Academic debate | Evolutionary biologist Je suis!

Many will probably be puzzled by this reference to Charlie Hebdo, the French cartoonists who were brutally murdered by Islamic fundamentalists: no one risks their life by being an evolutionary biologist!

There are still similarities. Cartoons and evolutionary biology are central topics of hate for political and religious extremists, on both sides of the ideological spectrum.

From the beginning, the religious right has hated evolutionary biology because it undermines the message that God created all living things.

Now they are joined by the identity political left that sees evolutionary biology as a threat to claiming that every individual can freely choose their identity, including their biological sex.

The irony is that this opposition comes despite the fact that – or perhaps because – the theory of evolution is among the best-documented theories in science.

Not all of its details, but its essential features and description of the mechanisms governing the development of man as a biological being.

The increasing tendency of our time to question research and scientific facts is part of the background for Thursday’s Lytring in Bodo, organized by Nord University and the Khrono website.

“Should we just get rid of the knowledge we don’t like” is the headline, and in the call for discussion evolutionary biology is explicitly mentioned as a research area under attack.

And evolutionary biology is not alone.

In recent years there has also been controversy over the decolonization of curricula at the University of the Arts in Oslo, a reprimand of an employee at the University of Bergen who told a German joke, NTNU’s freedom of speech position in relation to the so-called Eikrem case, there are several cases about lecturers’ use of N – The word and requirements for so-called trigger alarms and safe spaces.

This is not an indication that we are approaching “American conditions” in Norwegian academia, but it is nonetheless a development worth discussing, Khrono senior editor Tove Lee says on her website.

The lie is absolutely right about it. Freedom of inquiry is the foundation of academia, and one of the prerequisites for a rational public debate.

This does not mean that we should blindly accept all the facts that research produces. Arguing about the starting point and results of research is a prerequisite for research to be able to evolve and become increasingly rigorous.

But criticism of research cannot be guided by what is seen as “appropriate” or in keeping with the “zeitgeist”.

Research or the publication of research results cannot be controlled by whether its results may harm or offend groups and individuals.

The truth is often painful, both in private life and in public debates, but it is a sting that we as a society must learn to live with and learn from.

We live in a time when more and more people are putting quotes around the word “truth”.

A time when many prefer to talk about competing “narratives,” where different power structures determine which narrative wins, not whether one narrative is more attuned to scientific discovery or facts than another.

It is a well known fact that people do not act based on reality as it is, but as they imagine it to be.

What’s new is that more and more people are claiming to give their perception and “feeling” of reality more weight than scientifically confirmed facts.

And in cases where there is a contradiction between the two, scientific facts should not be conveyed.

In Norwegian academic circles, fortunately, this is a somewhat marginal view.

Evolutionary biologist Jarli Tretti Nord, who is also participating in Thursday’s debate, can tell us about only one episode at Nord, and in that time he had the full support of the university administration.

However, he does see a distinct tendency in our society for certain kinds of specialized knowledge to be undesirable.

Recently, for example, it was revealed that staff at the University of Tromsø tried to cancel the introduction of Swedish history professor Johnny Helm at a conference organized by the university.

The reason is that Hjelm has a view of Sami rights which they don’t like.

This prompted political science professor Kjell Arne Rovik to write in Nordlys that he “more senses features of the emerging culture that restrict speech in certain UiT environments”.

Now, this problem should not be exaggerated, neither locally nor in Norwegian academic circles in general, but it is time to address this issue.

Truth is also the first casualty of the culture war, and extremism quickly seeps into the crack of rationality it creates.

Whether he follows evolutionary biology or cartoonists.

And for the record, it should be noted that the undersigned have previously chaired many discussions sponsored by Lytring.