Republicans; do you really believe Geo. Bush is in charge?

[John_Mace]

@pervert

“In any meaningful sense evolution is a fact, but there are various theories concerning the mechanism of evolution.”

They don’t seem to have heard that there is only one theory.

But “God did it” is not one of the mechanisms that scientist consider.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

You know that’s a specious comparison. There is no alternate scientific theory to evolution. Arguments about the mecahnism of evolution are not arguments about the fact of evolution.

Bush wants to specifically allow schools the option of teaching that creationism is a valid alternative “theory” to evolution. If he believes that creationism is a scientific theory- or that any alternate theory to evolution currently exists- then he is at the very least extremely ignorant and incurious (very unappealing and inappropriate in a POTUS) or he’s just a plain old dumbass.

[pervert]

@Diogenes the Cynic

BTW, I think registration for the NT Times is free. I have it but I can’t remember if I paid for it. I don’t think I did. If you register you should be able to access the article.

It is free. Ihadn’t registered until now. I did so to get this information. I really don’t like suggesting that the NYTimes article says or does not say a particular thing without reading it. However, I still could not find the article. I get broken link errors when I go from the MSN article to what it claims is the NYTimes article. I even tried to search for George Bush Creationism and October 29th.

Here is about the best I can do for the moment with the creationism stuff. True, he does not explicitly say that he believes in creationism, but he at least betrays an ignorance about what the scientific evidence is as well as what is or is not apprpriate to teach in public schools.

But he does not even do that. You have to read all sorts of things into that little quote to get such a conclusion.

For example, This article from cnn could be used to portray any of the candidates from the 2000 election (Mcain, Bush, Gore, and even Clinton) as supporting creationism. This article does not make that assertion, but the quotes it includes could be twisted that way. This is why I need more information before I could believe such an assertion. I suppose if you had lots of experience with the editorial pundit in question and knew him to be rigorous in his facts, then you could accept the sorts of cites you have been linking to on this issue. I’m sorry to harp in it. Seriously. I realize that I may be making too much noise about this issue. But I think an assertion that a person is “anti science” should have more substance to it.

You know that’s a specious comparison. There is no alternate scientific theory to evolution. Arguments about the mecahnism of evolution are not arguments about the fact of evolution.

I agree. I did not say any such thing.

Bush wants to specifically allow schools the option of teaching that creationism is a valid alternative “theory” to evolution. If he believes that creationism is a scientific theory- or that any alternate theory to evolution currently exists- then he is at the very least extremely ignorant and incurious (very unappealing and inappropriate in a POTUS) or he’s just a plain old dumbass.

Thank you again. Can you please give me a cite for this assertion? I appreciate that you believe this. I appreciate that you think this is a reason to hate President Bush. However, if you don’t mind, I’ll make up my own mind as to the truth and value of any such position held by the President.

All you did was prove me right with the Jews-go-to-Hell stuff. Everything I said was true about that. I don’t care about his half-assed apologies afterwards because they aren’t relevant. The point is that he has a low enough IQ to have such an argumet in the first place. Whether he’s sorry about it is beside the point.

No, you missed the point. You characterized Bush’s views as if he believed that Jews will or should go to hell. That is not the case. He was in a period when he was trying to learn more about his religion and came across a troubling passage. He discussed it with his mother who then consulted an authority on the issue. Out of that experience, Bush learned that he should “listen to the New Testament, but don’t be harshly judgmental”. At the time, however, much was made about his conversation just as you are trying to make a lot out of it now. During a press conference he was asked a question by the reporter who had originally made “much” out of that earlier experience. He made a joke refering to that part of the experience. That is he made a joke about how that reporter had portrayed him back then. Your assertion that "told reporters that he was going tell the Isrealis that they were “all going to hell” for being Jews" was a mischaracterization and inaccurate.

[pervert]

@John Mace

But “God did it” is not one of the mechanisms that scientist consider.

Well, that’s not entirely accurate. Many scientist do consider the proposition that “God did it”. They dismiss such a propositition quickly as they should. But there has been much discussion on this very issue by scientists.

Note that I am saying discussion, not theories or papers. I do not, in fact, believe that creationism is a valid scientific theroy. It is not even a valid hypothese as far as I am concerned. However, this does not mean that disjointed quotes such as “I believe that local authorities should determine school curiculi”, and “Students should experience differenc theories about the origins of our world” amount to support for the proposition that “God did it”. I certainly don’t think that disjointed quotes like this amount to proof that a candidate wishes to overturn Supreme Court decisions and allow Creation Science to be taught as if it were science.

[I_Love_Me_Vol.I]

@Chicago Faucet

Monstro, I assume you are talking about the same Administrations at the Educational Institutions, like Duke, that claim that they would never hire a Conservative to their ranks because they have yet to meet an intelligent one.

Can you give me more info on this? Perhaps a cite of administrators at Duke or other top-level universities that “claim that they would never hire a Conservative to their ranks because they have yet to meet an intelligent one.”

And as for why the Right Wingers don’t come around GD much anymore… well maybe it’s just become a little hot in here for them. There’s only so many talking points that the GOP can offer to support Bush’s horrible judgement in invading Iraq.

[Kimstu]

ILMVI: Can you give me more info on this? Perhaps a cite of administrators at Duke or other top-level universities that “claim that they would never hire a Conservative to their ranks because they have yet to meet an intelligent one.”

Yeah, especially considering that according to a recent survey of selected departments at Duke, one dean, one English professor, and six political science professors are registered Republicans.

I think that what CF may have muzzily had in mind was a crack by Duke’s philosophy department chairman: “If, as John Stuart Mill said, stupid people are generally conservative, then there are lots of conservatives we will never hire.”

I do love opening a thread at the third page and finding out where it’s got to, though it’s kind of startling to jump into a debate nominally about whether George Bush is in charge and find it split between an argument on creationism and disputes about academic liberal bias.

[verybdog]

God is in charge.

[Milum]

Kimstu commented…

I think that what CF may have muzzily had in mind was a crack by Duke’s philosophy department chairman: “If, as John Stuart Mill said, stupid people are generally conservative, then there are lots of conservatives we will never hire.”

Muzzily, you say? Then, of course, John Sturat Mill also said this about the peaceniks who cower in the Kerry camp.

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.- John Stuart Mill

What? You don’t think that peaceniks hang around the Kerry camp?

[Binarydrone]

CoatOfArms, I have to admit that you are confusing the hell out of me. Are you saying that if an OP asks a question of a particular group (Republicans in this case) that non-members can’t chime in? I mean, you do see that we are I Great Debates right?

Also, is it your assertion that someone has to have the same number of diplomas as Bush (and fly a jet ore something???) to criticize him?

I mean, for example, say a poster was not born in to a filthy rich family and worked 2 jobs to put himself through a respectable and accredited state university like, oh the University of Vermont (just as a wild example). Let us further suppose that, rather than having the opportunity to go on to Graduate School (although he was accepted to several) this totally hypothetical poster was forced to enter the job market (hypothetically, the reasons for this may be personal).

So, is this hypothetical poster not within his rights to say “gee, Bush sure seems kinda dumb to me.”? If, indeed, this is your position, I ask for you to defend it, as it seems rather loony to me.

[Kimstu]

@Chicago Faucet

[…] the Educational Institutions, like Duke, that claim that they would never hire a Conservative to their ranks because they have yet to meet an intelligent one.

@Kimstu

I think that what CF may have muzzily had in mind was a crack by Duke’s philosophy department chairman: “If, as John Stuart Mill said, stupid people are generally conservative, then there are lots of conservatives we will never hire.”

@Milum

Muzzily, you say?

Why yes, if CF was indeed thinking of that crack by Duke’s philosophy department chairman quoting John Stuart Mill, and remembered it as a statement about official hiring policy by the Duke administration, I’d say s/he was remembering it rather muzzily. Wouldn’t you?

Maybe CF was actually thinking of a different statement by someone else at Duke, but we’ll never know unless s/he responds to ILMVI’s request and shows up with a cite.

@Milum

Then, of course, John Sturat Mill also said this about the peaceniks who cower in the Kerry camp.

Good heavens, I’ve wandered into the Total Free Association thread, it seems. What on earth does this remark have to do with anything that’s currently being discussed here (which I admit is a rather far-ranging set of topics, but not as far-ranging as all that)?

In case you’re feeling a little muzzy about this yourself, allow me to clarify that I’m not endorsing Mill’s (or the Duke philosophy chairman’s) comment about conservatives in general being stupid, or indeed, any such silly remark.

Did you assume that I was trying to sneak in a backhanded insult by quoting a silly generalization by Mill about conservatives, so you felt it was necessary to return the insult by quoing a silly generalization by Mill about liberals, albeit on an unrelated subject?

If so, frankly, it was a kinda stupid assumption. (Fortunately, I don’t subscribe to silly generalizations, so I won’t just chalk it up to your being conservative. :))

[milroyj]

@Diogenes the Cynic

Here is about the best I can do for the moment with the creationism stuff. True, he does not explicitly say that he believes in creationism, but he at least betrays an ignorance about what the scientific evidence is as well as what is or is not apprpriate to teach in public schools.

So in other words, you DON’T have a cite that the President believes in creationism. Perhaps you can keep your (unsubstantiated) rants in the Pit?

[pervert]

@milroyj

So in other words, you DON’T have a cite that the President believes in creationism. Perhaps you can keep your (unsubstantiated) rants in the Pit?

Now now, his cite wasn’t conclusive. But it was certainly not an unsubstantiated rant either. You could certainly read the various quotes he provided as indicating a preference or tacit support for Creation Science.

[milroyj]

@pervert

Now now, his cite wasn’t conclusive. But it was certainly not an unsubstantiated rant either. You could certainly read the various quotes he provided as indicating a preference or tacit support for Creation Science.

OK, fine, he made a claim in GD and either didn’t or couldn’t back it up. If you want to cut him some slack for it, that’s your perogative. I am disinclined to do so.

[Evil_Captor]

@pervert

Now now, his cite wasn’t conclusive. But it was certainly not an unsubstantiated rant either. You could certainly read the various quotes he provided as indicating a preference or tacit support for Creation Science.

I don’t see how you can read them any other way. Milroy’s claim that the rant is unsubstantiated seems to be a matter of form, not substance.

[pervert]

@Evil Captor

I don’t see how you can read them any other way. Milroy’s claim that the rant is unsubstantiated seems to be a matter of form, not substance.

As much as I hate to be a peace maker, Let’s not go too far this way either. The article I printed from the 2000 election contains thoughts from Gore and Clinton which could be taken the same way if one were inclined to do so. If you can read those quotes without accusing them of believing in Creation Science, then surely there is a way to read the Bush quotes without attributing belief in Creation Science to him.

[Chicago_Faucet]

@I Love Me

Can you give me more info on this?

No problem. Here and here are the articles. Please see the quotes below:

On Monday, February 9, 2004, the Duke Conservative Union placed an advertisement in The Duke Chronicle claiming that the university lacked intellectual diversity. The advertisement noted the preponderance of registered Democrats among deans and in departments in the humanities and social sciences.

Law professor William Van Alstyne, a leading constitutional scholar on free speech and academic freedom, began the panel with a moderate position. He noted that applications for faculty positions never have a box for political affiliations, but then proceeded to display a chart showing seven unnamed departments that combined for 107 Democratic faculty members and only one Republican.

“Professors would not travel to the law school or the University Counsel’s office to berate [conservative] students,” Munger said. Munger went on to say that the University’s policy is one of openness, but the expectation exists that departments will hire liberals. As an example, Munger pointed to the history department, which according to the DCU’s ad has over 30 registered Democrats and no Republicans on its faculty.

More from Munger:

Here’s a true statement: … every conservative faculty member recommended for by the literature department has been tenured. That’s also true of every unicorn and every talking dog, so it’s a vacuously true statement.

When I first arrived at Duke, there was a party for new faculty. And when it was time to sit down, we were all told: “Since you’ve been hired at Duke, I’m sure that none of you is so foolish as to be conservative. So, please, spread yourselves liberally around the tables.”

Now let’s take a step back. The answer that we’ve heard repeatedly since the publication of a party affiliation list by the DCU is that smart people aren’t conservative. Now what was meant, of course, in fairness to the benighted Robert Brandon, is that educated people are statistically disproportionately liberal.

This goes towards the topic of a thread in Great Debates a couple months back, which I cannot find right now, that addressed the topic of why Liberals are considered to be more educated than Conservatives. Of course, more educated equals smarter, and so on.

More from Munger:

Now, as you recall, the history department has the distinction of having 35 registered Democrats and zero registered Republicans. The defense that we’ve heard offered is that not many history Ph.D.s are Republicans. Let’s suppose that’s true. Let’s suppose it’s 90 percent. Let’s suppose that 90 percent of history Ph.D.s are Democrats and only 10 percent are Republicans. Now we’ll define the event of hiring a Republican as having a probability of one in 10 for each of 35 independent Bernoulli trials. How likely is it if we use the binomial distribution to proportion the discipline are 90 percent Democrat. How likely is it that a department would have zero Republicans? If the hiring process is ideology blind, the answer is .025. That’s less than three chances in 100. So if, in fact, it’s an ideology-blind process and it’s 90 percent – 90 percent – disproportionately more Democrat, 35 times is only going to get you three chances in 100 that that’s an ideology-blind process.

Well, it may come down to qualifications and here is the nub of the problem, and then I’ll close. Many conservatives in many fields in the humanities and social sciences are unqualified because they are conservative as it was condescendingly explained to me just the other day. I’m quoting this. It was a remarkable incident but I am quoting. Asking history to hire a conservative is exactly like asking biology to hire a Creationist – someone who denies evolution.

Being conservative is by definition not intellectually respectable. Conservatives are simply not qualified. That was not an administrator, that was no person in a position to put that into effect, but I think it’s a widely shared view. So the claim that most of the qualified applicants are Democrats or even more liberal than Democrats is probably true. It would explain why most faculty in the social sciences and humanities departments are not conservative. But it would not in itself explain why there are no Republicans. The problem is not too many Democrats, the problems is too few Republicans to be able to say it is an ideology-blind process. There is no other explanation for the overwhelming disparity.

And from Brandon:

“We try to hire the best, smartest people available,” Brandon said of his philosophy hires. "If, as John Stuart Mill said, stupid people are generally conservative, then there are lots of conservatives we will never hire.

What is not being pushed here is a Conservative Quota. The basic math says it all, and it is a fact that the Duke Administration is admittedly, grossly, overproportionately Liberal. This is a vicious circle, since educated people are accused of being liberal because their college professors were, and their college professors, and so on.

The concern here is educational diversity. If 107 professors are Liberal versus 1 Conservative, that isn’t a very diverse education, especially since some of these courses are in the Humanities and Social Sciences, where Politics plays at least a supporting role.

Later on, in one of the articles, they actually said that a list was published that showed each of these professors by name and political affiliation. Abviously, that information is easy to get, and could be researched when deciding on hiring a professor.