Where on the line are we talking?

It's one thing to say: "In my view, EO Wilson's association with Rushton is defensible and should not be considered a stain on his career".

It's quite another to say: "That, and I believe it so much that I cannot take seriously anybody who disagrees with me on this, I shall call them and their viewpoints names such as 'surreal' and make grandiose claims that their opinion is so ridiculous, it requires a cultural change at this magazine".

The latter is what was said.

I see no conflict between holding both of these ideas:

* EO Wilson's association with Rushton isn't a problem, and it wasn't about him supporting those ideas themselves, it was about supporting the idea of 'let ideas be, do not censor them'.

* Singal is wildly inappropriate with this, and the plan as stated is cancel culture/crazy politication of a magazine.

In:

> "Rushton was a racist, Wilson defended Rushton so he's a racist, Singal defended Wilson so he's a racist"

You've made an evident mistake. It's instead:

> Rushton was a racist, Wilson defended Rushton so he might also be and we should look into that, Singal called that very thought of questioning Wilson's association with Rushton as ridiculous - and THAT means he's a racist'.

Maybe still wrong but not nearly as crazy as you seem to think it is.

I think your post is very reasonable. Singal may be exaggerating how bad SciAm is. Though my view is that the Wilson article is part of a pattern.

I responded to this because I read a biography of EO Wilson recently. It's strange to say his association with Rushton was a stain on his career because his career was massive. He published an absurd number of papers, did lots of field work, discovered many new species, wrote many popular science books, and was influential as an early conservationist. He was, by all accounts, an incredibly kind person. His link to some racist is a footnote, not a stain.

It's worth asking why it's even coming up. Here are a few possible reasons:

1. A number of left-wingers attacked Wilson following Sociobiology and it's been open-season on him ever since

2. It's trendy to call famous white scientists racist

3. Highly accomplished people cause envy in others which leads to tendentious attacks