Allow Me to Retort
March 04, 2005
From Mark Dykstra of Sarasota, FL. Father Jape’s riposte follows below.And Prof Munodi is intelligent, I suppose??
Churchill published his article as one part of an academic piece. He offered no alternative hypotheses, nor did he consider any alternative hypotheses that had been offered by others. His conclusions – and he did reach some very definite conclusions – were sheer opinion, with no factual basis whatsoever. His conclusions were also overtly political.
Summers made oral comments at a private meeting convened for the specific purpose to consider provocative hypotheses regarding the status of women in the sciences. He offered several hypotheses, none of which he endorsed. He admitted during his remarks that one or more of his hypotheses might be wrong. Some testing on gender differences in V/S suggests that there are innate differences in skills relevant to math and science at the tail ends of the bell curve, and Summers referred to them (Steve Pinker of Harvard supported Summers’ on at least considering the hypotheses). Summers never argued he was right about anything, and specifically endorsed further study of all competing hypotheses.
Churchill’s episode doesn’t even concern academia, apart from the fact that he happens to be a professor and his embarrassed employer is a state university. Summers’ episode was directed solely at academia and was intended to be an in-house discussion, regarding proposed solutions to what the participants conceived of as a problem (a shortage of women at the highest reaches of math and science).
These are similar episodes?
Weak, weak post.
* * * *
Yes Mark, Prof. Munodi is an ass. But as Jape was, as they say, “out of pocket,” we thought Munodi’s commentary spoke volumes concerning the self-perception of academia. Jape sent us this note several days after Munodi appeared. -Eds.
What have you done to my space? Am I grateful for the filler? I am not! The commentary on these episodes is decidedly unsatisfactory. Munodi is stuck with all the others worrying about “who is right,” “who is speaking within their field of expertise,” “academic freedom,” “equality,” and it is all so much nonsense and idiocy! It is the namby-pamby, hand-wringing, shrill-voiced-earnestness, nancy-boy-ism of it all that is really telling. Munodi thinks he’s doing real analysis but he is just as corrupted by a commitment to “the conversation” and “getting to yes” as the method of arriving at truth and order as those he purportedly disagrees with. If I have stood for anything it is that the sword is often a finer tool for reaching the truth than the pen, and certainly better than a liberalized voice, and MOST certainly better than the emasculated liberalized homogenized voice of “academic freedom.”
Calling him Munodi though, that was a stroke of genius my friend, for certes!
Yrs. Alws.
+G.J.
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