The man up for cancellation was a scientific hero of mine and one of the great evolutionary biologists of the 20th century. I am talking about Mayr. The Society of Systematic Biologists proposed that he be stripped of his award because he was a white man. That is it. He fought for equality for all and repudiated racism. His only sin was his pallid skin.
The Society, which was founded by Mayr, is proposing to remove his name from the award. The SSB is voting on whether to cancel him. The good news is that the members have yet to vote, and it will take two-thirds of the membership to remove his name from the award. I am hoping that the members of the SSB will not vote for this proposal.
Mayr was a good man, a superb biologist, and the man whose writings inspired me to go into evolutionary biology and, in particular, the study of speciation. His early books, including Systematics and the Origin of Species and its large update, Animal Species and Evolution, are classics of the genre, and helped bring to the attention of biologists that the origin of species was not only a problem that Darwin really didn't solve, but also. I spoke with Mayr occasionally and he was always polite and courtly. He was wrong about biology, not morality or ethics.
The Society for the Study of Evolution put out a special issue on Mayr when he was 90, and I was honored to write a chapter on his contributions to speciation. I wrote his obituary for Science when he died at 100. If you want to read about his contributions to systematics, you can read the Science obituary. I have never done systematics, but I am familiar with his contributions to evolutionary biology. He helped found the society that wants to erase him and the award that he endowed.
The Council of the SSB voted to remove the name of the award for the best student paper from the annual meeting announcement. The proposal is to change the name of the award to the Outstanding Student Presentation Award in Systematic Biology. I wonder if the proposers feel any shame at removing the name of the man who funded the award from it. I think that is unethical as well as dumb.
I put my own questions and comments in bold brackets within the announcement.
In the summer of 2020, the SSB Council began a discussion about potentially changing the name of the award to better reflect society members' wishes. A few? A lot? Does it take more than one? The leadership of the SSB has been working with the DEI Committee to learn more about the origin of named awards and their representation of the diverse membership within the society. One way to make the society more inclusive is by changing the award, as it can lead to feelings of exclusion among those who are members of underrepresented groups. Do minority students or women feel hurt or excluded because of the existence of an award? That sounds crazy. If this is the case, then they should change the name of the prize to the Alfred Nobel Prizes because he was an Old White Man. One has to balance the degree of hurt feelings against the memory of Mayr and his legacy. Students are already forgetting who he was, even as they labor in fields he started.
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The Outstanding Student Presentation Award in Systematic Biology would be renamed the Ernst Mayr Award in Systematic Biology. Our scientific community is more diverse than the group of early scientists who have been recognized for their contributions to systematics and science. It is proposed that the award be named after a particular individual in order to reinforce that members with other identities are outsiders. Women and minorities are too fragile to accept an award named after a man or a white person. It is clear that this is what the proposal means. Is it true that no award should be named after any person? If an award is named after anyone, it will limit the number of people who can identify with that person. The most ludicrous part of the proposal is making our society more inclusive and welcoming. It's just performative wokeness. Does the council think that the award hindered people from going into systematic biology? They have a low opinion of the ambition of future systematic biologists. Nobody thinks that blacks, women, Hispanics, and so on will show up in the SSB once the award is renamed. The proposal will not accomplish anything to promote racial or sexual equality. It is simply a big virtue signal meant to say, "Look how much we care about the oppression!" I don't think Mayr is seen in the same light by any biologists. If there is controversy about his statements or activities, tell us what it is. How problematic are they? They don't list any, and I believe that anything that is considered "problematic" is at best trivial. We are grateful for Mayr's generous gifts to our society, which created the endowment that allows us to support student research today. This is a statement about the legacy of Mayr, which is that his name makes minority systematic biologists uncomfortable.
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The Council sees preservation of the society's history and increasing diversity, equity and inclusion as synergistic endeavors towards the improvement of our community. In the 1990s, we changed the name of the journal to the Society for Systematic Biologists to accommodate people who did not study animals. The only people who would be convinced by this analogy are those who aren't thinking clearly and are blinded by ideology. The purpose of the formation of this committee is to acknowledge the contributions of past members to the society and the field. In this way, the legacy of the society may be understood by our membership more comprehensively than is possible through named awards, and we have the opportunity to celebrate the many people of various background who have made systematic biology what it is today.
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The award is named in the Constitution and can only be changed by an amendment. In August of 2021, the SSB Council voted to submit an amendment to the constitution for a vote by the membership. If at least 1/3 of the members vote in favor, the proposed Amendment will pass. The membership will vote on the issue in the spring of 2022. The proposed amendment is shown.
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Proposed amendment.
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The original text is still there.
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A student member of the Society or a member who has received a PhD within the last 15 months are eligible for the award.
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The new text is new.
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The Outstanding Student Presentation Award in Systematic Biology is given to the student member of the Society who presents the best paper at the Annual Meeting.
