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Notes -
I was doing my PhD back when the "Science Wars" (i.e. the application to the sciences of the 1990's era PC which had completely taken over most non-econ social sciences and a substantial minority of the humanities) were living memory. The pushback from professional physicists was organised, effective, and in the case of the Sokal hoax, hilarious. The biological establishment ended up getting involved in a classic Illuminati megaturn, where Big Pharma used the Orbital Mind Control Lasers to turn the Revolutionary Communist Party into a Libertarian-aligned card, giving them a +4 bonus to take control over it. They then used the Revolutionary Communist Party to take control of the Science Communicators.
I am out of academia now, but my impression is that this time round:
The attack is less dangerous - the 1990's science warriors wanted to demolish physics' claim to intellectual authority whereas the 2010's wokists just want us to take on a few token diversity hires. And this is something physics is very used to dealing with - the rows between physicists and women-in-STEM advocates over the number of women in physics are an ongoing nuisance that never went away even during the 2000's lull in the culture war.
The pushback, to the extent there is one, is much quieter. I can't tell whether or not this is because the threat is perceived as less dangerous, or because in today's campus climate it is not possible to organise against PC crap.
The response of working physicists to this sort of thing is basically "Bend over here it comes again" - it is annoying, but it doesn't stop you doing science the way having your lab burned down by anti-GMO protesters did.
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