Larry Summers and the Scientific World View

Harvard published a transcript of (Harvard President) Larry Summer's remarks that set off the PC firestorm, and I really think that all those who joined in the lynch mob really ought to hang their heads. If this kind of dialog is going to be banned as politically incorrect, then no honest examination of questions of human differences is possible at all.

It seems to me that a lot of trends bode ill for the scientific world view. It's starting to look a lot like the middle ages, except that instead of a pope and a church, an army of anti-scientific special interests is at work. Creationism and politically correct sociology are only the tip of the iceberg. A small but well funded anti-global warming clique continues to spin their case in outrageous ways. Some of the global warming people don't seem much better. String theorists, who have a pretty theory and a ton of genius level IQ's, go nuts when they talk about alternatives to strings in quantum gravity. I think the pervasive dishonesty of the Bush prsidency may be an aggravating factor.

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