Science
See also: Politicization of scienceAmong scientists, "correctness" (of procedures, results, or scientific claims) derives from the factual truth of the matter or the soundness of the reasoning by which it can be deduced from observations and first principles. When publication, teaching, and public funding of science is decided by peer committees, academic standards, and elected or appointed boards, the allegation can arise that a work's acceptability has been assessed "politically". Professor J. I. Katz applies the term PC to censure characterized by emotional, rather than rational discourse.
Groups opposing certain generally accepted scientific views on evolution, second-hand smoke, AIDS, and other politically contentious scientific matters argue that PC is responsible for the failure of their perspectives to receive a fair public hearing; thus, in Lamarck's Signature: How Retrogenes are Changing Darwin's Natural Selection Paradigm, Assoc. Prof. Edward J. Steele says: "We now stand on the threshold of what could be an exciting new era of genetic research. . . . However, the 'politically correct' thought agendas of the neo-Darwinists of the 1990s are ideologically opposed to the idea of 'Lamarckian Feedback', just as the Church was opposed to the idea of evolution based on natural selection in the 1850s!"
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science, by Tom Bethell, is a comprehensive presentation argument that mainstream science is dominated by politically correct thinking. Bethell rejects mainstream views about evolution and global warming, and supports AIDS denialism.
Read more about this topic: Political Correctness
Famous quotes containing the word science:
“In the new science of the twenty-first century, not physical force but spiritual force will lead the way. Mental and spiritual gifts will be more in demand than gifts of a physical nature. Extrasensory perception will take precedence over sensory perception. And in this sphere woman will again predominate.”
—Elizabeth Gould Davis (b. 1910)
“If science ever gets to the bottom of Voodoo in Haiti and Africa, it will be found that some important medical secrets, still unknown to medical science, give it its power, rather than the gestures of ceremony.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“The puritanical potentialities of science have never been forecast. If it evolves a body of organized rites, and is established as a religion, hierarchically organized, things more than anything else will be done in the name of “decency.” The coarse fumes of tobacco and liquors, the consequent tainting of the breath and staining of white fingers and teeth, which is so offensive to many women, will be the first things attended to.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)