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ethics

Book Review: The Humanities and Public Life

The Humanities and Public LifeThe Humanities and Public Life edited by Peter Brooks with Hilary Jewett (Bronx: Fordham University Press, 2014).

My rating: 3 of 5 stars.


There is no question but that the humanities are under fire. Budgets are being cut, sometimes whole departments. How then to justify the humanities within the university, without accepting “instrumentalization”, a term thrown around much in this book, which means roughly, being able to demonstrate some “deliverable” or bottom line worth.

Peter Brooks, the editor of the book,and organizer of the symposium from which the articles and discussion in this book was drawn, starts with the “Torture Memos”, a series of Justice Department documents from the second Bush administration that justified waterboarding and other forms of torture against detainees deemed to be “dangerous” to national security. Brooks believes this to be the result of poor and unethical reading by those who formulated these memos (an assumption I question), and something that the humanities fundamentally address. [Read more…] about Book Review: The Humanities and Public Life

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The Ethics of Science PR

ida.png
Darwinius masillae, aka “Ida.” From Wikipedia

Last week, Inside Higher Ed reported the launch of Futurity.org, a new website intended to provide a direct outlet for research universities to announce science news. It’s led by Duke, Stanford, and U. Rochester, and the 35 participating universities include some pretty big names.

Earlier this summer, ESN reader and commenter Dave Snoke sent us a couple of links and some good questions that, unfortunately, we weren’t able to get to until now. Dave was remarking upon this year’s big fossil story, “Ida,” which, while an important discovery by any measure, became the subject of an orchestrated media push billing the fossil as “the missing link.” To put it mildly, Ida failed to live up to the hype. Many science writers criticized the media circus, which was designed to sell books and raise interest in a television documentary. Dave sent us links to the two most important critiques, from Nature and Science.

From Science:

Many of the leading scientists who study primate evolution don’t think Ida lives up to Hurum’s billing as a human ancestor; most think she’s a relative of lemurs instead. After looking at photos and a description that Hurum and his collaborators published in an online paper last week, most researchers think the skeleton—though stunning—reveals little new information about ancient primates, much less human origins. Some worry that the publicity framing Ida as a human ancestor will backfire as her true identity and lowly origins are revealed. “A lot of articles say it is a missing link. That is wrong,” says paleoanthropologist Elwyn Simons of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. “It has no convincing links to monkeys, apes, and humans.”

Nature‘s editorial concludes:

In principle, there is no reason why science should not be accompanied by highly proactive publicity machines. But in practice, such arrangements introduce conflicting incentives that can all too easily undermine the process of the assessment and communication of science.

Dave asks a couple of very good questions. First, regarding the ethics of public relations:

1) I have been involved with press releases to the media, and invariably the story gets mangled. Some of this is not the scientist’s fault. But in the stories below it seems clear that the scientists wanted the PR. They paid big bucks ($750K) for the fossil, with an aim to movie rights. Recently CERN in Geneva was also happily involved in promoting the Angels and Demons movie. What should be our ethic in regard to PR “opportunities”?

Second, about how this kind of hype surrounding scientific discoveries affects the public’s perception of science:

2) Is it any wonder that the public views scientific claims (especially in the area of evolution) with suspicion when they see stories like this? Does making claims like this, which so often are eventually refuted or retracted, help the case for evolution, or would it be better to present a story of careful weighing of pros and cons? In the public arena, evolutionists have worked hard to suppress any attempts to introduce “weighing of evidence for an against evolution” in school curriculums. The argument is that allowing arguments against evidence for evolution would promote an “anti-science” attitude which would hurt science education. Or is the “selling” of science theories actually hurting science more than a presentation of careful weighing of facts would?

So, what do you think? (Please note that the question isn’t whether evolution is true or whether this fossil proves or disproves evolution. Dave is asking, do overhyped stories like this one help, or hurt, the cause of evolution proponents? A similar question could be asked about the way health findings are promoted in the media.)

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Week in Review: Ethics

Norman Borlaug’s Nobel Prize Lecture – The death of Borlaug, one of the founders of the Green Revolution, sparked numerous tributes (NY Times, WSJ, Guardian). Gregg Easterbrook in the WSJ estimates that Borlaug’s agricultural work has saved more than 1 billion lives and counting. Leave it to GetReligion, however, to highlight the link between his Lutheran roots and his agricultural work. In his 1970 Nobel Prize lecture, Borlaug cites Genesis 41, Isaiah 8 and Isa. 35, Joel 1, and Amos 4 as justification for both his work and his hope in its success. [It reminds me of Walter Bradley’s work that won the Bosscher-Hammond Prize at Following Christ. ~ Mike]

The Game of Ghost Writing – Doug Lederman at Inside Higher Ed reviews a couple of new studies that examine the practice of scientific “ghost writing”: journal articles written by pharmaceutical companies or other corporate interests but published under the names of academics who had little to nothing to do with the research. (Mike’s note: I agree with the commenter who observes that “ghost writing” is hardly the term for this practice.)

Maimonides on Trustworthy Sources (Harper’s) – Reader David O’Hara sent us this great quote from Jewish medieval philosopher Maimonides.

More on the challenge of humility.  What does it mean “to serve” and “put the interest of others” ahead of one’s own in the context of higher education?  Bearing the Burden reviews some recent posts on how

the service burdens are unfairly distributed, falling mainly on academic do-gooders, “who work hardest for the institution” yet “reap the fewest material benefits because they publish at a slower pace.” … academic do-gooders need to learn to just say no. … “those of us who overwork are covering up for and enabling those who under perform. Most universities have no mechanism for forcing tenured people teach better, teach more, show up at office hours, give students responsible advice about their program of study, or do the committee work they have been assigned” — Gabriela Montell, Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/18/2009.

Lots of provoking material in Academic Bait-and-Switch, Part 2 (Henry Adams, Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/15/2009).

  1. Freshman disinterested in reading, mastering the basics of writing sentences, and earning their grades as the “interesting distinctions between the worldviews of freshmen and graduate students at Elite National U.”
  2. A summary of the graduate student’s encounter with a parent over the “F” he had awarded their son.
  3. The final sentence of the essay reads, “If the Blunts didn’t want their son taught by a TA, I wondered why they sent him to Elite National U, but I thought it wise to keep that to myself.”

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Star Trek: The Right Stuff?

Note:  Contains spoilers and has become more of a reflection than a review* …

Star Trek Movie Poster
Star Trek Movie Poster

Faith & Geekery claims Star Trek Will Rock the Summer.  Yes, Star Trek features superb action, casting, soundtrack, and special effects.  As a fan who only reached the theater on Monday (to distinguish myself from Trekkies who went to the early screening in uniform/costume on Thursday night), Star Trek not only fit in the 43 year history well enough, but also created the foundation for a future series which will boldly go where it hasn’t quite gone before.

With that on the table, I must confess that I spent much of the film reflecting upon how followers of Christ in the academic community should respond to Star Trek‘s portrayal of reality, courage, emotion, integrity, intellect, love, mentoring, and what is right. Why?  Because J.J. Abrams set the destiny shaping, coming of age story of the crew of the Starship Enterprise (largely focused upon Spock and James T. Kirk) in the context of Kirk’s rise to Captain before early graduation from Starfleet Academy.  Kirk was so much the right stuff that he received special recognition for his heroic emergency field service and completely avoided the traditional fast track to Captain as described by Captain Christopher Pike earlier in the film, i.e., four years at Starfleet Academy followed by four years in the field.

[Read more…] about Star Trek: The Right Stuff?

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