Ideologues Ate The Zoologist?
I'm increasingly seeing this, and I'm guessing at least some of you are, too: The truth, the facts, and the data are no match for ideologues and their fundamentalist views.

In the Financial Post, Donna Laframboise writes about a zoologist who has lost her job:

Zoologist Dr. Susan Crockford is routinely hired by biologists and archeologists in Canada and abroad to identify the remains of mammals, birds and fish. She has helped catalog museum collections, and assisted police with forensic analyses. But UVic students will no longer benefit from her expertise, and her ability to apply for research grants has come to a screeching halt. In May, the Anthropology Department withdrew her Adjunct Professor status, depriving her of a university affiliation.

Crockford describes her expulsion as "an academic hanging without a trial, conducted behind closed doors." After being renewed unanimously in 2016 for a three-year term, her adjunct status was not renewed the next time around.

Crockford is the author of a popular blog, polarbearscience.com, as well as five books about these animals. Polar Bear Facts and Myths has been translated into four languages. She says that, contrary to the claims of environmental activists, polar bears are currently thriving and are at no risk of extinction from climate change.

Informing the public of these plain facts now appears to be unacceptable to UVic. After 15 years, Crockford was advised in May that an internal Appointment Reappointment Promotion and Tenure (ARPT) committee had "voted not to renew your Adjunct Status."

In kangaroo court style, they are not telling Crockford why she was dismissed: "No reasons were provided," Laframboise writes:

Absent any other plausible explanation, Crockford has concluded that she was removed in order to suppress views on polar bears and related climate change issues and prevent her from continuing to challenge the high-profile academics who claim polar bear populations are in crisis.

This is, admittedly, speculation, but she offers some support for this. For example:

Crockford says she isn't entirely surprised by her expulsion, given her previous ban from the UVic Speakers Bureau. For the better part of a decade, that entity had arranged for her to deliver unpaid lectures to elementary and high school students, as well as to adult community groups. One talk concerned the early origins of domestic dogs. The other was titled Polar Bears: Outstanding Survivors of Climate Change.

There is every indication she was a popular speaker. But in 2017, UVic Speakers Bureau co-ordinator Mandy Crocker advised her of a policy change. The chair of the Anthropology Department now needed to confirm that Crockford was "able to represent the university" when discussing these topics.

Crockford's 2004 dissertation broke new ground with regard to the mechanisms by which wolves evolved into domestic dogs. UVic awarded her a PhD for that research. Yet 13 years later, Dr. Ann Stahl, as Chair of the Anthropology Department, banned Crockford from telling members of the public about it as a representative of the school.

In April 2017, Stahl advised: "I will not be endorsing your request to be included in the Speakers Bureau roster for 2017-2018." Admitting that she couldn't prevent Crockford from speaking elsewhere as a private citizen, Stahl drew the line at her doing so "as a representative of UVic."

Stahl said she respected "issues of academic freedom," but Crockford's talks at schools had "generated concern among parents regarding balance" and that this concern had "been shared with various levels of the university." Stahl did not respond to a request by the National Post for an interview.

About those bears:

During the time she delivered lectures to elementary school students, Crockford says she was continually "astonished to learn that every single teacher believed that only a few hundred to a few thousand polar bears were left." She feels duty bound as a scientist to speak up, to point out that the global population is officially estimated to be in the range of 22,000 to 31,000 and may be much higher. "I talk to groups about the adaptive features of polar bears that allow them to survive changes in their Arctic habitat," she says.

This week, Crockford will begin a five-country European speaking tour. Audiences in Oslo, London, Paris, Amsterdam and Munich will hear about her research, evaluate her arguments, and draw their own conclusions.

The University of Victoria needs to explain why it has allowed an internal committee to secretly purge and thereby punish an internationally-recognized researcher, for no known reason other than the fact that some unknown accusers do not agree with her views.

via ifeminists