Big Hollywood, the blog, that is.
Does anybody else find it supremely ironic that Ben Stein made a documentary about academia’s intolerance toward those who question evolutionary theory — and then a university effectively rescinded an invitation to speak? Seems to me that nothing in Ben Stein’s Expelled is more compelling evidence of the truth of his thesis than that.
Heh.
February 4th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Yikes! What hath God wrought?
February 5th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Yeah, that’s just soooo funny. See, you cons whine about academic freedom, as though thoroughly discredited and wrong ideas still deserve an equal hearing. What if a Holocaust denier were to speak? By your logic, they should be able to in the name of “academic freedom”.
They don’t. Stein is wrong about just about everything, whether it be economics or unintelligent design. He does not deserve a platform, more than a soapbox in a city park somewhere with all the other kooks.
Fogel got it right when he said “It’s an issue about the appropriateness of awarding an honorary degree to someone whose views in many ways ignore or affront the fundamental values of scientific inquiry and I greatly regret that I was not attuned to those issues.”
February 5th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Stein could be a speaker during the normal calendar year. Then you can take him or leave him. I don’t like the idea going around the last few years that commencement speakers at universities (and high schools) should be chosen to represent some vast wasteland of wackiness that may or may not be ‘entertaining’ to a ‘captive’ audience. If I had laid out good money to send my kid to UVM and then come to graduation to be presented with a ‘crap’ speaker, I’d want my money back–and transfer of all my kid’s credits to a college that has more respect for higher learning. It’s not about Freedom of Speech or Thought. It’s about embracing smart instead of stupid.
JD’s right. Holocaust Deniers, Skinhead Nationalists, Anti-gay/Anti-people, racists, war-lovers, and capitalist pigs can have their forums elsewhere. NOT on graduation day. What next? Hire them as Professors? Oops, maybe Yale already did that–George Bush, English Department?
February 5th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
JD, why are you calling someone else’s post my logic?
Besides, you libs think the discredited and wrong ideas about global warming still deserve an equal hearing.
I think the Stein pick was kind of bizarre in the first place, but UVM looks pretty pathetic for inviting, then uninviting a speaker. It’s just bad etiquette.
Regarding parents who send their children there, I remember when my mother graduated a few years ago from Burlington College, she and several classmates skipped graduation because of the speaker. (I can’t remember who at the moment.) It happens. Not everyone will be happy with the choice of speaker.
February 6th, 2009 at 9:26 am
And here’s the replacement….http://www.uvm.edu/~cmncmnt/ teeheehee
February 6th, 2009 at 10:17 am
WEll, Charity, like many times in the past, you post to something ridiculous, with some snarky “heh” or something, implying it’s a position you endorse (such as global warming denial or some other form of hackery), then when called on it, you imply the “don’t shoot the messenger” nonsense. Plus, knowing what we do about your views, it’s hardly a stretch to believe that you arent’ sympathetic to Stein’s views and that you don’t subscribe to the typical “conservative outrage over the stifling of braindead theories”. Duh.
“Besides, you libs think the discredited and wrong ideas about global warming still deserve an equal hearing.”
Jeez, now you’re mistaking me for you. You gonna say how I think Jesus is gonna come back, too and that he actually gives a fig about whether I should continue blogging?
February 6th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
While it is true that Stein’s position on Evolution is absurd, I found the reason they gave for denying him a voice at graduation just as absurd.
First, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t going to give a lecture on Creationism or Creation Science or whatever the new name for the same pseudo science is today.
Second, President Fogel said that he rescinded because someone who holds views antithetical to scientific inquiry should not be honored as commencement speaker as if no one who ever took the podium at commencement held pseudo-scientific beliefs. Surely someone must have given an address that believes Al Gore is right on Global Warming. I mean have other speakers been quizzed on their beliefs regarding UFOs or Astrology before being offered the honor of a commencement speaking engagement?
It’s simply ridiculous.
Ben Stein may be wrong on evolution, but that is not all of Ben Stein. They seemed to like what he had to say before.