From 1849, a tale of terror and suspense:

What followed, unsurprisingly, was quite stressful. Among the words used are enormous size.

What was I saying? Oh yes. Consider this an open thread.

From the University of Oxford’s Department of Biology, a new opportunity for ostentatious fretting:

A suitably concerned survey of the scientific names of African vertebrates revealed – presumably, to gasps and much rending of garments – that,

The rewards, I would guess, of doing the actual leg work, and of funding said leg work, resulting in, well, knowledge.

However, all this whiteness and maleness is, for some, terribly troubling. Among them, Associate Professor of Conservation Science, Ricardo Rocha:

Actually, and while I can claim no expertise, I’d guess that rewriting the entire scientific literature, in any number of countries, to alter thousands of obscure Latin names, which very few people know or remotely care about, in order to accommodate modern political fashion – which is what this is – might be rather impractical, somewhat confusing, and perhaps not the best use of limited resources.

Undeterred, our associate professor continues his tearful trajectory:

Where, for instance, pst314 and Mr Muldoon point us to an “analysis” piece in Scientific American, in which we’re urged to fret about “the violence Black men experience in [American] football,” and in which we’re told that the physicality of the sport “disproportionately affects black men.” This is framed in the article so as to imply some systemic racial wrongdoing – “anti-Black practices” that are “inescapable” – rather than, say, being an unremarkable reflection of the sport’s demographics, in which, at professional levels, black players are a majority.

Or to put it another, no less scientific, way – the risk of injury while playing a contact sport disproportionately affects those who actually play it.

No evidence is offered, at all, to establish that injuries are more frequent among black players compared to their white peers – which is pretty much the article’s premise – or to support the conceit that any such disparity, should it exist, must be driven by racism. And yet we’re told, with an air of satisfaction,

Albeit a plantation with fan mail, lucrative endorsements, and an average salary of around $2.7 million.

Or, Grifters Gonna Grift.

At Montreal’s Concordia University, even light is being “decolonised.” Because “colonialism in contemporary physics” is a thing, you see. No, really, it is. A thing that must be “countered” in the name of piety. By people with salaries and lots of taxpayer subsidy:

The project occupies the time of “equity, diversity and inclusion advisor” Tanja Tajmel and Associate Professor of First Peoples Studies Louellyn White, and draws on the magical almost-brownness of Donna Kahérakwas Goodleaf, a member of the Turtle Clan from Kahnawà:ke, and who was hired by Concordia to “facilitate anti-colonial training.” Combined, their efforts will be,

I suspect this is where the words bad whitey will be inserted. After all, there ain’t no grift in a context that isn’t heaving with pretentious guilt.

Apparently, “all physicists and other scientists” should divert time and effort from their actual work, the important stuff, the thing that pays the bills, in order to become familiar with indigenous “bodies of knowledge.” Presumably, on grounds that one simply can’t do physics or astronomy without a detailed knowledge of magical talking beavers and rival chiefs stealing the Moon. 

As respite from our usual programming, and because some newcomers may have missed it, I thought I’d repost this short film by Alex Gorosh and Wylie Overstreet.

Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.