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> We saw this last fall with the wide range of views around the Carlson lecture. If anyone else was wondering what was being referenced above, I'm guessing it'

> We saw this last fall with the wide range of views around the Carlson lecture. If anyone else was wondering what was being referenced above, I'm guessing it's this: https://thetech.com/2021/10/14/carlson-lecture-cancellation https://thetech.com/2021/10/14/carlson-lecture-cancellation: > Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) Department Head Robert van der Hilst canceled the department’s annual John Carlson Lecture due to controversy surrounding the invited speaker, Professor Dorian Abbot of the University of Chicago, and his views on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts within academia.... > In a Newsweek op-ed titled “The Diversity Problem on Campus,” published August 2021, co-authors Abbot and Stanford Professor Iván Marinovic wrote that DEI in academia seeks to increase the representation of some groups through discrimination against members of other groups, violates the ethical and legal principle of equal treatment, compromises the university’s mission, and undermines the public's trust in universities and their graduates.

akomtu 4y ago
"University of Pisa has canceled the Prof. Galileo's lecture on celestial bodies due to the controversy surrounding his views on heliocentrism, after continued protests by the students who reject the unholy idea that the planet they live on isn't the center of the Universe. Department of Heresy and Inquisition has temporarily suspended Galileo and referred him to Church."
- superb-owl 4y ago
  This is a false equivalence. Galileo was concerned with physical fact, whereas this professor's controversial opinions are sociological and fairly subjective--they boil down to a value judgement. That's not to condemn (or defend) the professor. This just isn't a fair characterization of the debate.
  - AbrahamParangi 4y ago
    A fact not yet widely verified and an opinion cannot, in general, be distinguished
    - superb-owl 4y ago
      I disagree. We can judge the falsifiability of statements without knowing whether or not they're false. E.g. "red is a better color than blue" is obviously a subjective opinion, where as "ʻOumuamua is made of frozen nitrogen" is obviously a falsifiable statement.
      - AbrahamParangi 4y ago
        Right, there are specific instances of opinions which cannot be verifiable facts, but the verifiability of a fact is not, in general, itself verifiable!
        superb-owl 4y ago
        True! I like this formulation of your statement
  - foobarian 4y ago
    I'm not so sure, even the helio/geocentrism is a matter of opinion due to relativity of motion.
    - superb-owl 4y ago
      Hah this is a really good point. IIRC the Catholic Church was actually OK with using heliocentric mathematical models, just not with interpreting them as factual.
      - foobarian 4y ago
        I wonder what really happened. I'm guessing Galileo was one of those vocal people that just can't help poking the bear. Edit: reading up a bit more it seems Galileo had a bit of a Linus T. streak, with gratuitous insults and ad hominems against authority. Makes me want to read the source documents now :-)
    - aydyn 4y ago
      This isn't true, because one frame is an inertial frame and the other is not (i.e. not real).
- panarky 4y ago
  "The MIT statement on free expression states that in order to encourage provocative thinking, controversial views, and nonconformity, the university will protect all speech within the boundaries of the First Amendment." "Therefore, as a junior member of the Flat Earth Society, I demand MIT provide me an auditorium and a microphone to legitimize and amplify my nonconformist opinion about the shape of the Earth."
  - superb-owl 4y ago
    This is also a false equivalence. MIT is obviously only going to consider inviting speakers that would appeal to some subset of its community. The statement doesn't give anyone a right to demand an audience at MIT, it gives the MIT community license to invite controversial speakers.
    - panarky 4y ago
      Which gives the lie to all the sanctimonious talk about protecting all speech that's legal under the First Amendment. MIT isn't protecting all legal speech, they're amplifying speech the MIT community wants to hear, and suppressing speech the community doesn't want to hear. If the MIT community wants to legitimize and amplify speech about perpetuating the current hierarchy of elites, and suppress protest speech aiming to open up and overturn that hierarchy, it's up to the community. It has nothing to do with the First Amendment. Contrary to all the feel-good language about platforming nonconformity, the goal is not to provide an equal platform to all viewpoints, because that would be ridiculous.
      - superb-owl 4y ago
        Free speech isn't about giving all ideas an equal footing. It's about letting any individual speak their mind without fear of repercussions. And that is exactly what MIT appears to be pledging to do here. Ideas are still subject to the marketplace, and the MIT community is a very discriminating market.
  - PubliusMI 4y ago
    Are there many members of the community at MIT that would be eager to see such a talk?
yucky 4y ago
I don't understand, if he wrote an op-ed uncovering racial discrimination in academia, why would people who are (presumably) against racial discrimination want to cancel his lecture?
- tablespoon 4y ago
  - customkitchen 4y ago
    If by "the DEI people" you mean "students who were only able to be there because someone made a conscious effort to do diversity outreach" then yes. They would be opposed to someone suggesting that they should stop the outreach so that people like them could no longer be there. His piece (you can read it here: https://www.newsweek.com/diversity-problem-campus-opinion-1618419 https://www.newsweek.com/diversity-problem-campus-opinion-16...) is more of the same intellectually dismissive rhetoric that we've seen a thousand times before. As usual it's got all the same nonsensical discriminatory suggestions that don't actually help people, like "support charter schools" and "we should use a process based on merit and qualifications alone" and "we should build a system that uses merit and qualifications alone but is also unbiased". And just for fun he suggests at the end that any university even considering how to approach race issues is somehow comparable to nazism. This is just bad writing, I don't blame the students for being upset. Have you noticed how very few students who are actually underprivileged would ever share these views?
    - Manuel_D 4y ago
      > If by "the DEI people" you mean "students who were only able to be there because someone made a conscious effort to do diversity outreach" then yes. They would be opposed to someone suggesting that they should stop the outreach so that people like them could no longer be there. This is only half the equation. There's another group of people who excluded on account of their race and gender as part of this "diversity outreach". DEI isn't about inclusion vs. exclusion. Both Abbot and DEI supporters are in favor of including and excluding students. What they disagree on is how this decision is made. Also, how is "we should build a system that uses merit and qualifications alone but is also unbiased" a discriminatory suggestion? That is the total opposite of the message.

akomtu 4y ago

"University of Pisa has canceled the Prof. Galileo's lecture on celestial bodies due to the controversy surrounding his views on heliocentrism, after continued protests by the students who reject the unholy idea that the planet they live on isn't the center of the Universe. Department of Heresy and Inquisition has temporarily suspended Galileo and referred him to Church."

superb-owl 4y ago
This is a false equivalence. Galileo was concerned with physical fact, whereas this professor's controversial opinions are sociological and fairly subjective--they boil down to a value judgement. That's not to condemn (or defend) the professor. This just isn't a fair characterization of the debate.
- AbrahamParangi 4y ago
  A fact not yet widely verified and an opinion cannot, in general, be distinguished
  - superb-owl 4y ago
    I disagree. We can judge the falsifiability of statements without knowing whether or not they're false. E.g. "red is a better color than blue" is obviously a subjective opinion, where as "ʻOumuamua is made of frozen nitrogen" is obviously a falsifiable statement.
    - AbrahamParangi 4y ago
      Right, there are specific instances of opinions which cannot be verifiable facts, but the verifiability of a fact is not, in general, itself verifiable!
      - superb-owl 4y ago
        True! I like this formulation of your statement
- foobarian 4y ago
  I'm not so sure, even the helio/geocentrism is a matter of opinion due to relativity of motion.
  - superb-owl 4y ago
    Hah this is a really good point. IIRC the Catholic Church was actually OK with using heliocentric mathematical models, just not with interpreting them as factual.
    - foobarian 4y ago
      I wonder what really happened. I'm guessing Galileo was one of those vocal people that just can't help poking the bear. Edit: reading up a bit more it seems Galileo had a bit of a Linus T. streak, with gratuitous insults and ad hominems against authority. Makes me want to read the source documents now :-)
  - aydyn 4y ago
    This isn't true, because one frame is an inertial frame and the other is not (i.e. not real).
panarky 4y ago
"The MIT statement on free expression states that in order to encourage provocative thinking, controversial views, and nonconformity, the university will protect all speech within the boundaries of the First Amendment." "Therefore, as a junior member of the Flat Earth Society, I demand MIT provide me an auditorium and a microphone to legitimize and amplify my nonconformist opinion about the shape of the Earth."
- superb-owl 4y ago
  This is also a false equivalence. MIT is obviously only going to consider inviting speakers that would appeal to some subset of its community. The statement doesn't give anyone a right to demand an audience at MIT, it gives the MIT community license to invite controversial speakers.
  - panarky 4y ago
    Which gives the lie to all the sanctimonious talk about protecting all speech that's legal under the First Amendment. MIT isn't protecting all legal speech, they're amplifying speech the MIT community wants to hear, and suppressing speech the community doesn't want to hear. If the MIT community wants to legitimize and amplify speech about perpetuating the current hierarchy of elites, and suppress protest speech aiming to open up and overturn that hierarchy, it's up to the community. It has nothing to do with the First Amendment. Contrary to all the feel-good language about platforming nonconformity, the goal is not to provide an equal platform to all viewpoints, because that would be ridiculous.
    - superb-owl 4y ago
      Free speech isn't about giving all ideas an equal footing. It's about letting any individual speak their mind without fear of repercussions. And that is exactly what MIT appears to be pledging to do here. Ideas are still subject to the marketplace, and the MIT community is a very discriminating market.
- PubliusMI 4y ago
  Are there many members of the community at MIT that would be eager to see such a talk?

yucky 4y ago

I don't understand, if he wrote an op-ed uncovering racial discrimination in academia, why would people who are (presumably) against racial discrimination want to cancel his lecture?

tablespoon 4y ago
- customkitchen 4y ago
  If by "the DEI people" you mean "students who were only able to be there because someone made a conscious effort to do diversity outreach" then yes. They would be opposed to someone suggesting that they should stop the outreach so that people like them could no longer be there. His piece (you can read it here: https://www.newsweek.com/diversity-problem-campus-opinion-1618419 https://www.newsweek.com/diversity-problem-campus-opinion-16...) is more of the same intellectually dismissive rhetoric that we've seen a thousand times before. As usual it's got all the same nonsensical discriminatory suggestions that don't actually help people, like "support charter schools" and "we should use a process based on merit and qualifications alone" and "we should build a system that uses merit and qualifications alone but is also unbiased". And just for fun he suggests at the end that any university even considering how to approach race issues is somehow comparable to nazism. This is just bad writing, I don't blame the students for being upset. Have you noticed how very few students who are actually underprivileged would ever share these views?
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    > If by "the DEI people" you mean "students who were only able to be there because someone made a conscious effort to do diversity outreach" then yes. They would be opposed to someone suggesting that they should stop the outreach so that people like them could no longer be there. This is only half the equation. There's another group of people who excluded on account of their race and gender as part of this "diversity outreach". DEI isn't about inclusion vs. exclusion. Both Abbot and DEI supporters are in favor of including and excluding students. What they disagree on is how this decision is made. Also, how is "we should build a system that uses merit and qualifications alone but is also unbiased" a discriminatory suggestion? That is the total opposite of the message.