I was told by the writer that the Telegraph would publish their version of the story at exactly midnight tonight and that was 13 minutes ago. I was promised that I would get the link. Bupkes. If the story appears, I will discuss it tomorrow morning. I was going to post it at midnight UK time.
The Telegraph article can be accessed for free here, and the paper also published our entire letter, with signatures, in the "letters" section.
A different group of people got together not to protest an article. To make a public statement in Nature about the defenestration of a great scientist: Thomas Henry Huxley. Imperial College in London is considering relocating a statue of Huxley and changing the name of its building, as reported by the Guardian and other sites. From the Guardian.
An investigation into Imperial College London's historical links to the British empire has recommended the university remove a statue and rename buildings and lecture theatres that celebrate scientists whose work advocated eugenics and racism.
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The recommendations by the college's independent history group are intended to address racial inequalities and improve inclusivity at the Russell Group university.
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There are a number of problematic renowned scientific figures who have been honoured with buildings, rooms and academic positions in their names.
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It calls for a building to be renamed due to the racist beliefs of the English biologist and anthropologist Thomas Henry Huxley, who found that birds descended from dinosaurs.
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According to the report, Huxley's essay "espouses a racial hierarchy of intelligence, a belief system of'scientific racism' that fed the dangerous and false ideology of eugenics".
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A bust of Huxley, the first dean of the Royal College of Science, should be placed in the college archives.
If you investigate Huxley's life, you'll see that he was far more liberal than most of his peers, and that he was aided by a few things that might be considered problematic today. His views on race changed over time, as he became more tolerant. He was an ardent advocate of evolution, as well as an advocate of women's rights and the education of working people. He gave science courses to people from the working class, and tried to reform education. Nobody can claim that his life caused more harm than good.
A group of people from the U.S. and the U.K. wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper to protest the accusations of racism made against Huxley. Nature rejected our letter on the basis of not taking petitions. I can guess why Nature didn't touch it, it's not a petition but a comment or a letter. One of my colleagues said that they have a lot of self-righteous letters. It's a way of avoiding the issue.
A statement of joint agreement is what makes a petition a petition. I put the letter between the lines, but below the fold, I added some comments by Nick Matzke, a Biologist at the University of Auckland. Nick works for the National Center for Science Education.
Nick did a lot of work investigating Huxley's past when his name was about to be removed from the Huxley College of the Environment at Western Washington University. If he was, did his views change later? I put a long response below the fold. Anyone interested in this controversy should read it.
Nature rejected the letter. You may recognize some of the signers. Four people have requested that their names be removed from the Telegraph version that will be published, so I have crossed through their names below. The academics from Imperial College have signed. The person who organized this letter was also from Imperial.
Huxley was at Imperial.
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A committee looking into Imperial College's past has accused Thomas Henry Huxley of "scientific racism" and wants his name removed from a building and his bust removed from its lobby. The accusation is false. Huxley publicly welcomed the defeat of the Confederacy in 1865 and fought the pro-slavery scientific racism of his day. He believed in a hierarchy of races, but as he got older he became less fond of racial stereotypes. It was impossible to disentangle what any particular nation was because we knew so little about the races. We knew that there was a lot of human nature in all kinds of men and that social conditions had an enormous influence. Nature 18,480 was published in1878.
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He was a remarkable man. He rose on his merits to become the President of the Royal Society. He first demonstrated our evolutionary descent from an ape-like ancestor by fighting for the theory of evolution. Everyone should have a scientific education according to him. He reformed London's schools, was a Principal of a Working Men's college, wrote volumes of journalism, and opened his classes to women. He served on eight Royal Commissions. His biographer said that he reorganized higher scientific education from a gentleman's occupation into a profession. He founded the Royal College of Science, the very institution that now wants to disown him.
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Huxley believed in a hierarchy of races. We are indebted to him for his scientific accomplishments, his conviction that all men and women should be judged on their merits, civic mindedness, and the reform zeal he brought to British science and education. His name should stay on Imperial's walls. He has a claim on our affections, as he was instrumental in the founding of this journal and wrote the first article in 1869.
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Bell Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London Graham Bell Department of Biology.
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The History of Science department is at Harvard University.
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The Deborah Charlesworth Institute of Evolutionary Biology is located at Edinburgh University.
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The Brian Charlesworth Institute of Evolutionary Biology is located at Edinburgh University.
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The Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London has departments of ecology and evolution, Richard Dawkins, and Robert Endres.
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The Alan Fersht Department of Chemistry is at Cambridge University.
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The Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, is headed by Michael P. Hassell.
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The Department of Life Sciences is at Imperial College London.
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