In this line of work, we frequently have occasion to make use of articles from a variety of scientific journals when researching topics of interest. One of my favorite sources over the years has been the journal Nature, which covers a wide variety of science topics. Science journals can be of value, at least in part because they tend to cut through all of the partisan opinions and brouhaha and rely on actual data... or at least they used to. These days, however, it seems as if some science journals are getting a bit less "sciency" and dipping a toe into the woke culture world. One possible example of this trend showed up this week in an article at Legal Insurrection. They discuss a recent edition of the journal Scientific American which features a study of brain activity in mothers before, during, and after giving birth. It's an interesting topic to be sure, but the authors chuck a rock into the pond when they abruptly stop discussing "mothers" and begin calling the subjects "birthing parents." 

Friends from Legal Insurrection may recall I refer to Scientific American as the Bud Light of scientific journals. That particular article stemmed from the magazine’s editor using an example of a bird that has 2 distinct genders based on 4 chromosomes to argue the avian’s existence supported “non-binary” gender identities. She was heavily critiqued for the example by an exceptional evolutionary biologist.

The publication is back at it again, this time using the phrase “birthing parent” in reference to mothers.

The term was apparently also used in a Nature Neuroscience study that was being described in the magazine.

This may not seem to be a huge deal in the current era, but what is really going on here? The article starts off well enough, mentioning "mothers" and "women" in the expected context. But then, seemingly out of nowhere, the phrase "birthing parent" shows up. What is the point of that unless a new strain of political correctness has infected the magazine's offices? As Legal Insurrection correctly points out, 100% of all babies born to human beings thus far were born to women. 

Leslie Eastman at Legal Insurrection notes that she refers to Scientific American as "the Bud Light of scientific journals." That might be a bit excessive (or perhaps not) but the point is well taken. How did that unneeded phrase find its way into an otherwise interesting article about the human brain? One online commenter speculated that we might be seeing a case of "a serious reporter paired with an unserious editor." Not being able to glance behind the scenes and into their offices, we can't say for sure, but it sounds like a reasonable possibility. 

Just out of curiosity, I went back to the most recent issue of Nature and began checking out some articles to see if I ran across anything similar. There were some articles about global warming (of course) and one on sexual harassment in academia, but nothing particularly woke or as blatant as "birthing parents." But that doesn't mean there haven't been problems in the past and disturbing trends developing.

Back in 2022, Jamie Sarkonak at The National Post was already looking into emerging patterns of progressive culture infiltrating policies in science journals including Nature. She titled her article, "When Science Goes Woke, People Will Suffer." She reported that the ethics guidelines at Nature had recently been altered to "allow censorship of research deemed politically incorrect." Researchers hoping to publish in the journal were now instructed to "carefully consider" the impact of their research on certain groups of people. They were warned to use only " inclusive, respectful, non-stigmatizing language” in their research papers.

All of those things might sound potentially harmless at a passing glance, but most of you realize by now that it's the woke level of the person making those judgment calls that matters. And from the sound of those descriptions, they were up near the top of the chart. On top of that, if you begin rejecting research papers out of hand based on insufficiently inclusive and respectful language without considering the actual scientific content, how much potentially critical information is being tossed out with the nonbinary baby's bathwater? Many of their articles deal with medical research. What is the world missing out on because of all of these changes? It's beyond disturbing.