At https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/11/14/a-scientists-stand-against-ideological-capture-review-of-why-i-cut-ties-with-sciences-top-publisher … scientist Anna Krylov claims the Nature portfolio of journals has drifted away from the pursuit of truth towards the pursuit of ideology. If this is your cup of tea, read it at the link – and the comments. If not, it will be over your head in any case.
Krylov grew up in the Soviet Union under a communist regime. She understands what ideological statements become once an institution signals that ideology was a core value. She says Nature‘s diversity statements resemble mandatory political pledges that were part and parcel of scientific life in the Soviet era. This also indicates she is coming to the end of her career, in any case, and can afford to buck the system at that point in her life. Younger scientists don’t have that wiggle room.
What makes Krylov’s article so compelling, we are told, is that it is grounded in experience, not abstraction. Not sure if that is a real word but she goes on to describe how policies that seem benign accumulate until they reshape the culture of scientific publishing. When journals decide on upholding ideological promotion such things as scepticism are no longer welcome. Dissent is seen as threatening – and the published literature begins to ossify around pre-approval themes. Anything that challenges the consensus is redefined as misinformation. This is one reason why climate science, for example, has become so resistant to critical scrutiny. It isn’t allowed. Krylov claims that the problem is now embedded in many of the sciences. Her own field is now taking that science down the same pathway.
No wonder the Hammam airburst event was purged. Nothing to do with evidence against but the very idea of catastrophic airbursts was defined as beyond the pale. It contradicted the consensus. No wonder the authors, and others, went on to found their own journal specialising in the subject of impacts and airburst events.