A tidal wave of blatant falsehoods presented as terrifying truth intends to overwhelm fact-based analysis in service of a new kind of regressive, conspiracy-mongering politics.
by Wilfred Reilly, Tablet Magazine November 14, 2023
A great article by Wilfred Reilly from Tablet magazine - efd
The Politics of Tribal Nonsense
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In August of 2023, a criminology professor named Eric Stewart of Florida State University was fired for, at the very least, “extreme negligence” in his research praxis. Six of the tenured academic’s publications were formally retracted, most by major journals like Law & Society Review and Criminology. The withdrawn papers are likely to be followed by further retractions. The ivory tower scandal broke after former graduate student Justin Pickett “blew the whistle on his research” four years ago.
This wonky-sounding dispute between two gentlemen of letters in fact matters a great deal to public discourse. Stewart’s faked studies included explosive claims that American whites—presumably including jurors—“wanted longer sentences for Blacks and Latinos accused of crimes” than for Caucasians; that conservatives are on average more racist than liberals; and that t…