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| Firestarter: Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa |
Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) has left a lot of people irate. It appears Kanazawa has a regular blog on the Psychology Today website which is ironically entitled The Scientific Fundamentalist: A look at the Hard Truths about Human Nature. In his latest post, Kanazawa put forward his views on why he feels Black women are less physically attractive than women of other races. Within one day, his inflammatory comments set the blogosphere, twittersphere and world-wide web alight. The result was an avalanche of comments from across the globe.
His views have left me pretty much unfazed. This is not because I have the powerful backing of the Union of Blue Collar Workers of the World (UBCWW) whose members rate my looks highly regardless of their race, colour or creed but rather because one can hardly expect a publication in an online magazine's blog to be taken serious.
Did any of the irate people ask themselves why this so-called academic did not submit his observations to Nature, Science or ANY peer-reviewed journal of note? Could it be that scientists publishing their findings on blogs instead of in journals is the new sign of a failed academic? Food for thought.
After the furore created by the article, I sought to find a copy of Kanazawa's fine piece of academic research. Unfortunately, it had been taken off the web but the snippet I did read showed:
1. No clearly defined sampling strategy or outline establishing who were the target population for his study
2. No clearly defined sample or sample size
3. No clearly outlined methodology
In summary, regardless of the conclusions he reached, this piece of research is not fit to be published in the Journal of My 3 year old Nephew's Kindergarten Class so its no surprise that it made it into a blog post. In his article, Kanazawa conveniently bypasses the scientific methodological process which states that to be
"termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning."
I hope Kanazawa realises that positions of academic tenure are not won by shameless attention-seeking, media blitz and sensationalism. In addition, research funding does not come from being featured in tabloid newspapers. The interesting question is whether the LSE, recently rocked by controversy over links to the the Gaddafi family, is at all concerned about their reputation and perceived falling standards.
"termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning."
I hope Kanazawa realises that positions of academic tenure are not won by shameless attention-seeking, media blitz and sensationalism. In addition, research funding does not come from being featured in tabloid newspapers. The interesting question is whether the LSE, recently rocked by controversy over links to the the Gaddafi family, is at all concerned about their reputation and perceived falling standards.
