Moore, Author and Analyst, Canada - there are too many Stephen Moores in the world. I'm going to guess that the one listed is this right-wing Trudeau-hating idiot.

"An antiwoke organization implodes" - buh-bye FAIR!

“You have a lot of people with an extreme amount of wealth driving an extremist agenda.”

I was going to write about Jerry Coyne whining about the criticism of his little IDW grift perpetrated in cahoots with Quillette author and crackpot Anna Krylov. Best part, Coyne uses the phrase "Lee Jussim is an antiwoke social psychologist at Rutgers." Pinkerite has often noted the right-wing reactionary, vicious, race pseudoscience-loving loserosity of Lee Jussim. 

The second best part was when Coyne unironically describes race pseudoscience-promoting reactionaries Steven Pinker and Jonathan Haidt and Koch employee and reactionary Quillette author John McWhorter as "of the left."

Jerry Coyne and his right-wing allies live in a hermetically-sealed bubble.

Coyne was especially mad at P. Z. Myers, because Myers had this excellent response to the Krylov/Coyne grift. One of the best parts: "screw you McWhorter."

UPDATE: Myers responds to Coyne's complaints. Will Coyne ever stop embarrassing himself with his pathetic right-wing stoogery?

But there is much MUCH bigger news, which I found by looking at Coyne's website - the far-right reactionary FAIR grift "implodes!"

I had already noted how many members of the FAIR board of advisors were right-wingers, Trump supporters and Republicans.

The news comes from the New Yorker:

Professionally, Bartning had never worked on issues related to race or civil rights; he was an entrepreneur and investor who had helped American Express launch its online travel business and later helped lead the personal-care company E.O.S. One of his most recent ventures was a failed startup that sought to connect local farms with chefs. But he resolved to do something about what he was seeing at Riverdale—maybe even start an organization to counter it. He read an article in the Jewish magazine Tablet, about the rise of a new ideology on the left—a “mixture of postmodernism, postcolonialism, identity politics, neo-Marxism, critical race theory, intersectionality, and the therapeutic mentality”—and another parent offered to connect him with Tablet’s editor and with the author of the article, Bari Weiss.

I had always assumed that Christopher Rufo was the real founder of FAIR, although Bartning had been given the credit, as I noted in September 2021. 

But as with so many horrible right-wing reactionary projects, this one is the work of Peter Thiel's leading courtier, Bari Weiss.

The New Yorker article demonstrates what professional journalists should be doing: getting past the lies. Although the article's description of right-wing extremist Peter Boghossian was unfortunately extremely flattering.

The article, written by Emma Green, mentions so many people I've discussed on this site for their connection to race pseudoscience and/or the Intellectual Dark Web: creepy Melissa Chen; Substack's Lulu Cheng Meservey, the awful former Quillette editor Colin Wright; Hoover ghoul Niall Ferguson; Angel Eduardo; Quillette author Glenn Loury; Koch employee/Randroid Kmele Foster.

The article is long but the gist is that Bion Bartning, who is basically a normie, although "independently wealthy," decided to wade into a culture war campaign dear to the American Right and the Republican Party - preventing discussions of systemic racism. 

Bartning:

“I’d say that, in the first few months of starting FAIR, I didn’t realize the degree to which this was being politicized,” he told me. “Getting this issue tied up in a culture war between two political parties is dangerous and could end up pushing things toward a more dehumanizing approach, because people get locked into their position.” 

Bartning's tragedy was that someone connected him to Bari Weiss - Madam Culture War herself.

Eventually Bartning achieves this insight:

“There are too few in the donor class who want to bolster moderation,” he said. “That’s part of what’s happening in our culture. You have a lot of people with an extreme amount of wealth driving an extremist agenda.”

Probably the biggest get of the article is the revelation of Weiss' coziness with Supreme Court corrupter Harlan Crow:

But it was Weiss, more than anyone else, who was clearly the group’s big draw. She brought in a half-million-dollar donation from Harlan Crow, a Texas real-estate developer who, ProPublica recently reported, paid for years of undisclosed vacations and private-jet travel for the Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. 

Bari Weiss is, through and through, a right-wing political operative taking money from some of the most evil and crackpot plutocrats in the world to help the anti-democracy Republican Party make the United States a worse place, through the promotion of culture wars.

For me one of the best aspects of the article is that it provides a window into the Intellectual Dark Web Culture War issues factory:

Weiss had already been talking with a few of her friends about creating a new anti-woke organization. One was Melissa Chen, a writer and the managing director at Ideas Beyond Borders, a nonprofit that takes books about concepts such as liberty and reason and translates them into Arabic, to make them more accessible; she later described herself as a conservative who was forming her trajectory in “the anti-woke space.” Another was Peter Boghossian, a former professor best known for getting absurd papers about subjects such as dogs perpetuating rape culture at dog parks published in feminist and postmodern academic journals to expose what he saw as corruption in scholarship, and who has earned some prominence as a public intellectual defending free speech and opposing illiberalism. Chen and Boghossian had workshopped a pitch to the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, for a project to create “a modern-day Death Star” to wage “ideological warfare” on the “enemies of modernity”; their plan involved writing coördinated op-eds and promoting anti-woke content, but it was rejected. Weiss and her friends also sought advice from Niall Ferguson, a historian at the Hoover Institution, about the best way forward.

Bari Weiss is truly a conscience-deficient individual. 

UPDATE: P. Z. Myers comments:

It does me good to see one of those hateful anti-woke organizations falling apart, but it’s also dismaying to see how easily radical conservative groups can suck money out of the pockets of the obscenely rich. I guess if you’re extremely wealthy you can easily throw a million dollars here, a half million there, as long as the recipient panders to the bigotry that comes naturally to bloated capitalist nepo babies.

UPDATE: Charles Murray is such a good buddy of Harlan Crow, he dedicated one of his more recent sociobiology books to him.

My letter to Pamela Paul ~ plus Bari Weiss, Peter Thiel and Chat GPT

Dear Ms. Paul

Your latest op-ed claims that "A Paper That Says Science Should Be Impartial Was Rejected by Major Journals” without mentioning that many of those who wrote this paper are associated with the “Intellectual Dark Web” and/or have written for racist far-right Thiel-funded Quillette.

I am including Jerry Coyne, Peter Boghossian, Anna Krylov, John McWhorter, Glenn Loury, Lee Jussim and Jay Tanzman - and those are the names I recognize immediately. 

I suspect they are not the only co-authors with right-wing views. I will investigate further - something that you apparently refuse to do. Or worse, you are deliberately hiding what you know about their political views.

After all, your former spouse was caught promoting race pseudoscience and his IDW friends rushed to his defense. It would not be surprising if you had your own IDW connections.

https://www.pinkerite.com/2020/05/four-koch-toadies-defend-race-science.html

I addressed Krylov’s dishonest, hysterical screed on the same topic on my blog a couple of years ago, and it's also available on Medium.

https://medium.com/@nancymcclernan/anna-krylov-and-the-peril-of-bullshit-31ca795583d5

You seem to be, at the very least, a deeply unethical employee of the New York Times.

Nancy McClernan

Pinkerite

-------------

The paper in question was published in "The Journal of Controversial Ideas" thus confirming that it is, along with Quillette, a tool of the Intellectual Dark Web which many of us always suspected it was.

The paper appears to have been organized by reactionary bullshit-swilling Anna Krylov, who I assume is by now on Peter Thiel's payroll. She was also an organizer for Peter Thiel's CPAC for racists. 

And while many of the co-authors are horrible reactionaries and hawkers of racist "science," the references for the paper are even worse - no less than three links to Quillette, plus citations of race pseudoscience promoters Pinker and Andrew Sullivan and grifters Pamela Paresky, Katie Herzog, Helen Pluckrose and the thoroughly grotesque Trump-loving asshole James Lindsay.

More and more it appears to me that Pamela Paul was hired to ensure that the NYTimes has someone to represent the interests of the Intellectual Dark Web, now that Bari Weiss has gone on to more obviously rightwing plutocrat-serving gigs. 

This is from TODAY. Note how Weiss describes right-wing ghouls Blake Masters and JD Vance as "anti-establishment." 

I think you mean fascist, you sleazy shameless handmaiden of stochastic terrorist monsters and babbling lunatics.

I asked Chat GPT about Weiss's connection to Thiel. 

Bonus link - Majority Report (again!): Bari Weiss HUMILIATED When Trans Child's Powerful Response To Her Lies Goes Viral. Pamela Paul is also infamous for beating the anti-trans hate drum.

NOTE: This must be investigated further, since ChatGPT is known to be factually unreliable.

UPDATE - someone put me on the "In Defense of Merit" mailing list and so I received an email today that links to this "In Defense of Merit" website. 

Apparently the people behind this grift felt that it wasn't clear enough that this is a project of right-wingers, race pseudoscience promoters and associates of the Intellectual Dark Web, so the page includes testimonials, not only from the odious Bari Weiss and Pamela Paul, the IDW-cheerleader twins, but from:

Richard Dawkins - anti-Muslim crackpot and instigator of the infamous stochastic terrorist pioneer event known as "elevatorgate"

Jordan Peterson - reactionary crackpot beloved by Quillette

Jeffrey Flier - Quillette author and a co-president of Pinker's Council of Academic Freedom grift 

Jonathan Rauch - Thielbucks via Quillette, Kochbucks via Reason Magazine

Jesse Sabatini - right-winger opposed to COVID lockdown

David Bertoli - right-winger who likes to retweet people like Nicholas Christakis and Conor Friedersdorf. Hilariously Bertoli tweeted the Upton Sinclair quote “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” while praising people who are indisputably political operatives working for Charles Koch and Peter Thiel. The lack of self-awareness and/or hypocrisy of these IDW goons is always mind-boggling.

Judith Curry - climate change denier who "receives funding from the fossil fuel industry" - what a surprise. Maybe David Bertoli can lecture her on the topic of salary sources and not understanding things. Predictably, the Koch-funded City Journal loves her.

The College Fix - funded by Koch and other right-wing plutocrats

And best of all...

Noah Carl loves neo-Nazi Bo Winegard
and "human biodiversity" -  if
I had to guess, I'd say everybody
who contributed to this grift
is fine with race pseudoscience

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Noah Carl - hardcore but sneaky racist and promoter of race pseudoscience and co-author with neo-Nazi Quillette editor Bo Winegard. According to RationalWiki, Carl

is a British sociologist who, outside of his respectable sociology work, publishes racialist pseudoscience and wrote an Islamophobic paper for OpenPsych and a paper for the white supremacist journal Mankind Quarterly.[2] For this reason, he has been described as living a "double life".[3] After the latter was exposed in December 2018, hundreds of academics signed a letter calling for Cambridge University to reconsider the award of his fellowship and to stop employing him as a postdoctoral researcher.[4][5]

Krylov and her IDW pals are not even pretending anymore - they are just blatant about being far-right and racist ghouls.

I asked ChatGPT about Krylov and it said she

...holds the Stephen and Laura Hsu endowed chair in analytical chemistry.

Which certainly sounds plausible especially if that Stephen Hsu is the supporter of race pseudoscience. That Hsu can be seen Tweeting encouragement for her earlier attempt at building a culture war moral panic grift.

Like many other hawkers of race pseudoscience, Hsu gets serious funding:

...Even though mainstream science has pretty much scrapped the notion that race has any kind of biological basis long ago, that hasn’t stopped Steven Hsu from trying to link intelligence with race and getting a billion and a half dollars for research based in China. 

I don't think Krylov has ever met a race pseudoscience hawker she doesn't like. But Google couldn't find any evidence of Krylov's connection to this endowed chair and there's no mention of it on her USC page.

But WHERE IS PINKER? This IDW-heavy grift is right up his alley and he is pals with the two people I think organized the paper, Krylov and Jerry Coyne.

Pinker was hanging out with Anna Krylov at Peter Thiel's CPAC for racists and Coyne adores Pinker.

Pinker, left and Krylov  wearing glasses behind and on the right of him
at the very skewed old-white-man CPAC for racists keynoted by 
(and funded by, I suspect,) crackpot Republican fascist Peter Thiel
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Did Peter Thiel tell Pinker to stand down and focus his attention on his "Academic Freedom" grift?

Never fear, loyal Pinkeriteers, more about Steven Pinker tomorrow.