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The letter you link is quite clear: MIT doesn't want to hold a scientist up as a role model if progressive activists dislike him. This wouldn't have happened a

The letter you link is quite clear: MIT doesn't want to hold a scientist up as a role model if progressive activists dislike him. This wouldn't have happened at University of Chicago.

leephillips 5y ago
Your comment is a partial answer to a question I have: are there any universities with any prestige who still, today, uphold the principles of free expression and academic freedom? I thought MIT might still have some institutional self-respect, and am saddened to find out that it does not. Who’s left (in addition to U. of Chicago)?
- civilized 5y ago
  Here are some schools that endorse the Chicago Statement on Freedom of Expression: https://www.thefire.org/chicago-statement-university-and-faculty-body-support/ https://www.thefire.org/chicago-statement-university-and-fac... Not all of these schools have a perfect history of supporting free expression, but this is a big positive indicator.
- geeB 5y ago
  This fits MIT's historical pattern of buckling under external pressure, like what happened to Aaron Swartz or Star Simpson. Different this time because of the cancel mob aspect, but not too surprising.
metagame 5y ago
Here, I'll give a rebuttal, even though I don't think every internet comment deserves a reply, your comment included. It is an outreach event. The majority of people in developed nations live in progressive cities, and hold center-liberal to outright progressive views. Now, if you're trying to spread propaganda, good or bad, you want to do it in the most efficient way possible. Just as you wouldn't put a radical Satanist in a government role of promoting birth control, you shouldn't have your PR representative be a man who's against the very role he's supposed to be playing. Both the first instance and the last are counterproductive. An advocate for Satan would be just the ammunition someone against birth control could use perfectly, and a PR representative who's against the inclusion of the people he's supposed to play PR for will naturally alienate. The John Carlson lecture isn't an opportunity to offer the field cutting edge science, it's an opportunity to present to the rest of the world new findings in climate science, and to inspire others to take up the banner. It is science propaganda, in the best way possible. Just as you wouldn't invite OJ Simpson to give a lecture on sentencing reform despite his innocence because it would alienate the very people you're trying to convince to rally for sentencing reform, you should aim to have the least-offensive and most-captivating candidate give the annual PR speech. This is meritocracy, which is something that many universities aren't big on (being filled with legacy admissions). My own views are probably not far from the person who was denied the speech, here, but I understand the value in propaganda, and having someone who would set PR back when most of the point is to captivate the public would be a net-negative, and anti-meritocratic. Despite their viewpoint being probably comparable to my own, I'm aware that PR is delicate, and public advocacy plays a large role in changing public opinion, so they should indeed step aside to let someone more publicly-accepted give the speech. In short: Don't alienate your audience if your goal is to persuade. Go with a safer bet, always. It's not a great idea to fire controversial people, but if the goal is a good speech for PR, go with someone else. They'll probably appreciate the time to do more research.
- civilized 5y ago
  The activists who demanded this aren't the ones who need to be persuaded on climate change. MIT just handed the center and right-of-center, full of actual climate skeptics who need to be persuaded, another cancel culture event. Your whole post hinges on the assumption that the prospects of fighting climate change hinge on the approval of college town progressives. In reality, their approval is the least important thing. Of course, if the lecture is really just pandering to that audience without any interest in the larger public, then what you say makes perfect sense. It's also in 100% agreement with original comment. You're actually just agreeing with me and don't realize it because you're lost in your own sea of words.
  - metagame 5y ago
    [flagged]
    - civilized 5y ago
      As Mounk's essay notes, the vast majority of the public agrees with the professor on affirmative action. MIT just told that public what it thinks of their views.
      - metagame 5y ago
        As I've said multiple times in the thread, my own viewpoints are very close to the professor's! Public opinion of people who are not already in the system, however, is a different game, and you should always go with the safest bet if doing propaganda. It's critical.
        civilized 5y ago
        I get what you're saying and it's reasonable. I think you greatly overestimate the objective rigor and correctness of your analysis, but I get it. Sanctioning widely-held views as not meritorious alienates a lot of people too. They don't seem to figure into your calculations. Based on your other posts, you seem to think that the most important audience for the talk is prospective climate change researchers, who you believe would be alienated by opposition to race-based admission preferences. Again, you seem to be ignoring that this could go in the other direction, and in fact we'd expect it to, based on the overwhelming and diverse opposition to race-based preferences that we see in public polling. A possible way forward is to thoroughly vet any potential public speaker to verify they have never said anything controversial. It's sad that we could be reduced to this, but it's understandable.
dang 5y ago
Please don't break the site guidelines by going on about downvotes. Besides doing no good and making boring reading, it ends up being uncollected garbage when the original comment gets corrective upvotes, as yours has. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=corrective%20upvote https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
- civilized 5y ago
  Understood. Deleted the offending text.
dqpb 5y ago
It sounds to me like they didn’t want the climate lecture to be hijacked by people angry about something unrelated to climate.

The letter you link is quite clear: MIT doesn't want to hold a scientist up as a role model if progressive activists dislike him. This wouldn't have happened at University of Chicago.

leephillips 5y ago

Your comment is a partial answer to a question I have: are there any universities with any prestige who still, today, uphold the principles of free expression and academic freedom? I thought MIT might still have some institutional self-respect, and am saddened to find out that it does not. Who’s left (in addition to U. of Chicago)?

civilized 5y ago
Here are some schools that endorse the Chicago Statement on Freedom of Expression: https://www.thefire.org/chicago-statement-university-and-faculty-body-support/ https://www.thefire.org/chicago-statement-university-and-fac... Not all of these schools have a perfect history of supporting free expression, but this is a big positive indicator.
geeB 5y ago
This fits MIT's historical pattern of buckling under external pressure, like what happened to Aaron Swartz or Star Simpson. Different this time because of the cancel mob aspect, but not too surprising.

metagame 5y ago

Here, I'll give a rebuttal, even though I don't think every internet comment deserves a reply, your comment included. It is an outreach event. The majority of people in developed nations live in progressive cities, and hold center-liberal to outright progressive views. Now, if you're trying to spread propaganda, good or bad, you want to do it in the most efficient way possible. Just as you wouldn't put a radical Satanist in a government role of promoting birth control, you shouldn't have your PR representative be a man who's against the very role he's supposed to be playing. Both the first instance and the last are counterproductive. An advocate for Satan would be just the ammunition someone against birth control could use perfectly, and a PR representative who's against the inclusion of the people he's supposed to play PR for will naturally alienate. The John Carlson lecture isn't an opportunity to offer the field cutting edge science, it's an opportunity to present to the rest of the world new findings in climate science, and to inspire others to take up the banner. It is science propaganda, in the best way possible. Just as you wouldn't invite OJ Simpson to give a lecture on sentencing reform despite his innocence because it would alienate the very people you're trying to convince to rally for sentencing reform, you should aim to have the least-offensive and most-captivating candidate give the annual PR speech. This is meritocracy, which is something that many universities aren't big on (being filled with legacy admissions). My own views are probably not far from the person who was denied the speech, here, but I understand the value in propaganda, and having someone who would set PR back when most of the point is to captivate the public would be a net-negative, and anti-meritocratic. Despite their viewpoint being probably comparable to my own, I'm aware that PR is delicate, and public advocacy plays a large role in changing public opinion, so they should indeed step aside to let someone more publicly-accepted give the speech. In short: Don't alienate your audience if your goal is to persuade. Go with a safer bet, always. It's not a great idea to fire controversial people, but if the goal is a good speech for PR, go with someone else. They'll probably appreciate the time to do more research.

civilized 5y ago
The activists who demanded this aren't the ones who need to be persuaded on climate change. MIT just handed the center and right-of-center, full of actual climate skeptics who need to be persuaded, another cancel culture event. Your whole post hinges on the assumption that the prospects of fighting climate change hinge on the approval of college town progressives. In reality, their approval is the least important thing. Of course, if the lecture is really just pandering to that audience without any interest in the larger public, then what you say makes perfect sense. It's also in 100% agreement with original comment. You're actually just agreeing with me and don't realize it because you're lost in your own sea of words.
- metagame 5y ago
  [flagged]
  - civilized 5y ago
    As Mounk's essay notes, the vast majority of the public agrees with the professor on affirmative action. MIT just told that public what it thinks of their views.
    - metagame 5y ago
      As I've said multiple times in the thread, my own viewpoints are very close to the professor's! Public opinion of people who are not already in the system, however, is a different game, and you should always go with the safest bet if doing propaganda. It's critical.
      - civilized 5y ago
        I get what you're saying and it's reasonable. I think you greatly overestimate the objective rigor and correctness of your analysis, but I get it. Sanctioning widely-held views as not meritorious alienates a lot of people too. They don't seem to figure into your calculations. Based on your other posts, you seem to think that the most important audience for the talk is prospective climate change researchers, who you believe would be alienated by opposition to race-based admission preferences. Again, you seem to be ignoring that this could go in the other direction, and in fact we'd expect it to, based on the overwhelming and diverse opposition to race-based preferences that we see in public polling. A possible way forward is to thoroughly vet any potential public speaker to verify they have never said anything controversial. It's sad that we could be reduced to this, but it's understandable.

dang 5y ago

Please don't break the site guidelines by going on about downvotes. Besides doing no good and making boring reading, it ends up being uncollected garbage when the original comment gets corrective upvotes, as yours has. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=corrective%20upvote https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

civilized 5y ago
Understood. Deleted the offending text.

dqpb 5y ago

It sounds to me like they didn’t want the climate lecture to be hijacked by people angry about something unrelated to climate.