Steven Pinker is a Harvard psychology professor, and I think he clearly identifies the core, unspoken issue at the heart of debates on higher education and public funding. Have the sciences been hopelessly captured by “woke ideologues with contempt for truth, evidence and common sense”? Or not?
Pinker believes the answer is:
Although the arts and humanities have been captured, the sciences remain grounded in rationality. We have the occasional e.g. outside of this, but largely we remain intact.
I believe Pinker underestimates the extent to which woke ideology has rotted out medicine and science, likely because he isn’t knee deep in it, instead here are 20 points for consideration:
During COVID-19 public health experts said George Floyd protests were OK to have, while Trump rallies were not. The truth is all outdoor events were totally fine, and this distinction only reflects public health being hopelessly captured by the woke to the point they would say obviously ludicrous things, expecting the public to believe it. (a Jason Arday-esque claim)
Modern universities have performed gender transition surgeries and given puberty blocking hormones to many minors. Claims are made about rates of suicide, but medical science has not performed a single well controlled experiment to demonstrate if people are happy or saddened by this choice; if suicide is up are down— all comparisons are biased. Common sense and conservatives are rightly critical of these practices in the absence of good data.
Universities do not have a coherent position on race and genetics. Is race a purely social construct or is it linked to genetic differences? On the one hand medicine says it’s “purely social”, on the other hand, medicine says broad genome sequencing efforts need to recruit people of diverse race. Which is it: you need diverse races for genetic datasets because they are different or there are no genetic differences by race? This hypocrisy is not discussed.
Science and medical departments are consumed with DEI hiring and promotion and tenure decisions. Universities continue to defy the Supreme Court and use race as an independent consideration for recruitment and admission. Trump’s DOJ has issued many warnings— I discuss that here. Universities think the Supreme Court is just optional.
DOJ says UC Davis is violating the law and giving racial preferences in defiance of the Supreme Court
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UC Davis is the latest school that the DOJ says it has caught violating the law.
Medical researchers routinely produce false reports on issues of race. Claiming that black babies had twice the death rate when cared for by white providers instead of black providers. This paper was obviously false— you may recall, I said so at the time— now, it has been debunked (the authors didn’t adjust for birth weight, and white docs took care of sicker (lighter) babies), it remains un-retracted. You could never write a paper that reached the opposite conclusion and publish it. If a paper reaching the opposite conclusion was proven wrong, it would be retracted. The authors might be fired.
Cloth masks never worked. Community masking never worked. Mask mandates don’t work. Masks are the MAGA hat of the woke movement— a visible symbol to show allegiance. Now woke doctors continue to force the rest of us to wear a cheap surgical mask in the hospital during “respiratory virus season”— something with as much evidence as slaughtering a goat to ward off infection.
Woke medicine attacks proposals that have little downside and are preference sensitive merely because the political right favors autonomy. Raw milk— not my cup of tea, but fine if others want to do it. The societal impact is negligible, and many European countries allow it. Shifting hep B shots in neonates from day 0 to day 60, if mom tests negative with ultra-sensitive assay, and is low risk for hep B— again, societal impact is negligible. Totally fine to delay it in an effort to show the public that vaccine recommendations can be open to different views. Woke experts routinely lie and fear-mongered about topics important to the political right to extinguish discussion. You would think these decisions are like an asteroid striking earth given how media experts screech about it.
Monkeypox largely affected men who had sex with a lot of men. Not even gay men who had sex with few gay men were at high risk— but rather men with extreme numbers of sex partners. Spread was from sexual activity and use of spit as lubricant. Yet, woke medical experts promoted the use of masks in school, or vaccines to all college kids and other deranged views. This coincided with masks coming off because covid was over, ergo, woke experts repurposed monkeypox to promote a policy goal they had already reached for false reasons.
Every single public health issue is filtered through the irrational woke lens in 2026. Hantavirus was a nothing burger. Check out my piece
Cyclospora outbreak on produce does not mean you should give up eating vegetables. Each of these issues meets a hysterical woke medical expert response. Public health is the gender studies of medicine— first to be rotted out fully.
Medical experts speculate wildly about Trump’s health— when he is clearly the same— while missing the obvious signs of Biden’s dementia— as he clearly deteriorates. For the latter they put “stutter” and “cold medicine” on their differential diagnosis. No greater double standard exists than the health of politicians by political party. Check out this gem we got for SM:
Many science commenters criticize Robert Kennedy's decision to cut mRNA vaccine funding. They mislead the public into thinking he cut all mRNA vaccine funding, but he merely cut infectious disease and not cancer indications. Second, they deceive the public into thinking that taxpayer money is needed for mRNA technology— after products become commercially lucrative. Taxpayer money subsidizes research in a commercially unfavorable time, but is not needed when companies have made $100 billion or more. It would be like subsidizing Apple to make new iphones. Ending mRNA vaccine subsidies is in the public interest.
Medical researchers perform thousands of low quality observational studies to further justify the woke agenda on countless topics including race, vaccines, and why Republicans are bad, etc. Our criticism of one E.g..
David Sabatini was forced out at MIT (and blocked from employment by NYU) because of woke ideas about workplace power dynamics. His consensual 30 year old partner and later jilted lover worked in a different lab. I think most sensible people think he should be allowed to run a lab.
Nature and NEJM endorsed Joe Biden for president— as all politically neutral medical journals do.
The irony about woke medicine is that if you're poor, if you're Black, if you are from a rural area, if you are native America—-all the rhetoric, all the bluster, all the DEI seminars, retrospective observational studies, disparities research, and universities are actually doing nothing to help you. Instead, woke medicine uses these groups to justify a bizarre scheme that largely rewards upper middle class, overeducated, professionals. Universities are as much help to the downtrodden as the Detroit Tigers are to tigers.
Scott Atlas was right about COVID but remains censured by Stanford Faculty Senate. In general, every single faculty member who made truthful points about COVID has faced retaliation from their university. (I will note that my disagreement with the political right about covid remains they promoted useless drugs and supplements. The left promoted unnecessary vaccines in kids, vax mandates, lied about origins, natural immunity, closed schools, masked us, etc etc. Probably the best response would have focused on nursing homes, the elderly, and left the rest of us alone. Most of us needed little more than orange juice and rest. Some of us said so at the time).
All training programs have been so invaded by woke ideas that work hours, educational rigor are all in decline. Mental health days are up, hard work is down. The university will pay for you to freeze your eggs, while they add an extra year of Lymphoma fellowship (rather than shorten training so you can have a family).
Medical universities have incessant lectures on climate change and other woke catnip that have little to do with daily medical care. In contrast, there are no lectures on conservative ideas with tangential medical relevance (e.g. the need to have more kids).
Some universities have floated preferential treatment by race, for e.g. heart failure, which would be illegal.
Some argue that they work at universities, disagree with the woke culture, and do good work that has nothing to do with this. Cutting science funding hurts them, and they are not to blame. This is true. And this is also true about sanctions. If the US sanctions a nation, there are some citizens in that country who aren’t part of the political regime who are hurt. But, just like nations, financial penalties are the only way to exert pressure on large institutions or nations to change their behavior. I am also unsympathetic because these jellyfish say nothing at work, and allow the culture to change before their eyes.
My prediction: Right now Trump is squeezing universities, but not hard enough. They still have enough lobbying clout on the right to continue the status quo largely. As such, they are unrepentant, and hiding the woke ideas from view, but largely continuing them. The are waiting Trump out. In the next one or two presidential cycles, we will get a Democrat president, and Congress, who will double down on subsidizing universities, which will lead to an expansion of this irrational woke world view. It will be woke like you have never seen before. Then, when more conservatives realize that Pinker is wrong, the backlash will come, a subsequent Republican congress and president will slash universities so badly, they may not fully recover. My guess is they will aim for revoking tax exempt status and giving them $0 in federal funds. This is my 12-15 year prediction.
If I were a university president, I would pull my head out of my ass, and realizing this, hire some conservative faculty and at least make an effort to show that we are running a balanced institution whose midpoint is the same as all of America. But you don’t get to the top of leadership by being a leader.
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I love these articles, and all your analogies. Thank you for fighting the good fight. Shine on you crazy diamond.🙏
This is a fantastic article, Dr. Prasad! Thank you for not being a “ jellyfish “ as you call it, and for speaking out and publishing papers exposing this nonsense! I’m going to repost it on social media.