SGU Episode 105
|
This episode is in the middle of being transcribed by Skepticat (talk) as of {{{date}}}. To help avoid duplication, please do not transcribe this episode while this message is displayed. |
Introduction
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, July 25th, 2007, and this is your host, Steven Novella, president of the New England Skeptical Society. Joining me this evening are Bob Novella...
B: Hey, everybody.
S: ...Rebecca Watson...
R: Hello, world.
S: ...Perry DeAngelis...
P: Hello.
S: ...Jay Novella...
J: Good evening, guys.
S: ...and Evan Bernstein.
E: Hi, everyone.
S: How is everyone this evening?
x: I'm good, Steve.
x: Very good!
x: Awesome.
x: Very, very good.
R: Couldn't be better.
P: We all went on honeymoon with Jay.
x: That's right.
x: We did.
P: All there in the hotel room. It's a little...
R: I thought, I thought it would be awkward, but you know...
x: It's kinda cool, right?
(inaudible)
R: It's kinda cozy.
P: No, his, his new bride is very cooperative.
R: Um-hm.
x: She snores.
P: And, I'd like to thank you, Jay.
S: 'S right. Jay was married five days ago. How's married life treating you, Jay?
J: I'm totally excited. I love it. Very, very happy. It's exactly what she told me to say, too, so.
S: Good. You're learning already.
(laughter)
x: Is there any difference now that you're no longer really living in sin?
J: I did feel that the air conditioning worked better. That's kinda strange, but...
(laughter)
x: That's happened before. That's common.
x: You know, as you guys...
S: If you want, if you want to meet Jay's wife, Cheryl, she's gonna be at the August 11th event that we're having in Brooklyn, New York.
R: Is she?
x: Yes, she is.
R: That, that gets me very excited because I met Cheryl at the wedding for the first time, and I found that I actually like her better than Jay.
(laughter)
x: Yeah.
S: Well, we all do.
R: Well, I'm really looking forward to that.
x: That's why they call it the "better half".
R: Yeah.
J: I don't know how to take that, Rebecca. Thanks.
R: Ma...marrying up. (laughter)
J: Oh, I'm defininely punching above my weight with this girl. Absolutely.
(snicker)
R: Jay, you know I love you.
J: Thank you. I love you too.
x: For ten dollars a minute, she'll talk in that English accent for you.
x: Oh, go.... (laughter)
x: She only charged us five.
S: In fact, Cheryl does do the sexy British voice that introduces our podcast.
J: And in other places, too.
(laughter)
R: We don't wanna hear about that, Jay.
x: I do.
S: Now we have a very special interview coming up later in the show.
x: Jimmy "Peanut Lovin'" Carter.
(laughter)
S: Yes, this is our, probably our highest profile interview to date - President Jimmy Carter. We interviewed him about his UFO sighting and other th...interesting things. So that's coming up in just a moment. But first, we'll start with some skeptical news.
News Items
"Item 1" (Ward Churchill Fired)
(00:02:26)
S: First news item is a little bit of follow-up from a previous story that we talked about. Ward Churchill, who is the professor of ethnic studies at Colorado University, was officially fired yesterday, on July, July 24th.
R: Though he claims he's not going anywhere, so I'm not really sure what that did.
(inaudible)
S: Yeah. He, well, he's saying that he's gonna sue the university for violation of his freedom of speech.
R: He's a tenured professor, though, so he gets a full year's pay.
S: Mm-hm
R: I'm wondering what he's complaining about. Just go.
S: Right. Yeah, right.
R: Go work on your wacky 9/11 theories.
x: They found him guilty of academic misconduct, including plagiarism.
R: Yeah, so it's not just that he has wacky theories about 9/11, which is why we're talking about him right now, in case anyone...
P: Actually, it specifically says he was not fired for that, Rebecca.
R: Ah.
S: Yeah, in fact, that wasn't considered at all. There, the quick backstory is that a couple years ago, Ward Churchill, in an essay, compared the World Trade Center 9/11 victims to little Eichmanns.
P: That's correct.
S: Who, comparing them to Adolf Eichmann, who was complicit in the Nazi Holocaust.
P: For some reason, some people took exception to that.
S: Yeah, for some unknown reason.
P: Couldn't figure it out.
S: That sparked a controversy and also triggered the University of Colorado to investigate his academic career and what they found, they found that he was guilty of academic misconduct and plagiarism. That led to a review of his tenure, disciplinary review, and that was just concluded and they found that he was guilty of academic misconduct and that was sufficient to fire him, despite the fact that he had tenure. He's saying that it's all about his political opinions, not about the academic misconduct. I don't know if he's denying that, if he's denying the specifics of the accusation. He's just saying this was a witch hunt, basically over his unpopular political views.
R: I think it's less, I don't think it's quite his unpopular political views and more his unpopular conspiracy theories that are crazy and untrue.
S: Right.
R: I mean, at some point, it stops being a political opinion and starts just being nonsense - and that's where he is.
P: My recollection is...
x: I agree.
P ...That when he first came out with the statements, the university backed him a hundred percent.
S: Well, universities will typically defend the, the rights and the freedoms of their professors to, to express their opinions. And, you know, the, the purpose of tenure is to protect academics from outside pressure, you know, from having to comport to the politics of the day, so they could be, you know, free to pursue the truth wherever it leads them. Although, initially, it was actually intended to protect professors from, like, donors and trustee members who would try to use their influence and their money to get rid of people they didn't like or to influence the politics of the university. It was meant to empower the university itself, and in practice, the colleagues, the academic colleagues of professors to, to police themselves. It didn't mean that tenured professors can't be policed. It just meant they were policed from the inside, not from the outside. And then over the last hundred years, the concept of tenure and the rights and privileges of it have evolved, you know, partly through legal precedent, sometimes through tradition. At this point, in order to remove somebody, discipline somebody from, with tenure, fire them, there's a process that's pretty similar to the legal process. You have to have due process, representation, the, you know, the tenured professor has the right to confront the evidence against them, and you, and Colorado, the University of Colorado went through that due process.
P: So it's possible, but laborious.
S: Yeah. So Churchill and his lawyer are accusing them of, of the, Churchill said specifically that the, "the process was a farce. They, the results were predetermined. It was orchestrated. And they were doing it to get rid of me". So, he said they were, quote unquote, "creating the illusion of scholarly review". And he's going to now go on the offensive, going to, he says, quote, "We will be into cour...into court to expose the nature of that fraud". So he's accusing Colo...the University of Colorado of fraud now.
P: Well, I hope the charges, I mean, I hope they stick. I hope his, he remains, his ass remains fired. But, he deserves his day in court.
S: Yeah.
P: I, I have no objection to that.
S: Now he, now he's chall...you know, he's challenging the, the scholarly review, now he's taking it into the courts. You know, it's a civil case, basically.
P: Let him, let him use the courts, I don't care.
S: It, it does bring up the question, you know, with which we touched upon before. You know, what is the role of the university? Do they have the right to police, you know, the content of their professors, their academics, or should they basically just give them the freedom to do what they want?
x: Not to plagiarize though.
S: Well, clearly, not to commit fraud, not to plagiarize. That's, that's, that's out of bounds. But, like, let's take the example of a history professor or a professor who teaches that 9/11 was an inside job, for example. Should the university say, "Well, that's his opinion. You know, we respect him as a scholar and we don't necessarily have to police the details of his opinions, and we're not going to presume that we're right about everything and this is, we, you know, the purpose of universities are to, are to inspire vigorous debate and that includes allowing people to voice very unpopular opinions". I, I, I buy all of that, as far as it goes. Except, I think that the university also has both a duty and, and the right to establish some sort of academic standards, and some things are below the standard of academics. It's not just that it's unpopular - it's also that, I mean, the, the 9/11, the claims about 9/11 are, are demonstrably wrong, and they employ poor logic, misrepresentation of the facts, etcetera, poor method. And, and, and there are actually standards for disciplining somebody with tenure that include scholarly incompetence, and you could argue that, that's, it's imcompetent to make such a ridiculous argument. Not because it's unpopular, just 'cause the method is so poor. The same exact issue, by the way, crops up all the time. It crops up with the Intelligent Design proponents, who say that they're being academically persecuted and that they should be free to promote Intelligent Design, whereas universities are like "No. That's nonsense. It's not science, it's below the standard, it's imcompetent, and we have the right to police it", which I totally agree with. The same thing comes up with paranormal researchers. Now glo...the global warming skeptics are saying that they're being persecuted academically in the same way, that there are not, their careers are being, you know, are being inhibited because their opinions are going against the prevailing, you know, political opinions. So this is an issue that keeps cropping up over and over again, and, and, you know, and often surrounds issues that we deal with typically as, as skeptics. The core conflict is freedom versus standards.
P: So Steven, how, if, if you were the dean, say, of that particular university, and Ward taught that it was a inside job - 9/11 - what would you do? You'd summon him to your office and say what to him?
S: I, I, I would follow a procedure, you know, I think universities do have procedures for things like that, but it would ultimately amount to, you know, a review of appropriate academics and experts to establish, just, is this academically legitimate, it, or is it academically incompetent? And if it follo...falls below the standards of the university, then I think that action can be taken. You know, starting with censorship, ending with being fired. (Transcription paused here at 0:10:03)
S: The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by the New England Skeptical Society in association with the James Randi Educational Foundation. For more information on this and other episodes, please visit our website at www.theskepticsguide.org. Please send us your questions, suggestions, and other feedback; you can use the "Contact Us" page on our website, or you can send us an email to info@theskepticsguide.org'. 'Theorem' is produced by Kineto and is used with permission.
|
|
|