What is the test? What is the idea?
The test is to show that you people are ridiculous.
I’m giving Roberto Refinetti a hard time here because
he is the editor of the journal “Sexuality and Culture.”
He agreed to talk to me after his journal
was hoaxed by these people.
*Laughter* Dog Park
They submitted absurd papers
to twenty academic journals.
One paper included gibberish about rape culture
in dog parks.
Another was a section of Mein Kampf re-written with
feminist buzzwords.
Editors of 7 journals published them,
proving, say the hoaxers, that:
Making absurd and horrible ideas sufficiently political
fashionable can get them validated at the highest levels
of academic grievance studies.
Six of the journal editors wouldn't talk to me,
but Refinetti did.
Let’s look into things and see if we should continue
doing what we’re doing.
Maybe you shouldn't be doing what you're doing
because it's gibberish, and they've proved it.
Yeah. They didn’t prove, that's the problem.
They sent the articles to 20 different journals
without asking them if you could study them,
which is a basic requirement in research these days.
But if they’d asked the journals
They couldn't have done the test.
But you’re deceiving people without much of a reason.
I think the hoaxers had good reason.
Their hoax woke us up to the fact that
some academic journals publish nonsense.
The paper Refinetti’s journal accepted titled,
“Going in through the back door”,
claimed you could reduce
Straight male homo hysteria and transphobia
through receptive, penetrative sex toy use.
Correct.
Sounds like, "Oh, it's not your everyday article."
And it's not.
This is a specialized journal that deals with
sexuality and culture.
Will decrease transphobia and increase feminist values.
Mm hmm.
Yeah. What is the problem with that?
I don't see a problem.
Again, it's a statement that could be correct.
It's nothing really absurd or unusual.
But then why publish it?
Oh, okay. Yeah, that's an issue in publication.
That's the specialization. We've been doing that
for maybe 100 years.
Seems silly.
Yeah. Okay. So what is silly?
Ahmm.
Is the respiration mechanism in an ant
not silly?
The way an ant breathes?
Yeah, the way an ant breathes.
But that's facts. It either breathes this way or that way.
This is speculation.
Is it a speculation? If it were just a statement
this thesis not tested, we wouldn’t do anything with it.
[Printing Press]
Journals say they determine the quality of research
they publish by submitting it to expert reviewers.
Reviewer one: This paper is rich and exciting.
I'm just overwhelmed,
which is a sign of a marvelous paper.
He's an idiot!
They made up data that he wished, or he or she
wished he had but he didn’t.
So he sees, "Wow, these people did a study
that I wanted to do, and they got the results that
I thought should be there. This is great."
The fields we are concerned about
put social grievances ahead of objective truth.
So as a simple summery
we call the problem grievance studies.
Because grievance studies journals
are so filled with jargon
phrases like these ...
even nonsense like the dog rape paper can pass muster.
If papers were written in plain English,
people might see that some of these ideas are false,
or meaningless.
Inferring from lessons relevant to human and
dog interactions
to suggest practical applications
that disrupt masculinities.
Yes.
What!?
That's one thing they like these days
to disrupt masculinities.
I don't like that concept.
That gets you published, that gets you promoted.
Only in those departments that support that.
Well, psychology, your department, leans that way, right?
In some departments, in some areas.
Doesn’t this show journals have a problem?
Is there such a bias here that instead of knowledge,
we're just putting political correctness?
In some areas that is the case,
but again, that's my feeling.
And I wouldn't do anything until I can actually
document it.
Is a hoax helping document that? No, it doesn't.
I think it kind of does.
I wouldn't have realized how silly
some of these journals are without this.
I think something sounds silly,
you watch, look carefully and you'll see
it's not as silly as you thought it was.
The hoaxers say that in fields that
end in the word 'studies'
A culture has developed
in which only certain conclusions are allowed.
Like those that make whiteness and masculinity
problematic.
In some places that is correct.
Is that a problem?
How big of a problem is it?
Is it worse than hunger?
Is it worse than people shooting each other?
Why do we need your journal?
Very good point.
Sexuality and culture.
Yes. Yes. You know, let's question our assumptions
because maybe we're making assumptions
that we shouldn't be making
When homosexuality was considered a mental illness.
People pushed and this,
and the psychiatrists got together and said
It's a perfectly fine thing to choose
and not to call it mental illness.
So that's the type of thing that, you know, a journal like
sexuality and culture does is
discuss.
[Bells]
Discussion is good, but in journals today,
only some discussion is allowed.
Some feminists assert, the dildo was an oppressive tool
of the patriarchy.
This just sounds political.
Political jargon. Yes.
But in itself just a sentence, right?
It's just describing some women think that
using the dildo is a man idea.
But that is a correct statement.
But is it suggests -- a bias.
REFINETTI: Oh, in the wording. STOSSEL: It's not science, it's just political jargon.
Correct correct.
There is some jargon that is used.
I don't like much.
And in certain areas you just learn to live with it.
In your field, the jargon just goes one way,
men are the problem.
Yes. And actually I do have a problem with that.
You publish it.
It doesn't mean I agree with what they found out.
Shouldn't there be a little more diversity in your field?
That's a general thing that we hear
in university campuses, right?
That most people are on the left.
A National Association of Scholars report
found that in liberal arts colleges
democrats outnumber republicans 10:1
I think it's very reasonable -- because what happens?
What is the job of learning?
Is questioning assumptions that are not traditional.
So not being traditional, not being conservative,
is part of the job of learning.
Being more open to new ideas,
which is, you know, what being a liberal is.
But this is your left leaning definition.
It's conservatives that proposed changes like
school vouchers,
privatizing air traffic control,
all kinds of new programs
while liberals want more of the same.
Oh, that's an interesting point.
Then the hypothesis is shut down.
See, that's how things work.
You show the idea, you discuss the idea and get it.
Any right leaning article is rejected.
No no, and I think that's the major -
Can you point to a couple in your journal?
That are right leaning?
Well. Ah.
I wouldn't say right leaning because
we don't like either the extreme left or extreme right.
He has published papers that challenge
feminist orthodoxy, like this one
saying the “me too” movement may go too far.
There's a push for the women's side these days,
which very understandably in a reaction because
for many for a long time
there was a push on the men's side.
A researcher who had another opinion
wouldn't get hired or published.
Correct. If you don't match what most people believe,
you're considered wrong.
But isn't that how humans handle knowledge?
No, say the hoaxers, to learn all sides should be heard.
If they wanted to make their point that
there are people who are in the extreme left,
yes, there are people in the extreme left,
but a hoax in a publication in a journal
is not going to solve the problem.
It's like, robbing a bank
because you have to feed your children.
It's fine, but it's not fine.
The bank gets robbed,
they update their security systems.
What have you done?
I don't think at this point we have a real good solution.
I don’t think they do.
I’m grateful that Refinetti was
willing to have a conversation.
But I cheer the hoaxers for revealing that
much of what passes for scholarship at colleges today
is bunk.