Of course this question is worth more than $20. Let me say a few words about why.
Since we are talking about scholarship--the field of critical race theory, to be more precise--the objections I raise in the thread linked here are all, crucially, scholarly questions. 1/
Since we are talking about scholarship--the field of critical race theory, to be more precise--the objections I raise in the thread linked here are all, crucially, scholarly questions. 1/
https://twitter.com/Katja_Thieme/status/1303153857686507521
In daily discussion, we get most of our knowledge about research fields third-, fourth-, or fifth-hand. Have I read much original scholarship in evolutionary biology? No, I have not. Do I have a lay view on the area of evolutionary biology? Yes, I do. 2/
https://twitter.com/TomGray79/status/1303212394299129856?s=20
Can I trust my lay view--not formed from reading field scholarship, but encountering summaries of summaries, watching film and video, listening to interviews, reading blogs--on evolutionary biology to make critical comments of consequence about evolutionary biology?
Hell no. 3/
Hell no. 3/
I can use it to ask curious questions of evolutionary biologists. I can use it to pursue more serious inquiry. 4/
Suddenly a lot of people have a lay view--a very negative one--on the field of critical race scholarship. Many seem to have gotten it--whether first-, or second-, or whatever-hand--from untrustworthy sources. For instance, from #JamesLindsay with the big chip on his shoulder. 5/ 
No matter what he loudly and arrogantly professes, #JamesLindsay has not shown himself to be a trustworthy source on any of the scholarship on which he prolifically comments--postmodernist theory, queer studies, critical race theory, math education. 6/
#JamesLindsay is a hoaxer who has failed and failed again to make a turn to serious criticism.
But as the link above shows, Lindsay reels people into believing that he's a serious commentater. Which is why I and other scholars keep documenting all the ways in which he is not. 7/
But as the link above shows, Lindsay reels people into believing that he's a serious commentater. Which is why I and other scholars keep documenting all the ways in which he is not. 7/
From what I can see, following his Twitter timeline, Colin Wright gets a lot of his views about critical race theory from James Lindsay's writing. Even as a lay view, that's shoddy. But all right. We all pick up some sketchy ideas from the self-declared experts in our circles. 8/
Colin Wright does not present his views as the sketchy lay views that they are, however. He presents to us his biology PhD, his #Quillette editorship, and with his ambition to dismiss a field of scholarship.
Parts of every scholarly field are always up for criticism. 9/
Parts of every scholarly field are always up for criticism. 9/
Such criticism, if it wants to be serious, of consequence, and relevant, has to contend with the scholarship that it is critiquing. It has to bring evidence. And it has to have method.
Until recently, Colin was inside academia, and on the academic job market.
He knows. 10/
Until recently, Colin was inside academia, and on the academic job market.
He knows. 10/
He knows that the shoddy, drive-by job he's doing when he criticizes critical race theory would not fly. He wouldn't take it seriously if someone came with flimsy slogans like these to discount evolutionary biology, his field.
He doesn't seem to care. 11/
He doesn't seem to care. 11/
https://twitter.com/Katja_Thieme/status/1303122803848175616?s=20
Wright does more than propagate his shoddy lay view and fling his flimsy slogans aimed to dismiss a scholarly field. From his considerable platform, he cheers on an authoritarian president when he decrees that this scholarship is to be partly banished. 12/
https://twitter.com/Katja_Thieme/status/1302310353045319680?s=20
If Wrights wants to criticize any field of scholarship, he should measure up and be able to tell us: what material have you surveyed, by what method have you analyzed it, what evidence have you found, what claims are you basing on that evidence? 13/
https://twitter.com/Jess_Abells/status/1303416637136105472?s=20
In the absence of such a description of his method, materials, and evidence, we must note that when he happily aligns his lay view with the executive overreach of an authoritarian, racist, and misogynist president, he is openly making himself the tool of this president. 14/
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