Good morning, David!

Here's the pivotal quote from Jonathan Rauch in that book of his I got from a Virginia Postrel bibliography, and cannot stop pimping, Kindly Inquisitors:

It is quite useless to pretend that it is "fair," in the sense of evenhanded, to kick someone's beliefs out of the canon if they do not happen to be deemed science by the intellectual establishment. If we on the Darwinian side of the question are going to insist on preferential treatment for our way of looking at the world (and we should), and if in the process we are going to cause pain and outrage to people who do not see the world our way, then we had better have an awfully good reason—a much better reason than "because we're right and you're wrong and that's that." If we do not, then shame on us.

In point of fact, David, I probably come closer to your view of science than I do to Ben Stein's in No Intelligence Allowed. But that isn't quite the point: this isn't about what you think, or what I think. This is about what one may and may not say in the Academy without being called a nut. It is about protecting the system of rational inquiry. It's about reminding ourselves that "the solution for the problem of bad speech is more speech." And the solution for the problem of bad research is more research. Bad papers, more papers.

All I'm asking for is tolerance, rather than the narrow-mindedness that insists that we abstain from mentioning the possibility of God's existence in a university classroom.

More is at stake, by the way, than the definition of science: there is the issue of intellectual diversity in American Universities. This is the problem Evan Coyne Maloney has been calling attention to with his documentary Indoctrinate U. If your problem with "Intelligent Design" has to do with its not being science, are you equally consistent with respect to professors in other academic disciplines sticking to their own areas of expertise?

Because many of your colleages are not, and have no problem with teaching left-wing politcs from the podium. I trust you aren't among them, but it is a real concern for those of us who don't like to see the Ivory Tower getting too narrow at the top.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 08:00 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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