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                                                                                                          The Peril of Politicizing Science
                                                                                                                 Cite This: J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2021, 12, 5371−5376                            Read Online

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                                                                                                              It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.                            support of the regime was not sufficiently enthusiastic. It was
                                                                                                              Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow                    not uncommon to get disciplined for being too quiet during
                                                                                                              the range of thought? In the end we shall make                               mandatory political assemblies (politinformation or komso-
See https://pubs.acs.org/sharingguidelines for options on how to legitimately share published articles.

                                                                                                              thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no                  molskoe sobranie) or for showing up late to mandatory mass-
                                                                                                              words in which to express it.                                                celebrations (such as the May or November demonstrations).
                                                                                                                                                                                           Once I got a notice for promoting an imperialistic agenda by
                                                                                                                                                         −George Orwell, 1984
                                                                                                                                                                                           showing up in jeans for an informal school event. A friend’s
                                                                                                          I    grew up in a city that in its short history (barely over 150
                                                                                                              years) had its name changed three times.2,3 Founded in
                                                                                                                                                                                           dossier was permanently blemishedmaking him ineligible for
                 Downloaded via 172.58.121.2 on June 10, 2021 at 12:05:27 (UTC).

                                                                                                                                                                                           Ph.D. programsfor not fully participating in a trip required
                                                                                                          1869 around a steel plant and several coal mines built by the
                                                                                                                                                                                           of university students: an act of “voluntary” help to comrades
                                                                                                          Welsh industrialist John Hughes, the settlement was originally
                                                                                                                                                                                           in collective farms (Figure 2).
                                                                                                          called Hughesovka (or Yuzovka). When the Bolsheviks came
                                                                                                                                                                                              Science was not spared from this strict ideological control.6
                                                                                                          to power in the 1917 Revolution, the new government of the
                                                                                                                                                                                           Western influences were considered to be dangerous. Text-
                                                                                                          working class, the Soviets, set out to purge the country of
                                                                                                                                                                                           books and scientific papers tirelessly emphasized the priority
                                                                                                          ideologically impure influences in the name of the proletariat
                                                                                                                                                                                           and pre-eminence of Russian and Soviet science. Entire
                                                                                                          and the worldwide struggle of the suppressed masses. Cities
                                                                                                                                                                                           disciplines were declared ideologically impure, reactionary,
                                                                                                          and geographical landmarks were renamed,4 statues were torn
                                                                                                                                                                                           and hostile to the cause of working-class dominance and the
                                                                                                          down, books were burned, and many millions were jailed and
                                                                                                                                                                                           World Revolution. Notable examples of “bourgeois pseudo-
                                                                                                          murdered.5 In due course, the commissars got to Yuzovka, and
                                                                                                                                                                                           science” included genetics and cybernetics. Quantum mechan-
                                                                                                          the city was stripped of the name of its founder, a
                                                                                                                                                                                           ics and general relativity were also criticized for insufficient
                                                                                                          representative of the hostile class of oppressors and a
                                                                                                                                                                                           alignment with dialectic materialism.
                                                                                                          Westerner. In modern terms, Hughes was canceled. For a
                                                                                                                                                                                              Most relevant to chemistry was the antiresonance campaign
                                                                                                          few months, the city was called Trotsk (after Leon Trotsky),
                                                                                                                                                                                           (1949−1951).7 The theory of resonating structures, which
                                                                                                          until Trotsky lost in the power struggle inside the party and
                                                                                                                                                                                           brought Linus Pauling the Nobel prize in 1954, was deemed to
                                                                                                          was himself canceled (see Figure 1). In 1924 the city became
                                                                                                                                                                                           be bourgeois pseudoscience. Scientists who attempted to
                                                                                                          the namesake of the new supreme leader of the Communist
                                                                                                                                                                                           defend the merits of the theory and its utility for understanding
                                                                                                          Party (Stalin), and a few years later renamed to Stalino. My
                                                                                                                                                                                           chemical structures were accused of “cosmopolitism” (Western
                                                                                                          mother’s school certificates have Stalino on them. Following                      sympathy) and servility to Western bourgeois science. Some
                                                                                                          Stalin’s death in 1953, the Communist party underwent some
                                                                                                                                                                                           lost jobs. Two high-profile supporters of resonance theory,
                                                                                                          reckoning and admitted that several decades of terror and                        Syrkin and Dyatkina, were eventually forced to confess their
                                                                                                          many millions of murdered citizens were somewhat excessive.                      ideological sins and to publicly denounce resonance. Mean-
                                                                                                          Stalin was canceled: his body was removed from the                               while, other members of the community took this political
                                                                                                          Mausoleum at Red Square (where it had been displayed next                        purge as an opportunity to advance at the expense of others.7,8
                                                                                                          to Lenin’s); textbooks and encyclopedias were rewritten once                     As noted by many scholars,7,8 including Pauling himself,9 the
                                                                                                          again; and the cities, institutions, and landmarks bearing his                   grassroots antiresonance campaign was driven by people who
                                                                                                          name were promptly renamed. Stalino became Donetsk, after                        were “displeased with the alignment of forces in their science”.7
                                                                                                          the river Severskii Donets.                                                      This is a recurring motif in all political campaigns within
                                                                                                             I came of age during a relatively mellow period of the Soviet                 science in Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, and McCarthy’s
                                                                                                          rule, post-Stalin. Still, the ideology permeated all aspects of life,            Americathose who are “on the right side” of the issue can
                                                                                                          and survival required strict adherence to the party line and                     jump a few rungs and take the place of those who were
                                                                                                          enthusiastic displays of ideologically proper behavior. Not                      canceled. By the time I studied quantum chemistry at Moscow
                                                                                                          joining a young communist organization (Komsomol) would
                                                                                                          be career suicidenonmembers were barred from higher
                                                                                                          education. Openly practicing religion could lead to more grim                    Received: May 7, 2021
                                                                                                          consequences, up to imprisonment. So could reading the                           Accepted: May 10, 2021
                                                                                                          wrong book (Orwell, Solzhenitsyn, etc.). Even a poetry book                      Published: June 10, 2021
                                                                                                          that was not on the state-approved list could get one in trouble.
                                                                                                             Mere compliance was not sufficientthe ideology commit-
                                                                                                          tees were constantly on the lookout for individuals whose
                                                                                                                                                  © 2021 The Author. Published by
                                                                                                                                                       American Chemical Society                                              https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c01475
                                                                                                                                                                                    5371                                        J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2021, 12, 5371−5376
The Peril of Politicizing Science - iOpenShell
The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters                                           pubs.acs.org/JPCL                                        Viewpoint

State University, resonance theory had been rehabilitated. Yet,               Schrödinger equation, Curie Law, etc.). The authors call for
the history of the campaign and the injustices it entailed were               vigilance in naming discoveries and assert that “basing the
not discussed in the openthe Party did not welcome                           name with inclusive priorities may provide a path to a richer,
conversations about its past mistakes. I remember hearing parts               deeper, and more robust understanding of the science and its
of the story, narrated under someone’s breath at a party after                advancement.” Really? On what empirical grounds is this
copious amounts of alcohol had loosened a tongue.                             based? History teaches us the opposite: the outcomes of the
   Fast forward to 2021another century. The Cold War is a                    merit-based science of liberal, pluralistic societies are vastly
distant memory and the country shown on my birth certificate                   superior to those of the ideologically controlled science of the
and school and university diplomas, the USSR, is no longer on                 USSR and other totalitarian regimes.17 The authors call for
the map. But I find myself experiencing its legacy some                        removing the names of people who “crossed the line” of moral
thousands of miles to the west, as if I am living in an Orwellian             or ethical standards. Examples16 include Fritz Haber, Peter
twilight zone. I witness ever-increasing attempts to subject                  Debye, and William Shockley, but the list could have been
science and education to ideological control and censorship.                  easily extended to include Stark (defended expulsion of Jews
Just as in Soviet times, the censorship is being justified by the              from German institutions),18 Heisenberg (led Germany’s
greater good. Whereas in 1950, the greater good was advancing                 nuclear weapons program),19 and Schrödinger (had romantic
the World Revolution (in the USSR; in the USA the greater                     relationships with under-age girls).19 Indeed, learned societies
good meant fighting Communism), in 2021 the greater good is                    are now devoting considerable effort to such renaming
“Social Justice” (the capitalization is important: “Social Justice”
                                                                              campaignsamong the most-recent cancellations is the
is a specific ideology, with goals that have little in common
                                                                              renaming of the Fisher Prize by the Evolution Society, despite
with what lower-case “social justice” means in plain
                                                                              well-argued opposition by 10 past presidents and vice-
English).10−12 As in the USSR, the censorship is enthusiasti-
                                                                              presidents of the society.20
cally imposed also from the bottom, by members of the
                                                                                 There is no doubt that many famous scientists had views or
scientific community, whose motives vary from naive idealism
to cynical power-grabbing.                                                    engaged in behaviors that, by today’s standards, are not
   Just as during the time of the Great Terror,5,13 dangerous                 acceptable.21 Their scientific legacies are often mixed; for
conspiracies and plots against the World Revolution were seen                 example, Fritz Haber is both the father of modern chemical
everywhere, from illustrations in children’s books to hairstyles              warfare and the man whose development of nitrogen fixation is
and fashions; today we are told that racism, patriarchy,                      feeding the planet.22 Scientists are not saints.21 They are
misogyny, and other reprehensible ideas are encoded in                        human beings born into places and times they did not choose.
scientific terms, names of equations, and in plain English                     Just as their fellow human beings do, each finds his or her way
words. We are told that in order to build a better world and to               though the circumstances of their lives, such as totalitarian
address societal inequalities, we need to purge our literature of             regimes, world wars, and revolutions. Sometimes they made
the names of people whose personal records are not up to the                  the right choices, sometimes they erred. Some paid dearly for
high standards of the self-anointed bearers of the new truth,                 their mistakes. Haber22 was an avid German patriot, to the
the Elect.11 We are told that we need to rewrite our syllabi and              extent that he actively developed chemical weapons in order to
change the way we teach and speak.14,15                                       provide Germany with military advantage. Yet, his motherland
   As an example of political censorship and cancel culture,                  rejected him because he was a Jew. He was barely able to
consider a recent viewpoint16 discussing the centuries-old                    escape Germany, and part of his extended family perished in
tradition of attaching names to scientific concepts and                        the concentration camps. As eloquently stated by Stern in his
discoveries (Archimede’s Principle, Newton’s Laws of Motion,                  essay,22 are we really so morally superior that we can “judge a

Figure 1. Soviet history was constantly revised to keep up with the current party line. Historic photographs were routinely airbrushed and
textbooks rewritten to obliterate the canceled.1 Left: Lenin speaking in Moscow to Red Army soldiers in 1920, with Leon Trotsky and Lev
Kamenev standing to his left side, on the steps to the right. Right: Same scene, with Trotsky and Kamenev airbrushed out, after they were canceled.
Once the heroes of the Revolution, they had become traitors and enemies of the people. (Photograph May 5, 1920, by G. P. Goldshtein. Part of the
David King Collection. Purchased from David King by Tate Archive 2016. Photo copyright Tate.)

                                                                       5372                                        https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c01475
                                                                                                                     J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2021, 12, 5371−5376
The Peril of Politicizing Science - iOpenShell
The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters                                            pubs.acs.org/JPCL                                      Viewpoint

                                                                                  The authors of the viewpoint16 acknowledge historic
                                                                               complexities and the fact that moral and ethical standards
                                                                               change with time. They backed off Debye’s cancellation,
                                                                               quoting the decisions of investigative committees that
                                                                               concluded that Debye did not cross the line. However, they
                                                                               demand that the “Shockley−Queisser limit” be renamed. They
                                                                               call for Shockley’s cancellation as punishment for his abhorrent
                                                                               views on issues far outside his domain of expertise, such as
                                                                               race, gender, and IQ. If, for the sake of argument, we divorce
                                                                               ourselves from the charged political content of Shockley’s
                                                                               publications on these topics, we can compare his minimal
                                                                               scholarly contribution in this domain to Pauling’s vitamin C
                                                                               debacle.26 Should we cancel Pauling for overstepping the
                                                                               domain of his competence and making medically dangerous
                                                                               claims? Which one is the greater misconductpublishing a
                                                                               paper with eugenic content or promoting vitamin C as a cure
                                                                               for cancer? Note that in the case of both Pauling and Shockley,
Figure 2. Fourth-year chemistry students from Moscow State                     the Mertonian principle of organized skepticism24 has already
University (the author is on the right) enjoying a short break in the          taken care of effectively separating the wheat from the chaff:
potato fields during mandatory farm labor, ca. 1987. The sticks were            while Shockley’s detailed balance paper (ref 11 in the
used as aids for separating potatoes from the mud.                             viewpoint) is cited almost 7000 times, his paper on race and
                                                                               IQ (ref 12 in the viewpoint) has a grand total of 15 citations.
life by one disastrous deformation, which in some ways                            Digging deeper into the Shockley case, many of his
epitomized his and his country’s worst faults?”                                biographers attribute his well-documented antisocial traits
   Soviet history is full of examples of patriotic scientists who              and behaviors (social withdrawal and paranoia) to a mental
were imprisoned and murdered by the regime while                               disorder and describe him as a high-functioning autist. In his
proclaiming their unconditional loyalty to the World                           book The Gene, Mukherjee uses Shockley to illustrate the
Revolutionone such tragic figure was Hans Hellmann, who                        ethical conundrums of gene editing,27 by pointing out that the
fled Germany in 1933 (because of his Jewish wife) and, despite                  same combination of genes can be both “genius-enabling” and
multiple warnings, came to Russia (because he believed in the                  “disease-enabling”. What if Shockley’s deplorable views were
socialist ideals), only to be executed by the Soviet regime as an              the result of his mental disorder? Should we cancel him
enemy of the people in 1938.23                                                 anyway? I think we should discuss his mixed legacy and learn
   Some famous scientists were brave dissidents, and some                      from his complicated story, in the same way we can learn from
were conformists and opportunists. Should we judge their                       Fritz Haber’s and others’. These stories can teach us about the
scientific contributions by their political standing, the extent to             complexity of the world and of human minds, the importance
which they collaborated with repressive regimes, or by how                     of tolerance and empathy. And we should leave the Shockley−
wholesome their personal lives were? The authors of the                        Queisser limit (and other named discoveries and equations)
viewpoint16 go as far as to suggest that we should use names of                alone.
scientific discoveries and institutions as a vehicle to promote                    The issue of science moralization and censorship is older
ideologythat is, as a propaganda toolas was done by the                      than 20th century totalitarian regimes. For example, Giordano
Soviet, Nazi, and Maoist regimes.                                              Bruno was canceled (burned at the stake in 1600) because his
   The intersection of science, morality, and ideology has been                cosmological views were considered to be a threat to the
studied by many scholars and historians. History provides                      dominant ideology. The guardians of the truth, his prosecutors,
ample evidence that totalitarian censorship of science is                      “had the desire to serve freedom and promote the common
harmful to the progress and well-being of societies. Merton’s                  good”.28 A century later, Leeuwenhoek self-censored his
norms of science prescribe a clear separation between science                  studies and reports for offensive content (observations of
and morality.24 Particularly relevant is Merton’s principle of                 spermatozoa in semen).29,30 In 1911, Marie Curie was
universality, which states that claims to truth are evaluated in               ostracized for immoral behavioran affair with a married
terms of universal or impersonal criteria, and not on the basis                man (Langevin) following the tragic death of her husband
of race, class, gender, religion, or nationality.24 Simply put, we             Pierre Curie. The chair of the Nobel Prize committee, Svante
should evaluate, reward, and acknowledge scientific contribu-                   Arrhenius, wrote to her advising that she not attend the official
tions strictly on the basis of their intellectual merit and not on             ceremony for her Nobel Prize in Chemistry in view of her
the basis of personal traits of the scientists or a current political          questionable moral standing. Curie replied that she would be
agenda.                                                                        present at the ceremony, becase “the prize has been given to
   Conversations about the history of science and the                          her for her discovery of polonium and radium” and that “there
complexity of its social and ethical aspects can enrich our                    is no relation between her scientific work and the facts of her
lives and should be a welcome addition to science curricula.                   private life”.31 Today we regard this attempt to cancel Curie on
The history of science can teach us to appreciate the                          the grounds of her moral impurity as utterly absurd, yet we
complexity of the world and humanity. It can also help us to                   continue to witness the intrusion of moral arguments into the
navigate urgent contemporary issues.25 Censorship and                          scientific domain.31
cancellation will not make us smarter, will not lead to better                    Examples of past cancellations done in the name of
science, and will not help the next generation of scientists to                maintaining moral purity (as understood at the time) provide
make better choices.                                                           a useful context for today’s struggle between free speech and
                                                                        5373                                      https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c01475
                                                                                                                    J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2021, 12, 5371−5376
The Peril of Politicizing Science - iOpenShell
The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters                                          pubs.acs.org/JPCL                                       Viewpoint

cancel culture. In 1952, Alan Turing was canceled for being                  for offenses. If you are not sure when you should be
gay. After he was convicted for “gross indecency” and                        offendedcheck out the list of microagressionsa quick
subjected to chemical castration, he lost his consultancy job                google search can deliver plenty of official documents from
for the British intelligence agency, despite his vital contribu-             serious institutions that, with a few exceptions, sound like a
tions to the war effort, and was denied entry to the United                   sketch for the next Borat movie.38 If nothing fits the bill, you
States. About the same time, the University of Minnesota                     can always find malice in the sounds of a foreign language. At
revoked an offer from Michael McConnell for his intent to                     the University of Southern California, a professor was recently
marry another man.32 McConnell sued, but lost, with the judge                suspended because students claimed to have been offended by
decrying same-sex marriage a “socially repugnant concept,”                   the sounds of Chinese words used to illustrate the concept of
incompatible with holding a university position.                             filler words in a communications class.39,40
   Today’s censorship does not stop at purging the scientific                    Why did I devote a considerable amount of my time to
vocabulary of the names of scientists who “crossed the line” or              writing this essay? After all, I am no fan of Shockley; his
fail the ideological litmus tests of the Elect.11 In some                    eugenic views disgust me. Notwithstanding his monumental
schools,33,34 physics classes no longer teach “Newton’s Laws”,               contributions to one of the most pressing problems we face
but “the three fundamental laws of physics”. Why was Newton                  harnessing solar energyI would not want to sit next to him at
canceled? Because he was white, and the new ideology10,12,15                 a dinner party. Yet, the term “Shockley−Queisser limit” elicits
calls for “decentering whiteness” and “decolonizing” the                     no emotional response in me. Neither does “Stark effect”,
curriculum. A comment in Nature35 calls for replacing the                    “Haber−Bosch process”, or “Debye units”. To most scientists,
accepted technical term “quantum supremacy” by “quantum                      these are convenient labels, which remind us that the
advantage”. The authors regard the English word “supremacy”                  cathedrals of science are built by mere mortals,21 and not
as “violent” and equate its usage with promoting racism and                  some deeply meaningful symbols of reverence. So why should
colonialism. They also warn us about “damage” inflicted by                    we not humor those who claim to feel differently16 and rename
using such terms as “conquest”. I assume “divide-and-conquer”                everything in sight? After all, renaming equations is even easier
will have to go too. Remarkably, this Soviet-style ghost-chasing             than renaming cities, buildings, or landmarks.
gains traction. In partnership with their Diversity, Equity, and                The answer is simple: our future is at stake. As a community,
Inclusion taskforce, the Information and Technology Services                 we face an important choice. We can succumb to extreme left
Department of the University of Michigan set out to purge the                ideology and spend the rest of our lives ghost-chasing and
language within the university and without (by imposing                      witch-hunting, rewriting history, politicizing science, redefining
restrictions on university vendors) from such hurtful and racist             elements of language, and turning STEM (science, technology,
terms as “picnic”, “brown bag lunch”, “black-and-white                       engineering, and mathematics) education into a farce.41−44 Or
thinking”, “master password”, “dummy variable”, “disabled                    we can uphold a key principle of democratic societythe free
system”, “grandfathered account”, “strawman argument”, and                   and uncensored exchange of ideasand continue our core
“long time no see”.36 “The list is not exhaustive and will                   mission, the pursuit of truth, focusing attention on solving real,
continue to grow”, warns the memo. Indeed, new words are                     important problems of humankind.
canceled every dayI just learned that the word “normal” will                   The lessons of history are numerous and unambiguous.17
no longer be used on Dove soap packaging because “it makes                   Despite vast natural and human resources, the USSR lost the
most people feel excluded”37 (emphasis mine; see Figure 3).                  Cold War, crumbled, and collapsed. Interestingly, even the
   Do words have life and power of their own? Can they really                leaders of the most repressive regimes were able to understand,
cause injury? Do they carry hidden messages? The ideology                    to some extent, the weakness of totalitarian science. For
claims so and encourages us all to be on the constant lookout                example, in the midst of the Great Terror,5,13 Kapitsa and Ioffe
                                                                             were able to convince Stalin about the importance of physics to
                                                                             military and technological advantage, to the extent that he
                                                                             reversed some arrests; for example, Fock and Landau were set
                                                                             free (however, an estimated ∼10% of physicists perished
                                                                             during this time17). In the late forties, after nuclear physicists
                                                                             explained that without relativity theory there will be no nuclear
                                                                             bomb, Stalin rolled back the planned campaign against physics
                                                                             and instructed Beria to give physicists some space; this led to
                                                                             significant advances and accomplishments by Soviet scientists
                                                                             in several domains. However, neither Stalin nor the subsequent
                                                                             Soviet leaders were able to let go of the controls completely.
                                                                             Government control over science turned out to be a grand
                                                                             failure, and the attempts to patch the widening gap between
                                                                             the West and the East by espionage did not help.17 Today
                                                                             Russia is hopelessly behind the West, in both technology and
                                                                             quality of life. The book Totalitarian Science and Technology
                                                                             provides many more examples of such failed experiments.17
                                                                                Today, STEM holds the key to solving problems far more
Figure 3. Headline of the New York Times article37 from 2021-03-13.          important than the nuclear arms race: reversing climate
The word “normal” will be removed from more than 200 beauty                  change, fighting global hunger and poverty, controlling
products. “The changes were long overdue and ‘completely                     pandemics, and harnessing the power of new technologies
necessary’..., said Ateh Jewel, a beauty journalist and an advisory          (quantum computing, bioengineering, and renewable energy)
board member of the British Beauty Council.”37                               for the benefit of humanity.
                                                                      5374                                       https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c01475
                                                                                                                   J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2021, 12, 5371−5376
The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters                                                pubs.acs.org/JPCL                                         Viewpoint

  Normalizing ideological intrusion into science and abandon-                     on historically important neuroscience experiments which were
ing Mertonian principles24 will cost us dearly. We cannot                         mostly conducted by white men.”
afford it.                                                                           (15) Antiracist pedagogy: YALE Poorvu Center for teaching and
   Anna I. Krylov orcid.org/0000-0001-6788-5016                                   learning, https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/Antiracist-Pedagogy (ac-

■
                                                                                  cessed 2021-03-21). Recommendations include “decentering White-
    AUTHOR INFORMATION                                                            ness in the course content” and “creating assessments that enable
                                                                                  students to demonstrate different knowledge and ways of knowing”.
Complete contact information is available at:
                                                                                  Examples of good practices include “Yale Associate Professor of
https://pubs.acs.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c01475
                                                                                  Computer Science ... includes discussions about the discriminatory
Notes                                                                             racial history of computer science and mathematics as a way to help
Views expressed in this Viewpoint are those of the author and                     students understand the politics and power of fields that are often
not necessarily the views of the ACS.                                             thought of as being objective.”
                                                                                    (16) Ehrler, B.; Hutter, E. M.; Berry, J. J. The complicated morality
The author declares no competing financial interest.

■
                                                                                  of named inventions. ACS Energy Lett. 2021, 6, 565.
                                                                                    (17) Josephson, P. R. Totalitarian Science and Technology; Humanity
    REFERENCES                                                                    Books: Amherst, NY, 2005.
  (1) Gessen, M. The photo book that captured how the Soviet regime                 (18) Stark, J. The attitude of the German government towards
made the truth disappear. The New Yorker; 2018; https://www.                      science. Nature 1934, 133, 614.
newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/the-photo-book-that-captured-                     (19) Jones, S. The Quantum Ten: A Story of Passion, Tragedy,
how-t he-sovi et-reg ime-made-the -truth-disap pear?fbcli d=                      Ambition, and Science; Thomas Allen Publishers: Toronto, 2008.
IwAR0vMHK7xyGcch7Hwn5RrS3A5zMEfh3FmoxKSbBe5VgpL                                     (20) Evolution society renames Fisher Prize; some of us wrote a
wO5E3HeKbMG118.                                                                   letter in response. https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2021/04/02/
  (2) Wikipedia article about the city of Donetsk. https://en.                    evolution-society-renames-fisher-prize-a-letter-some-of-us-wrote-in-
wikipedia.org/wiki/Donetsk.                                                       response/ (Post on Jerry Coyne’s blog), 2021.
  (3) Hughesovka and the new Russia: Gwin Alf Williams in Donetsk.                  (21) Coffey, P. Cathedrals of Science: The Personalities and Rivalries
Review by D. Moore; https://www.walesartsreview.org/hughesovka-                   That Made Modern Chemistry; Oxford University Press, Inc., 2008.
and-the-new-russia-gwyn-alf-williams-in-donetsk; 2014.                              (22) Stern, F. Fritz Haber: Flawed greatness of person and country.
  (4) Bursa, G. R. F. Political Changes of Names of Soviet Towns. In              Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2012, 51, 50.
The Slavonic and East European Review, 1985, vol. 63; pp 161−193.                   (23) Wikipedia article about Hans Hellmann. https://en.wikipedia.
  (5) Solzhenitsyn, A. I. The Gulag Archipelago; 1973.                            org/wiki/Hans_Hellmann.
  (6) Graham, L. R. Science, Philosophy, and Human Behavior in the                  (24) Wikipedia article about R. K. Merton. https://en.wikipedia.
Soviet Union; Columbia University Press, 1991.
                                                                                  org/wiki/Robert_K._Merton. Merton defined a set of ideals that he
  (7) Pechenkin, A. A. The 1949−1951 anti-resonance campaign in
                                                                                  considered to be integral to the goals and methods of science and
Soviet science. LLULL 1995, 18, 135.
  (8) Graham, L. R. A Soviet Marxist view of structural chemistry: The            binding to scientists. The Mertonian norms of science, which are
theory of resonance controversy. Isis 1964, 55, 20.                               often referred to by the acronym “CUDOS”, include the following: (i)
  (9) Pauling’s theory of resonance: A Soviet controversy. https://               Communism: the common ownership of scientific discoveries,
paulingblog.wordpress.com/2009/03/26/paulings-theory-of-                          according to which scientists give up intellectual property in exchange
resonance-a-soviet-controversy. The Pauling blog, 2009. As Pauling                for recognition; (ii) Universalism: according to which claims to truth
wrote in his letter to Frank Aydelotte in 1951: “As to the Russian                are evaluated in terms of universal or impersonal criteria, and not on
scientists and the scientific controversies, I must say that I have great          the basis of race, class, gender, religion, or nationality; (iii)
difficulty in understanding what is happening. The most likely                      Disinterestedness: according to which scientists are rewarded for
explanation seems to be that some of the Russian scientists are taking            acting in ways that outwardly appear to be self-less; and (iv)
advantage of the political situation to advance themselves at the                 Organized Skepticism: all ideas must be tested and are subject to
expense of their colleagues. Others are then drawn into the                       rigorous, structured community scrutiny.
controversy, and required by practical considerations to align                      (25) Harari, Y. N. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century; Random House:
themselves with those who say that they are supporting the correct                New York, 2018.
Marxist position. I have read the Russian articles carefully, and I must            (26) Wikipedia article about Linus Pauling. https://en.wikipedia.
say that I cannot understand the arguments.”                                      org/wiki/Linus_Pauling. See “Medical research and vitamin C
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Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identityand                    (27) Mukherjee, S. The gene: An intimate history; Scribner: New
Why This Harms Everybody; Pitchstone Publishing: Durham, NC,                      York, 2017.
2020.                                                                               (28) Wikipedia article about Giordano Bruno. https://en.wikipedia.
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from anti-black anti-racists. Substack, 2021; https://johnmcwhorter.              Bruno’s death as a “sad episode” but defended the Inquisitors who
substack.com/p/the-elect-neoracists-posing-as-antiracists.
                                                                                  “had the desire to serve freedom and promote the common good and
  (12) Zinsmeister, K. The compound fractures of identity politics.
                                                                                  did everything possible to save his life”.
City Journal, 2021. https://www.city-journal.org/fractures-of-
                                                                                    (29) Kremer, J. The significance of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek for the
identity-politics
  (13) Wikipedia article about the Great Terror. https://en.wikipedia.            early development of andrology. Andrologia 1979, 11, 243.
org/wiki/Great_Purge.                                                               (30) Poppick, L. The long, winding tale of sperm science.
  (14) Diversity & inclusion syllabus statements at Brown university.             Smithsonian; 2017;https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-
https://www.brown.edu/sheridan/teaching-learning-resources/                       nature/scientists-finally-unravel-mysteries-sperm-180963578. When
inclusive-teaching/statements (accessed 2021-03-21). An example                   Leeuwenhoek wrote to the Royal Society of London about his
DEI statement from a course syllabus: “In an ideal world, science                 discovery of spermatozoa in 1677, he preceded his report with the
would be objective. However, much of science is subjective and is                 following: “If your Lordship should consider that these observations
historically built on a small subset of privileged voices. I acknowledge          may disgust or scandalise the learned, I earnestly beg your Lordship to
that the readings for this course, including the course reader and BCP            regard them as private and to publish or destroy them as your
were authored by white men. Furthermore, the course often focuses                 Lordship sees fit.”

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The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters                                           pubs.acs.org/JPCL                                Viewpoint

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autonomy. https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=                   lYWN0aW9uIn0.xBFk_7Ul9yZ_-W7rCgB7E68G_
20190320145639758, 2019.                                                        H3q1B61wN3ifIhYIlM
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1971. New York Times, 2015; https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/
17/us/the-same-sex-couple-who-got-a-marriage-license-in-1971.html.
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2021. https://www.city-journal.org/the-miseducation-of-americas-
elites
  (34) Somerville, E. Isaac Newton latest historical figure swept up in
’decolonisation’ drive. The Telegraph, 2021; https://www.telegraph.
co.uk/news/2021/04/24/isaac-newton-latest-historical-figure-swept-
decolonisation-drive. A draft of “inclusive curriculum development”
at the Sheffield University (UK) states that Dirac, Laplace, Newton,
and Leibniz “could be considered as benefiting from colonial era
activity” and, therefore, should be removed from the engineering
curriculum. “Decolonising the curriculum is an ongoing process which
prompts us to incorporate historically marginalised or suppressed
knowledge into all disciplines...so all our students have the
opportunity to see themselves reflected in what they are being
taught,” said a spokesman of the University.
  (35) Palacios-Berraquero, C.; Mueck, L.; Persaud, D. M. We will
take ’quantum advantage’. Nature 2019, 576, 213.
  (36) Executive summary by “Words Matter” taskforce. https://drive.
google.com/file/d/11a8cUt1SCfIxQRBZk_TnRYM5ltENL7LI/view,
2020.
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from beauty products; New York Times, 2021. https://www.nytimes.
com/2021/03/09/business/unilever-normal-positive-beauty.html.
  (38) Examples of microagressions and recommendations on
inclusive language from University of California, University of
Colorado, University of Minnesota, and University of Michigan;
retrieved from internet. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/
1n6jB4oTDnrPqqKNVAHpA_MNwbK3TBGg; Link to exhibits,
2020.
  (39) Soave, R. USC suspended a communications professor for
saying a Chinese word that sounds like a racial slur; Reason, 2020;
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offended-students.
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break” for giving Chinese word “neige” as example; The Volokh
Conspiracy, Reason, 2020. https://reason.com/volokh/2020/09/03/
usc-communications-professor-on-a-short-term-break-for-giving-
chinese-word-neige-as-example.
  (41) A pathway to equitable math instruction: Resources and
guidance to support Black, LatinX, and Multilingual students to thrive
in grades 6−8. https://equitablemath.org. From the website: “A
Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction is an actionable toolkit
designed to support equitable access to math standards for Black,
Latinx, and multilingual students in grades 6−8. We invite school
leaders, educators, and advocates to join us at these virtual
opportunities to dive deeper into each of the toolkit strides.” The
program, which is supported by numerous educational boards and
foundations, including Los Angeles County Office of Education and
Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, calls to “dismantle white
supremacy” in the classroom, which manifests itself by “the focus is
on getting the ‘right’ answer” and asking students “to show their
work”.
  (42) McWhorter, J. Is it racist to expect black kids to do math for
real? https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/is-it-racist-to-expect-
black-kids; It Bears Mentioning, 2021.
  (43) Klainerman, S. There is no such thing as “white” math.
Common Sense with Bari Weiss; https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/
there-is-no-such-thing-as-white-math, 2021.
  (44) Deift, P.; Jitomirskaya, S.; Klainerman, S. America is flunking
math. Persuasion, 2021. https://www.persuasion.community/p/why-
america-is-flunking-math-education?token=
eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyNzY2MDE2NiwicG9zdF9pZCI6MzYzODMzNjEsI
l8iOiJsVWgvMSIsImlhdCI6MTYyMTUyNDgzMywiZXhwIjoxNjIxN

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                                                                                                             J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2021, 12, 5371−5376
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