Category: Children R Our Future

Death Spiral Of American Academia

Patrick J Michaels, via Judith Curry,

In the academy the free interchange of competing ideas creates knowledge through cooperation, disagreement, debate, and dissent. Kaufmann’s landmark study proves that the last three in that list are severely suppressed and punished. The pervasiveness of such repression may be a death sentence for science, free inquiry, and the advancement of knowledge in our universities.

I am led to that dire conclusion because the universities appear to have no way to prevent this fate. No solution can arise from within the academy because it selects its own lifetime faculty, which is largely left wing—increasingly so—and makes the promotion of dissenters highly unlikely. Kaufmann demonstrates profoundly systemic discrimination by leftist faculty against colleagues they find disagreeable. […]

Kaufmann’s study is shocking in its depth, even to academics (like me) who experienced for decades what he describes. He documents all aspects of an academic career, from advanced graduate study to landing a faculty position, research funding, publication, and promotion. That normal career progression is all but derailed if a person expresses a scintilla of non-left views in casual conversations, faculty meetings, public discourse, teaching, grant applications, submitted publications, or the promotion process.

Academic Freedom in Crisis: Punishment, Political Discrimination, and Self-Censorship

Population Bomb

The U.S. Birthrate Has Dropped Again. The Pandemic May Be Accelerating the Decline. “Over all, the birthrate declined by 4 percent in 2020. Births were down most sharply in December, when babies conceived at the start of the health crisis would have been born.”

In the old days, this would have led to more kids. But now that everyone has birth control, simply jamming couples together with nothing to do doesn’t lead to more births. And economic uncertainty and social fear don’t help.

Of course, this is just a worsening of an existing trend: I was blogging about the coming global baby bust when InstaPundit was shiny and new…

A roundup of links at Instapundit.

If Marriage Is For Any Two People Who Love Each Other

What’s so special about “two”?

In the anonymized ruling, [B.C. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Wilkinson] said a woman named Olivia should be added as a parent along with the biological parents to the birth records of Clarke, born in 2018.

She explained that a couple, Eliza and Bill, had lived together since the turn of the century but Olivia entered their life in 2013 and, in 2016, they became a threesome.

Olivia, Bill and Eliza were in a committed loving relationship,“ known in the polyamory community as a triad,” when Bill impregnated Eliza in 2017, Wilkinson added:

“The petitioners live openly as a polyamorous family to their families and friends. While at first, they were apprehensive about the reactions of others, those close to them have been supportive of their relationship and family structure. However, in certain employment circumstances, they still choose to be private about their polyamorous identities out of fear of reprisal and discrimination. It is not disputed that Clarke is being raised by three loving, caring, and extremely capable individuals.”

h/t Chris

Get Them While They’re Soft And Yielding

Once suitably ashamed and disintegrated, the victim – and the word victim is entirely apt – is quizzed on whether their submission to this psychological abuse has resulted in sleep deprivation and broken relationships – these are good signs, apparently. Signs of “change-making” and “solidarity.” Of emerging wokeness.

Did I mention we’re talking about children?

Navigation