didymos
Posts: 1828
Joined: Mar. 2008
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So, O'Leary:
| Quote | | Prof sues disbelieving students. Apparently, they disputed her theories about science … No, in the famous words of Rush Limbaugh, I am not making this up. If I had that kind of imaginatin, I would beright up there with J.K. Rowlings (rowling in dough, right?) |
(errors in original)
Clearly, this is yet more "evidence" of dogmatic science persecuting people, right? I mean, it's posted on UD, and note the "disbelieving students" thing, which is standard language in these laments. Yeah, well, reality is different:
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Priya Venkatesan taught English at Dartmouth College. She maintains that some of her students were so unreceptive of "French narrative theory" that it amounted to a hostile working environment. She is also readying lawsuits against her superiors, who she says papered over the harassment, as well as a confessional exposé, which she promises will "name names."
<snip>
Ms. Venkatesan lectured in freshman composition, intended to introduce undergraduates to the rigors of expository argument. "My students were very bully-ish, very aggressive, and very disrespectful," she told Tyler Brace of the Dartmouth Review. "They'd argue with your ideas." This caused "subversiveness," a principle English professors usually favor.
Ms. Venkatesan's scholarly specialty is "science studies," which, as she wrote in a journal article last year, "teaches that scientific knowledge has suspect access to truth." She continues: "Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct."
The agenda of Ms. Venkatesan's seminar, then, was to "problematize" technology and the life sciences. Students told me that most of the "problems" owed to her impenetrable lectures and various eruptions when students indicated skepticism of literary theory. She counters that such skepticism was "intolerant of ideas" and "questioned my knowledge in very inappropriate ways." Ms. Venkatesan, who is of South Asian descent, also alleges that critics were motivated by racism, though it is unclear why.
After a winter of discontent, the snapping point came while Ms. Venkatesan was lecturing on "ecofeminism," which holds, in part, that scientific advancements benefit the patriarchy but leave women out. One student took issue, and reasonably so – actually, empirically so. But "these weren't thoughtful statements," Ms. Venkatesan protests. "They were irrational." The class thought otherwise. Following what she calls the student's "diatribe," several of his classmates applauded.
Ms. Venkatesan informed her pupils that their behavior was "fascist demagoguery." Then, after consulting a physician about "intellectual distress," she cancelled classes for a week. Thus the pending litigation.
Such conduct is hardly representative of the professoriate at Dartmouth, my alma mater. Faculty members tend to be professional. They also tend to be sane.
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You know, this sort of hissy-fit rhetoric and behavior seems awfully familiar for some reason.....
IDiot, fuck thyself:
| Quote | | Anyway, of course science has suspect access to truth. Science's specialty is observable fact. Observable fact sometimes gives us a window into truth, and sometimes it doesn't. I suspect that the spoiler is often facts that were not or cannot be observed. But that's no reason for dissing science, as opposed to, say, social work or serious novels. |
(my bolding)
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I wouldn't be bothered reading about the selfish gene because it has never been identified. -- Denyse O'Leary, professional moron
Again "how much". I don't think that's a good way to be quantitative.-- gpuccio
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