I never read Murray and I do not intend to do it. In fact, I never knew his name, and I don’t care . There are 300 million people in USA. 1% of any population has mental issues. All these people are entitled to their own opinions, including Murray.
However, militant agitators act like Nazi. I do understand that these “students” position themselves as “anti-fascist”, but, they do act like fascists did in 1930, when Hitler ascended to power. These leftists are self-righteous to the extreme and scary.
Jesus said: “By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.”
Militant protestors, armed agitators, ultimate self righteous - history knows how it ends. Always the same.
“In my opinion, it is wrong to ignore that there is a pattern of ever escalating attempts to exclude unwanted opinions from campuses across the country”
It is not wrong to exclude hate filled racists from spewing their venom on college campuses. The one before this one was also a pedophile. I am not okay with giving pedophiles and racists platforms. I guess we just disagree
Report by students, who admit they were peacefully attacking and peacefully blocking the car, but the bad police did not let these peaceful protestors peacefully beat Murray? Wow!
I really like the passage that “nobody pulled Prof. Strnger’s hair. The hair just got pulled” - Hair’s fault !
Thank God police was there. Otherwise, dead bodies would be on the street. Mob rules.
“Report by students, who admit they were peacefully attacking and peacefully blocking the car, but the bad police did not let these peaceful protestors peacefully beat Murray? Wow!”
I guess you always believe the police. Maybe you should look at the videos of police shooting people in the back in Chicago and Minnesota.
Personally, I would exclude _ ALL_ right and left extremists from campuses. I would separate STEM campuses and humanities with all their craziness. If humanities want to fight, let them do it. However! all humanities shall be self funded. Period.
Leave campus to normal students, who want to learn. Put all these culture warriors … somewhere else. Ideally, inside closed gates. And let them eat each other. IMHO, only.
Who would vote to separate STEM from humanities and have peace on campus? I’ve never seen 2 mathematicians in a physical fight over integrals. Could we send all these pro- and against- agitators somewhere else?
@californiaaa is this just a joke I’m not getting or are you insinuating the humanities aren’t valid academic pursuits and STEM majors are more valuable and logical individuals…?
The best antidote to poisonous speech is more speech, not violence. As liberals committed to a fair and just world, we should encourage college students to protest peacefully and to respect the fundamental right of freedom of speech. Let someone speak. Then, present the well reasoned counterargument. We win that way. We cede the high moral ground to the bigots when we participate in violence.
The ACLU is providing a livestream on March 11th advising on the art of peaceful, lawful protest. Check it out.
That said, it is one thing to allow students to voice their views on college campuses. That is important. So is providing access and exposure to a range of viewpoints, including unpopular ones. But inviting discredited scientists or provocateurs whose research does not adhere to high standards to speak on campuses is providing a platform for “alternative facts” and colleges should really think twice about that practice.
There were a few engineering/CS major colleagues at a past job who similarly argued in favor of creationism/ID as valid science. One even tried to condescend down to a visiting older cousin who is not only a Biological Sciences graduate from Cornell, but also an MD.
The rest of us regarded them as the “village idiots” of our group and cheered on my cousin when she ripped the Creationist/ID proponents’ talking points to shreds while simultaneously feeling sorry she had to waste her time debating them.
What’s more ironic is that the engineering/cs major colleagues who were pro-creationist/ID proponents’ arguments were so ridiculous that when said cousin and I relayed them to the evangelical branch of our extended family, even they were embarrassed that they were co-religionists considering one was also a Cornell Biological Sciences graduate('50s) and several others understood creationism/ID belongs in the areas of theology, philosophy, and religious studies…not bona-fide science or professions based on them like medical field. .
"Who would vote to separate STEM from humanities and have peace on campus? I’ve never seen 2 mathematicians in a physical fight over integrals. Could we send all these pro- and against- agitators somewhere else? "
I have graduate degrees in Math and my kid is studying math. We both believe in social justice and speak up for the rights of people. As a point of historical reference the Unabomber was a math professor
@collegedad13: "It is not wrong to exclude hate filled racists from spewing their venom on college campuses. The one before this one was also a pedophile. I am not okay with giving pedophiles and racists platforms. I guess we just disagree "
Don’t you see that you yourself have decided Murray is a ‘hate filled racist’ and that Milo - whom you’re referring to - was a ‘pedophile’? I happen to disagree with both your labels. I also disagree with reducing a human being to a label, then dismissing them entirely based on the label.
But if you think libelous, simplistic labels are an appropriate way to judge whether a person can be invited to speak on campus, why do you think you have the right to decide the label for me? Why wouldn’t I have the right to decide for you?
Can’t you see where this is going and how dangerous this is? Inviting someone to speak is not the same as endorsing their point of view. Ad hominem attacks to me reveal a lack of substance and an inability to defend your position. Shutting them down by saying ‘they are racist, therefore they can have nothing whatsoever valuable to say on any topic’ is not only irrational; it is dangerous because ad hominems can be applied to anyone. You know what they say about 'let he who is without sin…"
Why do you have to spend time “ripping” and “feeling sorry” and "being embarrassed "? Why can’t you just accept the fact that some people have different views and it is OK?! Why do left wants to argue their position everywhere and from the position of power (including, mob power).
I learned long time ago not to advocate for dogs on cat’s forum and vice versa.
Actually, I’ve seen several instances of classmates at my STEM-centered public magnet and STEM majors in college/at work getting close to/actually coming to blows over STEM-related disagreements.
This ranged from math whiz HS classmates* calling our math teachers…including using pejoratives for making mistakes or using inefficient means to explain mathematical proofs to engineering/CS graduate colleagues coming to fisticuffs over the merits of different favored microprocessor architectures** and/or operating systems***.
At least one of them is currently a tenured math Prof at a respectable/elite university.
** Some of us actually had to break up a heated physical confrontation after some Intel fanboys in the early-mid '00s became sore about AMD/PowerPC fanboys lampooning the inefficiencies/weaknesses of the Pentium 4.
When the tables turned after ~'06 with intel’s introduction of the core duo/core2duos, similar reactions were observed when intel fanboys did likewise lampoon the increasing processing gap between '06 and later intel processors and their AMD counterparts. And don’t ask about how many powerPC fanboys took serious umbrage after Apple decided to adopt Intel’s core duo/core2duo processors in '06…
*** I.e. Microsoft Windows vs Unices, Redhat/Ubuntu/other user friendly Linux distros vs more technically demanding/less user friendly Linux distros like Slackware/Gentoo, SUNOS/Solaris vs Linux, Microsoft Windows vs Mac OSX(Derivative of a BSD variant of unix), etc,
@californiaaa is this just a joke I’m not getting or are you insinuating the humanities aren’t valid academic pursuits and STEM majors are more valuable and logical individuals…?
I have never seen two mathematicians, who used violence, agitation, and mob power to prove their mathematical theories to each other.
Humanities, clearly, can not settle their differences without screaming and calling names. And they use mob to scare opponents. And this mob, occasionally, turns violent.
My suggestion is simple - - lets split campus into 2 zones. One zone is for STEM. Peaceful, mindful discussions. Logic and pursuit of truth. Another zone is for humanities. Culture warriors, mob violence, name calling, all kids of -isms. Place for Murrays, Milos, and all their opponents.
I appreciate that you came up with some examples of mathematicians that were acting out while discussing math. These examples are rare.
Humanities that turn against each other, call each other names, -isms, etc. - everyday news, unfortunately.
Thus, I suggest separating campus into STEM and humanities areas. And letting humanities have all their battles among themselves. Ideally, at a different location, somewhere far, far away.
“a plague a’ both your houses” - said Shakespeare about Milo, Murray, and all the agitators, who violently harassed them.
Who is paying for all this mayhem? University? From what funds? From student’s tuition? “a plague a’ both your houses” !!! - especially, if this show is on MY dime
Also, those math whiz classmates weren’t polite about calling out their math teachers nor was this an isolated incident. And the math chair/most math/STEM teachers encouraged this even though it meant they were called “idiots” and worse pejoratives which can’t be repeated here without breaking TOS so many times they regarded it as something they must learn to suck up and deal to nurture future math/STEM whizzes*.
And if you’ve never seen engineering/CS folks in the computer tech field get aggressive to the point of physical confrontations, you need to see what goes on at some tech startups or less commercial computer tech conventions.
This privilege was only extended to students who have demonstrated in class and on problem sets/homework/quizzes/exams they were academic whizzes above and beyond the average student at our public magnet.
Sheesh!!! You go away for a bit of time to attend an IEP meeting and everything goes down the rabbit hole.
@Ohiodad51
I actually do not think there is some new vitriol trend on campus where conservative thought and students are being attacked…I think that narrative is one being floated by a certain type of media because it fans the flames and gets ratings.
Let me share a few stories via that bastion of liberalism (my dad’s title) Yale…
in the fall Milo was booked by the conservative Yale student group to speak. My son thought he may go check it out to see what all the fuss was about (yes! My son is more conservative than his parents and even remarked to me how he thought Nixon got a bad rap…:-0)
The event ended up being cancelled because the student group had accidentally sceduled it during the mid October recess. Cue the outrage…plenty thought the liberal, elites had once again shut down free speech…
After the election it was reported Yalies campus wide were skipping class because many professors knew their students were in shock and needed counseling…therapy dogs or whatever…
Truth is a few professors, knowing students may be upset offered to them an extension on assignments and I believe one professor canceled or delayed a mid-term…oh the horror!!!
my son has a diverse group of suite mates: one Hillary supporter, one moderate Republican, a Bernie guy and my son who was a Kaisch guy. I asked my son what the atmosphere was like at school…He noted everyone was fine. Hillary guy was bummed but got back to organizing and the Republican didn’t gloat but seemed a bit surprised his guy won.
Of course these are just one take; one glimpse but whenever I ask my son about the new “outrage” on campus (what the media deems a big news item happening on his campus) he always seems to have the same response…“why do these people make such a big deal. There really isn’t anything going on”.
I suspect he, like many of his peers, are busy studying, socializing and hopefully doing laundry…as college kids have done for decades.
Are there heated disagreements? Sure. Perhaps even the occasional misstep? Yes. Are there non stop, violent protests engulfing our college campuses? I don’t think so.
There are jerk provocateurs in every political vein, liberal and conservative.
An attempt to discredit Murray by going back to the funding sources for his research and saying that makes Murray automatically suspect makes as much sense as trying to discredit Planned Parenthood today by pointing out that Margaret Sanger was also a strong eugenics supporter. In other words, not much.
Now, if you were able to discredit the particular research funded by the Pioneer Fund and used by Murray, you might be onto something. But as it turns out, the Pioneer Fund actually supported well respected research, such as the Minnesota Twins Family Study performed by the University of Minnesota, that was used in Murray’s book.
Let’s go to your next point:
My goodness, you make it sound like Murray is best buddies with Laughlin. In fact, that particular quote is from a section talking about the controversial history of IQ testing, including sterilization issues. A more complete quote is as follows:
In other words, he was describing the history, not providing gushing support.
Come on @collegedad13, you can do better than this. Assuming you read the book, that is.
I don’t know. In my neck of the woods, everything is civil and peaceful. I am in STEM, obviously. Occasionally, I read about the battles and fights that happen on campus, and I am glad that they do NOT happen in our neck of the woods. I think the world is getting crazy and starts cannibalizing itself.
.
These examples are rare.