
A few months ago I sat through a PhD student's talk that wasn't great. Clear delivery, well prepared. The ideas just weren't there yet. Several professors asked tough but respectful questions. Exactly what's supposed to happen. For a while there, this had become suspect. Critical feedback from someone with more power directed at someone with less got coded as punching down, especially in public. That norm seems to have receded, thankfully, but plenty of people still treat the practice as immoral. I want to defend it. Scratch that. I want to defend punching, full stop. Up, down, sideways. Science runs on Merton's principle of universalism: evaluate ideas, not the person attached to them. The "don't punch down" rule violates that. Worse, it ends up infantilizing the people it claims to protect. Telling junior scholars their work is too fragile to scrutinize is not respect. New essay, free for all. Punch back in the comments. open.substack.com/pub/michaelinz…










