Let’s face it: science has gone woke. What used to be an ideological virus afflicting the arts and humanities has now spread through the entire university, STEMM fields included. That’s why Minding the Campus is renewing our focus on the sciences through a new, ongoing article series called Minding the Sciences. Here, we’ll cover wokeism in STEMM, scientific integrity, research funding, climate science, scientific associations, and much more.
Note: July 2025 will mark the centenary of the famous Tennessee “Scopes Monkey Trial.” This article is part of a series leading up to the centennial events in Dayton, Tennessee, the site of the trial. In the summer of 1925, the town luminaries of Dayton, Tennessee, summoned John T. Scopes from his tennis game to […]
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The new Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford professor who gained fame as an early critic of U.S. COVID-19 policy, delivered his first public speech on May 2 at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He described the “failed” response to COVID-19 and then explained how this failure informed his […]
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In Episode 5 of The Week in Science, Scott Turner, Director of Science Programs at the National Association of Scholars, offers a timely critique of the growing media narrative around a so-called “Trump brain drain”—the claim that scientists are fleeing American institutions due to MAGA-led funding cuts. Turner says that what is actually driving scientists away […]
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In Episode 4 of The Week in Science, Scott Turner, Director of Science Programs at the National Association of Scholars, asks whether private philanthropy can rescue science from declining federal support. Before 1950, most scientific research was funded by private donors—not the government. That changed after WWII, when federal agencies like the National Institutes of […]
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Editor’s Note: The following article was originally published by the Observatory of University Ethics on March 11, 2025. The Observatory translated it into English from French. I have edited it, to the best of my ability, to align with Minding the Campus’s style guidelines. It is crossposted here with permission. In a great burst of […]
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In Episode 3 of The Week in Science, Scott Turner, Director of Science Programs at the National Association of Scholars, examines the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in scientific writing, the scientific deep state’s concerns over the politicization of science, and the federal government’s controversial changes to research funding rules. The episode also revisits the […]
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In Episode 2 of The Week in Science, Scott Turner, Director of Science Programs at the National Association of Scholars, dissects Science magazine’s critical response to the first hundred days of the Trump presidency. The magazine describes a “chaotic 100-day push” that they claim has dismantled scientific and public health infrastructure, including the erasure of […]
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The National Association of Scholars (NAS) has launched a new podcast. It features Scott Turner, NAS’s Director of Science Programs, who will cover topics that strike his fancy each week in the world of science. Watch for a new episode every week. In Episode 1, Turner looks at two articles published in the May 1, […]
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Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from the soon-to-be-published National Association of Scholars report, Rescuing Science. It has been edited to align with Minding the Campus’s style guidelines and is cross-posted here with permission. I sought a career in academia because it promised a life of intellectual freedom; to think, write, and teach what I […]
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Editor’s Note: The following is an article originally published on the College Fix on May 14, 2025. With edits to match Minding the Campus’s style guidelines, it is crossposted here with permission. Far too many students are entering higher education ill-equipped to handle the rigors of collegiate-level science classes, according to professors who say they’ve had to alter their […]
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Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from the soon-to-be-published National Association of Scholars report, Rescuing Science. It has been edited to align with Minding the Campus’s style guidelines and is cross-posted here with permission. Public funding of academic research is shaping up as a major political confrontation between universities and the Trump administration. The first […]
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Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from the soon-to-be-published National Association of Scholars report, Rescuing Science. It has been edited to align with Minding the Campus’s style guidelines and is cross-posted here with permission. Since the Trump administration proposed a 15 percent cap on them in February, indirect costs on research grants are the object […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by All Things Rhapsodical on May 01, 2025. With edits to match MTC’s style guidelines, it is cross-posted here with permission. It is common these days to hear that climate justice requires redistributive payments from those societies, such as the U.S., that contribute most to greenhouse gas emissions to […]
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Anyone intimately familiar with U.S. education research of the past half century recognizes its marked difference from that of other fields. Some attribute the difference to an inferiority of methods, implying that education professors are not quite as bright as, say, economists. I would argue, instead, that bias is, by far, a greater problem—that bias […]
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Tsinghua University in Beijing is China’s top university and is often considered the top university in Asia. It is also a key instrument of the Chinese Communist Party’s foreign influence efforts and has played a key role in advancing China’s influence at American colleges and universities. Its influence is felt in many areas but none […]
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Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from the soon-to-be-published National Association of Scholars report, Rescuing Science. It has been edited to align with Minding the Campus’s style guidelines and is cross-posted here with permission. Recently, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) proposed that indirect costs rates (administrative overheads) on research grants from the NIH […]
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Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from the soon-to-be-published National Association of Scholars report, Rescuing Science. It has been edited to align with Minding the Campus’s style guidelines and is cross-posted here with permission. Indirect costs are a hot topic right now, set off by the Trump administration floating a proposal for the National […]
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I have previously reported through two Minding the Campus articles (here and here) that the National Science Foundation (NSF) director, Sethuraman Panchanathan, published a paper through the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) that copied an uncited source previously published through the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). In addition to copying from IEEE for […]
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For millennia, man has wondered whether he is alone in the universe. Organizations such as the SETI Institute (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence), founded in 1984, once employed more than 100 scientists, educators, and support staff in their quest to “explore, understand and explain the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe.” To […]
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Science™ is fighting back! In case you were worried. The final straw was the National Institutes of Health (NIH) decreeing in February that indirect cost reimbursements on research grants would henceforth be cut to about 25 percent of their current rate. Hard to see what the complaint is there. Indirect costs mostly fuel administrative bloat, […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by the College Fix on March 12, 2025. With edits to match MTC’s style guidelines, it is cross-posted here with permission. A Planned Parenthood executive is researching “power and oppression” and “reproductive health services” with the help of nearly half a million in taxpayer funds. The study, “Enhancing Policy Impact for […]
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Editor’s Note: This is the second of two essays titled “An Extra Credit Assignment Inspires Reflection on Study Habits.” You can read the first one here. An essay I wrote, “Incoming college STEM freshmen, take note: You need to take your classes seriously,” was published as a special to the USA TODAY Network and in two South […]
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When misconduct strikes in scientific research, it triggers a domino effect of ruined reputations, compromised integrity, and shattered public trust in science. But when it happens in medical practice, the consequences are far graver: real human pain, suffering, and death. In the summer of 2024, Beverly and William Bryan would arrive in Florida together to […]
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Described as a man who “always projected ‘moral and ethical rectitude,’” esteemed mid-1800s glacial geologist Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin once made a profound statement at the 1888 University of Michigan Annual Commencement: “Falsity in intellectual action is intellectual immorality.” This statement appears to ring ever truer when one considers recent trends in 21st-century science. Before diving […]
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The headline caught my attention: “Squirrels spotted hunting and eating animals for first time.” Reading on [emphases added]: Until now, squirrels were thought to be primarily vegetarian, cramming their cheeks full of seeds and nuts, which they often bury in underground stores to get through the colder months. But biologists were amazed to see Californian […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by the College Fix on February 14, 2025. With edits to match MTC’s style guidelines, it is cross-posted here with permission. More than 500 studies on COVID-19 have been withdrawn due to “bias,” “unreliable” information, or unspecified reasons, a blog that tracks retracted documents, found. Retraction Watch co-founder Ivan Oransky told […]
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The Trump Administration has proposed a much-needed reform of how we reimburse so-called “overhead expenses” associated with federal research grants made by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is reasoned that research activity financed by the Feds involves not only paying researchers, buying lab equipment, and some travel but also increases needed administrative oversight, […]
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Editor’s Note: The following is an article originally published by the Observatory of University Ethics on January 25, 2025. It was translated into English from French by the Observatory before being edited to align with Minding the Campus’s style guidelines. It is crossposted here with permission. San Jose State University Elizabeth Weiss, a physical anthropologist and professor […]
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My recent article on Minding the Campus examined a paper by National Science Foundation (NSF) director Sethuraman Panchanathan, published by the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). ACM refused to investigate Panchanathan’s uncited copying from a paper published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The PubPeer website reported that Panchanathan wrote an October […]
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I have just read your endorsement of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to be the head of the National Institute of Health (NIH). While I agree with much of the editorial, I would like to express some concerns, commenting as a long-time teacher of philosophy of science, a private citizen who is eager for the scientific enterprise to thrive, and a long-time supporter of the National […]
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