Viewpoint: The dangerous influence of ‘woke’ post-modernism in science

by Giovanni Molteni Tagliabue, Genetic Literacy Project, June 29, 2026

From an article in Science magazine by journalist Rachael Zamzow, we learn that many social scientists believe that a published paper should include in its author details a “’positionality statement’ from each author describing how their identity might influence their work”, declaring “for example, race, ethnicity, geographic location, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status, and career level”. Defending such a practice, one author maintains that it is “an invitation to think more broadly about what your role as a researcher is”. To illustrate the supposed benefits from such declarations, an imaginary case is offered: “If you’re an astronomer, for example, think about where your telescope is, she says. ‘Are you part of that community? Is that telescope put there with knowledge of the people who call that place their land?’” 

We believe that although some might find this an interesting question for a sociological or ethnographic study, it has nothing to do with, for example, the value of a report concerning a heavenly body discovered using that telescope. How a disclosure of the astronomer’s sexual orientation would add anything to the understanding of the matter by a reader of the article in an astronomy journal is puzzling, and sounds rather like a bad joke…

The call for “positionality statements” reveals some basic confusion:

1. One thing is the (interesting) description and analysis of the sociological and historical settings in which scientific endeavors are located and undertaken;

2. Another thing is the results of research contained in a scientific paper on whatever topic.

In any case, if the aim is “to think more broadly about what your role as a researcher is”, this is self-reflection that concerns the writer, not the reader, and the latter therefore derives no interesting information from personal details regarding the author(s). On the contrary, such knowledge could – more or less (un)consciously – bias the reader’s judgement regarding the content of scientific papers. Borrowing and repositioning John Rawls’ famous expression, one may argue that readers should be kept behind a “veil of ignorance” as regards the author(s). This is why a basic principle of peer review – which, notwithstanding its defects, is a pillar of evaluation/advancement in sciences – is anonymity (“blindness”).

Thus, our aim should be to reaffirm the intrinsic nature of scientific research as a quest for objective truths – call it a basic Popperian stance – regardless of subjective conditions and orientations. In the ideal, normative prospect established several decades ago by Robert Merton, the second rule for the processes of good research (the five prescriptions are popularly known with the acronym CUDOS) is Universalism. The concept may be understood in a double sense. First, it prescribes that research results (laws of nature, facts of history, etc.) are endowed with explanatory power regardless of the historical/social context of their discovery: for example, heliocentrism could have been ascertained as true by Aztec astronomers, rather than by Copernicus, a Polish mathematician who was probably building on Islamic Middle Age theoretical heritage; and/or by several other scientists, at anytime and anywhere. Second, Universalism was identified as an essential component of science by Merton precisely because it makes clear that anybody may contribute to scientific discoveries, whatever their gender, nationality, etc. For some observers, “science is somehow disreputable because it is the province of European white bourgeois males”: yet, it has been rightly replied that “Mendel was such, he was even an Augustinian monk, but he got it right about the wrinkled peas; and it would not have mattered if he had been a black handicapped Spanish-speaking lesbian atheist.” That is a truism that epistemic relativists seem unable to grasp.

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LINK: ENDORSERS

Dr. Giovanni Molteni Tagliabue is an independent researcher based in Italy who studies and reports on the philosophy of life sciences and political science. He specializes in epistemological, socio-political and legislative aspects of agricultural biotechnologies and is the recipient of the 2017 Innoplanta Science Prize.

A version of this article was originally posted at European Scientist and has been reposted here with permission. Any reposting should credit the original author and provide links to both the GLP and the original article. Find European Scientist on X @EuropeScientist

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