Jordan Peterson Warns Political Correctness Is Starting To Pass For Actual Science

I’ll openly admit that Dr. Peterson’s prose may be a bit more difficult to understand. But difficult is not impossible, and this article will help explain and explore Dr. Peterson’s latest blog post about the degradation of science at the hands of political correctness. You’ll see how political correctness is starting to pass for actual science. 

The Cult of “Woke” Is Spreading Unscientific Ideas

On the woke culture’s use of social media, Dr. Peterson wrote about their obsession with political correctness blinding them to real science: “They were instead positively trumpeted to all by multiple attempts to harness the powers of social media and announced, more traditionally, in press releases designed to indicate the success of some great and laudable moral striving.”

An obsession with political correctness is blinding woke culture to real science.

We can see an example of this in a recent viral TikTok video of a doctor claiming white physicians are prone to undertreat black people's pain due to their history of internalized racism. She cites a study which supposedly proves her point. Problem is, the study she's citing is so weak and badly done that it hardly deserves to be called a "study." 

This “study” wasn’t properly conducted.

If you take a look at the research this social media influencer doctor cites, you’ll see how the sample size is limited and irrelevantly small. There’s a running joke about “research” and “studies” I once heard; it goes “academic research is a great way to study how college kids react to your research.” Those who are normally recruited for academic research are not from the general public, but rather college kids. The “study” this TikTok doctor cited was no different. 

Just like how you shouldn’t be taking financial market advice from Buzzfeed, you should probably also avoid taking medical advice from TikTok. Try not to laugh, but part of the research the TikTok doctor cited actually stated, “We also excluded all nonwhite participants, given the historical context of black–white relations.” 

You should probably avoid taking medical advice from TikTok.

So basically, the study was based on a premise of bias to begin with. Nonwhite participants were excluded from the “study” because they don’t fit the researcher’s racial narrative. What happened to the scientific method of having a control group? If there was no control group, then how could the researchers actually prove that white doctors treat black patients differently than other doctors?

Political Correctness Is Diluting the Objectivity of Hard Science

Dr. Peterson brought up the concern of how the cult of political correctness has permeated even the objective and truth-based field of the hard sciences. He mentioned how an accomplished professor he knew, who had done meaningful and useful work, was denied money for his work because he failed to include “multiculturalism” as part of his scientific inquiry:

“A highly-cited professor of physics, had his standard Canadian Federal grant application rejected because (or so the reviewers claimed) he had not sufficiently detailed his plans to ensure diversity, inclusivity, and equity (DIE) practices while conducting his scientific inquiry.”

The cult of diversity leads to the death of scientific and technological progress.

Think about this for a second. The multiculturalist obsession for “diversity” rejected a proposal from a scientist whose research could potentially benefit humanity as a whole. Instead of the pursuit of objectivity, facts, and truth, societal progress was halted in the name of “inclusion and multiculturalism.” The cult of diversity leads to the death of scientific and technological progress. How fitting indeed that the acronym for “diversity, inclusivity, and equity” is DIE.

The Politically Correct Tyranny of the Ideologues

A normal, rational person would wonder why anyone would choose to stand in the way of tangible advancements for humanity. Dr. Peterson clues us in on the mentality behind the obstruction:

“Those who could not hope to assess the quality of research endeavors in those specialties as a consequence of their own ability or prowess, can be made into judges by enforcing the adoption of standards of attitude and behavior that have nothing to do with the fields in question.”

To put it simply, the ones who contribute practically nothing useful to society think they should be the judge of those who could actually produce the scientific and technological breakthroughs that would benefit humanity as a whole. This is driven by the envy of the inept, as the professorship class from the “Cultural/Gender/Social Studies” field of academia imagines themselves to be superior to those in the STEM fields. 

Incompetent people are now making the rules for those who are smarter or more competent than they are.

Dr. Peterson continues, “But if it became possible to adopt the position of judge because of my colleagues’ attitude toward student selection and staffing, then—presto! Those who are applying for such funding are no longer painfully more intelligent than me. They are merely and reprehensibly in error in their basic political opinions. There is nothing but victory in that for me, in precise proportion to my degree of resentment for my unfortunate and rather incurable stupidity.”

This is Dr. Peterson’s polite way of saying that dumber people are now making the rules for those who are smarter than them. And his observation is accurate. We can see the product of this “tyranny of the stupid” everywhere around us. The public universities of California are eliminating the SAT and ACT in order to “improve diversity.” Yale is eliminating its Art History course because it’s too “white, male, and western.”

How We the Public Will Be Worse Off 

The creeping war against the field of hard sciences by the corruptive forces of “wokeness” is why we need to be vigilant against the pressure of political correctness. If we fail to defend objective scientific inquiry that’s color blind, we will fail in the preservation of the Western Scientific tradition which is one of humanity’s greatest achievements. Mankind as a whole will suffer the stagnation of a “woke Utopia” where the tyrants of “Woke,” who have contributed nothing of tangible use to society, shall determine what society’s producers will create or achieve. 

We need to defend objective scientific inquiry that’s color blind to preserve the Western Scientific tradition.

As Dr. Peterson warned, “Qualified and expert researchers in such fields are already in great danger of being pushed aside by politically correct activists who will happily and self-righteously displace them by merely refusing to admit to the existence of anything approximating an objective truth against which claims to competence might be assessed. The rest of us will pay in the longer run, when we no longer have the will or the capacity to make use of the rare talents that make people highly competent and productive as scientists, technological innovators, engineers, or mathematicians.”

Closing Thoughts

It’s perhaps fitting that Dr. Jordan Peterson should sound the alarm about how the radical set of society is setting the rules for everyone else today. Dr. Peterson may have stated it more politely on his blog post than I did, but I can’t risk being delicate with my words if I’m to raise the alarm. The scary fact is, society-at-large will suffer the disintegration of scientific inquiry if academia continues to allow political correctness to corrupt the foundation of science. 

I’ll close with the most powerful line in Dr. Peterson’s blog post about the threat of political correctness’s war against science: “But, make no mistake about it, scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians: your famous immunity to political concerns will not protect you against what is coming fast over the next five or so years: wake up, pay attention, or perish, along with your legacy.”

Love Evie? Sign up for our newsletter and get curated content weekly!