Diversity of Everything but Thought

Well, part of the problem is this: What evidence do you want us to show?

I mean, there are a couple of seperate issues in my mind:

First, the number of Liberal profs.

Second, the field of those profs.

Third, the teaching methods of those profs.

Fourth, the course structure and readings of those profs.

Fifth, the overall experience of the student.

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As you can see, there are several issues here which are quite difficult to quantify. I just don't know what evidence you want me to present to support the idea that not all Liberals are bad profs; or that liberals don't neccessarily put their political views out for the student to see.

Let me say that one of the critical issues that you have taken is with the fact that there appear to be far more liberal profs than conservative ones. Is it your contention that the conservatives are being held out of positions due to their political beliefs? Is it your contention that there is an inherent bias by Liberal profs to teach Liberal ideas?

The fields that you have listed as being heavily Liberal are Liberal Arts fields. You do, of course, realize that this represents less than half of the available fields of study for students and more like a third overall. How about the composition of profs in other fields, such as business and engineering? How do I show evidence of this other than to point it out to you as I hust have done?

How can I verify or show you proof that Liberals don't, on average, indoctrinate their students with Liberal thought? I mean, there aren't exactly articles or studies done on this sort of this thing. I can give you accounts, but they add up to little more than Anecdotal Evidence, the very same thing I lambasted YOUR argument for relying upon; it is quite subjective and hard to define what is true and what is fiction, so it's bad to rely upon it.

How can I show proof that the course structure and readings that Liberal profs assign are not inherently biased toward the Liberal way? I tried to point out an example earlier of four different professors who would teach the exact same class four different ways dependent on their ideologies (which may or may not be DOMINANTLY liberal or conservative, an important point) but that apparently wasn't a good example for ya. I know of no other way other than to look at the real-world schedules and reading assignments of profs and I simply haven't the time or energy to do that on a wide-enough scale to make it scientifically sound.

Fifth, how do I prove that the overall experience of the student doesn't show Liberal indoctrination? There aren't exactly exit polls done when you graduate that ask you that sort of question: Was your experience here too Liberal or Conservative? I can't give you hard evidence or proof that there exists no bias as such evidence is quite subjective; you see bias where I see none, someone else sees something else, etc...

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There are two main reasons why I haven't presented an argument based upon solid facts and methodolgy here:

First, I am not required to in the slightest, as it wasn't I who proposed that changes need to be made. The baseline state is for the system to remain as it is, therefore, no activity is needed on my end to convince people of well, anything.

You seem to feel that both sides of an argument have the same responsibility to make a case. They do not. Take a court case for example. The Defense doesn't have to prove that their case is right, just prove that the prosecutions' case is not right. At a murder trial, you don't have to prove that someone else did the crime, or that the person isn't dead; just that you didn't do it, and this can be accomplished by pointing out the flaws in logic in the case which says you did. Same thing here.

Second, there does not exist a large body of evidence from which to draw an active case from my angle. The neccessary surveys, studies, and such info that would be needed to create a strong argument just don't exist, and I am hardly about to go conduct them myself for the purposes of an argument on A2K. This is, once again, a major criticism of mine towards your argument; that the data which you have presented just doesn't support the ideas which you are trying to label as fact.

Surely you are open to the idea that your argument isn't neccessarily bad, but that the data you have presented is incomplete? That it contains a logical jump and fallacy which crashes your argument? I'm not saying that to insult you, just pointing it out. As I said earlier, I even showed you the ways in which the data is faulty and how to fix that.... to which you responded 'no, it isn't faulty,' and failed to address the critical logical errors of your case completely.

To review, I'll tell ya what the error in your case is: You may be able to show that there are a lot of liberals, and you may personally believe that liberals will be biased and brainwash kids, but until you can show evidence showing that Liberals do, in fact, brainwash kids, using ANY of the ways I earlier pointed out to you, your argument fails!

We get frustrated when you simply ignore valid criticisms of your arguments and carry on as if they never existed, or carry weight.

Cycloptichorn

As I said, and you failed apparently to note, I don't necessarily need you to show anything unless you have something to show. I had an informed discussion in mind, not a debate, though if it is a debate, we definitely have scored more points on our side thus far. (I gave you a summary of that which you also chose to ignore.) We get frustrated being called idiots when you have nothing more than that opinion of us to support it.

I would still be interested for instance in an informed opinion of how a one-sided ideology in education is sufficient. I don't think it is, but apparently many of you see no problem. You were so busy attacking our position, however, that I haven't seen a rationale for yours. Or if you think it isn't one-sided, is there any compelling evidence to support that position? It has to be more than two or three instances of first-hand impressions from people who likely already are pretty polarized in their ideology, but even if we include those we have as many of those on our side as you have on yours.

There has to be more rationale for an informed opinion than simply the fact that we want to have one.

sure it does. air america is every bit as biased as rushsean hannabaugh. cnn leans slightly left. as opposed to the further left lean that it used to have. and for that i have wonderd about their commitment to that view point after all.

personally, i've been watching msnbc since a few months before the election. they just seem to get the better mix of conservative and liberal, as well as (gasp!), moderate pov's in the same room at the same time.

i really can't comment on non-cable like abc, cbs, nbc. i don't watch 'em.

and before it comes up... moveon. okay, i've been a member (if that's what you can call it) for years, but even though i generally agree with a lot of the positions, some are just goofy.

i don't even try to pretend that there is a "one size fits all" political party or organization any more. or if there is, i haven't found it yet...

I was in Palm Springs all last week on business. It was a pleasant junket. On the way home, I had a layover in Minneapolis and then flew in a little tiny plane from Minneapolis to Syracuse. Somehow I ended up in the second to last seat agianst the window stuck between a somewhat inibriated couple in front of me, a turkish couple behind me and a good sized college professor next to me.

No, I am not exactly a small guy either and I had this plastic rib where my shoulder would normally be so I was uncomfortable. The plane usually used a battery backup to run those little vents that provide air while sitting in the terminal. Well, for some reason that wasn't working. I was very uncomfortable.

Now, as I am sitting there I notice the guy next to me is reading an essay and making marks on it. I had taught for 5 years and immediately recognized the man to be an educator. I asked and it turns out he was a professor at the school of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse and had been attending a conference on the environment in Montana.

In jest, I asked him "Well, what did you guys come up with? Is it still there?"

We then spent much of the rest of the plane ride discussing ecology, global warming, globalisation, the effects of politics in Cosat Rico and many other topics.

It was an interesting conversation and I bit my toungue more than once listening to what he had to say. He was what I would consider to be an expert in his field and I read some of the published articles he had written and some submission to a conservation biology magazine he sits on.

He was a wonderfully intelligent, well-spoken, well-informed screaming liberal. He admitted as much. I know that if I were to take his class we would butt heads on many topics and I could tell by the essays he was reading that many of his students wrote from a liberal perspective.

As soon as we reached altitude, the turks behind broke out the curry. What the deal with that stuff? Does it NEED to smell like that?

Turks and curry?

They must have lived a long time in the USA :wink:

what? like how to be the angriest white man in the world ?

i've really backed off ( ran out of nitro pills :wink: ), but for a while i really was fascinated watching how they built a cause. it's like watching people play the game, "telephone". once they announce the bullet points and the buzz phrases, it really starts to spread.

the swift boat vets for bitterness thing is a great example of how hannity is a real schill for the republican party (or the ultra conservative party-within-a-party ). that whole thing would never have gotten off the ground without him. and he really should be made to stand in the corner for it...

Well, I would say that it is more a failure on your part, in yet another post, to address the logical failings of your argument that leads to the invective than just plain opinion.

I don't believe that every part of education needs to have two sides to it. I believe that this is in fact a false idea that is presented by Republicans in general; for example, news stories that present both sides of the issue as if both sides were of equal merit, without any usage of judgement at all. For example, in the debate over whether or not the earth is flat; there just aren't two sides that can be reasonably argued.

Professors are not only allowed, they are encouraged, to make judgement calls on issues. Academic freedom exists in order to protect those who dissent from the majority opinion, not to force the majority opinion and the minority opinion to be taught in equal portions. Your position is to disagree with the judgement calls made by many professors and say that they should be making different judgement calls.

What is it you desire, exactly? That all political bias be removed from teaching? That students get an equal number of conservative as liberal teachers? How do you know this isn't true already? How do you know that this is even the right thing to do?

Don't you realize that we want people to have a Liberal education, despite their particular beliefs?



A Liberal Education doesn't turn people INTO Liberals. I don't see how in any way you have shown that this is true. All it does, as the very defintion of the word says, is enlarge the discipline of the mind irregardless of particular profession. Also according to defintion, a Liberal thought is one having to do with our modern Republic and the ideas present within, and not older Monarchy or Aristocratic forms of thinking.

Until you can show that a Liberal education is, in fact, detrimental to students, or turns them liberal in greater numbers, then you don't have an argument at all.

Cycloptichorn

Opinions have no basis in fact??? Maybe you should be a little more careful of your opinions then, if you're saying that's true of your opinions too. But maybe you're just saying that of left wing opinions.

McG mentioned a recemt plane ride and interesting conversation with an avowed liberal professor. This professor almost certainly is teaching his students the virtual certainty of global warming, his belief in what the human response should be to that certainty, and it is very unlikely he is presenting any other point of view.

The most recent class I took on this subject was with an old geologist and climatologist of the old school who takes a very dubious view that humans have had any significant effect on global warming. He is of the opinion that most credible scientists are very skeptical on this subject but it is the 'sky is falling' crowd who are getting most of the press.
(He was teaching in one of those little backwater schools that hasn't been overtaken by rampant liberalism yet.)

With either of these professors, the student who has no preconceived notions on the subject could get a very one sided view. Exposure to both, however, and the student of science is going to have to think harder and study more to come up with a reasoned conclusion.

That is my argument. The student who is exposed to all schools of thought is going to be educated. The student who is not is going to be simply indoctrinated. That is further exacerbated when students who challenge the indoctrination are humilitated or punished as is evidenced by both our expert witnesses and eye witnesses.

Cyclop is right that the opposition in the debate doesn't have to prove a negative, but they do have to disprove the thesis argued by the prover. The competent attacker who can't shake the prover's evidence or argument with logic alone had better be armed with some pretty good ammunition. That has not been done in this case re bias on college campuses and/or the detrimental effect this can have on the students.

P.S. In a formal debate, any ad hominem attack or inference will cost the offender serious points and, in a close match, could net his/her side a loss.

We have disproven the thesis, and done so with logic. You still have not addressed the logical fallacy of your argument in the slightest, Fox, and your whole case is falling down because of it.

You also have the false impression that two sides of every issue must be presented by every prof in order for the student to get a balanced education. This isn't true, as you can't expect a prof to argue against his own conclusions of evidence and research.

For example, let's say we have a history of the South in America class. If a certain prof. has done years of research, and finds certain things to be true based upon that research, should he present ideas and memes that he doesn't find to be valid AS valid in order to give the student a 'balanced' education? Of course he shouldn't, and wouldn't. The idea that all memes and viewpoints are valid in every situation is antithetical to the work of the serious proffessor. The Prof has done the job of judging which memes are valid, which aren't, and he teaches those which he thinks are valid.

Tell me, do you demand the same balance of views in other parts of our society; say, the intelligence-gathering community, or Congress? We'll trade you some professorships for a few strategic roles in the formation of national policy.

I'm somewhat skeptical of your eye witnesses, and your 'expert' witnesses. On one hand, we have students who are upset for some reason or another, and have posted ANONYMOUSLY about this fact. Anonymous postings are hardly conclusive evidence, as they very well could have been made up completely. And your 'expert' witnesses are in large part paid shills of the Republican party, NOT impartial scientists who are looking for the truth of the matter; they definately have an agenda.

All schools of thought are not equally valid; we do have the ability to make decisions for ourselves which are and which are not! To presume that they are is fallacious, and to presume that a student must be exposed to every school of thought in order to have a rounded education, on EVERY subject, is also fallacious.

As I have pointed out earlier, the subjects in which you have listed there being a large bias in the number of Liberal Profs. are, in fact, the LIBERAL arts. Many students take virtually no classes in this field, some take some, some take a whole lot. Are you arguing that we should raise the number of Liberal Engineering profs, or Liberal Business profs in order to give our next generation of businsessmen an equal and balanced look at the evils of the modern corporation and the lack of responsibility it has caused to resonate throughout our society? I doubt it.

I'd like to see you, Mrs. Impartial, say a few words about how badly our Business students are affected by the large preponderance of Conservative thought which has dominated this aspect of College teaching throughout the last twenty or thirty years. Surely you are immensely concerned over the indoctrination towards Conservatism that MUST be present, as most Business profs are in fact conservatives.

Also, I suspect that you must believe that those who attend Conservative schools, Such as the previously-mentioned Bob Jones Univ., must not have an education whatsoever, but only an indoctrination, correct? We should start revoking degrees any day now, right?

Cycloptichorn

What a convenient argument.

1. Universities brainwash folks.
2. If anyone disagrees with you, they must be one of the brainwashed.




I will also note that:

1. You deplore folks who only expose themselves to one side of the argument.
2. You then turn around and state that you deliberately ignore posts from opposing viewpoints.

I believe the student who is offered the full spectrum on every subject and taught how to think, not what to think, is going to be far better educated than the student who spends his college education in the presence of professors who give him/her only one point of view. Any business school or economics department worth its salt is going to teach John Locke, Adam Smith, Peter Druckers, and all the modern gurus, many with conflicting views of how it should be done.

If you had checked the last data posted, ALL areas on most prominent American universities are dominated by liberal educators. We even had a discussion on why more scientists and engineering professors are not conservative. Economics in truth is the most conservative department on most campuses these days, but according to the last research study done, the liberals outnumber the conservatives even there.

You can give all the reasons that there is no need for balance in order for good education to happen, and it just won't wash in the face of logic.

Hey McG, about that experience on the plane - was that yours or are you relaying?

I agree with this completely. Whatever has lead you to believe that a Liberal education does not, in fact, accomplish this goal? That Liberals inherently are not capable of accomplishing this? That the situation would somehow be improved by hiring more conservatives?

Cycloptichorn

Define full spectrum. The idea of humours entering the body has been pretty well overtaken by germ theory....

.... one of my points exactly, Drew. This whole argument is not applicable to the vast majority of subjects that a student would take.

Cycloptichorn

I refer to my several previous posts as to what I mean by 'full spectrum' though 'complete spectrum' would probably be a better term. And if you agree that the student's education benefits from that opportunity, then you must agree that the converse is also true--getting only one narrow point of view is detrimental to the student's education which has been my whole point the whole time. And thank you for finally agreeing with that Cyclop instead of trying to make the issue into something that it has never been.

Without that point, then there would be no problem if the entire American university teaching force were druids or refugess from Mars.

Fox,

The market would automatically punish poor performing schools.

The kids entering college and university are pretty sharp. If they weren't being taught to think, they wouldn't get hired. If they didn't get hired, they wouldn't go to that school. If they didn't go to the school, the school would fold.

The fact that we do not see such economic punishment is a refutation of your argument.

It is a fact that a college diploma from just about anywhere looks really good on a resume. But many many of us in business know that a college diploma indicates a degree of perserverance and ability to finish something, but it is not always a good indication of how educated the person holding it might be.

As an aside, could you explain how you concluded that I won't respond to anybody who has a different point of view? I thought I was pretty clear that I only ignore the ignorant and clueless who can't express an argument without personally attacking somebody with a different point of view and those who presume to protect the rest of the world from the dangerous types like me. I really would like to know. I'm doing some research on how the liberal mind works.

my own.