I think the conference has scientific papers or presentations, and was properly reviewed by a research council that engages with social science topics. I’m comfortable calling that peer review a scientific process.

I also wouldn’t think the difference between peer review in history, philosophy, or other humanities fields and those in the sciences to be worth the distinction. All help to instill some form of rigor and/or standards on fields of inquiry.

So I am not weighing in on what the minister did; but you said “his was a political request to change scientific procedures for non-scientific reasons”; first I am not sure that the conference can be characterized as a “scientific conference” but certainly choosing people to be at a conference is not a “scientific procedure.” In fact, I have found selecting people to speak at a conference is ultimately a political process itself , but it is the politics and sociology of the scientific community planning the meeting (sometimes economics weighs in as well for travel funding).

The questioning of the peer review, from what I can tell, has nothing to do with the underlying science or research, which are perfectly reasonable grounds to criticize a peer review process. The SSHRC, at least right now, is reviewing the first review, and not conducting a second.

My take is that the pressure on the minister is to shut down the event, denying that it could possibly be about reasoned inquiry.

Are those scare quotes around “humanities research”?

But thanks for calling me on this.. I think we might have different views of “science” and what is not..

Perhaps it would be an interesting exercise to go through the presentations at this meeting workshop (if they are posted) and assess the “scienceiness” of each presentation (citing Colbert here). I guess we could develop criteria for “scienciness” (can be replicated, whatever) and perhaps we could use a Doodle poll to get Prometheus contributors to weigh in?

In case this isn’t clear, I am concerned about “science” being used as a cloak of undiscussability (don’t question my peer review and I won’t question yours) which seems to defeat the purpose of science as reasoned inquiry, IMHO.

At this point I think we are in agreement. The problem is a science minister who probably does not understand what ‘peer review’ means when he asked for it.

In Canada, the cabinent must consist of elected MPs and there are geographical quotas that must be met. This means the Ministers usually know little or nothing about the departments they oversee. That is why I am less suprised about a Minister acting like and idiot and expect the career bureaucrats that run the dept to educate the Minister as required.

My earlier responses where also motivated a misconception that the faculty at York had a strong anti-Isreal bias. It appears that it is simply the union representing the non-faculty workers and the student body (thereby demonstrating the value of research before posting).

To return to the point of the post I refer to the Globe and Mail’s account of the request:

“Mr. Goodyear has asked SSHRC president Chad Gaffield to convene a second peer-review committee to assess if the conference is still worthy of public funds, given that the initial proposal did not have details about everyone who would be speaking at the three-day conference.

“”Several individuals and organizations have expressed their grave concerns that some of the speakers have, in the past, made comments that have been seen to be anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic,” Mr. Goodyear said in a June 5 statement. It was not widely circulated, but Gary Toft, the minister’s spokesman, said it was sent to a number of Canadian Jewish media groups.

“Trevor Lynn, a spokesman for SSHRC, confirmed that the minister had spoken to Dr. Gaddfield, but said he can’t comment about how SSHRC will respond to the request. Other than the minister, he said, no other group or individual has complained to the council about the conference.

“He said the council is looking into the matter.”

The objections at issue – apparently just a few of the speakers – could be changed without going through a second peer-review. Goodyear could have avoided much of this fuss (at least from the research side) by not using the word “peer” in his discussion. Now, perhaps he’s trying to placate the groups who want the conference shut down, but won’t address the council directly. I doubt they’d care much whether it was an additional review or an additional peer review, so I stand by my initial argument that the minister botched this. If he fails to understand the significance of asking for a “second peer review” he’s not well advised.

As for the conference organizers, they have argued that there is enough of a diversity of speakers to represent many different perspectives on the issue. A review of the conference program suggests to me that they have. The multiple perspectives and diversity of participants would support their political objective of academic freedom, one to which I’m sympathetic. That they had to assert this to the science minister is annoying.

Here is some background that may explain the why the Ministers has a reason to be concerned:
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1144758
“Ontario [university worker] union calls for ban on Israeli professors
The resolution is still being drafted but the union said it will seek to prohibit Israeli academics from speaking, teaching or researching at Ontario universities. ”

FWIW, the same James Turk is on the record opposing the ban on isreali academics which was being pushed by the union.

What really happened in that case was a reporter asked “have your stopped beating your wife?” type of question and the Minister refused to answer (it appears the Minister, like many scientists, believes in evolution but does not discount the possibility of a supernatural element). The reporter spun this into a front page article that included quotes of outrage from the same Jim Turk quoted in the ScienceInsider article.

It quite possible that the Minister (who is a Chiropractor) did not really understand the implications of asking for a “second peer review” and the conference organizers decided that kicking up a fuss would better serve their political ends instead of finding another way to address the Minister’s legitimate concerns that the conference might turn into an anti-Israel hate fest.

OTOH, You original assessment could be right. But I am skeptical of the version of events as reported by the academics involved.