The process of citing other papers in academia is not a random gift of kudos; it’s a note that one’s work is structurally related to another in very particular ways. There’s no room for this kind of equity intent in that process.
I work in neuroscience; research is still happening. It's hampered in the US by Trump's admin but it's not over by any means. It was always international.
In practice, there often is room. For instance, what textbook do you cite for a standard method or known fact? But this room is there for authors to decide based on the interests of their readers, not for ideological giveaways.
You don't cite textbooks. In general or something is known to everyone in your field you don't provide a citation, but even if you do you'd cite the paper that determined the relevant understanding, not a textbook.
There is no room for this kind of citational equity in the sciences. Bad end, bad means.
This is not how citations work, at least not in mathematics and like fields. Almost any paper on, say, Hecke algebras cites one or more of half a dozen texts on Hecke algebras for notations, results used and other context. You have a fair amount of choice who to cite, as these texts overlap. Normally you use this choice to make life easier for your readers, citing the sources that best prepare them for your work. You can cite original papers too, but this is not expected for any results over about 30 years old. Only with more recent work you have essentially no choice whom to cite.
In fields with many experimental studies such as biology and medicine, on the other hand, there are many borderline-related or borderline-reliable references that you can decide to cite or not cite at your whim. Again, the freedom is used responsibly by scholars interested in the truth, but in the heads of the "justice" crowd it is bound to become another vehicle of favoritism.
I'm surprised to hear that, but then I work in the biological sciences where citations must've gone a different way. I have never seen a textbook cited (and it would feel pretty inappropriate to do so - textbook authors consolidate and often simplify things and anyone versed in the field who's good at writing could do that but things are only discovered once and maybe refined a few times). I also don't see the point of doing so - you're writing papers for others in your field who know the basic knowledge, not for outside enthusiasts. But if you're actually describing practice in mathematics, I realise I'm not going to change anything and it may resemble one field snarking at another.
Either way, I would be bothered to see anyone consider diversity in citations in any academic paper.
This might indeed be less typical in biology. Searching for "see, e.g." in the literature https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C40&q=%22see%2C+e.g.%22&btnG= brings a lot of mathematics, physics and economics to the fore. (Some of these might be internal references, but most commonly this formulation is used for outside citations.)
I would still expect the author to have a lot of latitude in choosing which semi-relevant works to cite even in the life sciences. A study of a different virus in the same family might make a useful comparison or an irrelevant distraction. A paper published in a trashy journal might be still worth citing if you have taken a close look and found it reliable. I, too, would be bothered to see someone make these choices on political grounds, but the choices do exist, and sadly it means there is no easy to tell whether a given author has played favorites in his citations.
"lesser-known scholars, who may be more likely to be non-white and non-male" Ah, the Deficit Model. Pretty racist assumption, that.
Also wondering how to know the "demographics" of authors, unless you know them (in which case you are exercising familiarity bias).
Also noting (somewhat snarkily) that we are being encouraged to used the gender binary when categorizing authors gender. Like, what if they are one of the other 50+ genders?
It is best practice to read very widely, and not only in the single-word title, double digit impact factor journals, and we should ensure that not only are we doing this but that we are also training future scholars to do this. But citing particular works for any reason other than their relevance to your argument is not best practice.
Case in point. I met a very interesting mid-career cell biologist this weekend at a regional conference. He told me a little bit about his work, which sounds very interesting, and then we talked about the focus of the event, which was more educational. Anyway, got home, poured a drink, looked him up. He has a great h-factor for his career stage, lots of papers in top journals. Then I found some ancient You Tube videos where he talks about….his transition. In other words, probably a brajillion people have cited this person, strictly on the merits, without knowing that this is a trans man.
How low can the Nature go? Apparently, there is no bottom. Scientific community would do well by ignoring this outlet since it is no longer committed to scientific rigor.
There are numerous reasons why this is a horrendous concept, but practically speaking, how is this all supposed to work logistically? Are we expected to investigate the demographics of every single author of every single paper we are planning to cite? Aren't we repeatedly told to not make assumptions about individuals' race, ethnicity, gender identity, etc? And yet we are being told to do exactly that here.
Ultimately, what papers we choose to cite should be determined by their quality and relevance.
Sadly....Affirmative Action was a fifty year grift. Hard to give up your unearned place at the front of the line. Entrenched in academia by white upper middle class females (gaming AA) and gay white men since the 90's this hate on white men (ME) crumbled with Toxic Masculinity as a focus by female Faculty. Now Design and architecture schools are all DEI and Woke. 100% The cogs (undergrads) make product and are babied (protected) by the Privileged Matriarchy most with inflated MAs and no body of work. But loads of selfies in image Search.
To steel man the argument a bit, despite suspecting "yee ole same" motifs:
Psychology (and any social science that has some frame dependence) has ecological reasons for procedural sprinkles of this sort. There are selection effects in psychology that are not found in bioengineering. We can imagine these selection effects akin to studying linguistics within single languages, one at a time in sequence. Upon comparing "schools of thought," many of the overlaps and differences will be superficial and harder to tease apart due to the inertia of preconceptions. A fair counter to this would of course be that there exists no linguist so narrowly contrived.
However, there is a second consideration that this post does not address. The size of any given field's literature is ballooning at such a rate that selection effects may be inevitable as a function of opportunity cost. A fair counter here would be that adding procedural hoops also contributes to opportunity costs while taking on mostly arbitrary forms.
To this, I would say we might consider that the presence or absence of such a procedural tedium may simply not have significant effects. Just as "good science" is already likely to occur as if by reasonable coherence, needless of bureaucratic adherence, "bad science" is likely to artificially exploit whatever selection process is in place. If not this one, then some other.
When it comes to psychology, sociology, etc, it would actually be odd NOT to have some overcompensatory codification. Strangely enough, this may function as a favor by demarcating bias. If they had not explicated it, it would not preclude its biasing presence. It is positive information for some future reverse-engineer, similar to hidden axioms that have traceable effects.
This is actually about hiding inconvenient evidence about scholarly merit, which emerges clearly over time via citation rates. Reconstructing reality to more perfectly approximate ideology.
The process of citing other papers in academia is not a random gift of kudos; it’s a note that one’s work is structurally related to another in very particular ways. There’s no room for this kind of equity intent in that process.
that's only if you are looking to find some truth. That's the old science. Now it's "Science!"
I work in neuroscience; research is still happening. It's hampered in the US by Trump's admin but it's not over by any means. It was always international.
In practice, there often is room. For instance, what textbook do you cite for a standard method or known fact? But this room is there for authors to decide based on the interests of their readers, not for ideological giveaways.
You don't cite textbooks. In general or something is known to everyone in your field you don't provide a citation, but even if you do you'd cite the paper that determined the relevant understanding, not a textbook.
There is no room for this kind of citational equity in the sciences. Bad end, bad means.
This is not how citations work, at least not in mathematics and like fields. Almost any paper on, say, Hecke algebras cites one or more of half a dozen texts on Hecke algebras for notations, results used and other context. You have a fair amount of choice who to cite, as these texts overlap. Normally you use this choice to make life easier for your readers, citing the sources that best prepare them for your work. You can cite original papers too, but this is not expected for any results over about 30 years old. Only with more recent work you have essentially no choice whom to cite.
In fields with many experimental studies such as biology and medicine, on the other hand, there are many borderline-related or borderline-reliable references that you can decide to cite or not cite at your whim. Again, the freedom is used responsibly by scholars interested in the truth, but in the heads of the "justice" crowd it is bound to become another vehicle of favoritism.
I'm surprised to hear that, but then I work in the biological sciences where citations must've gone a different way. I have never seen a textbook cited (and it would feel pretty inappropriate to do so - textbook authors consolidate and often simplify things and anyone versed in the field who's good at writing could do that but things are only discovered once and maybe refined a few times). I also don't see the point of doing so - you're writing papers for others in your field who know the basic knowledge, not for outside enthusiasts. But if you're actually describing practice in mathematics, I realise I'm not going to change anything and it may resemble one field snarking at another.
Either way, I would be bothered to see anyone consider diversity in citations in any academic paper.
This might indeed be less typical in biology. Searching for "see, e.g." in the literature https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C40&q=%22see%2C+e.g.%22&btnG= brings a lot of mathematics, physics and economics to the fore. (Some of these might be internal references, but most commonly this formulation is used for outside citations.)
I would still expect the author to have a lot of latitude in choosing which semi-relevant works to cite even in the life sciences. A study of a different virus in the same family might make a useful comparison or an irrelevant distraction. A paper published in a trashy journal might be still worth citing if you have taken a close look and found it reliable. I, too, would be bothered to see someone make these choices on political grounds, but the choices do exist, and sadly it means there is no easy to tell whether a given author has played favorites in his citations.
"lesser-known scholars, who may be more likely to be non-white and non-male" Ah, the Deficit Model. Pretty racist assumption, that.
Also wondering how to know the "demographics" of authors, unless you know them (in which case you are exercising familiarity bias).
Also noting (somewhat snarkily) that we are being encouraged to used the gender binary when categorizing authors gender. Like, what if they are one of the other 50+ genders?
It is best practice to read very widely, and not only in the single-word title, double digit impact factor journals, and we should ensure that not only are we doing this but that we are also training future scholars to do this. But citing particular works for any reason other than their relevance to your argument is not best practice.
everyone knows chest feeders aren't getting cited enough.
Case in point. I met a very interesting mid-career cell biologist this weekend at a regional conference. He told me a little bit about his work, which sounds very interesting, and then we talked about the focus of the event, which was more educational. Anyway, got home, poured a drink, looked him up. He has a great h-factor for his career stage, lots of papers in top journals. Then I found some ancient You Tube videos where he talks about….his transition. In other words, probably a brajillion people have cited this person, strictly on the merits, without knowing that this is a trans man.
I mean honestly the most incredulous part of this post is that I would think a cell biologist is interesting.
Jerry Coyne wrote about this issue today on WEIT:
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2025/10/21/citation-justice-turning-science-into-social-engineering/
The only real citation bias in academia is the bias against politically inconvenient findings. See examples in this essay: https://open.substack.com/pub/backcountrypsych/p/reign-of-error-the-failure-of-social?r=1kxn90&utm_medium=ios
How low can the Nature go? Apparently, there is no bottom. Scientific community would do well by ignoring this outlet since it is no longer committed to scientific rigor.
stay tuned! they'll show you.
There are numerous reasons why this is a horrendous concept, but practically speaking, how is this all supposed to work logistically? Are we expected to investigate the demographics of every single author of every single paper we are planning to cite? Aren't we repeatedly told to not make assumptions about individuals' race, ethnicity, gender identity, etc? And yet we are being told to do exactly that here.
Ultimately, what papers we choose to cite should be determined by their quality and relevance.
This is a very bad idea.
Nature and Science are determined to self-destruct, it would seem.
Another piece of woke neomarxist rottenness aimed at destroying merit.
Good to expose this - cheers!
Sadly....Affirmative Action was a fifty year grift. Hard to give up your unearned place at the front of the line. Entrenched in academia by white upper middle class females (gaming AA) and gay white men since the 90's this hate on white men (ME) crumbled with Toxic Masculinity as a focus by female Faculty. Now Design and architecture schools are all DEI and Woke. 100% The cogs (undergrads) make product and are babied (protected) by the Privileged Matriarchy most with inflated MAs and no body of work. But loads of selfies in image Search.
Thanks for this. My own thoughts on this topic from a few years ago now: https://owlofathena.substack.com/p/citational-justice-and-the-growth
Nature it run by assholes and incompetents. Most of the journals now are. Its a problem.
To steel man the argument a bit, despite suspecting "yee ole same" motifs:
Psychology (and any social science that has some frame dependence) has ecological reasons for procedural sprinkles of this sort. There are selection effects in psychology that are not found in bioengineering. We can imagine these selection effects akin to studying linguistics within single languages, one at a time in sequence. Upon comparing "schools of thought," many of the overlaps and differences will be superficial and harder to tease apart due to the inertia of preconceptions. A fair counter to this would of course be that there exists no linguist so narrowly contrived.
However, there is a second consideration that this post does not address. The size of any given field's literature is ballooning at such a rate that selection effects may be inevitable as a function of opportunity cost. A fair counter here would be that adding procedural hoops also contributes to opportunity costs while taking on mostly arbitrary forms.
To this, I would say we might consider that the presence or absence of such a procedural tedium may simply not have significant effects. Just as "good science" is already likely to occur as if by reasonable coherence, needless of bureaucratic adherence, "bad science" is likely to artificially exploit whatever selection process is in place. If not this one, then some other.
When it comes to psychology, sociology, etc, it would actually be odd NOT to have some overcompensatory codification. Strangely enough, this may function as a favor by demarcating bias. If they had not explicated it, it would not preclude its biasing presence. It is positive information for some future reverse-engineer, similar to hidden axioms that have traceable effects.
Shift the racism to the footnotes so no one notices.
Why so desperate to keep being racist?
backdoor methods are used all the time.
Hmm... say more.
“what if Lysenko was black?”
How can we know the skin color or gender identity of the writers of an article? It is not so straightforward to google people
This is actually about hiding inconvenient evidence about scholarly merit, which emerges clearly over time via citation rates. Reconstructing reality to more perfectly approximate ideology.