Surely a society based on denying a possible truth is not a healthy one. If there are such differences we need to be absolutely clear that they do not mean that some groups are intrinsically inferior, superior, or more or less deserving. If it is true that children of different races, by and large and on average, differ in their abilities, then we need an education system that encourages and develops all those varied abilities rather than one narrowly and rigidly based on glorifying the particular kind of intelligence and academic achievement that comes more easily to the dominant group."I am not so sure that cancelling his lecture at the Science Museum was uncalled for; I see it more as an angry rap on the old man's hand. On the other hand, I now am agreeing that suspending him from his CSHL job does not serve much of a purpose, and reflects badly on respecting academic freedom. After all, institutions have been known to distance themselves from their employees, especially academic ones, and most people don't equate institutions' opinions with those of their employees. For example, should MIT fire Noam Chomsky because he has sometimes espoused what some have claimed as radical and bigoted views? Of course not, and here the issue clearly is about academic freedom. If Lehigh University can simply get away with putting a disclaimer on their site distancing themselves from Michael Behe (whose creationist leanings are much more crackpot than even Watson's, if not as offensive-sounding), then why can't CSHL?
- Home
- Angry by Choice
- Catalogue of Organisms
- Chinleana
- Doc Madhattan
- Games with Words
- Genomics, Medicine, and Pseudoscience
- History of Geology
- Moss Plants and More
- Pleiotropy
- Plektix
- RRResearch
- Skeptic Wonder
- The Culture of Chemistry
- The Curious Wavefunction
- The Phytophactor
- The View from a Microbiologist
- Variety of Life
Field of Science
-
-
-
-
A meditation on the year to come1 week ago in Genomics, Medicine, and Pseudoscience
-
Some thoughts on "broader impact" statements for scientific papers4 weeks ago in The Curious Wavefunction
-
-
Does mathematics carry human biases?3 months ago in PLEKTIX
-
-
-
Daily routine10 months ago in Angry by Choice
-
-
-
A New Placodont from the Late Triassic of China1 year ago in Chinleana
-
Posted: July 22, 2018 at 03:03PM2 years ago in Field Notes
-
Bryophyte Herbarium Survey3 years ago in Moss Plants and More
-
Harnessing innate immunity to cure HIV4 years ago in Rule of 6ix
-
WE MOVED!4 years ago in Games with Words
-
-
-
-
post doc job opportunity on ribosome biochemistry!5 years ago in Protein Evolution and Other Musings
-
Growing the kidney: re-blogged from Science Bitez5 years ago in The View from a Microbiologist
-
Blogging Microbes- Communicating Microbiology to Netizens6 years ago in Memoirs of a Defective Brain
-
-
-
The Lure of the Obscure? Guest Post by Frank Stahl8 years ago in Sex, Genes & Evolution
-
-
Lab Rat Moving House9 years ago in Life of a Lab Rat
-
Goodbye FoS, thanks for all the laughs9 years ago in Disease Prone
-
-
Slideshow of NASA's Stardust-NExT Mission Comet Tempel 1 Flyby9 years ago in The Large Picture Blog
-
in The Biology Files

"Don't silence the scientists"
Susan Blackmore's quips on Watson and academic freedom. Particularly sensible is this:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Markup Key:
- <b>bold</b> = bold
- <i>italic</i> = italic
- <a href="http://www.fieldofscience.com/">FoS</a> = FoS