Woke Science: German Scientists Want Sexist and Racist Dinosaur Names Removed

As if the left-infested media, entertainment, and sports aren’t making enough noise about race and gender, now you’ve got the woke infestation of science. Some researchers in Germany are frowning upon the names of some dinosaur fossils because they find them offensive for being sexist, racist, or controversial in other ways.

The news section of nature, the reputed journal of scientific research, reported last week that a team of paleontologists at the Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen–Nuremberg in Germany analyzed the names of 1500 dinosaur fossils. They found the names of several species rooted in racism, sexism, and neo-colonial contexts. For example, some of the names of the species sounded too masculine to the researchers. The team reportedly wondered how much effort it would take to address the issue of such “problematic” names.

The authors wanted to know how much effort it would take to address what they saw as problematic names, which they describe as those “emanating racism, sexism, named under (neo)colonial contexts or after controversial figures”.

Based on their conclusion about the problematic nature of some of the dinosaur names, the team of researchers has suggested changing the way fossils are named and solely focus on physical description of the fossil species. One of the researchers, Evangelos Vlachos, who worked with the German paleontologists on the analysis of dinosaur names, was cited in nature calling for gradual change in the naming system of fossil species. Vlachos said:

“We don’t say that tomorrow we need to change everything. But we need to critically revise what we have done, see what we have done well and what we have not done well, and try to correct it in the future.”

Vlachos’ statement sounds to be in line with the policy of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) that doesn’t allow renaming of species just because their names are deemed offensive by someone.

The German team’s woke analysis of the dinosaur names has not been published or peer-reviewed yet and only counts as an opinion of the individuals involved. The news of the researchers having the nomenclature issue with dinosaurs wasn’t highlighted in mainstream media. But some of those learning about it had the perfect responses on social media.

And such responses mocking the woke criticism of dinosaur names didn’t solely come from conservatives; it even made some liberals snap at the wokeness.