I’ve had a number of pingbacks from various iterations of a post on prosocial censorship. If you really want to, you can read one here. Prosocial censorship is form of scientific criticism aimed at preventing some scientific ideas from being promoted for reasons other than the quality of the work. Concern about being criticised in this way can also lead to self-censorship.
I do think this is an interesting topic and is worth discussing. However, it is complicated. Scholars should, of course, be open to criticism, both formal and informal. If scholars choose to engage publicly, then they should also be aware that they can not only be publicly criticised, but can also be judged on the basis of what they say, do, and/or who they choose to associate with.
Of course, there are ways to be critical that are more constructive than others, and there’s a big difference between a measured, thoughtful critique, and a personal attack. There’s also a difference between criticising what someone has said, or done, and actively advocating for them to lose their job, or be punished in some way.
One issue I have with many who promote the idea of there being some kind of scientific censorship is that it often seems to be more aimed at deligitimising those who criticise people they agree with, than a genuine attempt to engage in a serious discussion about a complex topic. There’s also an element of irony; essentially trying to censor supposedly censorious people.
The post that triggered this seems to mostly fall into this latter category. There are various examples of supposed prosocial censorship without any attempt to address any nuance. I make an appearance because I supposedly tried to prosocially censor Patrick Brown. To be fair, I have changed my views somewhat over time, but mostly in the direction of being even more critical than I was then.
What motivated the original post was actually a paper suggesting that [p]rosocial motives underlie scientific censorship by scientists, which I have now read. It’s mostly seems fine. It acknowledges that this is a complex issue and that there may be perfectly valid reasons for strong criticism of some research ideas. It even presents some suggestions, although I’m not sure how one can submit abstracts, manuscripts, or presubmission inquiries with identical methods but manipulated results to numerous journals and conferences to test if one set of findings is rejected more often than another.
At the end of the day, we should be careful of criticism that is motivated by a desire to censor inconvenient ideas, but we should also be careful of discouraging criticism on the basis of it being potentially censorious. I also don’t think there is an easy way to define when criticism is acceptable, and when it’s not. Maybe we just have to judge each case on it’s merits, or lack thereof, and be aware that our own biases will almost certainly influence how we assess the merits of criticism.