In a recent talk at the launch of the new Committee for Academic Freedom, philosopher Kathleen Stock recalled research seminars at the universities of St Andrews and Leeds in the 1990s, in which faculty would continuously search for weak points in arguments and not hesitate to raise these during questions following the seminar, often in a biting fashion.

Since the 2010s, as Stock noted, there has been a marked turn away from this combative style of debate, a move driven in part by feminist activists, who argued that such an atmosphere deterred women from participation. From this came new codes of conduct for academic events. Some such recommendations are eminently reasonable, entailing avoidance of personal attacks, sustained disruption of events and anything relating to the identity of the participants. But other guidelines, relating to undefined concepts of harassment, power dynamics and offence, can deter robust interrogation of scholarly material.

Stock expressed regret for the decline of the older, “scathing” debating style, which featured a “ magnificent contempt for stupid ideas”. More common today are insipid responses. Highly contestable views are met mostly with polite nodding or silence, an artificial “ respect” which really amounts to disengagement.

Both peer review and published review serve a vital self-regulatory role for scholarship. If an academic’s arguments, reasoning or use of data are open to challenge, another scholar will provide the appropriate critique, supplementing and enhancing the relevant body of discourse. This idealistic model is inevitably tempered by other power dynamics, particularly those affecting young or precariously employed academics. But it should not be unthinkable that senior figures could respect the right of juniors to participate in the process in such a manner.

Without negative reviews or feedback, positive reviews lose their significance. No work can be viewed as remarkable unless it can be contrasted with other work of lesser value. There are qualities to be discerned in vital scholarly writing, as distinct from that designed for other purposes; without any sense of these, or mechanisms for ensuring they are sustained, the justifications for financial and other support for scholarly endeavour become undermined.

Stock maintains that “terrible ideas” are found most often in areas of the humanities with less methodological consensus than the sciences. Among those, ethnography is especially problematic, where the distinction is blurred between journalistic description and scholarly analysis. More widely across disciplines, important and multifaceted concepts such as “ social justice” are often voided of a clear definition and become proxies for adherence to a particular political ideology. Such an academic culture, in which political allegiance matters more than intellectual rigour, makes possible scholarly hoaxes.

The author holds that peer review and published review