All Posts Tagged With: "Research"
UBC study proves cocky men are sexier
But what expression makes women attractive to men?
People who are looking for a date this weekend should pay attention to a new study from the University of British Columbia, which determined which facial expressions are more and less sexually attractive to straight members of the opposite sex. Psychologist Jessica Tracy and graduate student Alec Beall asked 1,000 adults rate the attractiveness of people in photographs who were displaying either pride, happiness, shame or a neutral expression. Women were most likely to rate a guy as attractive when he was displaying pride on his face, rather than a smiled or no expression. In contrast, men were more likely to call a women hot when she had an inviting grin. The study adds weight to a growing the theory that humans shop around for signals of potentially higher reproductive success. “[Pride] could signal high status [in men],” which is important for moms-to-be Tracy told to The Vancouver Sun. Straight males may be attracted to happy women because it signals sexual “receptiveness,” she said. The study will be published in the journal Emotion.
What’s the best way to get a speeding ticket reduced?
University of Waterloo study shows value of remorse
University of Waterloo researchers surveyed 1,000 North Americans who had been pulled over at the side of the road. They found that a simple “I’m sorry” is the best way to encourage a lower fine. Among the 30 per cent of speeders who apologized to the police officer for speeding, most got a reduction. The average was $51. But among the 46 per cent who refused to admit their mistake or offered an excuse, few got any money knocked off. ”If you think about what an apology does, it indicates that the transgressor feels remorse,” PhD candidate and co-author Martin Day told the Waterloo Record. He and professor Mike Ross suggest the research may explain why it’s common to see public figures apologize for their marital transgressions, just as former Calif. governor Arnold Schwarzenegger did last week. Full details will be in the June issue of Law and Human Behavior.
Gut bacteria may cause mood disorders: McMaster researchers
Could probiotics cure anxiety and depression?
There’s long been speculation that gut disorders like irritable bowel syndrome are linked to mood disorders like anxiety and depression. Now, there’s much better proof of a connection. The elimination of bacteria in the bowels causes changes to the brain, according to new research by McMaster University scientists published in the journal Gastroenterology. The researchers showed that disrupting normal bacterial content in the gut of mice with antibiotics made the mice less cautious or anxious, while simultaneously increasing brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a substance that has been linked to depression and anxiety. The researchers told the McMaster Daily News that the next step is exploring whether probiotic bacteria can be used to treat mood disorders, particularly those associated with gastrointestinal problems.
Academic integrity system is ‘awful’
CMAJ wants major reforms for investigating scholarly misconduct
Canada’s leading medical journal is calling for major reforms in how academic misconduct is investigated and how the guilty are sanctioned. An editorial published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ), argued that there are few checks in place to preserve academic integrity, paving the way for major violations of scholarly principles.
The Journal’s editors cite high profile cases such as Montréal researcher Roger Poisson who “falsified information to recruit ineligible patients for a trial of treatment for breast cancer.” The editorial also states that their are numerous, lesser known, cases involving “conflicts of interest, misrepresentation of authorship and manipulation of reports.” Universities, who typically investigate their own researchers, are ill-equipped to weed out misconduct because of an “inherent conflict of interest” due to “the imperative to keep grant and sponsorship money flowing.”
In an interview with Postmedia, CMAJ editor Paul Hebert called the system “bloody awful” and accused institutions of burying allegations of misconduct.
Hebert and his colleagues want to see an independent panel, such as the Panel on Research Ethics, empowered to investigate all allegations of misconduct, and given the authority to compel researchers to appear before a panel and to demand institutions “provide access to all necessary information to exonerate or find fault.” To ensure “maximum deterrence,” the editors argue that “any new authority must publish names of all individuals involved in serious misconduct, release the outcomes of all investigations and issue regular reports.”
Dalhousie removes nuclear reactor
Uranium transported to federal facility ‘under cover of darkness’
Three years after decommissioning its SLOWPOKE nuclear reactor, Dalhousie University has removed it from the campus. The uranium core was transported to a federal facility in Ontario, “under the cover of darkness.” The reactor which was purchased in 1976 was used until 2008 when chemistry professor Amares Chatt, who used the facility for neutron analysis, retired. “Radiation experts have expressed their satisfaction with the plans, work practices, material handling and safe work procedures throughout the project,” Ray Ilson, the director of Dalhousie’s Environmental Health and Safety Office, said.
The murky world of academic ghostwriting
Lawsuits are shedding light on dubious relationship between medical researchers and pharmaceutical companies
Photograph by Flickr user striatic
When Barbara Sherwin, a McGill University psychology professor, became embroiled in a ghostwriting case in 2009, many wondered how an esteemed academic—one who dedicated her life to researching the relationship between hormones and cognition—could be accused of attaching her name to an article she didn’t write.
Her alleged transgression came to light in a class-action suit involving 8,400 women against the drug company Wyeth (now part of Pfizer). Lawyers representing the women, who claim they were harmed by their hormone replacement therapy (HRT) drugs, discovered that scientific research papers extolling the virtues of the treatment while downplaying potential harm appeared to have been written, not by the academics who signed their name to the papers, but by writers hired by the pharmaceutical company.
According to court documents filed by the plaintiffs, Wyeth paid the Princeton, New Jersey-based medical communications company DesignWrite to produce articles on HRT for publication in academic journals between 1997 and 2003. DesignWrite would write the papers, then approach leading academics to claim authorship for them.
Sherwin’s name appeared in the court documents in the form of DesignWrite correspondence and internal meeting notes. She has, until now, remained silent about her side of the story. But the topic has stayed in the news, as similar cases continue to reveal apparent conflicts of interest between academia and pharmaceutical companies.
Sherwin’s relationship with the pharmaceutical company started innocently enough. In the early 1990s, she was invited to give a presentation about her work on androgens and psychological functioning in women. There, she met a woman named Karen Mittleman during the lunch break. Mittleman introduced herself as a PhD and a former academic who worked in medical communications. The pair hit it off, and kept in touch. “I liked her, and considered her a casual friend,” Sherwin told Maclean’s over the phone from her office at McGill.
Several years later, in 1998, Mittleman called Sherwin to ask if she wanted to write a paper for the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society at the invitation of the journal’s editor. The subject was pharmacological treatment options for age-associated memory loss. Sherwin, an expert on hormones and how they influence memory and mood in people, had just completed a grant proposal on the subject, and said she’d be happy to write the article.
“[Mittleman] told me she would provide support by typing the manuscript and formatting it in the style of that particular journal,” explains Sherwin. The work itself would be based on Sherwin’s notes. In return, Mittleman, a senior writer at DesignWrite, promised to send Sherwin typed drafts for editing, and hard copies of references the professor requested. “I was completely under the impression that [Mittleman] was working for the journal, that it was the journal who hired her.”
What Mittleman never revealed was that her employer, DesignWrite, had a business relationship with Wyeth and other pharmaceutical companies. The ensuing article, which was peer-reviewed and listed Sherwin as its sole author, appeared in the April 2000 edition of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Sherwin says the work was her own, and that Mittleman had no input on the content beyond typing and formatting Sherwin’s notes. She also says she had no reason to believe there was any problem with the paper—until 2009, when Sherwin became the only Canadian researcher embroiled in the ongoing scandal in the US involving the class-action suit against Wyeth.
A 2009 study found that 7.8 per cent of articles published the previous year in six leading medical journals had at least one ghostwriter. Paul Hebert, editor-in-chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, estimates he rejects between five and 10 manuscripts per year because they were ghostwritten in collaboration with pharmaceutical companies. Blockbuster drugs such as the painkiller Vioxx (pulled from the market in 2004 after it was linked to heart problems), and the antidepressants Paxil and Zoloft, continue to come under scrutiny for citing ghostwritten articles that promote their use. Similarly, in 2004, it was found that the manufacturer of Neurontin used a ghostwriting campaign to market off-label uses.
Sherwin says, “If you’re approached by someone who is the head of marketing for Wyeth, then you know. I got a phone call from Karen saying the journal invited this paper, do you want to write it? This was a person I had known for several years.”
Sherwin says she was ultimately cleared by McGill after an eight-month investigation she describes as “emotionally devastating.” (The university has never formally released the results of its investigation.) The Quebec Order of Psychologists also investigated the allegations against Sherwin, and told Maclean’s “no disciplinary actions were taken.”
Richard Janda, a McGill law professor who became Sherwin’s advisor during the ordeal, says the university concluded no one but Sherwin had any input on the article. McGill also found that Sherwin had no way of knowing Wyeth was involved in the publication, and that the paper did not favour Wyeth’s drugs. (It had one section on estrogen and looked at seven other classes of non-hormonal drugs that might benefit mild cognitive impairment. Sherwin and Janda estimate that just over one per cent of the 163 references in the paper cite studies involving Wyeth products.)
Sherwin was, however, reprimanded for not acknowledging the “editorial assistance” she received. She says she offered to credit Mittleman, who declined, saying, “You did all the work.” Maclean’s tried to contact Mittleman, but she did not respond. In her 2006 court deposition, she claimed that a DesignWrite medical writer wrote the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society paper, but that Sherwin appeared as the author.
When the news of Sherwin’s involvement with DesignWrite broke, the McGill professor released a statement (which she now says was penned by the univsersity’s public relations department) defending her work while admitting, “I made an error in agreeing to have my name attached to that article without having it made clear that others contributed to it. It is an error I regret and which had never occurred before or since.”
Newspaper articles at the time questioned the statement, noting that court documents appeared to reveal that Sherwin had worked with DesignWrite again on another article that appeared in the journal Endocrine Reviews in 2003.“I never published anything in conjunction with DesignWrite after [2000],” Sherwin told Maclean’s via email. “I had told Karen (as a friend) that I had been invited to write a review for another journal in 2000. She volunteered help, which I forcefully declined. She nonetheless sent some unsolicited text to me, which I destroyed upon receipt and never spoke to her again.”
Sherwin also added that the allegation of DesignWrite’s involvement in a second paper was dismissed by McGill. “DesignWrite had clearly tried (and failed) to appropriate my second review,” she wrote to Maclean’s. Sherwin believes the hope was that the first article would lead to more collaboration, and incrementally, more influence on her work.
In a written statement to Maclean’s, DesignWrite defended its collaboration with academics, saying it had never promoted bad science and that it was simply trying to help advance worthwhile research. “It is perfectly normal, acceptable, and ethical for physicians to have substantial assistance in drafting articles,” the statement reads. “The exact amount of that assistance can vary, but as long as the physician author has control over the final product and final approval over the article, the exact amount of assistance provided is not an issue.”
At a University of Toronto conference on ghostwriting held earlier this week, a former ghostwriter, Linda Logdberg, says it was not usual for her to approach academics on behalf of drug companies and withhold information about her relationship with the industry. “I was asked to identify myself as a writer for the medical education company,” she says, adding that her range of involvement with a researcher could be anything from editing a manuscript, to writing the entire thing under a researcher’s byline.
Though the Wyeth ghostwriting cases go back a decade, those who study the problem say it persists. Trudo Lemmens, the University of Toronto law professor who hosted the conference, says biomedical ghostwriting is a public health issue in need of serious attention. “We know that erroneous or wrong use of pharmaceuticals is a leading cause of hospitalization in both the U.S. and Canada, so if ghost-authored publications contribute to that, particularly if they do not accurately represent the evidence, and over-emphasize positive studies, physicians who give their names [to these articles] are indirectly responsible for the prescriptions that are handed out.”
Lemmens is looking at the legal tools that can be used to fight the practice of ghostwriting and hold academics legally and professionally accountable. Ghostwriting is difficult to detect outside of legal discovery during class-action suits against drug companies, he says, and universities are often slow to reprimand their own researchers, who bring prestige and large research grants to their institutions.
In the world of journals, PLoS Medicine has been leading the effort to curb ghostwriting. It found that only 13 of the top 50 medical schools in the U.S. have a policy that prohibits ghostwriting, which Jocalyn Clark, senior editor of the journal, says is similar to the picture here in Canada.
Clark explains that that policies in place at PLoS Medicine now require that all authors must declare their competing interests and all the sources of funding for their work. “Many of the leading medical journals now have competing interest policies,” she says, “but the large bulk of medical and science journals in the world do not have that standard.”
For now, Sherwin’s story reveals just how complex, sophisticated, and murky the relationship between industry and the academy can be. “There’s a certain amount of deviousness that went on here,” she says. “DesignWrite had a publication plan, they were working with pharma. I spent my life staying away from pharmaceutical companies. If [Mittleman] had said there would be an honourarium, if she had mentioned Wyeth’s name, I could have known.”
Funding to be diverted from pure science
National Research Council to focus on pratical ‘poster child’ projects
The National Research Council is planning to divert funds away from “curiosity” based research towards a handful of “poster child” projects of more practical importance. “Flagship programs will be the NRC poster children — there will never be a lot of flagships, but they are important because they are the way we will explain and demonstrate the sort of things we can do and the benefits we can provide for Canada,” NRC president John McDougall wrote in an internal memo to his employees that was obtained by media. “They should be inspiring, large in scale and provide substantial public benefit.” These projects include improving wheat farming productivity, research into bio-composite materials, absorbing carbon dioxide with algae, and printable electronics.
UBC medical prof wins prestigious Gairdner award
Researcher excels in research into Huntington’s disease
University of British Columbia medical professor Michael Hayden has won the Canada Gairdner Wightman Award, a prestigious annual prize awarded to a Canadian who excels in health research. The Canada Research Chair in human genetics and molecular medicine won for his work on preventing the development of Huntington’s disease. Other Gairdner winners included health researchers at the University of Edinburgh and Hebrew University in Jerusalem who each won a Canada Gairdner International Award. A professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore won the Canada Gairdner Global Health Award. Hayden is one of the most cited researchers in the world in Huntington’s research.
What is a university?
The answer may enrage you.
Having posted over a hundred entries to this blog on university affairs, I may seem foolish asking a question like “what is a university?” Shouldn’t I know? Isn’t it obvious? Does it really matter?
As some philosopher said regarding time, I know what a university is — so long as nobody asks me, so I was curious as to what my own definition would look like if I tried to spell it out. The answer is not obvious, though, because a university has not always meant the same thing over the centuries, and it does not necessarily mean the same thing to everyone now. And it matters because very often the arguments we have about universities turn on our assumptions about what universities are and what they ought to be. Recent debates over certain religious universities in Canada, provide one obvious example. What follows then is my initial, and admittedly provisional attempt to define what we ought to consider a university in this country. I hope it provides readers with some food for thought and some opportunity for debate.
1. A university has two principal functions: providing instruction on matters of intellectual importance and conducting research on those same matters.
2. These two functions, to the extent reasonably possible, should support one another. University teaching, therefore, is distinguished from other modes of education not only by seeking the highest levels of sophistication, but also by deriving its vitality from the atmosphere of on-going discovery fostered at the institution. For this reason, most, if not all courses at a university should be taught by faculty who are active researchers in the disciplines in which they teach. Conversely, research ought not to be done in isolation from teaching. Researchers should be open to allowing issues that arise in teaching to suggest new research questions and, where feasible, students, both undergraduate and graduate, should be given opportunities to participate in research.
3. Because strong intellectual work can only be done in an atmosphere where scholars feel free to take risks, challenge conventions, and change their minds, universities must foster an environment that prizes intellectual freedom. Except in cases of illegal conduct, violence, or flagrant abuse of the trust placed in faculty members, universities should never seek to sway, silence, intimidate, threaten, or otherwise influence faculty members to take, renounce, or be silent on any particular position, nor to control or monitor controversial actions. Indeed, universities should take all legal action necessary to defend the academic integrity and freedom of the scholars associated with it. Academic freedom is a right of individual scholars, not of universities themselves or their administrations. Therefore, no university should seek to impinge on the academic freedom of a scholar by claiming it has an institutional freedom to do so.
4. Though university education should provide the kind of intellectual enrichment that would serve any graduate well in the working world, university education should never be construed solely or even primarily as a path to employment. Even in disciplines with obvious professional connections such as education or law, the university should first aim to teach the history, theoretical underpinnings, crucial knowledge, and critical skills necessary to build a profound understanding of the discipline. A university law program, for example, should aim primarily to produce graduates with a profound understanding of law, rather than lawyers, per se.
5. A university has one additional secondary function: to serve as a cultural touchstone in its community to encourage all members of the public to participate in the life of the mind. Universities should, within reasonable limits and without needlessly detracting from its primary missions, sponsor and host artistic performances and displays, public talks, open debates, and other events that excite interest in intellectual pursuits, broadly construed.
This to me seems like a good starting point for a real, meaningful debate on what a university should be. Some readers might object and say that I have simply described Canadian universities as they are. To the extent that that is true, we should consider ourselves lucky, and seek to conserve and develop what we already have. But as the case of Trinity Western and Redeemer have demonstrated, not all institutions that consider themselves universities would sign on to all five of my criteria — particularly the part about academic freedom. Quest University, the new private institution in BC, would certainly not qualify because it does not expect its profs to be researchers, for example. And it’s not just those universities: I think you would be hard-pressed to find many university administrators or any politicians who would endorse number 4.
In any case, what we mean by the term “university” is a debate that we have to continue to have in this country. Have at it.
Prairies set to lead medical isotope research
University of Saskatchewan, University of Winnipeg projects hoping to produce medical isotopes receive combined $14 million from feds
Two prairie universities are set to lead the way in developing new ways to create medical isotopes that are less wasteful and friendlier to the environment. Projects at the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Winnipeg that aim to create medical isotopes without producing radioactive waste that a traditional nuclear reactor usually yields received a combined $14 million from Natural Resources Canada, with $4 million going to the U of W project and $10 million to the U of S, according to the Canadian University Press. The funding was announced Jan. 24.
Medical isotopes are microscopic particles that can be injected into the body to diagnose heart diseases and treat certain types of cancer, and are also used for detailed medical imaging. A large portion of the world’s supply is produced in Canada by the National Research Universal (NRU) reactor in Chalk River, Ont., which is currently the country’s only facility that produces medical isotopes. When the reactor was closed in 2007 for maintenance, it resulted in an international shortage.
The reactor was again shutdown in 2009 and not able to start up again until 2010. Since these problems occurred, the National Research Council has been searching for alternative ways for medical isotopes to be produced.
David Walker, leader of the U of W project Prairie Isotope Production Enterprises (PIPE), explained that the project already has a “ready-made facility”, as it will be using a former Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) facility outside of Pinawa, Man. Walker said the team hopes to be ready to produce the medical isotopes using their method by 2012.
The U of S Canadian Light Source (CLS) Medical Isotope Project may take more time than its Manitoba counterpart to get its research off the ground, as it requires a linear accelerator to be installed, and the space set to be used for the project to be made more accessible to the research team, said the project’s lead investigator Mark de Jong.
Students, you are about as smart as a fish
College students challenge fish on math test
University students, you are about as smart as your fish — at least that’s what a recent study that compared the numerical skills of mosquitofish to college students may suggest.
The study found that the fish could differentiate between small numbers such as 4 and 8, and also large quantities such as 100 and 200, a surprising feat for the animals that researchers found incredible. ”You just don’t expect interesting results like this when dealing with animals like fish,” study leader Christian Agrillo of the University of Padova in Italy told National Geographic.
However, what was perhaps more surprising was that when the numerical skills were applied to ratios, experiments showed that the ability of the fish closely matched the abilities of their human college student counterparts.
An experiment for the study trained lone fish to associate a door labeled with a certain number of geometric shapes with a specific path to joining a larger group of fish. The fish were later placed into tanks where they were given the choice between two identical doors with a different number of symbols.
At first, the fish were clueless as to where to go, yet eventually began to move towards their preference for larger numbers, leading them to choose the correct door. The researchers also found that the fish could easily differentiate between ratios of 1:2 or 2:3, but had difficulty with the ratio of 3:4, which demonstrated that the fish couldn’t tell the doors apart when the numbers were closer together.
To compare the numerical skills of the fish to humans, researchers presented a similar test to a group of 25 university students, which asked the students to differentiate between groups of large numbers in two seconds. The students were more accurate, but encountered similar problems as the fish when trying to tell the difference between numbers as the ratios shifted from 2:3 to 3:4.
Researchers believe this finding may demonstrate that humans, fish, and other vertebrates share a common ancestor that possessed similar abilities to process numbers.
Friendless children prone to depression
Researchers suggest teachers should build community to foster companionship
Elementary school teachers should take steps to build community in their classrooms to help foster friendships among their students, according to Concordia University psychologist William Bukowski and his research team. A study to be published in the journal Development and Psychopathology found that children who lack friends are prone to depression. “Over time, we found that withdrawn kids showed increasing levels of sadness and higher levels of depressive feelings,” Bukowski said. The researchers surveyed 130 boys and 101 girls over three years between grades three and five. They concluded that having even one friend can help children from having negative feelings escalate “throughout adolescence.”
Want to be a father? Watch your diet.
New study shows a father’s diet can have a genetic impact on his offspring
A father’s diet can actually have an impact on certain genes in his offspring, according to researchers from the University of Massachusetts Medical School and the University of Texas at Austin.
The study, which was published in the journal Cell, involved feeding one group of male mice a low protein diet, while another group was fed a normal diet. Hundreds of genetic alterations were observed in the offspring of the low-protein mice, including genes involved in fat and cholesterol production.
This finding suggests that transgenerational inheritance of environmental information is possible in mammals. In other words, it’s not just a matter of ‘nature versus nurture’ anymore- your parents “nurture” can affect your ‘nature.’
So if there are any nasty surprises on your transcript this semester, your study habits might not be the problem- you can blame your father.
-Photo courtesy of † Jimmy MacDonald †
8-year olds publish in science journal
Elementary science project a ‘genuine advance’
Complete with diagrams drawn in pencil crayon, a group of eight-year-old British students had a science experiment published in Biology Letters, a peer reviewed journal. “The group trained bees to go to targets of different colours by giving them a sugar reward, and reported that the insects are able to learn and remember cues based on colour and pattern,” the Associated Press reported. The paper was filled with several amusing uses of language. “Scientists do experiments on monkeys, because they are similar to man, but bees could actually be close to man too,” the introduction read. The journal’s editors called the experiment a “genuine advance” into insect colour and pattern vision.
Alberta universities to research ‘liberation therapy’
Government dedicates $1 million for observational study
The Alberta government will be spending $1 million on an observational study into the controversial multiple sclerosis treatment, “liberation therapy.” The province has also pledged to fund clinical trials in the treatment is deemed safe. “In my discussions with MS patients and advocates, researchers, neurologists and other medical experts, we agreed that an observational study would be very helpful,” Health and Wellness Minister Gene Zwozdesky said in a press release. The research is to largely take place at the University of Calgary and the University of Alberta.
Master’s thesis makes cancer breakthrough
Alberta student wins top academic prize
A University of Alberta student has been awarded a prestigious academic award for his master’s thesis where he made a breakthrough on prostate cancer treatment. According to Postmedia, Weiyang Liu “spent four years developing a machine with a laser and fibre-optic probes that can be inserted through the skin and into the prostate gland to treat the cancer.” Known as photodynamic therapy, the “treatment relies on light-sensitive drugs injected into the bloodstream, but the drugs remain inert until fibre-optic probes deliver the light to just the right spot to kill off the cancerous tissue.” Within five years, the therapy could be a viable alternative to surgery. For his efforts, Liu was recognized for producing the best thesis by the Western Association of Graduate Schools.
Self-plagiarism debate continues at Queen’s
University urged to reopen investigation into alleged ‘scientific misconduct’
A Queen’s medical professor wants the university to reopen a case involving allegations of self-plagiarism. Reginald Smith, professor emeritus of mechanical and materials engineering, had been found to have recycled research from articles published earlier in his career.
The case drew international attention after details were made public by Postmedia as a result of a lenthy investigation that involved the retrieval of documents from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) through freedom of information requests. Two of Smith’s colleagues who had discovered the “self-plagiarism” in several articles filed complaints both with Queen’s and NSERC.
An internal investigation by the university concluded that Smith’s actions did not constitute scientific misconduct but concluded that Smith “has recognized the seriousness of the findings regarding the reuse of materials and has implemented policies in his research group to prevent further issues arising with new work.” The university considers the matter closed.
However, Steve Iscoe, who teaches medicine at Queen’s, says a “double standard” is being used. “How can I penalize a student for plagiarism if the university has not penalized Prof. Smith?” he said. Mort Shirkhanzadeh, one of the professors who filed the initial complaint, recently made a similar argument in a letter to the dean of engineering. “How can one have confidence in the results of the university research if records are not corrected and abuses of this scale are swept under the carpet?” he wrote.
Peto’s Holocaust education polemic not worthy of a master’s
Academic freedom is not freedom from standards
Jennifer Peto’s Master’s thesis is getting the University of Toronto a lot of attention. Her paper entitled “The Victimhood of the Powerful: White Jews, Zionism and the Racism of Hegemonic Holocaust Education” is stirring up students and educators around the country, and even became a topic of discussion in provincial legislature. Peto argues that two Holocaust education programs, the March of Remembrance and Hope, which takes non-Jewish youth to visit Nazi death camps, and the March of the Living Canada, a similar trip for Jewish youth, are instruments of Zionist propaganda. In her abstract, Peto writes that these programs “obscure Jewish privilege, deny Jewish racism and promote the interests of the Israeli nation-state.”
Loosely translated, Peto’s thesis amounts to something in the realm of: “I’m onto you, you rich Jews. You’re using the Holocaust to deny your privileged status and pursue your Zionist exploits!” Actually, that language isn’t far from what Peto uses in her paper. But if Peto wants to spend her time typing foolishness at her laptop, that’s her choice. Academic freedom shouldn’t deny even the most nonsensical of pursuits. But academic freedom does not mean freedom from academic standards, and unfortunately, Peto’s paper seems to blur the line. After trudging through more than 100 pages of political hyperbole and unsubstantiated claims, it seems questions should be raised about the conception of academic standards at U of T’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) where Peto was awarded her master’s degree.
Unsupported claims pepper Peto’s paper. For example, she argues that youth on the March of the Living (MOL) trip are “taught that their whiteness can only be maintained through racism, both in supporting Israel and [. . .] benefiting from racism and imperialism in their home” [p.98]. Read that sentence again, bearing in mind that Peto did not interview a single MOL participant—nor did she speak with any organizers, tour guides or chaperones. Yet perhaps through some sort of hegemony-sniffing ESP, Peto knows these kids are taught racist ideas about upholding their whiteness and power through imperialism.
Since Peto didn’t speak with any actual participants before reporting on what they were learning, I decided I would speak to one myself. I was put in touch with a 19-year-old Queen’s University student who went on MOL three years ago, and, for 10 minutes, did more primary source research on the topic than Peto did for her entire Master’s thesis. To avoid getting swept up in the controversy, the student asked that her name be withheld.
One of the more striking positions Peto asserts in her paper is that MOL “works to produce young Jewish subjects who feel intensely threatened and victimized, despite the privilege they actually hold” [p.79].
Of course, Peto failed to cite the bar napkin from which she sourced that tidbit, so I asked the real life participant what she took from the experience: “Of course, there was an intense sadness,” the student told me. “But it made me want to stand up. Not just against what we were seeing but against all abuses of human rights.”
Referring to the trip’s chaperones, the student said, “They told us that as much as we say ‘never forget,’ similar things still happen today. We’re not on March of the Living to play a passive role.”
Intensely victimized? This testimony reveals the opposite. Perhaps another would too? Yet Peto scoffs off such primary research as “beyond the scope of this project” [p.82]. Another questionable assertion that Peto makes is that the “Holocaust industry” focuses on the “uniqueness of the Holocaust,” causing Jews “to focus too much on their own victimhood, thereby preventing them from using the Holocaust to see parallels with other struggles” [p.44].
Is this true?
“The organization sent us packages before we left for the trip,” the Queen’s past participant says. “There was a whole section on modern genocides; Rwanda and Darfur.”
Of course, this is just testimony from one individual. Yet it speaks to the Pandora’s Box of information that would be revealed from conducting actual interviews.
The list of unsubstantiated claims in Peto’s paper goes on. She arrives at the conclusion that the other program she reviews, the March of Remembrance and Hope, is a Zionist project even though it “does not mention Israel in their [sic] literature” [p.64]. She concludes that the program targets non-whites because pictures of non-white participants outnumber those of white participants on its website. And she even stretches her imagination so far as to assert, “The organizers of the MRH are highlighting Muslim participation in order to celebrate the production of a particular ‘good’ Muslim subject [who] engages in Holocaust education” [p.66]. That conclusion, in case you were wondering, was derived by clicking through a website.
OISE has every right to approve Peto’s thesis for exploration, but it does not have to accept the validity of her argument. Her conclusions are based on faulty evidence (when based on evidence at all) and rely on secondary resources unrelated to the two Holocaust education programs in question. The 19-year-old past participant may not have a PhD or penned as many works as the authors referenced in Peto’s paper, but her testimony is immeasurably more relevant and appropriate for such an analysis. A master’s student should know that, and should have interviewed a wide spectrum of sources. It is distasteful that Peto chose to attack those hoping to promote good, unacceptable that she invoked unsubstantiated claims to support her statements, but it is contemptible that the OISE award a graduate degree for such a polemic.
R&D spending declines for 3rd straight year
Investment drops 2.6% from 2009
Canadian industrial spending on research and development has declined for the third straight year, Statistics Canada reported Wednesday. Anticipated spending for 2010 is $14.8 billion, down 6.2 per cent from 2008 and 2.6 per cent from 2009. In 2008, spending was $15.8 billion, which was down 5.1 per cent from the previous year.
According to the report: “43 per cent of industrial R&D spending was performed in the following five industries: scientific research and development services ($1.6 billion), communications equipment industry ($1.3 billion), wholesale trade ($1.2 billion), computer system design and related services industry ($1.1 billion), and information and cultural industries ($1.1 billion).”
Spending in Ontario accounted for 48 per cent of the national total at $7.6 billion while Quebec accounted for 29 per cent or $4.6 billion.
Minister ‘disgusted’ over U of T thesis
Grad student calls Holocaust education `racist`
Ontario immigration minister, Eric Hoskins is “disgusted” by a master’s thesis accepted by the University of Toronto that calls Holocaust education “racist.”
The thesis, submitted by graduate Jennifer Peto argues that the March of the Living and the March of Remembrance and Hope, both Holocaust education programs, perpetuate “Jewish victimhood” while obscuring “Jewish privilege,” denying “Jewish racism,” and promoting the “interests of the Israeli nation-state.” Her thesis is titled, “The Victimhood of the Powerful: White Jews, Zionism and the Racism of Hegemonic Holocaust Education.”
After the story was reported by the Toronto Star, it was debated in the Ontario legislature. Hoskin’s remarks, where he said he was “greatly disturbed and in fact disgusted” by the thesis followed comments by Progressive Conservative MPP, Peter Shurman who called Peto’s work a “piece of garbage.”
U of T provost Cheryl Misak was quoted in the Star urging a reminder that it was a student who wrote the paper. “I don’t know this student, but I certainly wouldn’t want to see this kind of scrutiny and unhappy attention on students in general,” she said.
