Written by Noah Carl.
Philosopher Nathan Cofnas must be one of the most petitioned men in academia.
In 2019, he published a defence of free inquiry into group differences in intelligence. The paper appeared in a respected, peer-reviewed philosophy journal.1 But that didn’t stop the mob from trying to get it cancelled. More than 100 academics signed a petition calling for an apology, a retraction and even the resignation of the journal’s editors. The instigator of this campaign, philosopher Mark Alfano, told Cofnas, “You’re about to learn why people generally avoid fucking with me.” (He thus earned himself the nickname “Mafia Mark”.)
