Meanwhile my ecology professor is literally teaching that survival of the fittest is about genetic superiority and that evolution is about working towards that 'goal'. This is incorrect and bad science that is rooted in right-wing ideology that was disproven decades ago.
This is not what survival of the fittest means by the way. There is no such thing as a genetically superior being, as 'fitness' is totally subjective, as well as dependent on your environment. A lifeform that reproduces well in the ocean will still die if you put in the vacuum of space, no matter how 'fit' it was for ocean life. Not to mention the idea that nature has some sort of conscious goal is anthropomorthising a concept and again, bad science.
I really want to do something about this, but I feel like complaining will get me failed or known as a shit stirrer.
I fucking hate capitalist education.
On the plus side, our next lecture is on mutualism
"Universities are turning our youths into Marxists!"
Insofar as debt peonage turns people into Marxists.
One of my Spanish professors called Cuba a communist dictatorship ran by authoritarians in a class about Cinema in Spain.
I went to her office hours and ranted for half and hour about AES and China and she told me she had a lot to think about (it helped that she liked me as a student). I do this with all my professors lmao. I have a professor whose an anarcho-communist (he specializes in Latin American indigenous activism and culture) whose sus about China so I hope to convince him not to be.
I'm the one who has to radicalize people smh.
Getting radicalized at university
Radicalizing the universityeverything reactionary is the same; IF YOU DO NOT HIT IT, IT WILL NOT FALL
—
that's the first time I've ever heard of a reactionary biological-supremacist ecologist. usually they are shit libs politically with like weird desperation turning into fatalism, a surrendering to political expediency and a narrowing of concern. it has been called the "subversive science" for longer than I've been alive, because it does not lend itself easily to reductionist paradigms like many disciplines do.
usually they are, at least in the discipline, pretty averse towards maximalist suprrmacism, because it gets drilled in constantly that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, the system is supreme and it's emergent properties of many networks of species working in concert are what produce benefits. it is webs and cycles, not competitors and victors. competition has costly consequences, while cooperation has elegant rewards.
anyway, so that guy sounds an idiot deluxe. ecologically speaking. at least he's making turds for bacteria to enjoy.
I came here to say something very similar. Ecologists are at least anticapitalist in my experience, and are (understandably) suspicious of any kind of central authority, however misguided that can be.
Comrade, when I was in college I didn't have the self awareness not to publicly argue with professors either being dicks or straight up saying factually incorrect things. Arguing got me the respect of classmates and professors. Also some enmity but I say go for it, arguing with power is a useful skill and there will never be a better time to hone that skill than now
I actually had a sociology professor, elderly Italian-American guy, who was a self-proclaimed Marxist.
He was a based as fuck professor, but at the time, I was still quite libby, so I didn't see it the way I see it now when I look back.
I was an art major in a very "progressive" place. One of my painting professors got reported for criticizing Bush in class. We all looked around and were like "Who the fuck picks painting for a major in a town with more gay bars than churches and supports Bush? And why didnt the department head just laugh them out of the room?"
Completely dispelled the notion that universities were Marxist indoctrination camps.
Biology disciplines that focus on evolutionary study really do have rightoid enclaves, it feels very much like a microcosm of the ideological side of being right wing since studying evolution is ultimately systemic study and these people instead boil down the rich and fascinating narrative of evolutionary history into a series of great man narratives except it's Great Gene Theory instead.
AFAIK evolutionary psychology has been completely taken over by "race realists," instead of trying to understand how mental illness evolved in humans or what mental illness looks like in other species.
See I remember being interested in the stuff from a much more indistinct lens, stuff like our instinctive fear and disgust towards certain stimuli (seeing a snake in the grass, trypophobia, why certain bugs freak people out more than others) but most of the people I met who were into evopsych just wanted to study IQ, I assume because it would let them categorize people into tiers of worth. I hated it both because it was a hiding spot for racism and because it was ruining what could be a pretty interesting field looking at mankind's part in the evolutionary narrative of mammals.
It would be really helpful too to know how things evolved so we could treat certain conditions (like with wisdom teeth or the appendix). But yeah. It feels like it's turned into Phrenology: 2020 edition. I think a lot of schools have dropped courses for it as a result and psychiatrists are avoiding it altogether.
I had a mandatory class for my masters called “biomedical research ethics” and most of the class was to convince us it’s okay that research done by public universities gets given to private companies to make money off of
The other notable part of the class was just promoting class infighting between PhDs and non-PhD staff and saying that just doing large amounts of labor for a paper doesn’t mean you should get authorship
Meanwhile my ecology professor is literally teaching that survival of the fittest is about genetic superiority and that evolution is about working towards that 'goal'. This is incorrect and bad science that is rooted in right-wing ideology that was disproven decades ago.
Even Richard Dawkins, who started this whole shit, opposed this. Send your ecology professor his documentary.
Dawkins is a fuck now but it's useful to have the person who literally wrote the book your ecology professor is mis-teaching (The Selfish Gene) call him out on it.
The doc: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7n0igh
I'm not a biologist so I don't know how well it holds up as actual science, but I found the concept of "the selfish gene" fascinating. The idea that individual genes are "trying" to reproduce as another form of selection in addition to entire strands of DNA "trying" to reproduce is pretty fucking wild.
And then they went even further and invented some shit about evolution of consciousness that just 4000 years ago our ancestors were collectivist like animals and now we are properly egoist humans. Even then i was like "wait a sec sis, that's some calipers levels of pseudoscience".
It's certainly interesting stuff, completely misinterpreted and abused by assholes.
that's funny.. i'm fairly certain in the 5 years i was in college there wasn't a single goddamned professor on campus that knew anything about Marx, including my sociology professor who constantly railed on the state of the US and had then had us read Weber as if protestantism explained it all.
college was the most disillusioning thing ever. i truly thought it was where you go to learn real true things that you just won't find outside of that setting, but it was just more horseshit shoveled by clueless gluttons who just want tenure.
The consequence of privatisation of education.
There's a reason the west is falling behind.
I had one bold teacher that dared to teach Marxist analysis of literature as part of the coursework. Even saying the fucking name got some very brave trust fund kids clicking their tongues and other catty reactions, but she assured the class that it's just about finding the class relations (and almost inevitably, struggles) in any given piece of literature. Still made them pissy and petulant, especially the petite bourgeoisie faildaughters that just wanted to re-read Pride and Prejudice, again, and submit the same paper about it to a new teacher. Again.
faildaughters that just wanted to re-read Pride and Prejudice, again
No need to call out the entire English department like that lmao
I had one closeted marxist professor in 1990's but she mostly did not tell anything because being openly marxist in Polish university after 1989 might easily led to abrupt end of being university employee. A lot of her colleagues were also professional opportunists former "marxists" that turned to be most insufferable christoliberals the moment the eagle got a crown.
I got to read Marx's Capital over a period of two courses and that wasn't even officially the subject matter Lmao.
But most of my courses seemed to be taught by libs.
I'm pretty sure "fit" is about how an organism fits into an environment and a lot of people definitely think it means physical fitness or strength
What fucking kind of ecologist says that? Anyone I know who knows ecology beyond an undergrad level is extremely critical of malthusian/darwinist forms of thought.
Depending on what part of Burgerland, quite a few technically qualified people may very well teach college courses while bringing their special blends of
with them, especially if such are pleasing to their bosses anyway.It's like they let anyone have a PhD these days. And here I am, considering whether I should get one or not.
It's easier to get a job in a place ran by vampires that like to have buildings named after themselves if you promise and intend to lick boots, that's for sure.
Malthusian and Darwinist thought are very popular in biology departments, generally speaking.
A popular Malthusia idea is carrying capaciry, which describes an equilibrium of the environment relative to a species. It doesn't apply well to humans because we can modify our carrying capacity massively via technology and social change (e.g. overthrow capitalism). Modern Malthusian political reasoning is based on the false idea that capitalism is natural and permanent and all the problems we see are a result of an environmental incapacity, ignoring how much is based on social relations.
Re: Darwinism, this is an essential school of thought for understanding evolution in general, particularly adaptation. Is it possible you're thinking of Social Darwinism?
Yeah my bad. In my hurry to post I wasn't clear about what I meant. I meant that most Ecologists I know don't apply these ideas to social matters, and furthermore, don't fall prey to the oversimplification of ecological networks that is needed to apply Darwin or Malthus to human realities.
Makes sense!
I would bet money that this prof is terrible to their grad students. The STEM reactionaries are notoriously terrible bosses. Even abusive.
Even the cool ones are exploitative, so I can imagine how worse they are.
I have heard so many stories of verbal abuse, rugpulls on funding, and sexual harassment..
my ecology professor is literally teaching that survival of the fittest is about genetic superiority and that evolution is about working towards that 'goal'.
That demonstrates a deep misunderstanding of how evolution works. It is a common misconception in the general public (partly because it is beneficial to right-wing ideology for it to be perpetuated, as you mentioned), but a misconception that even a kinda competent biology layman would know better than to believe. It's nothing short of shameful that an ecology professor is repeating such a thing. To do that as a supposed authority on the subject is actively misleading students, it's worse to teach a falsehood than it is just to leave them ignorant.
I obviously don't know your situation specifically or how things like this work in Australia, but if I were still a student and my prof was saying those things, I would definitely complain about it to the department chair or someone who has the power to intervene. I don't know if your professor is just woefully uninformed/misinformed on the subject they're teaching, or if they're repeating this misconception because they have a reactionary political agenda. But either way it's horrible and shouldn't be allowed to stand imo.
Exposing our children to different points of views and cultures makes them empathetic and open minded people, oh no!
