Political Correctness at Nature

Timothy Birdnow

The Woke Blokes at Nature, the supposedly premier science journal, have taken umbrage with the use of the words "supremacy" in regards to quantum computers because - get this! - it conjures images of white hooded klansmen seeking to lynch poor black sharecroppers!

Here is the letter by a number of scientists protesting the use of the word in an article:

We take issue with the use of ‘supremacy’ when referring to quantum computers that can out-calculate even the fastest supercomputers (F. Arute et al. Nature 574, 505–510; 2019). We consider it irresponsible to override the historical context of this descriptor, which risks sustaining divisions in race, gender and class. We call for the community to use ‘quantum advantage’ instead.

The community claims that quantum supremacy is a technical term with a specified meaning. However, any technical justification for this descriptor could get swamped as it enters the public arena after the intense media coverage of the past few months.

In our view, ‘supremacy’ has overtones of violence, neocolonialism and racism through its association with ‘white supremacy’. Inherently violent language has crept into other branches of science as well — in human and robotic spaceflight, for example, terms such as ‘conquest’, ‘colonization’ and ‘settlement’ evoke the terra nullius arguments of settler colonialism and must be contextualized against ongoing issues of neocolonialism.

Instead, quantum computing should be an open arena and an inspiration for a new generation of scientists.

Writing about this at Powerline John Hayward says:

I'm surprised John was unaware of how pc Nature has become, especially over Global Warming and the social sciences. Nature has increasingly moved into the lunatic fringe in recent years, promoting scare scenarios and rejecting good science by top guys. A number of years back, for instance, they flatly rejected a paper by Roy Spencer which contradicted Global Warming hystericism. Just said no. Spencer wound up having to publish in Remote Sensing as a result. Now, Roy Spencer is at the University of Alabama Huntsville and, along with John Christy, runs the satellite data center. He's no one to take lightly.

I guess Hayward was unaware of that.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:01 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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