This week at SPSP a poster spread flagrantly Islamophobic ideas under the guise of free scientific inquiry. It was offensive, more ideological (hateful) than scientific, and beyond the bounds. To think that just a year ago we were in a full fledged debate about the merit of diversity statements. - ThreadSky

mikeypasek.bsky.social • 380 days ago

This week at SPSP a poster spread flagrantly Islamophobic ideas under the guise of free scientific inquiry. It was offensive, more ideological (hateful) than scientific, and beyond the bounds. To think that just a year ago we were in a full fledged debate about the merit of diversity statements.

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mikeypasek.bsky.social•380 days ago

In the coming months, I expect the heterodox crowd to push forward a debate about academic censorship of right-wing ideas. I fear that this ensuing debate will obfuscate a needed conversation about quality. This poster was bad science. selectively reporting misleading stats to tell a biased story.

mikeypasek.bsky.social•380 days ago

I worry that our conventional norms of peer review, which have time and time again failed marginalized groups even (perhaps especially) at our most rigorously vetted outlets, are particularly ill-suited for quality control on conference posters.

regretlab.bsky.social•380 days ago

Having been the co-chair for posters years ago: yes, this would be tough given the current submission numbers & acceptance rates. And hard to thread the needle of also wanting a big tent where people (esp. students) can present early & imperfect work.

regretlab.bsky.social•380 days ago

Also (in part to get enough reviewers, but also as a professional development opportunity), SPSP has grad student poster reviewers. It's a lot to ask them to evaluate these kinds of harms in possibly their 1st reviewing experience (esp. given fairly sparse submission info).

regretlab.bsky.social•380 days ago

To be clear: I wasn't there, I haven't seen the work in question, but I absolutely believe your assessment that it was not acceptable, and I hope sharing my experience with logistics doesn't seem to dismiss that, as my intent is to agree with your assessment of the review process.

mikeypasek.bsky.social•380 days ago

Yup! All of this rings true. It’s hard to imagine how to balance the desire for big tent with the pragmatics of quality and ethics control. Perhaps we need a specialized team (or AI) that flags some posters for deeper review if certain trigger words are used? Not sure the solution either!

alylight.bsky.social•380 days ago

[I wasn't there] but I completely agree with this take. The abstract is blatantly offensive, and "viewpoint" aside, doesn't accord with our scientific standards. I'd argue one could censor the Islamophobia and it would still be clockable as something that didn't belong at SPSP.

alylight.bsky.social•380 days ago

And yes, the hand-wringing over requesting DEI statements as a gateway to viewpoint discrimination looks quite absurd given that it apparently didn't even prevent poorly-evidenced bigotry from being accepted.

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