Trump Orders Flags to Half-Staff for Charlie Kirk

[Hans Blaster]

Oof, that's even worse. You were not entitled to an opinion before, but now you're double secret not entitled.

I didn't say anything about them not deserving opinions, I'm just rejecting the notion that before he became a performative reactionary that Bret W. was someone that us progressive-leaning, pro-science types paid attention to.

 

[Chesterton]

I didn't say anything about them not deserving opinions, I'm just rejecting the notion that before he became a performative reactionary that Bret W. was someone that us progressive-leaning, pro-science types paid attention to.

We recently passed a population of 8 billion people on planet Earth. I'm sure neither of us are paying attention to most of them.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Had that not happened, he'd still have been a golden boy of the progressives...at least until 2020, when he said some other things about vaccine mandates that got them bent out of shape.

Intelligent people frequently fall into the fallacy that, because they know a lot about a particular subject, they know a lot about everything. When they start going public with those thoughts, that can go badly for them.

Frankly, I've never heard of the guy.

 

[BPPLEE]

Intelligent people frequently fall into the fallacy that, because they know a lot about a particular subject, they know a lot about everything. When they start going public with those thoughts, that can go badly for them.

Frankly, I've never heard of the guy.

Not just intelligent people, actors and musicians as well

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Was he fired for that?

He was pressured into resigning...

Within modern academia, tenured professors can't be fired unless they commit a felonious crime. He took the high road and made the decision to cut ties. He could've been a thorn in their side for much longer if he'd opted to take the low road.

I had never heard of him (or his brother) before they became political podcasters.

Point being?

The fact that you've never heard of certain peer-reviewed, often-cited, frequently-published academics until they take a "non-liberal" position is a bit telling.

 

[Hans Blaster]

He was pressured into resigning...

So, the answer is no.

Within modern academia, tenured professors can't be fired unless they commit a felonious crime. He took the high road and made the decision to cut ties. He could've been a thorn in their side for much longer if he'd opted to take the low road.

I know how tenure works.

Point being?

The fact that you've never heard of certain peer-reviewed, often-cited, frequently-published academics until they take a "non-liberal" position is a bit telling.

I'm not a whatever-he-was biologist. I don't read biology papers. I don't work at his institution. I had zero reason to know who he was. I didn't even know about his "controversy". I barely know about him now and know far more (and I hate that I know anything) about his physics-grifter brother.

 

[GoldenBoy89]

Why were a bunch of politicians and a-listers (that never met or knew him) there to begin with?

It was an election year and this was a highly publicized political topic. A politician would have been a complete moron to skip out on something like this just ahead of an election.

 

[Stopped_lurking]

It's weird how people can be respected academics for 2 decades with no issues, but as soon as they take the "wrong position" on 2 issues, all of the sudden they should be relegated to "performative reactionaries"

I'm sure that's what was going through Bret Weinstein's mind... "I'm going to throw away a $300k (guaranteed for life) tenured professor position after almost two decades, in hopes that I'll be able to be a guest on some podcasts some day"

Let's be honest here... When he was regularly refuting religious claims about creationism, not a single liberal had a problem with him. It was considered "speaking truth to power... if it offends someone, oh well". The moment he objected to a day of absence initiative in which White professors and students were encouraged to not show up for a day, that's when he found himself in progressive crosshairs.

In March 2017, Weinstein wrote a letter to faculty in which he objected to a suggestion pertaining to the college's decades-old tradition of observing a "Day of Absence", during which ethnic minority students and faculty would voluntarily stay away from campus to highlight their contributions to the college. An administrator had suggested that for that year white people stay off campus, and were invited to attend an off-campus program on race issues. Weinstein wrote that the change established a dangerous precedent:



Had that not happened, he'd still have been a golden boy of the progressives...at least until 2020, when he said some other things about vaccine mandates that got them bent out of shape.

If I found the right guy on Scopus (correct name and affiliation? Bret S Weinstein and Evergreen State College), he has a h-index of 2. That makes him an academic nobody, not a respected academic. How do you separate professor (the highest academic rank) with professor as basically a teacher, in the US? Because there must be some subtext I'm missing here.

 

[DaisyDay]

That wouldn't be apples to apples, as to look for institutional backlash, you'd have to look for political alignments.

Military is traditionally a right-leaning institution. So I wouldn't expect conservative critiques of Floyd-worship to draw the same ire in that realm as with the Kirk-worship situation.

Academia, on the other hand, is traditionally a left-leaning institution, and there were most certainly people in those realms who faced both personal and professional consequences (and doxxing) for going "against the grain" on certain aspects of the Floyd situation, or objecting to what BLM was trying to advance in Floyd's name.

Academia is not the government.

UCLA students dox and call for firing of professor after he refuses to cancel final exam over George Floyd death

Some students at the University of California Los Angeles are demanding the firing of professors who refuse to cancel final exams over the death of George

www.washingtonexaminer.com

Students are not the government.

Charles Negy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The University of Central Florida isn't the government and he was merely suspended upon student complaints, then reinstated.

Weber State investigating ‘abhorrent’ tweets from professor

Online petition calls for removal of professor Scott Senjo

www.deseret.com

(while this guy was saying some pretty awful things, keep in mind, this is in the context of a comparison to people posting "laugh reacts" to assassination videos, and making "Dead Fascist Dance Party" TikTok videos)

Again, not the government and for far more than Floyd.

When Bret Weinstein publicly suggested that the trial of Derek Chauvin might have been “prejudged” by a “mob-influenced court,”, there were professional consequences.

Once again, the government did not order his firing nor dox him.

If your point is that conservative provocateurs sometimes face consequences for their speech, no one has said otherwise. The point you're missing is that the actual federal government has 1) pressured private companies to fire people for not sufficiently mourning Kirk, 2) retaliated against federal workers for the same, 4) declared that criticism of Kirk was grounds for denial of visas and 5) had the military police the social media of the rank and file for such criticism which was to be punished.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

If I found the right guy on Scopus (correct name and affiliation? Bret S Weinstein and Evergreen State College), he has a h-index of 2. That makes him an academic nobody, not a respected academic. How do you separate professor (the highest academic rank) with professor as basically a teacher, in the US? Because there must be some subtext I'm missing here.

He musted have been respected enough back 2012 to be invited give a Ted Talk

According to ResearchGate his published works have been cited over 150 times, and I'm not aware of him being involved in any scandals or perceived scandals prior to the "Day of Absence" controversy.


Although, I'm not sure if a higher ranking on Scopus would've made a difference.

I'm sure we all remember what happened to this guy when he went against the grain on a different polarizing subject

 

[Stopped_lurking]

He musted have been respected enough back 2012 to be invited give a Ted Talk

According to ResearchGate his published works have been cited over 150 times, and I'm not aware of him being involved in any scandals or perceived scandals prior to the "Day of Absence" controversy.


Although, I'm not sure if a higher ranking on Scopus would've made a difference.

I'm sure we all remember what happened to this guy when he went against the grain on a different polarizing subject

View attachment 371109

What does ted talks have to do with it? He has two publications! 150 citations in over 20 years is nothing to brag about, I have 242 since 2020 (thank you for giving me an opportunity to brag ), and I'm a junior researcher. What ever academic career Bret had it was not impressive. Bret Weinstein does not become a better academic because there is someone else with a higher h-index, even if they share some convoluted circumstances. How is that even relevant?

 

[Hans Blaster]

If I found the right guy on Scopus (correct name and affiliation? Bret S Weinstein and Evergreen State College), he has a h-index of 2. That makes him an academic nobody, not a respected academic. How do you separate professor (the highest academic rank) with professor as basically a teacher, in the US? Because there must be some subtext I'm missing here.

h=2, LOL.

But, what does "h=2" mean?

A research has an h-factor "h" if they have "h" publications that *each* have at least h citations. In this case two publications each with two or more citations. It could be he has dozens of publications but all but two have 1 or 0 citations. It could be he has two publications with hundreds of citations each. A brief visit to Google Scholar shows it is closer to the latter.

Are we talking about the same person? Yes, we are. Entering "Bret S. Weinstein" into Google Scholar we only get there results:

The reserve-capacity hypothesis: evolutionary origins and modern implications of the trade-off between tumor-suppression and tissue-repair​

BS Weinstein, D Ciszek (U. Michigan)

2002, 87 citations

The better angels of our nature: Group stability and the evolution of moral tension​

DC Lahti (U. Mass-Amherst), BS Weinstein (Evergreen St. Col.)

2005, 114 citations

and

Evolutionary trade-offs: Emergent constraints and their adaptive consequences​

BS Weinstein (PhD thesis, U. Michigan)

2009, 5 citations

Taking only the two refereed publications, i.e. not his dissertation, gives 2 publications with more than 2 citations each for an h-index of 2. (For my amusement, I worked out what my record would look like if my last work was my PhD -- h=6.)

Looking through the intro to his dissertation it is clear that this is the right person. The preface references his brother Eric, his wife Heather Heying (who also played the same performative game with him). The intro indicates that the other two papers are incorporated as chapters in the dissertation. (A very common practice, most of my chapters are based on papers that were already written.)

We can see a simplified academic history for BS Weinstein:

He writes a paper as a U. Michigan grad student in 2002.
He leaves Michigan w/o completion of his PhD to take a teaching position at a 4-year college.
He writes a paper with some one at UMass-Amherst in 2005 while at Evergreen St.
He defends his Michigan PhD in 2009 based on those two papers.
Circa 2020 quits Evergreen St. in a huff.

Was he an academic? Yes. Was he an active scientist? No. Was he respected? I can't tell from this. His contribution was not ignored, but he hadn't made any new ones in over a decade.

 

[Hans Blaster]

He musted have been respected enough back 2012 to be invited give a Ted Talk

Ooh he did a TED Talk. The pinnacle of TechBro "intellectualism". It's not like he wasn't a professor of something, or his brother wasn't connected to the tops of the TechBro "intellectual" world working for a guy that made his money investing in PayPal and Facebook, right?

And, oh look, YT put a "climate change" flash on the video. B. S. Weinstein is/was an evolutionary biologist. He didn't take course work in climatology (I did). Why would YT feel the obligation to mention climate in the video still frame? Does he talk outside his expertise? (Prediction: he does.)

According to ResearchGate his published works have been cited over 150 times,

So have I (this year).

and I'm not aware of him being involved in any scandals or perceived scandals prior to the "Day of Absence" controversy.


Although, I'm not sure if a higher ranking on Scopus would've made a difference.

He quit.

I'm sure we all remember what happened to this guy when he went against the grain on a different polarizing subject

View attachment 371109

I don't remember because I've literally never heard of him right up to this very moment.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

And, oh look, YT put a "climate change" flash on the video. B. S. Weinstein is/was an evolutionary biologist. He didn't take course work in climatology (I did). Why would YT feel the obligation to mention climate in the video still frame? Does he talk outside his expertise? (Prediction: he does.)

He acknowledges that in the video "you probably wonder why a evolutionary biologist is talking about climate" was one of his opening lines.

The two topics have significant areas of intersection, so it's not like they found someone with a doctorate in Music theory to get up and talk about lung disease....

...or invited a teenager with no credentials at all to get up on stage and talk about the subject (cough cough Thunberg)


in this instance, the two fields do have some overlap. Climate change would act as a driver in the natural selection process, and newly evolved traits in species could have impacts on ecosystems in which they live in, correct?

I don't remember because I've literally never heard of him right up to this very moment.

He's the guy who was arguably the most cited cardiologist in modern history (and former chief of internal medicine at Baylor), who had his career ruined because he went on Rogan and questioned aspects of the covid vaccines (particularly, their effects on the heart)

 

[Hans Blaster]

He acknowledges that in the video "you probably wonder why a evolutionary biologist is talking about climate" was one of his opening lines.

I still am.

The two topics have significant areas of intersection, so it's not like they found someone with a doctorate in Music theory to get up and talk about lung disease....

If you look hard enough in the TED Talks, you'll probably find that one.

...or invited a teenager with no credentials at all to get up on stage and talk about the subject (cough cough Thunberg)

She's an activist. She certainly can know more about the topic than other non-researchers as anyone who invests time to learn about it can. Does she speak with the claim of being a climate scientist? Does Weinstein stake his position (whatever that is) on his scientific credentials/profession?

in this instance, the two fields do have some overlap. Climate change would act as a driver in the natural selection process, and newly evolved traits in species could have impacts on ecosystems in which they live in, correct?

Evolutionary biologists study *how* creatures respond to changing environments, not the causes of the changing climate.

He's the guy who was arguably the most cited cardiologist in modern history (and former chief of internal medicine at Baylor), who had his career ruined because he went on Rogan and questioned aspects of the covid vaccines (particularly, their effects on the heart)

Ahh, another on of those. (I don't watch Rogan, so I don't know his guests.) How many "COVID martyrs" are there now? this guy, B. Weinstein & wife, ...

 

[GoldenBoy89]

He's the guy who was arguably the most cited cardiologist in modern history

Who is the second most cited cardiologist?

(and former chief of internal medicine at Baylor), who had his career ruined because he went on Rogan and questioned aspects of the covid vaccines (particularly, their effects on the heart)

You mean he ruined his career by promoting crank medicine on the Joe Rogan non-medical podcast. He didn’t just question aspects of vaccines. He promoted false and ineffectual treatments along with his own supplements to “fix” these supposed vaccine injuries.

 

[Hans Blaster]

I was trying to figure out why in a thread about "charlie kirk" we were discussing B Weinstein (it was because he'd apparently made some sort of conspiratorial comment about the Chauvin jury) when I found this little gem:

It's weird how people can be respected academics for 2 decades with no issues, but as soon as they take the "wrong position" on 2 issues, all of the sudden they should be relegated to "performative reactionaries"

I'm sure that's what was going through Bret Weinstein's mind... "I'm going to throw away a $300k (guaranteed for life) tenured professor position after almost two decades, in hopes that I'll be able to be a guest on some podcasts some day"

He wasn't paid that much, more like 1/3 that much:

Faculty Salary Grid and Guidelines

www.evergreen.edu

I'm sure podcasting the IDW pays much better.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

You mean he ruined his career by promoting crank medicine on the Joe Rogan non-medical podcast. He didn’t just question aspects of vaccines. He promoted false and ineffectual treatments along with his own supplements to “fix” these supposed vaccine injuries.

So, if we were to summarize the main views that got him in trouble:
-Natural immunity is durable, and negates the need to rush out and get vaccinated
-Healthy people under 40 probably don't need the vaccine
-The vaccine can be linked to certain heart issues (especially in younger males)
-Hydroxychloroquine/Ivermectin combination therapy is effective as a covid prophylactic

Seems like the last one is the only one that stands out as having ended up being flat-out wrong.

The professional consensus regarding the first 3 items seems to have evolved to more closely match the things he said that got him in trouble back in 2021


https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/16/health/covid-19-infection-immunity (2023)

FDA vaccine adviser says healthy under-75s don't need Covid booster (2023)

 

[GoldenBoy89]

So, if we were to summarize the main views that got him in trouble:
-Natural immunity is durable, and negates the need to rush out and get vaccinated
-Healthy people under 40 probably don't need the vaccine
-The vaccine can be linked to certain heart issues (especially in younger males)
-Hydroxychloroquine/Ivermectin combination therapy is effective as a covid prophylactic

Seems like the last one is the only one that stands out as having ended up being flat-out wrong.

The professional consensus regarding the first 3 items seems to have evolved to more closely match the things he said that got him in trouble back in 2021


https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/16/health/covid-19-infection-immunity (2023)

FDA vaccine adviser says healthy under-75s don't need Covid booster (2023)

Honestly I don’t really care. Maybe he should have just stayed quiet a little bit longer he’d still have his license.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

So, if we were to summarize the main views that got him in trouble:
-Natural immunity is durable, and negates the need to rush out and get vaccinated
-Healthy people under 40 probably don't need the vaccine
-The vaccine can be linked to certain heart issues (especially in younger males)
-Hydroxychloroquine/Ivermectin combination therapy is effective as a covid prophylactic

Also:
- the COVID-19 pandemic was planned
- spike proteins cause cell death
- claiming huge numbers of deaths from the COVID vaccine
- conspiracy theories about how the medical establishment was suppressing information on ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine treatment
- there's no evidence of asymptomatic COVID-19 spread
- people who have had COVID-19 cannot be reinfected

Additionally, while some of those statements may be true now, they were not necessarily accurate at the time that he said them.

Here's his official sanction letter: s3.documentcloud.org