https://www.city-journal.org/scientific-merit-and-the-equity-cult
Another day, another retraction of a scientific paper for violating the code of diversity. On November 1, astronomer John Kormendy withdrew an article from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), after a preprint version that he had just posted on the web drew sharp criticism for threatening the conduct of “inclusive” science. Three days later, the preprint version was scrubbed as well (though a PDF can still be found here.) The paper had passed the journal’s three-person peer-review system and was awaiting publication. Kormendy’s forthcoming book on the same topic had also passed peer review and had been printed for distribution. Now distribution of the book has been put on hold, likely permanently.
Kormendy, an expert on supermassive black holes and professor emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin, acknowledges no errors in his research. “I didn’t do anything [methodologically] wrong,” he told me. “I trust my techniques; I trust the results. I checked for bias in great detail.” Nevertheless, he issued an apology on November 1: “I now see that my work has hurt people. I apologize to you all for the stress and the pain that I have caused. Nothing could be further from my hopes. I fully support all efforts to promote fairness, inclusivity, and a nurturing environment for all.”
What was so hurtful in his article? Kormendy had aimed to reduce the role of individual subjectivity in scientific hiring and tenure decisions. He created a model that predicted a scientist’s long-term research impact from the citation history of his early publications. He tested the results of his model against a panel of 22 prestigious astronomers, many of whom had advised the federal government on scientific research priorities and had served as jurors on high-profile astronomy prizes. That panel rated the research impact of the 512 astronomers whom Kormendy had run through his model; the panel’s conclusions closely matched the model’s results. Kormendy’s paper stressed that hiring decisions should be made “holistically.” Scientific influence was only one factor to consider; achieving gender and racial balance in a department was also a legitimate concern, he wrote.
Formulas for quantifying scientific influence on the basis of a citation record are hardly new. PNAS itself published the proposal for one such well-known measure, known as the “h-index.” But that was in 2005. In 2021, a different standard for evaluating ideas applies: Do they help or hinder females and underrepresented minorities in STEM? Kormendy’s model, tweeted an astrophysicist at the City University of New York, “JUST TOOK ANY TINY STEPS WE ARE MAKING TOWARDS EQUITY AND THREW THEM OUT OF THE WINDOW” (capitalization in the original). An astronomer in Budapest objected that Kormendy had failed to consult with “relevant humanities experts” about cumulative bias against females and minorities. Equally damningly, Kormendy had suggested that the profession should overcome its underrepresentation problem by hiring female and minority scientists, who, in the words of the Budapest astronomer, “match the success rate of the majority (i.e., men).”
