Diversity of Everything but Thought

Gee you're slipping McG. You usually come to these conclusions around page 30 or so.....this time we got all the way to Page 36. Smile

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Foxfyre wrote:

Gee you're slipping McG. You usually come to these conclusions around page 30 or so.....this time we got all the way to Page 36.

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McGentrix wrote:

I find it possible that you would never be convinced that an over-dose of liberal professors in college could be detrimental to ones education and that many individuals have suffered because of it. It would not matter how many case studies were performed, polls were conducted or anecdotes made.

As a liberal in a conservative state where I have been frequently exhorted to "just get over it" I guess I have the view that life is not all beer and skittles. Cool

I do not doubt that some conservative students have been given a hard time. If they have a legitimate claim of discrimination then I would expect the facility to take appropriate action. As I stated before, though, there are colleges and universities available that would be more open to a conservative viewpoint.

I agree that I do not find polls and anecdotes to be persuasive.

I could find a well-conducted study to be persuasive. I have not seen one here that I consider to be well-conducted.

As I stated before, extraordinary claims (the education system needs to be completely revamped, conservative students are systematically discriminated against, etc.) require extraordinary proof.

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DrewDad wrote:

I could find a well-conducted study to be persuasive. I have not seen one here that I consider to be well-conducted.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110005976

A Chill in the Classroom
Liberal professors routinely harass conservative students.

Friday, December 3, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST

Most Journal readers over a certain age can remember going all the way through college without politics intruding in the classroom. Until the Vietnam War, for instance, few students knew their professors' views, and even then most politicking took place on parts of the campus where participation was voluntary. That is no longer true--and, as a new survey commissioned by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) documents, it is making many students uneasy.

The ACTA survey was conducted this fall by the Center for Survey Research & Analysis at the University of Connecticut, among students at 50 top U.S. universities and colleges. It sought to ascertain the perceived levels of classroom politicization and of intellectual intolerance among faculty members. The results were striking.

For instance, nearly half said that their professors "frequently comment on politics in class even though it has nothing to do with the course" or use the classroom to present their personal political views. In answers to other questions, the majority acknowledged that liberal views predominate. Most troubling, however, were the responses to the survey item "On my campus, there are courses in which students feel they have to agree with the professor's political or social views in order to get a good grade"--29% agreed.

More...

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McGentrix wrote:

So your argueing that the arguement is flawed, but the results are true? I'm not following you here...

Sorry I'm late. I was arguing the argument and conclusion are flawed, but the results could possibly be true, but we don't know right now.

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afternoon jw. you might want to have quick look at this exchange between fox and myself from the exceedingly late night or exceedingly early morning. we had a good talk and maybe it would give you a little more input. Very Happy

a2k

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JW,

Can you cite the actual study? You linked to an editorial that does not even name the study.

By well-conducted I mean published in its entirety, peer-reviewed, explains the methodology, gives raw data as well as analyses, etc.

Anything else is just spin, no matter which end of the spectrum it comes from.

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JW, the study cited in your post is the same study cited in an earlier post of McGs where they took half of their sample from liberal arts colleges and the other half from the top 25 universities in the country. Needless to say, the results could be a little skewed. I was unable to find the actual study with its actual data.

It was pointed out in an earlier article posted by blatham and by myself that all of these studies are commissioned for and funded by right wing groups -- one of them headed by Lynne Cheney.

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JustWonders wrote:

For instance, nearly half said that their professors "frequently comment on politics in class even though it has nothing to do with the course" or use the classroom to present their personal political views. In answers to other questions, the majority acknowledged that liberal views predominate. Most troubling, however, were the responses to the survey item "On my campus, there are courses in which students feel they have to agree with the professor's political or social views in order to get a good grade"--29% agreed.

More...

Note that there is no mention of this type of behavior being more prevalent with liberal professors than conservative professors. Of course we all KNOW that a conservative would never attempt to ridicule a liberal view.

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Lynne Cheney funded an ACTA study at the University of Connecticut? I don't think so. The link posted by Blatham, like most links posted by Blatham, was a link to a site that is dedicated to anti-conservatism and draws very strong conclusions on very little evidence. Probably Lynne Cheney did donate to one or more of the groups mentioned, but then so do many liberals. So the fact that she donated is one thing; that she commissioned a study is something else.

Try this link for some additional information:
http://www.zader.com/mudita/archives/000234.html

Be sure to use the link to an additional Boston Globe article contained in this one.

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Fox,

Do you ever tire of re-posting the same stuff? You might bore the opposition to the point that they leave the thread, but it doesn't prove your argument.

That's the same study! With no source! You might as well be posting ASCII art.

This proves the myth of red and blue states:

Code:



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And, yes, I followed the links.

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Myth of red and blue states? Surely you jest. All I can do at this point Drewdad is refer you back to McG's comment awhile back. I don't think some of you would be convinced if God himself showed up and personally delivered the evidence on engraved stone tablets.

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The key word here is "evidence." You have not shown me anything that I would consider evidence.

Rumors, anecdotes, polls, yes. Documented fact? No.

I refer you to my post on the previous page (here) for what it would take to convince me.

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I guess you'll stay unconvinced Drewdad. A pity. I think if most Americans would recognize the problem and push for a remedy, we could within a very few years restore academic excellence to our public schools and regain our bragging rights. Right now, we are an academic embarassment.

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yes, we are and you prove that daily, now how about offering actual evidence other than just another opinion. Evidence=Something that furnishes or tends to furnish proof.. Because I opine that the world is flat and offer the opinions of others that the world is flat does not constitute evidence that the world is, indeed, flat.

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SOME 3.7 million people claim to have been abducted by aliens. Only 11 per cent of Americans believe in evolution. Type "Flat Earth Society" into the Google search engine on the internet and you will have a choice of 466,000 sites. How did we get this stupid? One explanation is that the aliens doing all that abducting have been removing people's brains. Perhaps there is a UFO pathology laboratory hovering somewhere over Bonnybridge with the sum of our collective senses pickled in jars. How else are we to explain the phenomenon of what the philosopher Roger Scruton describes as "reason on the retreat, both as an ideal and a reality"? It's not just that we have become a nation of gullible, emotionally incontinent, deeply irrational sentimentalists. Nor that, where once we would have hidden our credulousness, we now proudly wear it on our distressed linen sleeves. It is the fact that this stupidity is officially sanctioned, pandered to and incorporated into our laws.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

McG Wrote:

Quote:
Huh. I looked again and still saw only conjecture and opinion. No facts.

I see your point, but at least Blatham attempts to, here:

Quote:
But, what speaks against giving this claim any undue credibility are the facts of American educational history.

From the seventeen hundreds through to this day, the educational literature (or more accurately, the public/political pronouncements on education) forwards one notion more consistently than any other...that education is 'in jeopardy' or 'in crisis' or 'failing'. (See Richard Hofstadter's "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life", chapter titled Education or Schools...can't recall).

As I read it (though I could be wrong), the fact is that there have ALWAYS been the opinions that our education is going downhill. Blatham even tries to provide some evidence...

Though I guess it's just his opinion that the facts support the opin...., hell with it, you know what I mean.

Cycloptichorn

McG's complaint is a little opague (to which sentence does he refer?). But we'll assume he's responding as Cyclo takes it.

The Hofstadter book (for which he won one of two or three Pulitzers in history) covers a broad range of American history, including an extensive chapter on education in America. The notion I passed on in my post (ubiquitous handwringing about the state of education) is thoroughly documented by the historian with extensive citations (quotes from numerous periods and sources, with full notation as to where the reader may find these documents). As Hofstadter states, that's not terribly surprising, as education has often been considered a particularly important element of western culture, and because of the high hopes we have had for the endeavor, and because of some divergence of notions regarding what qualifies as a good or appropriate education.

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McGentrix wrote:

Hold the phone, are you suggesting that there ISN'T any liberal bias in the professorships of most university's and colleges? You're basing this on the fact that some people refuse to accept an op/ed as proof?

*egads!*

Let's look at the phrase 'liberal bias' in this context. Fox and others are tossing this about as if it actually meant something discernible or real or important.

How would a biology or geology or archaeology or math professor's political opinions or preferences have any consequence at all in a university setting? Will one's lab report on plutonic formations associated with crustal remelting be marked lower because the student votes republican? How would the professor even know?

Or is it assumed, by those who haven't attended a math class at the university level, that math professors fill the blackboards with equations that include remarks on Hilary Clinton? Or that he/she says, mid-lecture, "E equals MC squared, unless you are a stupid white person who wears a cross, in which case it equals MC cubed"?

Or political science or sociology courses. What's the assumption? That course readings are restricted to socialist tracts or to Cuba worship? Anyone who would argue that such is the case has not...absolutely guaranteed...done such courses.

It really isn't 'liberal bias' which foxfyre and those like her are fighting. It is open-minded pursuit of truth and facts regardless of how such might place society, and those in it, in some turmoil through the purposeful questioning of traditional ideas and values. It isn't 'liberal bias', it is free-thinking and open-mindedness. It isn't 'liberal bias', it is rejection of Authority when that Authority's words or ideas or values are shown to be baseless in fact or arbitrary.

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If open-minded pursuit of the truth requires one to be so cocksure of the mind of another and that anything he doesn't embrace is close mindedness, then yeah, I guess I'm against that. So be it. We'll let those fair minded individuals who think domination of liberal thought and exclusion of any other thought is appropriate have the world and there will be a lot less friction.

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Well there's always KY. The republican balm of gilead. (spread between the masses like grease upon the palm)

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