Is Chicago becoming too PC?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
21

Thanks for posting that blog commentary. Not sure who Tim Gowers is - has an evolutionary biologist at least weighed in, or are all of the critiques from mathematicians? Because it’s not clear that the assumptions pertaining to evolutionary biology are bad?

Howevr, not sure that weighing in even makes sense. Part of the issue here is that papers are peer reviewed, and ref. reports generated, before a paper goes for publication. Lots of journals are pretty crappy and even good journals accept and publish crappy papers sometimes. So what? Should there be a different standard of QA so that some topics justify outside scrutiny? Give me a break - NO ONE wants that in academia.

One academic I know who is incensed about the whole thing told me it could well be that the paper was crappy. He wouldn’t know either way. What was disturbing is that it was already published then went down the memory hole. This I didn’t realize before, having thought it was preparing to be published, not actually published. It completely disappeared from the 2nd journal (NY Journal of Mathematics) and another article put in its place. If true, that’s chilling for academics and likely what’s creeping them out. Used to be that you actually had to gather all the books to burn them. Now you just replace the online article with something else. I will point out, however, that online journal articles tend to have a DOI or permalink so not quite that easy just to “delete”. I’m not sure this article had that yet - not sure of the timing for obtaining such, nor even whether the article was truly ‘published’ or just ‘about to be published’. To me these are distinctions w/o a difference but not to academics, apparently. Theoretically, I guess, once published, you can be sourced and quoted.

In any case, the two UChicago professors who expressed concerns were not evolutionary biologists either and at least one had motives that suggested the idea should be shut down. In the realm of ideas, you are going to see some bad ones along with the good. No one has been anointed the “speech” or “idea” police - only debate and competition of viewpoints can truly separate the two.

22

I had thought it was settled statistically that the bell curve for male intelligence has fatter tails on both the low and high ends than does that for females. If that distribution is generally accepted, then I’m unclear why a paper that attempts to explain the distribution mathematically would inherently be controversial. Of course it might be shoddy work for many reasons, but it would hardly be breaking new ground.

I suppose part of the problem might be that a mathematical explanation would undercut an explanation that took account of cultural and experiential differences in the lives of men and women. Perhaps that is what Prof. Wilkinson is saying in the last sentence of her statement. That sounds like a reasonable critique but not a reason to prevent the mathematical thesis from even seeing the light of day.

The irony here is that as in many cases of attempts to suppress speech the speech suppressed ends up with a wider circulation than it would otherwise have had or than it may even deserve. Hill may not in the end prove to be a latter-day Galileo, but the present controversy allows him to give a good imitation of a fearless maverick and seeker after truth wherever the search leads. I would prefer to see those types inside the University of Chicago rather than outside.

23

Ho hum, this is no surprise to people who have been following the intelligence debate for about, oh, 50 years or so now…

Closing down debate, substituting slurs for reasoned rebuttals, slamming shut the Overton Window, it’s all par for the course in the modern American university.

For those who care, the issue is not mathematics here. I have read the paper, and the mathematics is fairly straightforward; there is no issue I can see with the formal use of it. And if there were technical issues, as others have noted, they would have been caught in the peer review process.

The issue is substantive: using a simple mathematical model to explain the higher variability of trait characteristics of one sex versus another. Much of the discussion in the paper is a fairly standard exposition of what we know: reproductive success in human beings is limited by the requirement of parental investment, leading to greater variance in the sex that is selected. I was surprised to see Darwin mentioned so prominently, but not Bateman, who really developed the idea.

It’s a pretty innocuous paper in my opinion. The mathematics doesn’t “prove” anything; it just provides a formal model for how the observed greater male variance could arise.

It’s extremely disappointing to see Professor Wilkinson take this up like this, and the mealy-mouthed response by University of Chicago is not encouraging. (But note, as Haidt and the people over at Heterodox Academy have pointed out, Chicago is by far the “freest” of the elites in terms of open academic discussion.)

Expect to see even more shrill denunciation and machinations behind the scenes in the years ahead. This whole area is now moving to direct examinations of genes and neurobiological differences between the sexes. (See, e.g., this 2013 paper for a flavor: https://www.wax-science.fr/wp-content/uploads/Sex-diff-connectome.pdf.)

Sex differences represent more than 100 million years of mammalian evolution, starting with the rodent-like creatures that hid in the brush from dinosaurs. The idea that the human brain, which represents approximately 20-25% of the energy requirements of the human body, would somehow have escaped differential selection pressures over countless generations of primates was always absurd on its face. People tend to look back on scientific debates in the past between, say, geocentric versus heliocentric conceptions of the universe a belonging to some unenlightened past. If only!

24

“The irony here is that as in many cases of attempts to suppress speech the speech suppressed ends up with a wider circulation than it would otherwise have had or than it may even deserve.”

  • Completely agree! Wilkerson and her husband should have just respected the process and allowed it to play out, if the paper was so bad and irrelevant. Now, in addition to giving Hill extra publicity, they've also signalled that perhaps his model is (devastatingly) straightforward and elegant. Why else suppress it? There's lots of bad theory out there and it usually falls flat on its own. Something about this paper warranted different - and highly unusual - treatment.

“The issue is substantive: using a simple mathematical model to explain the higher variability of trait characteristics of one sex versus another.”

  • That was the big "unforgivable". How dare they use Math on this issue! The answer is too simple . . . AND WRONG. Must. Be. Stopped.

"I suppose part of the problem might be that a mathematical explanation would undercut an explanation that took account of cultural and experiential differences in the lives of men and women. Perhaps that is what Prof. Wilkinson is saying in the last sentence of her statement. "

  • Here's her quote:"Invoking purely mathematical arguments to explain scientific phenomena without serious engagement with science and data is an offense against both mathematics and science." 100% true and irrelevant. No one is refusing to engage with science and data on this topic. Mathematical modeling is the language of the social sciences and Wilkerson understands that as well as anybody. I truly wonder what macroeconomic theorist Nancy Stokey over in Econ. is thinking right now.

“Expect to see even more shrill denunciation and machinations behind the scenes in the years ahead. This whole area is now moving to direct examinations of genes and neurobiological differences between the sexes.”

Warning: Biological Phenomena no longer relevant to the human experience. Expect this to be the default mantra. Biology will no longer be deemed important in answering certain questions. The carve out will seem ridiculous (for instance, will they do the same with something like Height?) but it will occur. That’s what happens when you politicize the academy.

“(But note, as Haidt and the people over at Heterodox Academy have pointed out, Chicago is by far the “freest” of the elites in terms of open academic discussion.)”

  • Yes, this is true. UChicago is getting silly but at a slower rate which is why our daughter applied. However, with regard to the subject of Math specifically: I'd still recommend MIT, based on this one issue and Zimmer's non-response. It doesn't look good for UChicago.
25

I know nothing about university politics, but my suspicion is that a university president would be roundly condemned by faculty if he intervened in any public way to show his displeasure with opinions expressed by a particular prof or profs on a matter in their academic field. R.M. Hutchins might have done that once, just as Toscanini used to hurl his batons at players hitting wrong notes. Can such things still be done? --It wouldn’t surprise me, however, if Zimmer didn’t have a friendly private conversation with Prof. Wilkerson leading to her making this statement. The statement may reveal an inappropriate ideological bias (or may not), but it could hardly have been expected that it would be a complete recantation of her opinion of the merits of Hill’s paper. At least it clarifies that she didn’t urge the retraction of an accepted peer-reviewed paper. Even if she was not being completely frank in giving that account, it is surely significant that she wants to deny doing it.

On free speech issues a president of a large and fractious university probably needs to save his powder for the big ones. I was under the impression that Steve Bannon’s invitation was still intact. If de-platforming of Bannon is attempted, that will be a big one (much as one would wish the subject was a worthier one). There is where Zimmer should rightly be held accountable.

26

@marlowe1 - watch beginning at about 8:40. Actually, watch the whole thing (or just check out the other thread on this).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFShZMJhdOA

Zimmer “officially” had no problem with Richard Spencer coming to campus if he were invited (see WSJ article in early 2017); however, that speaking engagement went nowhere either. I had read that it was set up but something happened . . . next thing you know, apparently he needed an invite which didn’t (or no longer) materialized.

Are more people working behind the scenes to prevent these visits? Wouldn’t surprise me. If protests don’t work, and you can’t shut down the talk directly, then subterfuge will have to do. To what extent Admin. is involved - who knows?

So all speech is welcome, but speech from some speech from some extremist groups is more welcome than others.

27

The professor who invited Bannon, Luigi Zingales, held a town hall to discuss that decision. He clearly didn’t expect Bannon to accept, because he had no plan in place for the logistics of any event.

The administration probably isn’t going out of its way to help, and Zingales doesn’t seem to be taking the initiative.

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@DunBoyer - He clearly didn’t “expect” it? Why wouldn’t he? Bannon’s likely not a shy wallflower in front of a group and he wouldn’t need to be worried about getting shouted down. I believe Zingales also WANTED Bannon to accept, based on others I’ve heard from. Whether he changed his mind later on - no idea.

The administration shouldn’t be in the business of helping - other than to encourage an atmosphere of open debate and providing necessary support to ensure safety of the guests. They should not be in the business of hindering . . . are you suggesting that they are, in a way?

29

I suspect many people didn’t get too far in the mathematics paper that occasioned all of this, but the conclusion is as innocuous as they come, and I think worth posting here:

If this is the sort of academic research that is going to be shut down, then we are all in great trouble.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.04184.pdf

30

Someone should invite Theodore Hill to speak at the University, especially if it was in a format that would permit his critics to reply or properly question him. It would be too mich to expect Prof. Wilkinson to make the invitation, but how about a Human Evolutionist? Prof Jerry Coyne comes to mind. I have no idea what Coyne would think of the merits of the paper, but he doesn’t shrink from controversy, being a militant rationalist, secularist and atheist very much in the combative Dawkins mold. As an Emeritus Prof from a different department he would be hampered by no career or collegial considerations. He is both a liberal politically and a vociferous proponent of free speech, so his advocacy of the latter in this instance couldn’t be ascribed simply to retrograde politics on the issue in question.

If Coyne or another were to make that invitation it would be an apt response to the present situation created by a U of C prof, which has tended to tarnish the Univerity’s bona fides with respect to an important principle on which it has made public pronouncements. Would it also be a sufficient test of the Universty’s anti-deplatforming policy? Theodore Hill Is hardly as notorious as Charles Murray - or even James Damore. Probably not the perfect case for that test. But who knows? Infamy spreads rapidly these days.

As a personal aside, I will say that when I went up to the U of C in 1963 Hannah Arendt, who was then a Prof in the Committee on Social Thought, had just published her extremely controversial and contested account of the trial of Adolph Eichmann (“Eichmann in Jerusalem”). I attended a public lecture given by Arendt soon after my arrival on campus - the tension in Mandel Hall was palpable, not to mention the animosity of several questioners from the floor and Arendt’s own indomitable spirit on the podium. The question of whether the Nazi death camps were primarily an instance of “the banality of evil” was not settled that night, but at least one 18-year-old was stimulated and thrilled by the clash of ideas on display. That, I said to my friends that evening, is what an education is all about.

The controversies are different today, but I would wish for that experience again if I could again be 18 at the University of Chicago.

31

Excellent idea, @marlowe1! And how exciting to have attended such a charged lecture.

I attended a Milton Friedman lecture once and he got a few pointed questions (and was equally pointed in his replies) but overall pretty non-controversial and mostly a show-off event. Friedman was emeritus, had done his time, won the debate on the phillips curve and won his Nobel Prize. He used wit more than economic theory to put down his critics that day. However, a friend of mine in college who was no fan of his (she used to talk about his book “Free to Lose” so her sensibilities came from a different direction) told me a hilarious story (legend?) she herself had heard about how one day he apparently switched places with a humanities professor for a class or two and went up against the students there. Harsher crowd that day! To answer their “pointed” questions he stuck to the theory and apparently mapped it all over the blackboard. Shut the place down. Now I have no idea whether this is even true but it makes a great story. I also have no idea how the humanities prof. did in front of the Econ. class!

I wish the College would do more of that where the profs. of different departments or divisions swap courses with one another. Sounds fun. Of course, everyone in the College already gets a bit of everything with the Core. I’m guessing Friedman and his hum. colleague were dealing with grad. students.

32

@JBStillFlying , Prof Richard Stern (longtime teacher of courses in the writing of poetry and fiction at the University) once mentioned in a class discussion of Ezra Pound (with whom Stern had had a personal friendship and about whom he had written a lightly fictionalized book) that Milton Friedman had expressed an interest in co-teaching with him a class on Pound’s impenetrable long poem, “The Cantos”. That mysterious opus is full of meditations on economics. Stern believed that you couldn’t understand it without understanding the economics in it and that Friedman could offer unique insights unavailable to merely literary types. As far as I know that class never materialized, but it would have been a doozy. Of course Pound was or had been some sort of anti-Semite and had written terrible things in the Cantos and elsewhere. Both Stern and Friedman were Jewish. They had a bigness of spirit.

Although students and faculty are circulating a petition protesting Bannon’s invitation, I have not heard that the invitation has been revoked. The aforesaid Jerry Coyne has a posting on his blog this morning entitled “Why Steve Bannon should be allowed to speak, and why we should listen”. (You can find it by googling “whyevolutionistrue”.) In that posting he refers to the protests calling for rescension of the invitation but says “that won’t happen, as deplatforming is against university policy”. Wonder if this is wishful thinking on his part or if he has some inside dope.

Coyne detests Bannon’s role in the election and his worldview generally, but he also finds that the guy is an able speaker and articulator of ideas, not a ranter or sloganeer. If the ideas are bad or crazy or racist, how can they withstand the scrutiny they will get at the University of Chicago?

33

^ Agree on all fronts.

Now I’m wondering if that story about Friedman and the humanities class became exaggerated bit with each telling. Like the game Gossip LOL.

I hope Bannon speaks and I hope the Maroon and other journals cover it in detail, including the tough questions he’s likely to get as well as his responses. This kind of dialogue across political lines and viewpoints - even world views - can only help the students grow intellectually. You are correct - if the ideas are poor, they can easily slaughter him. As is, protests are fine but any real pressure to shut it down makes them look like they are fearful and delicate little doilies.

34

It’s very confusing why Steinberger & Rivin would solicit this paper for the NYJM. The paper sticks out like a sore thumb among NYJM’s other published papers, and I’d bet the set of papers submitted to both the Intelligencer and the NYJM is nil.

Broadly, this reflects poorly on the governance structures of NYJM, and probably other young journals like it. How much power should the board have to oversee the editor-in-chief? Does that include retraction? Or does it mean the editor-in-chief should notify the board about papers prior to submission?