I'm baffled by this short essay in Nature magazine.
- First, what is a journal of natural science doing publishing an essay on nationalism?
- Second, how could someone be "baffled" by nationalism? It's many centuries old. One could say that it's the norm for humans. What's baffling is cosmopolitanism.
- Third, the author conflates nationalism and populism, which is embarrassing.
- Fourth, what does authoritarianism have to do with nationalism? Americans are nationalistic, but they aren't the least bit authoritarian. For what it's worth, almost all authoritarians in the 20th Century were leftists.
- Fifth, what does the author mean by "protectionist" and "xenophobic"? Must one be averse to (or afraid of) foreigners in order to want to control who comes into the country? Are women who allow only certain men to have sex with them androphobic?
- Sixth, the author uses the dishonest expression "some have suggested" to say or imply that Americans—or rather, those Americans who voted for Donald Trump—are racist. Who, specifically? Let me give you some advice: When an author writes "some have suggested," he or she is expressing his or her own beliefs, without seeming to do so. It's a way to displace responsibility.
- Finally, what in the world is meant by the final paragraph? Scientists, as such, have no evaluative expertise, so why are they trying to "save liberal democracy"? Get back to studying nature, you arrogant creeps.
This short essay shows precisely why respect for science and scientists is plummeting. Many scientists have entered the political arena, thereby abandoning any authority they once had by virtue of their training and expertise. It's Keith's Law.
