I've written many times about the invasion of DEI into the sciences, and the rapid decline in the quality of the "science" that has formed the basis of Western progress for the past few centuries.
Progress is slow, billions of dollars are wasted, and bad public policies stem from politicized science. Fraud is now rampant. It's a mess.
Perhaps worst of all is the invasion of DEI into scientific fields, where excellence in research has been replaced by social justice activism. It's not just the paper mills churning out dreck; it's the most prestigious journals in the disciplines.
Coverage of @NaturePortfolio members pushing authors to select citations based on diversity rather than excellence, quality, primacy in @thetimes
— Venk Murthy MD PhD (@venkmurthy) October 27, 2025
As best as I can tell, entirely ignored by US mediahttps://t.co/hflKUoXQbV
The problem has been known, within scientific circles at least, for a few decades. At first it was a minor irritation—the pressure to hire based on race and gender, the "diversity statements" to get hired, and the rejection of excellent candidates in favor of less qualified but demographically desired candidates were eroding the scientific enterprise, but the best scientists put their heads down and worked in their little corners of their disciplines.
But a rebellion is brewing. Prominent scientists are turning their backs on the most prestigious scientific journals in the world, accusing them of abandoning science in favor of social justice activism.
A leading scientific journal has defended its efforts to boost the diversity of researchers cited in its pages after an academic accused it of abandoning science to pursue a “social justice agenda”.
The criticism of Springer Nature group, which publishes the journal, was made by Anna Krylov, an American professor who has been a supporter of President Trump’s drive to stop American universities from promoting diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) in their admissions policies.
Richard Dawkins, the British evolutionary biologist, backed Krylov and said that too many journals were “favouring authors because of their identity group rather than the excellence and importance of their science”.
Krylov released a letter she wrote to Nature in which she explained why she will no longer participate in their peer review process, and it boils down to this: peer review is no longer focused on the quality of the science, but on the value to pushing the DEI agenda. Why should a chemist waste her time validating trash science when she could be doing good science?
Scientific publishers play a key role in the production of knowledge — they are a pillar of what Jonathan Rauch has termed the “the Constitution of Knowledge” (Rauch, 2025). The role of the publisher is to be an epistemic funnel: it accepts claims to truth at one end, but permits only those that withstand organized scrutiny to emerge from the other, a function traditionally performed by a rigorous peer-review and editorial process. This process should be guided by scientific rigor and a commitment to finding objective truth.
Unfortunately, the Nature group has abandoned its mission in favor of advancing a social justice agenda. The group has institutionalized censorship, implemented policies that have sacrificed merit in favor of identity-based criteria, and injected social engineering into its author guidelines and publishing process. The result is that papers published in Nature journals can no longer be regarded as rigorous science.
It's impossible to overstate the importance of Nature to the scientific publishing enterprise. There is a reason why Anthony Fauci used the journal to filter out the fraudulent paper that "debunked" the lab leak theory in the journal: it serves as the mouthpiece of the best in the disciplines. If it is published in Nature, it is assumed that it is top-quality science.
“Pulitzer Prize winning Washington Post science reporter” claims there are not two sexes. https://t.co/BnCLGZZU7b pic.twitter.com/w0ouiac2Lr
— Jerry Dunleavy IV 🇺🇸 (@JerryDunleavy) February 20, 2025
Only it's not. Often, it is the product of social justice warriors.
She cited guidance from the Nature Human Behaviour journal from 2022 that suggested some research should not be published if there is a risk that it “undermines the dignity or rights of specific groups”.
She also cited the use of “citation diversity statements”, where scientists can include in their studies a declaration pledging to cite research “in a manner that is equitable in terms of racial, ethnic, gender and geographical representation”.
Many research bodies have said the drive to boost diversity in academia is not born out of tokenism or political correctness. A report in 2022 by UK Research and Innovation said that ensuring scientific studies were not overwhelmingly produced by people from any one background was “essential to achieving high quality scientific outputs” and to making sure that “research findings are … relevant and address the needs of different communities”.
That last part is, of course, bunkum. Yet it has become canon. Science is science, and witch doctors and Indigenous stories about turtles holding up the world are not science. And suppressing knowledge for political purposes—something we saw quite often during COVID—is downright morally corrupt.
Reposting Krylov’s letter on X, Dawkins said: “Nature used to be the world’s most prestigious science journals”, but claimed it was now among many who placed emphasis on the background of authors rather than only on “the excellence … of their science”.
Mario Juric, an astronomy professor from the University of Washington, Seattle, said he was asked in 2023 by the Nature Astronomy journal “to suggest alternate reviewers from ‘underrepresented communities’”. He declined and told the journal’s editors: “While I know your publisher’s intentions are good … mixing identity in the review process does nothing to strengthen it.”
Why has it taken so long for top scientists to come out swinging?
It's simple enough: they are being forced to wade into a political battle that should be beside the point for them, and risk becoming mired in conflicts that will not only derail their careers, but make doing science impossible. If they wanted to engage in politics, they would have done so. They are standing up now because they have no choice.
At our Navigating Academic Freedom conference, Richard Dawkins joined Carl Heneghan, Alice Sullivan and Anna Krylov to discuss “Censorship in the Sciences: Free Inquiry Under Pressure.”
— Committee for Academic Freedom (@ComAcFreedom) October 15, 2025
Dawkins highlighted cases of academics facing cancellation for refusing to pay fealty to the… pic.twitter.com/dAFX6S6mPN
Dawkins was famously reluctant to wade into the transgender debate, despite being an evolutionary biologist. He always maintained that sex is binary, but waffled on "gender." Now he is an outspoken advocate for biological sex as a reality, which, after all, is biological truth. Sex is binary. He was ashamed that he felt the need to withhold his opinion to avoid getting mired in politics.
SHOCKING 🚨 Facebook deletes account of Scientist and author Richard Dawkins for saying Imane Khelif should not be allowed in Women's boxing.
— News Algebra (@NewsAlgebraIND) August 10, 2024
Imane Khelif, a boxer with male XY chromosomes, has been allowed to contest as a woman in Paris Olympics.
Imane Khelif has won the… pic.twitter.com/EvNKi5WVzs
Which is the point—science has been politicized, and the result is to destroy science. If a biologist is reluctant to state one of the fundamental truths of his discipline, science no longer exists.
Dawkins paid a high price for telling the truth. Awards were retracted, and he remains the subject of vile slanders. But he was right to stand up because not doing so amounts to condemning us to a new dark age.
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