Comments on: Religion Politics and Universities

By: Brian Weatherson

Brian Weatherson — Wed, 01 Oct 2003 04:11:10 +0000

Well, except for the fact that mathematicians don’t burn out early and Chomsky kept doing field-defining work all the way through his career (important late work includes Lectures on GB 1981, Barriers 1986, Minimalist Program 1995, etc) most of what Robert said about Chomsky is corrrect. This is not to say I believe a word of the late Chomsky theories. But a lot of smart people take it all very seriously, and many of them know a lot more about linguistics than I ever will.

By: Robert Schwartz

Robert Schwartz — Tue, 30 Sep 2003 16:16:28 +0000

“No doubt one could think of elements of the left which are similarly misguided.” Alan Sokal—Social Text. “To find these kinds of comments stated by intelligent people — and then picked up for extra-special commendation by bona fide academics like Brian Leiter — is depressing beyond measure.” Come on Bubba, put a smile on your kiss. The humor at this blog is both unintentional and wonderful. Learn to appreciate it. “I’m relieved you didn’t denounce Chomsky as an “idiot.”” He isn’t. He is a demonstration that mathematicians burn out young, and that lifetime tenure without manditory retirement is a bad idea.

By: Barry@yahoo.com

Barry@yahoo.com — Tue, 30 Sep 2003 12:02:54 +0000

O.K. That usually is the problem; it’s like trying to convert a fan of another team (with the added burden that each ‘fan’ has spent long, painful years becoming a full fan).

By: Dirk Jenter

Dirk Jenter — Tue, 30 Sep 2003 01:01:40 +0000

Barry: I was indeed boasting and dissing, and so was Prof. Leiter. I should add that I stand by my assessments of the fields I mentioned, while at the same time recognizing that nothing I could do or say would change Prof. Leiters opinion.

By: Barry@yahoo.com

Barry@yahoo.com — Tue, 30 Sep 2003 00:53:36 +0000

Dirk, it sure looked to me like you were boasting about your field, and dissing others. Then, when people started returning your serves, you explained that you were just doing your stretches on the tennis court, with your wife’s racket which you were bringing back home with you.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Tue, 30 Sep 2003 00:42:01 +0000

Nope, sorry, you’ll just have to make do with the paraphrase.

By: Dirk Jenter

Dirk Jenter — Tue, 30 Sep 2003 00:37:41 +0000

Barry: I stated my opinion / assessment of various fields, Prof. Leiter stated his with regards to philosophy, and I proposed to leave it at this as opposed to turning it into a pointless back and forth. I presume you are trying to interpret some kind of inconsistency into my remarks which I would suggest is not there.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Tue, 30 Sep 2003 00:31:56 +0000

You all know Rebecca Goldstein’s hilarious bit about the inverse ratio between the certainty of one’s field of study and one’s concern with presentation of self? At one extreme, the English faculty, with zero certainty and total obsession with presentation of self. At the other extreme, mathematics, with rigorous proof and absolute indifference to self-presentation. I might have the quotation at B&W, I’m not sure…

By: Barry@yahoo.com

Barry@yahoo.com — Tue, 30 Sep 2003 00:18:18 +0000

(re: humanities, law schoolts) “These are fields in which hard, verifiable facts are much harder to come by than in (say) Finance (my field), Economics, or the hard sciences. In these fields, in which intellectual rigour and quality of results are much more objective and verifiable, …” ~~Dirk Jenter “I am certainly not interested in a “my~~field-is-more-rigorous-than-yours” game, and economics is an extremely broad field and therefore difficult to assess. ” -dirk jenter Hmmmmmm………

By: Chun the Unavoidable

Chun the Unavoidable — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 22:05:40 +0000

Brian,

You’ll note that Dirk was talking about “humanities” departments, not English departments. Offensive generalizations about other departments remain, as always, welcome.

By: Chun the Unavoidable

Chun the Unavoidable — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 21:58:07 +0000

The fact that there are theories of remarkable predictive power in physics and not in literary theory could mean that physicists have better analytic skills than literary theorists. It might also, possibly, have something to do with the subject matter.

Furthermore, I’d say that physicists are more likely to be to the left of an average humanities professor.

By: Brian Leiter

Brian Leiter — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 21:53:40 +0000

Fair enough, but I honestly don’t know the answer to your question. One can be misled, I fear, by generalizing from English Departments.

By: Dirk Jenter

Dirk Jenter — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 21:49:36 +0000

Prof. Leiter: I am certainly not interested in a “my-field-is-more-rigorous-than-yours” game, and economics is an extremely broad field and therefore difficult to assess. Let’s instead focus on the hard sciences, e.g. physics. Wouldn’t you agree that the median professor in a top 20 physics department is politically to the right of the median professor in a top 20 humanities department? Wouldn’t you also agree that the same physics professor has better analytical skills and analytical intelligence than the humanities professor, and knows more about fact checking and standards of verifiability?

By: Brian Leiter

Brian Leiter — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 21:16:03 +0000

I have no first-hand knowledge of Commentary’s position on intelligent design, and was relying on Allen’s representation of its content. I do have first-hand knowledge about what the National Review recently published on the subject, however, and it is as I described it. Dirk Jenter must not know much about law schools if he thinks the “hard left” has a big presence! Philosophy, which is at least as rigorous as economics (to put it mildly), has far more of the “hard left” than law schools. (Philosophy also has lots of libertarians, at lots of top departments.)

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 21:03:57 +0000

In 1996 Jewish voters went 78-16-3 for Clinton-Dole-Perot. Of course Clinton’s margin of victory was greater than Gore’s, but these results are still pretty close to the 2000 results. So I don’t think Lieberman was such a huge factor, and your explanatory hypothesis has just as much power as it ever did. (And it looks like http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/elections/natl.exit.poll is a good place to look for these data online.)